Chapter 21
21
AVA
“ A re you sure you don’t want a ride?” my brother asks, but I’m not paying attention. I’m watching the door of the coven house, waiting for Bram to come out. He’s in there talking with Lucida. When I walked outside, his aura was dark once again. Even more so than it was when we first entered the auditorium. I know it’s his curse, but I hate to see it. All that negative energy, the loathing and disgust aimed at us from the coven council, I watched as he soaked it all in. Stellan turns and looks over his shoulder, following my gaze.
“What are you doing, Ava? That much darkness equals nothing but pain.”
I glare at my brother. “It’s his curse.”
Stellan means well, but he doesn’t know Bram. I can’t help but defend him from my brother's cautious words.
“Listen, whatever is going on between the two of you, well, I won’t say it’s none of my business because it is part of my business. You’re my sister, and I don’t want to see you hurt. That much darkness isn’t right.”
“Hey, I’m just gonna walk over to the office and make sure my boss sees me for five minutes so I don’t lose my job in another few days.” I pat my brother on the shoulder and sprint away, as if we weren’t mid-conversation.
Stellan’s heavy sigh follows me, but I don’t know what to say to him. He’s probably right, but at the same time, nothing is happening between me and Bram. We’re planning a party together. Sure, we kissed, but that’s it. There’s nothing more to worry about. Bram is so far out of my league that it’s not even a concern. Any hurt that I suffer will be because of my own delusions. Which is fucking depressing.
I’ve left without saying goodbye to the others. Honestly, I just don’t have it in me to rehash whatever the fuck that was or to drum up conspiracy theories about how the coven council is out to get us. I’m tired and I don’t want to talk about my fears any longer. I just want to keep my job and have enough money to pay my part of the rent. That’s all.
I cross over the Briar Hollows Bridge and look down at the frozen river below. I’m nearly all the way across when a hand claps down on my shoulder. I spin around in surprise and nearly lose my balance on the iron bridge.
It’s my father.
“Whatever nonsense you’ve gotten yourself involved with, it’s time to grow up, Avalon.”
“Hello to you too.” Before the council summons just now, I think it’s been less than a week since I’ve last seen my parents. I always wonder if they’ll remember me the next time I see them. When will the day come that I’ll be erased from their memories completely?
“It's time for you to come back home.” He flips the collar of his coat up to fight against the chill breeze.
I gape at him. What the Hell? That came out of nowhere. “I’m twenty-eight. I’m not moving back in with you and Mom.”
“Metaphorically. I honestly don’t know how you’ve survived on your own all this time. You’ve had your fun and independence. Now it’s time to put the Vandenberg family first.”
The bridge groans from the cold. His words leave me dumbstruck. “What does that even mean?”
My father’s nostrils flare. “You have a duty to this family. Perhaps I was rash in criticizing that boyfriend of yours.” He frowns at my opened mouth stare. “Even if he is a low-level witch. He might be the best you can manage.”
I clench my jaw so tight it aches.
“It’s time to think about settling down. Having children.”
“Children?” I suck in a breath and then cough when the frozen air coats my lungs.
“While I would have wished better for the future of the Vandenberg line, it seems fate has given us you. Disappointing as you might be, it’s your time to step up.”
I don’t even have the capacity to choke out a “What the fuck?” before my father leaves me standing on the bridge, alone.
My hands are shaking, and my nose is running as I try not to cry. I hate that he can do this to me with a few sharp words. That he has that kind of control over my emotions. I wish I could just shutter my brain or my heart to protect it from the battering that he gives me with so little effort. And yet I can’t. I reach into my pocket, hoping there’s a tissue in there. My hands are too fluffy, and I pull my glove off, only to drop it off the side of the bridge.
“Crone’s titties.” I grit my teeth and give an angry stomp on the frozen bridge. I sniff and wipe off my face and look over at my glove. It landed right on the side of the river. Piper made these gloves for me. They’re magicked to stay warm even on the coldest of days.
No. I shake my head and glare down at the glove. I’m not giving up again just because something seems hard. It’s only a slow walk down a somewhat snowy hill. I’ll grab my glove and then I will go get myself a coffee, and maybe a cupcake, and say to hell with the rest of this day.
During the summer, people fish in the river, or sit on the rocky embankment and throw pebbles in. A set of stairs lead down to the river's edge. I take those with cautious steps. The last thing I need is to slip and crack my head open. A vision of me bumping my way down to the bottom of the icy steps where someone will find my crumbled body in a cold, dead heap months from now blasts through my brain. And then they won’t even know who I am, because by the time they find my body, everyone will have forgotten me.
“Maiden, Mother, Crone, please help me get my shit together.” I blow out a long breath and grip the cold railing tightly. At the bottom of the steps is a snow-covered bank. In the summer, it’s a small rocky shore. My glove sits right on the edge of where the rocks meet the river. There's enough snow that you can only see the tops of the stones peeking through the white. I’m glad I have my boots on.
I carefully step toward my glove. The last thing I need is a twisted ankle. When I’m close enough, I reach down and swipe up my glove.
“At least I’ve had one successful moment today.” Just as the words leave my mouth, there’s a loud crack.
I jerk my head down. I’m not on the shore like I thought, but directly on the edge of the ice. It gives way and I drop down into the freezing water.
It’s not like a horror movie scene, where the hopeless girl drops into an abyss before you can snap your fingers together. Just like everything else in my life, it’s awkward. Time moves as though in slow motion. If anyone nearby saw me, they would probably think I looked like a turtle sinking in quicksand.
My leg falls into the water first, the icy river soaking my boot and crawling up my pant leg. I use my other foot as leverage and try to yank my leg back out, but I slip and my second leg joins the first.
Fuck. I’m in the water up to my waist now, but somehow, it’s already stealing the breath from my lungs. I grapple with the rocky shore with one gloved and one bare hand. My skin burns as I rake my fingers through the snow in an attempt to find purchase. That pain is no match to the cold on my lower body, though. All my floundering has broken the ice even more and my coat is completely weighed down. My clothes are so heavy that I can’t get a hold of anything. I try to scream out, to call for help. My lungs are too constricted, and the yell comes out as a tiny gasp.
I’m going to die.
Fifteen feet from coffee shops and Knit Happens, the town’s yarn store. That’s all I can think of. Instead of some flashing blur of my life and everything that I’ve fucked up over time running through my head, it’s this oddly slow moment in time where I feel so helpless. There’s nothing under my feet that I can step off of. My fingers fail again and again to grab hold of something to pull myself free. My clothes are so heavy. All I can do is marvel at the absolute absurdity that I’m going to slip beneath this icy river, which will refreeze, and nobody will find me until it thaws in the spring. Even then, who knows when my body will pop back up.
I can’t even cry because my body is shutting down from the cold. All I feel are regrets. I should’ve lived more, been bigger, louder. Bram’s face flashes before my eyes. I’m so sad that all we did was share a kiss.
My body is too rigid to keep struggling. I can’t move my legs.
“Fucking Crone,” Bram’s voice angrily shouts, pulling my attention up the bank. He’s sprinting and sliding down the steps so fast I’m afraid he’s going to join me in the water. I open my mouth to yell at him to be careful, but I can’t get any words out.
“Fucking hell, Ava.” Bram braces his feet against a rock and hooks his hands under my armpits, his shadows snapping out to help with the lift. He yanks me out of the water, and we fall backward. I land on top of Bram, unable to move.
“Shit. We need to get up. I need to get you warm.”
I want to help him, but I can’t move. I know something is very wrong because I’m not cold anymore. In fact, I don’t feel anything but sleepy.
“Ava, don’t you dare.” Bram cups my cheeks and shakes me. Oddly, I feel the heat from his palm. There’s a spark of magic that jumps from him to me. “You keep those eyes open.”
I don’t know how he does it, but he manages to stand cradling me in his arms like a bride. I’d make a joke, but I literally cannot open my mouth.
“If you’re trying to scare me into remembering you forever, mission accomplished. What the hell were you thinking?” Bram mutters the entire time he climbs the slippery stairs. I can’t even tell him to watch his step.
When we get to the top of the steps, Bram looks around, swinging me like I’m not weighed down by a pile of icy, saturated clothing.
“My place is closer,” he says as though answering a question he didn’t voice out loud. With my body clutched tight to his, he practically runs over to his car. The car beeps as he opens the door and sets me in the passenger seat. He disappears from view, but a few seconds later he has a blanket in hand. He must’ve gone to the trunk.
“Shit, I don’t know if I should take your coat off or just wrap you up. Fuck. Coat off, I think.” Bram's fingers are shaking as he unzips my sodden coat. I can’t even help him get my arm out. He moves my body around like a rag doll and yanks one sleeve free and then the next before wrapping the blanket around me.
He runs around the side of the car so fast, he slides the last few feet. Then he’s in the car and cranking the heater up full blast. The only problem is that it’s freezing outside so the air that pumps out is cold as hell.
Bram reaches in the back of the car and produces a stocking cap. He shoves it over my head.
“Your skin is blue.” Distress creases his forehead as he reaches for the seat belt and buckles me in. He drives like a madman back to his house, and we make it there in record time. Bram is out of the car and running around to the passenger side before it has fully warmed up. Despite his urgency, he’s gentle when he lifts me out of the seat and carries me inside.
“Can you stand?”
I want to tell him yes, but all that comes out is a chattering of my teeth.
“Shit.” Bram leads me to a chair and sets me down. He drops to his knees and immediately begins taking my shoes and socks off. He looks up at me, his brows drawn and his gray eyes worried. His aura is a dirty yellow and his fear stabs me in the heart.
“I have to get your clothes off.”
“Perv.” Somehow, I manage to get that word out.
Bram closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. A spike of relief washes through me. “I promise I won’t look.”
“Insulting.” Oh look. I got out another word.
Bram huffs out a laugh. “Alright, chuckles, let’s get you undressed.”
When I imagined Bram peeling my clothes off for the first time, it was not in any way related to the scene playing out in front of me. He grabs my pants by the ankles, but they’re clinging tight. Shaking his head, he reaches for my waist instead. If I wasn’t a human popsicle, I’d be worried about the way my stomach folds, and how thick my thighs are, but I’m too cold to give it more than a second’s thought. Bram lifts my hips and peels my pants off with an efficiency I would be impressed by, if my cooch wasn’t right in his face.
“Kill me.” My teeth are chattering loudly now, so the words are barely discernible.
“I’m trying to prevent that, actually.” Bram grabs a blanket off the edge of the couch and drops it over my lap. “Better?”
I nod. Bram unwraps the blanket from my shoulders and pulls my sweater over my head. “Can you get your bra?” Bram’s throat bobs as he swallows. His eyes are very clearly locked on my chest.
I close my eyes and try to lift my arms, but I’m still too fucking cold
“No,” I groan.
“Right. Just stay there for a second. I’ll be right back.” Bram rushes out of the room, but turns the fireplace with the flip of a switch first. The sound of drawers opening and shutting and Bram cursing drift out from the bedroom. He’s back in less than a minute with a pile of blankets and clothing clutched in his hand. He drops the blankets and pulls the sweatshirt over my head. Before I put my arms through, he unhooks my bra and guides it down my arms.
“See, not even a peek.”
I glare at him. He might not have seen my boobs, but he definitely saw a lot more than that.
He falls back to his knees and guides one foot and then the next into the sweatpants. Lifting my hips once again to pull them up to my waist. A pair of thick socks follows. I’m still frozen solid, but it’s a thousand times better than it was minutes before.
Bram picks me up and moves me to the couch. He begins piling on blankets. I feel like a little kid that he’s turning into a blanket burrito. My skin is prickling, like I’m being poked by a hundred needles as warmth seeps back in. Bram straightens and takes off his coat. He strips off his shirt next and then his pants.
“What are you doing?”
“Hey, a full sentence,” Bram says encouragingly as he lifts the blankets and climbs onto the couch next to me.
“Seriously, what are you doing?” My entire body has started to shiver now, beginning down at my toes and vibrating up to my teeth.
“My clothes were all wet and you need more heat.”
“That’s not a real thing.”
Bram rearranges me, wrapping his arms around my body and throwing a leg over mine.
“Yes, it is.” His hand slips under the sweatshirt and splays across my back.
Fuck, his hands are huge. He’s like a heater, pouring warmth into me at a rate that must be magic.
Whether it’s magic, or literally the amazing heat from Bram’s body, I slowly warm up. Shivers still wrack my body, but I’m slowly becoming aware of other things. Bram’s masculine scent, how solid every bit of his body is. I’m really trying not to notice Bram’s hard chest, where my hands are splayed. Or the way his leg thrown over mine presses his dick against me. I’m also pretending I don’t feel that he’s hard. I saw Bram wipe my kiss away. He’s not interested in me that way. It’s just a physical response because we’re pressed so close together.
“What did Lucida want?” I ask when I can get out a full sentence, and because I need a distraction.
Bram huffs out a breath. “She knew my mom. I had no idea.”
My head is tucked under Bram’s chin, so I can’t see his face.
“What did she have to say?” My words are a little slurred, like I’m drunk. It’s probably from the cold, but I think being this close to Bram is rendering me stupid.
“Nothing, really. Your dad came storming out, and I had this bad feeling.” Bram’s hand rubs up and down my back. The newly returned warmth in my body moves to my chest. He was worried about me?
“Yeah, he wanted to have a talk.”
“How did you end up in the river?” His words are sharp.
I groan. “I dropped a glove.”
A burst of amusement is chased by exasperation as Bram’s emotions flood into me. “So you decided to take a swim to get it back.”
“No, smartass. I was on the shore. At least, I thought I was.” I tip my head back to look at Bram. His gray eyes are stormy but half-lidded as though he’s close to falling asleep.
“Are you warming up?” His huge hand rubs up my back, the heat searing my skin. Bram’s hips flex and mine arch in an automatic response. Bram sucks in a breath, and I swallow down a gasp. My heart is racing, but at the same time, I’ve never felt more content.
“Yeah.” I tuck my head into his shoulder. I really want to kiss him, and that sounds like an amazing and totally horrible idea.
Bram’s breathing is labored and his exhales paint across the top of my head. I shift my body to get just a little bit closer. Bram makes a strained sound. His throat bobs as he swallows, and his hand flexes against my back before swooping perilously close to my ass. As the edges of his fingers dip beneath the waist of my pants, I suck in a shaky breath. Bram curses and jumps off the couch like I just grabbed his dick.
“Soup. Or tea. I should get you something warm to drink. Stay there,” he commands, as if I’m about to leave the blanket fort he’s built for me without assistance.
I sigh and burrow my head down. It’s probably for the best. I don’t know if I can handle being called a mistake again.