Of Werewolves and Curses by Emma Hamm

Chapter 25

Freya’s feet pounded across the beach. The screams never stopped for the entire journey as they raced toward the sound that echoed in her ears.

Please don’t let him die. She sent the prayer out into the realm and hoped that someone heard her. The forest must be listening. It was always listening and if she begged hard enough then maybe, just maybe, she could save him before all this went wrong.

They hadn’t had enough time. The forest should have seen that he was doing better. That he was so close to taking control over all those things that had been thrust upon him at too young an age. And, if they just waited a few more days, then maybe Cora and Leo would have done the right thing. They would have fallen in love all over again.

Breathing hard, they rounded a corner of the cliffs and Freya nearly fell onto her face. Leo and Cora had indeed been enjoying each other’s company, but that had all ended in pain.

He knelt in the sands with his hands pressed deep into the white chips of seashells. His head hung low and sweat already slicked his bare back. The vest that had covered him, the one covered in gold, lay on the ground next to him.

As she watched, his skin seemed to roll. Not as if he were curving his spine, but something inside him moved. Like snakes slithered under the thin layer of his skin.

Leo threw his head back and screamed again, though at least he didn’t try to dig out the curse that affected him.

“What happened?” Freya gasped, racing to Cora’s side.

The beautiful woman had tears streaking down her cheeks. Cora pressed her hands to her face and shook her head, eyes watering still. “I don’t know. I don’t know! We kissed and then he fell like this.”

They’d kissed? If the situation had been different, Freya would have crowed in happiness. But that kiss had caused pain while they were all hoping that it would fix everything.

Tugging Cora into her arms, Freya pressed the other woman’s face into her shoulder as Leo screamed again.

Eldridge walked toward his friend, hands outstretched. “What can I do? How can I help you, Leo?”

The Summer Lord was incapable of speech. He opened his mouth. No sound came out other than a horrible groan. It wasn’t a good sign. Freya knew next to nothing about magic or the properties that clearly affected the Summer Lord, but she knew this wasn’t good.

Eldridge dropped to his knees and lifted his hands. The strange language of magic spilled from his tongue, and dark shadows erupted from his fingers. They slithered across the sands and tangled around Leo’s wrists like manacles.

Freya couldn’t stand to look at his rolling skin any longer, so she pulled Cora toward the cliff where she sat the shivering elf down onto a rock. She knelt in front of Cora so the poor woman wouldn’t have to look at the two men struggling to beat back the curse.

“Look at me,” she said, snapping her fingers in front of Cora’s face. “Don’t look at them.”

“But he’s in pain.” Another scream echoed across the sands, and the Summer Lady flinched. “I should do something, shouldn’t I? I was the one who hurt him.”

“No, Cora. Listen to me. That is not your fault. You know what the curse is, and you’ve seen the effects on yourself as well as him. His pain has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the forest taking its price.” She smoothed her hand down Cora’s cheek and pinched her chin. “You look at me, and not them. Eldridge is a very powerful fae. If anyone can fix Leo, it’s him.”

“I don’t know if he can.” Cora’s eyes were wide and brimming with sparkling tears. “What if we’re too late? What if no one can save him?”

That was Freya’s fear as well, but she would not entertain the thought. Not now when she knew how much pain Leo was in. The forest needed to give them a chance, and all it had done was try to stop them at every corner.

But nothing could ever be easy in the faerie courts, could it?

Taking a deep breath, she patted her hands on both Cora’s knees and pushed herself back up. “I’ll go check on them. You stay here and please, whatever you do, don’t look.”

The last thing Freya wanted was for this memory to be burned into Cora’s mind for the rest of her days. She could never look at Leo again in the same way.

At least, if he survived.

She crossed the sands back to the two men. Long lines had split open down Leo’s spine, like someone was whipping him. She sucked in a breath through her teeth and knelt beside them.

If she could have put her hand on him without causing even more pain, Freya would have. Clearly Leo needed someone in this moment. His handsome face was unrecognizable and twisted. She wanted to help heal him, but how?

“What’s happening?” she asked. “What do we do?”

“Nothing.” Eldridge lowered his hands and sighed. “We’re too late. The forest is taking its price and nothing will stop it now that it’s started.”

No, that couldn’t be right. They’d worked too hard and now the forest would what? Ruin this moment? They were closer now than they had ever been!

“We aren’t too late. I refuse to accept that.” Freya reached out then, taking the chance to hurt Leo and putting her hand on his shoulder. “You must know a way that can stop this. I know you think you deserve this, Leo, but how can we stop this?”

He met her gaze, and she saw all the blood vessels in his eyes had popped. Those beautiful green eyes were now ringed with red blood.

“We were too... late.” He stuttered over the words, each one ground through his teeth as he fought to speak.

Freya pursed her lips and patted his shoulder. “You’re wrong. I know you’re wrong, and you’re thinking that you deserve this. As your friend, I will not let you make this mistake. So you tell us how to fix this.”

Soft footsteps approached them through the sands. Cora stood beside them, and a slight wind ruffled the curls that had escaped her carefully laid braids. “I think I might know how to help him, but none of you are going to like it.”

Of course. Why hadn’t Freya thought of asking Cora first? This was the woman who was meant to be the Summer Lady. And though she had been absent from the court for a very long time, all the secrets Leo wanted to hide were surely known by this lovely lady.

Freya whipped around, sand blasting from her movements and dirtying the hem of her dress. “Tell us. You know we’ll do whatever it takes.”

But a frown marred Cora’s face. “The forest wants to take him back. It’s disappointed that it has taken him this long when it already gave us all the opportunities we needed.”

“Yes, we understand that part.”

“The only thing I can think of that might stop this is bringing him to the forest.” Cora wrung her hands and stared out to the sea. “But that would take a very long time to get back to the mainland. And worse, I don’t think he’d make the journey.”

Freya snapped her fingers. “But there’s a portal that goes back to the mainland. That’s what I came through.”

“It only goes in one direction. The portal was meant to give the Summer Lord a way to come and visit me whenever he came to his senses.” Cora’s expression saddened, and she curled her shoulders inward. “I don’t think he’ll make the trip, Freya. The forest is plaguing him. All that movement underneath his skin? It’s turning his blood to roots. Soon, he will attach himself to the nearest tree. Just like all those other faeries who ended up stuck in the forest.”

Freya remembered them. How could she ever forget?

Those dead beings in the roots of the trees had reached for her every time she walked by them. And though she’d thought they were being punished by the trees, she wondered if they were the disappointments. The cast offs that the forest had thought might entertain, but then decided weren’t worthy of so much attention.

She licked her lips and whispered, “The trees keep what they love, even after they are no longer useful.”

Leo flung out his hand and latched onto Freya. His wide, bloodshot eyes tried to convey some fear that she didn’t need him to voice. He didn’t want to go to the forest. Leo feared staying there for the rest of time, alive but not. Dead, but not.

If he was going to suffer, then he wanted to be here. Out in the open where the forest couldn’t reach him other than to kill him. Maybe that was the merciful thing to do. Maybe Freya should let him fall onto his stomach, roll him over, and then watch as a small grove of trees grew from his body.

She looked over to Eldridge and saw tears in the Goblin King’s eyes. Even he didn’t think they could save the Summer Lord. She knew that guilt would gnaw and bite. Though their relationship had dimmed in recent years, Leo was still important to Eldridge.

Faerie realms, he was important to Freya too. She’d struck up a friendship with this ridiculous, foolish man who would sacrifice so much because he feared the unknown.

Freya covered Leo’s hand in her own, squeezing his fingers as they spasmed with yet another spike that rocked through his entire body. “You want me to let you die,” she whispered. “You are fine with sinking into the sands and disappearing from this world.”

Though his features were strained, Leo nodded.

She looked up at Cora. The Summer Lady pressed a hand to her mouth and barely caught a sob. She didn’t need Cora to say anything to know what was going through the woman’s head.

Cora was so sad that she had only had enough time to remember that she did love him. That the feeling in her chest wasn’t something that she’d imagined or forced herself to feel, so she didn’t forget what love was. Their lives were intertwined and now someone wanted to rip them apart again.

Freya should step away. She should let the Summer Lady have a few moments with the man she loved, alone with only the sea and the stars to share in their sadness.

But she couldn’t do it.

Unlike the faeries with her, Freya wouldn’t give up.

“No,” she growled. “I won’t let you die, Leo.”

She planted her hands in the sand and poured all her rage into the white sand beach. She let the ancient being deep in the earth feed upon her emotions. It ripped from her lungs anger, rage, sadness, and fear. It pulled all emotion until she was little more than a husk. And when she had satisfied the gluttonous creature that had named itself “ocean”, Freya told it to slow down time.

A mortal telling the sea to help them was a ridiculous request. Even Freya knew that. But she didn’t have enough magic to do it herself.

The forest had taught her to ask. The very fabric of the world wanted to help if only the person in need knew how to ask. So that’s what Freya did. She made the sea listen to her, and she begged it to give these lovers a chance. All of her concentration and energy went into this singular task that might have taken all but a heartbeat, yet felt like a lifetime of battling with her will alone.

The argument was always the same. That the Summer Lord and Lady took too long.

What were a few more heartbeats? A few more days when the sea was inevitable? The oceans would never die in this place. It would exist long past the ages of fae and man. The waves would see new people take over the earth. The water would still kiss the sand even when time itself had ended.

A few days.

A few weeks.

Such bartering tools were not waiting for the ocean. It was a small rest and when it finally woke, the Summer Lord and Lady would be ready to take their thrones and lead this court into a prosperous age.

The sea didn’t agree with her. But the more she argued, the more it softened. Like dripping water on a stone over centuries of time.

It refused to lessen Leo’s suffering, but it agreed to slow time. Just enough for them to get to the mainland, and then she could argue with the forest.

Freya opened her eyes again and could hear a soft chuckle in her mind. The conversation with the sea had been entirely in her head. There were no words, only emotions and an argument that played out as though she were watching someone else speak.

This time, the ocean finally said words. “I will enjoy hearing about your argument with the forest,” it said. “You’re a persuasive little thing for a mortal.”

Whispering under her breath, Freya replied, “My father was a changeling. I know the ways of the fae.”

“You do.” The sea chuckled again. “But not because of your father. You’ve taken on many of the Goblin King’s qualities, but you have more hope than he does. It is a good thing, Freya of Woolwich, Queen Killer, and Lover of the Goblin King. Welcome to the faerie realms.”

She blinked and the presence of the ocean was gone. Time had slowed, just as the sea had promised. The waves moved at a snail’s pace now, and that would give them the chance they needed.

“Come on,” she said, darting up from the sands. “Eldridge, pick him up. We don’t have long.”

The Goblin King stared up at her with wide, horrified eyes. “What did you do?”

“I begged for time,” she muttered. “And we have little of it. Let’s go.”