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Maybe not to the SUV, but you’re a different matter. Please stop tempting fate.
With a deepening grin, I threw the truck into gear and then headed back to the café. I parked next to our SUV, ducked into the café long enough to grab a mirror, a bottle of cold water, and something to munch on—this time a simple lemon slice so I didn’t have to worry about the chocolate melting—then jumped into the SUV and headed off again.
As I drove out of Castle Rock, I switched on my favorite Spotify playlist, flicked the volume up, and sang along, loudly and more than a little off-key. There was no better way to relax—well, there actually was, but Aiden wasn’t here right now, and the SUV wasn’t what I’d call comfortable for that sort of thing anyway, especially in this heat.
The turnoff leading to Katie’s wellspring lay a few kilometers from the Castle Rock side of Maldoon. I slowed as I neared and swung onto it cautiously. The other times I’d gotten into trouble up here had been when it was pouring rain, but a dry and dusty road full of potholes could be just as dangerous. I did my best to keep away from the soft edges and the long drop into the heavily treed valley below, and managed to reach the narrow track leading up to the parking area on the edges of the Marin’s boundary line without any problems. While this track didn’t have the dangerous drop down into a heavily treed valley, the potholes were deep enough to lose a tire in. It was a relief when I was finally able to stop.
I grabbed my phone, keys, and the bottle of water, then tucked the backpack behind the back seat, where it’d be hidden from a casual glance. While it was unlikely anyone other than a werewolf would be wandering past, the last thing I needed was to lose the silver knife. The things were hard to come by, especially in a werewolf reservation.
I locked up, then began the long climb up the dusty track. The bush was full of sounds, although the noise coming from the cicadas just about drowned everything else out. The scents lingering on the heated air told me I wasn’t alone up here, but there were no wolves, just rabbits and snakes. Regular snakes, not the flesh-freezing demonic kind.
Not thatthatmade me feel any safer. Snakes of any kind could stay the fuck away from me, thank you very much.
I was puffing badly by the time I reached the halfway point. I was reasonably fit these days, but the heat was strength-sapping. My damn crop top was dark with sweat, and my shorts were making my thighs feel like they were encased in an oven.
I hated summer, I really did.
I took a long drink and noticed for the first time that there wasn’t much in the way of wild magic floating about. Usually, I’d be surrounded by the stuff by now.
I capped the water and continued on. It wasn’t until I was a few minutes away from the clearing that the luminous threads appeared, filling the air with a song both alien and beautiful. It was a song I’d heard intermittently, if distantly, over the years but had never known its source. I’d always put it down to little more than my wild imagination, when it had in fact been the wild magic calling me, seeking me.
Or rather, seeking to unlock what had lain locked inside me.
Thissong did hold wisps of concern, but there was nothing that suggested Katie thought the reservation or her family were in immediate peril.
I made my way through the final few trees but paused at the edge of the clearing. It was small and strewn with rocks, thanks to the distant landslip that had taken out a good portion of the cliff directly opposite. At the base of the slip was an ankle-deep rock well. The water bubbling up from a seam near the cliff’s base lapped over the edge of the basin, then wound down the gentle slope, eventually joining the larger streams farther down the mountain. Unlike many other tiny streams in the area, this one had not evaporated in the heat.
But that tiny well was the source of the wild magic, and the air above it shimmered with its force. Its output had increased while I’d been away in Canberra, and that made me wonder if the increasing power here had anything to do with the decreasing amount coming from the older wellspring. While they were separate entities, all wellsprings had the same source—the deep heart of the earth’s outer core. No one alive today understood why it had developed into a collective force, or how it found its way to the surface through the springs, but the ancients certainly had—and justwhywe’d lost that knowledge was one of the great unanswerable mysteries.
It did seem natural that the increasing luminosity of one spring would decrease another, but that might be nothing more than wishful thinking on my part. Or, more possibly, a desperate attempt to explain a situation I didn’t understand but feared would yet cause major problems.
I walked on, accompanied by the gentle song of the wellsprings’ moonbeam-bright threads, a sound that was completely in tune with the bubbling water. Katie stood next to the spring, her form solid rather than ghostly, although if you looked hard enough, the wellspring’s shimmer was faintly visible through her figure. She was a typical O’Connor in looks—tall and rangy, with short blonde-brown hair and a sharp but pretty face. She was, basically, a younger version of Ciara.
Standing beside her was a much wispier figure of a man with scarlet hair. Her husband, Gabe, whose soul was destined to haunt this place forever.
“What brings you to our place of peace on a day as unpleasantly hot as this?” she asked, her voice soft and melodious.
I stopped several yards away, though it was still close enough to feel the caress of the wellspring’s energy. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck rose in response, and the power within me answered in kind. Sparks danced around me, bright and joyous.
“I was just wondering if you have any idea why there’s an odd sense of urgency emanating from the older wellspring.”
“No.” She wrinkled her nose. “Its rumblings have eased, but the attack on our compound continues, even if they’re now only minor.”
“You can’t do anything about it?”
She waved a hand, frustration evident. “No. While initially it seemed I might have some control over that spring, our merger has appeared to cease.”
“I personally suspect it’s due to your growing connection to that spring,” Gabe said. “As it develops, ours fades.”
I glanced at him. “Did you expect that to happen?”
“Her soul is bound to this wellspring rather than the older, so I was never under the impression we would totally control both. It would have been helpful, though, given neither of us know what will happen once your soul moves on from this life to another.”
I frowned. “My link should bind me to it after death, shouldn’t it?”
That’s certainly what precognition was suggesting, but would that actually happen now that I was pregnant? Every instinct said my daughter would one day control it in ways I never could or would, so perhaps she would be the true heir.
Besides, from what Eli had read of the book so far, there’d been no mention of the binding beingsouldeep, and surely there would have been if the price of binding was future rebirths.
