Filed to story: The Healer and The Wolf PDF Free
We stepped onto a crystal dais in front of the waterfall. The cascade didn’t slam into the floor and make a mess though. No, even with magic, that sounded awfully messy. Instead, there was a sizeable pond surrounding it, the center turbulent but the edges calm enough for me to see fish and other aquatic creatures moving through it.
A flurry of movement caught my eye. Snapping my head in that direction, I saw a bear idly ambling in from anotherentrance. His eyes had that glassy look that spoke of an enthralled shifter, and his thick hide was covered in battle scars. I couldn’t imagine what would leave such deep and obvious marks on a shifter given our healing ability, but it reminded me that the woman beside me was not as affable as she seemed. Sure, she was polite, but much like her sons, she wasn’t above enslaving shifters.
Abruptly, railings shot up from the floor around the crystal dais, then it smoothly moved up like the magical equivalent of an elevator. Why was Katarina showing off for me? She could have killed me in her yard. There was no reason to take me on a grand tour.
“I loved my sons, you know,” she mused as we went ever higher. “I know they had their flaws, but when I think about them, I still see those chubby cheeks from when they barely came up to my hip. I remember the gaps in their teeth, I remember holding them when they had nightmares at night. I suppose they were also old, at least to your perspective, but they were my little babies.”
Perhaps she was just musing to me, but I couldn’t help but feel a wave of irritation course through my system. Was this woman really trying to play the pity card to me when she was about to execute me?
“They were also trying to kill you.”
“Not actively. It was a lofty goal of theirs, and one they would never have reached. While they would never admit it to themselves, they were all mama’s boys. My little angels.”
I scoffed openly at that. I couldn’t help it. But honestly, why even hide my derision? I was going to die anyway. What was she going to do, make it extra super painful? She’d already made it clear she was going to do that.
“I know it’s hard for you to understand because of what they did to your people. But all of it, and I mean all of it, will end now.The violence will stop. My bloodline is wiped out, and your pack will be scattered to the winds. I will spend the rest of my years alone, as I can’t go through all of that again, and even if your love finds another, there will always be an empty space for you. Everyone has earned their fate, and our fate is tragedy fueled by revenge and loss.”
The sudden drop in her walls and admission of the bleak future we were facing surprised me. Once more, it seemed almost like she had no desire to kill me. Rather, she was doing it out of obligation.
But I also knew that was total horse shit. If she really wanted the violence to stop, all she had to do was let me go. That was it. But it was clear to me that while most of her battle-lust and evil desires had faded in her elder years, Katarina was still a cruel, prideful woman at heart. She knew her sons were murderers, and yet she wanted to punish their victims for standing up to them. She wanted to act like a victim herself.
It was insulting, really.
“What do you think of the house?” she asked, all smiles as I saw floor after floor. Some of them had closed rooms, which I guessed were where her children had spent their long childhoods, but most were open concept and a strange mix of old-fashioned and over-the-top luxury. The kitchen looked like it was straight out of the Middle Ages, complete with uneven stone brick built into the tree. It seemed oddly impossible to have a full firepit for roasting in a tree, but I supposed that was slightly more understandable than actual witches and people shifting into animals.
I didn’t answer, though. I was done with this pretending to play nice. It was another form of torture, and I wasn’t going to participate in my own torment any more than I had to. I had to say, my execution was going far differently than I’d imagined it. I had planned to go into it with my head held high, no begging,hardly any tears if I could help it, but I hadn’t anticipated that I would have to deal with idle chatter or discussions on interior decorating.
“What’s the matter?” Katarina said as if she was surprised by my silence. “Cat got your tongue?”
I cocked an eyebrow.
She sighed. “Right. I suppose it was foolish of me to expect good conversation. Years on my own have somewhat ebbed my ability to read the room. Perhaps I simply never had good social skills to begin with.”
“You managed to seduce all of your son’s fathers,” I said, surprising myself. Antagonizing the witch who was going to torture me didn’t exactly seem like a good idea.
Katarina merely smiled. “I really did, didn’t I? But you’d be amazed what a pretty face and untold power will do to cover for poor social skills.”
She had a point there.
The conversation stilled as the crystal dais finally stopped and the railings dropped back into the floor. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to be impressed with how smoothly the circle slid into the wood, leaving not even a crack to see down below, but then the witch ushered me forward.
“Stand here,” she said, pointing to a spot on the floor.
Although it grated at my nerves, I did as she said. I was not an alpha she could order around, but I was an alpha who was choosing to do what he had to for his people.
Katarina walked away from me without even a glance behind her, settling in a throne more than a dozen paces in front of me. Behind her, I saw the only window I’d spotted in the place-a giant, stained-glass mural of an angel descending from the clouds, laying a serpent on a baby’s crib that was surrounded by roses.
“Do you like it?” the witch asked, following my gaze. “It’s my birth.”
“Is it a literal thing? Or a metaphorical one?”
“Look who’s suddenly in the mood to talk.”
I leveled her with a flat expression. “If I’m curious, I’ll ask a question. If you need genuine information from me, I’ll answer. But I’m not interested in being your dancing monkey. So, no, I won’t reply to anything frivolous. I know some people would stall for time, but I’m not interested in that, either.”
“I would argue that achieving the perfect interior design is far from frivolous, but I understand your point, and I have to respect it. And to answer your question, it is quite literal. I was born a human, to regular human parents, then this great and terrible creature descended from the sky and put a seven-headed snake in my crib. That’s how I was born, although some would say that’s how I was cursed. I don’t much care about the semantics.”
That was news to me. I’d never heard anything about an angel-like figure or any reptiles in the legends about her. All I knew was that Katarina had begun terrorizing her town at the ripe old age of ten and had escalated from there. Some even whispered she was the reason witch hunts became so popular. Now, I had a feeling that was more propaganda than actual fact.
“You’re right. There’s no need for me to draw this out. Normally, I would delight in such things, but you delivered yourself to me, and you delivered yourself to me a day early. You deserve for me to make this quick.” She paused, then a slow smile spread across her features. The grin was suddenly filled with teeth that weren’t human at all. They were far too large and extended down to needle-like points. She was letting me see a true part of her. The part that the terrible magic in her had corrupted entirely. “Grab him.”
I had no idea who she was talking to until two stone golems emerged from mossy, rocky murals on opposite walls.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to do everything to you that you did to my sons. I’m going to hurt you until you’re right on the edge of Death’s door, then let you heal and do it all over again.”
The golems shoved forward, hulking in their steps, and their too-large, three-fingered hands gripped my forearms before hauling me off my feet.
“And I will repeat that over, and over, and over, until whatever magic that fuels you shifters runs out, and your wounds bleed freely. Then, and only then, will you have peace, and our feud will be over.”
Ow.My shoulders would definitely feel that the next morning-if I lived to see the next morning. I could only pray the torture wouldn’t last that long.
“I won’t interrupt things with theatrics. I won’t give you false hopes only to take them away. I won’t let you rot for weeks, thinking I forgot about you, just to bring you out and start it up all over again. I will be as direct as I can as I eviscerate you.”
“Am I supposed to be grateful for that?” I spat.
Again, I knew it wasn’t the smartest thing to create conflict with a somewhat amicable executioner, but her fake, magnanimous tone rubbed me the wrong way. She was acting like some poor, put-upon person who’d been ordered to do some terrible action and had no choice but to fulfill her duty. She was framing herself as the victim when really she was the aggressor.
“You should be,” she mused, before resting her chin in her hand and making the slightest gesture with a single finger.