Filed to story: The Healer and The Wolf PDF Free
LEO
This can’t be real.
“Leo, you okay?”
I swallowed hard, reminding myself that I needed to blink. I did so, slowly, and tried to pull my thoughts together.
“That’s him,” I barely managed to breathe, my brain consumed by a maelstrom.
When Ven had called me over to her computer to see what she’d found, I had expected maybe a tiny lead about large wolf sightings in a quiet neighborhood, or an illegal animal hoarder being busted. The last thing I’d anticipated was the face of the smug bastard who’d taken Ricky away like some kind of pet.
Seeing his face triggered a release from my brain, and dozens of memories rushed through my head.
The man’s too-white teeth as he laughed, as if enslaving sentient beings was the most hilarious thing ever. His dark hair, dutifully coiffed with products that no doubt cost more than the average person earned in a month. The suit so painfully designer that even years of saving wouldn’t be enough to afford it. The malevolent glint in his eyes as he locked a shock collar around my beta’s neck.
And he wasn’t alone.
Five figures in all, gloating and celebrating like they were having the time of their lives.
The hand on my shoulder jerked me out of the surge of memories, and I looked into Ven’s dark brown eyes. She had the most beautiful gaze, and it calmed the storm trying to consume my thoughts.
“Leo, are you all right? You’re shaking.”
“I’m remembering,” I ground out, trying to focus on the screen in front of me, but it was so incredibly blurry, like I was a wolf who couldn’t read again.
“Remembering what?” Ven asked. Her voice was so full of concern, it anchored me back in the moment. She really had a knack for saving my skin, but I couldn’t be pulled out of the deluge of memories yet-not when I was so close to remembering something that seemed so goddamn important.
Closing my eyes, I tried to picture those five figures to remember anything I could about them. Some of their features came into focus, like auburn hair or dark curls, bright yellow eyes or even shining purple, but no full faces. Other than Chadwicke, of course, who looked every bit of the smarmy asshole I’d envisioned him as ever since I remembered his name.
But who were the others? I knew that somewhere, locked deep within me I knew, and it was vital information. I dug for it, scouring through my mind, trying to figure out what group of four would want to hurt my pack on such an intimate level.
That’s when I remembered that there should have been seven.
Fuck!
“I remember who cursed my pack!” Adrenaline poured through me like I hadn’t felt in years. I grabbed Ven by her arms and spun the two of us around, so happy I could cry. Who knew, maybe I was.
“I thought you already remembered that it was this Chadwicke douche I found.”
I shook my head. “He was only a part of it. It was an entire group. Wait, no, not a group-a family.”
“A family? What do you mean?”
Ven had an adorable habit of repeating what I said in the form of a question. I found it endearing.
“Seven sons. They were the seven sons of a powerful witch,” I said. My voice trembled, but I didn’t care. My thoughts flicked between the present and the past, but instead of feeling overwhelmed or confused, I was having a revelation. “I… I can’t remember her name, but I know she’s someone you wouldn’t want to mess with.”
“So, you and your pack decided to mess with her sons?”
I paused, frowning at that logic. That didn’t seem right. “No, that’s not how it happened.” My mind was still trying to process exactly what did go down. I closed my eyes, letting the memory trail lead me. There were still plenty of gaps-deep abysses I just couldn’t navigate. However, the path was clearer than it had ever been before. “It’s the curse. That’s what this is all about.”
“I know that probably makes sense to you, but I’m not really following.”
Bless Ven and her endless patience. “The seven sons were enslaving shifters across several states. It started off as a rumor, then a boogeyman tale, before they did it to one of our pack.” I paused, letting more scenes and images wash over me in rapid succession. “Her name was Amy. She was barely sixteen. When she first went missing, we feared the worst.
“But Ricky, Charity, Lawlit, and I all put our noses to the grindstone and chased down every single lead we had. We were sure our search would end up in recovering a body for her family to bury, but eventually, we figured out she been bewitched and where the warlock was keeping her.”
I could see it all playing out in my head, the faceless images of my pack suddenly solidifying in my mind. It made me want to sob, it made me want to dance, as the people I had loved slowly returned to my mind.
What a cruel thing, to steal away my family in the most violating way possible, not even leaving them in the vestiges of my mind. How could those warlocks be so insidious? It went far beyond anything anyone deserved.
“What happened?” Ven asked breathlessly.
“Every capable fighter in our pack stormed his fortress. It was an enchanted place underneath the lake, so it definitely wasn’t easy, but we did it and caught him off guard.
“He was powerful. But even a powerful fire magic user couldn’t take on that many wolves at once while he was in his stupid silk pajamas.” I paused yet again as more information flooded my brain and I had to sort through it. “Finneus Dis Pater; that was his name.”
I could practically feel the confusion coming from Ven. “But I thought he was Chadwicke’s brother?”
“Half-brother. Different fathers.” I couldn’t believe I remembered that. “We didn’t know that when we hunted him down. In fact, we would have killed him and left it at that, but he told us his brother had helped him bespell Amy.” Anger bubbled up inside me as I recalled more. “I remember now. We found an entire harem of young shifters all enchanted to worship him. Some of them fought like mad and had to be subdued, and others held a knife to their own throats, threatening to kill themselves if we hurt their master. They were the hardest to subdue, and we’d had to knock them out in order to defeat Finneus.”
Ven let out a shocked little gasp, and I couldn’t blame her. As my mind rapidly played through every memory, I couldn’t help but be horrified. So many vulnerable shifters, scantily clad and kneeling at the man’s feet only to lose their minds and attack us when they realized he was in danger. I could still remember the wild look in Amy’s eyes when she’d tried to tear out her mother’s throat. It had been awful, truly awful in a way I couldn’t verbalize.
“I was ready to rip him limb from limb, but then he told us it wouldn’t work, that he and his brother had concocted the spell so it would take the both of them to end it. I’ll never forget the look on that little weasel’s face when he betrayed his sibling. A wolf would never do that, but these warlocks, they’re consumed only by greed and power and having more. Always more.
“We told him we would let him live if he took us to his brother and convinced him to break the spell. We knew he’d try to double-cross us, and he most likely saw the journey as extra time to devise an escape or way to defeat us, but he underestimated us. It was clear he thought shifters were dumb brutes, little more than the animals we can transform into.”
I cleared my throat to ease some of the tightness. “He led us right to his brother, Kirklin Plutus. Kirklin has a knack for necromancy, as we found out. An unpleasant surprise for sure, since we expected him to use fire or another element like his brother.”
