Marked By Masks and Secrets (Everlasting Possession #1)

62

EVIE

M y life was about to change. Irreversibly, totally. So much was uncertain. Kylo was still not entirely on board, pointing to the obvious problem of my lack of control or even my acceptance of my own magick.

But somehow, I knew that it was all going to work out. It was too obvious to deny—the way our lives and fates had so easily intertwined.

Kylo allowed me to visit Mena again, four days before the new moon ritual. I would also need him to let me return on the day of the new moon, but that was Future Evie’s problem.

I was guarded to the teeth, and I couldn’t stay for too long. Kylo was busy with interrogations today, information I had to pull from his cagey lips.

Mena and I sat at the smaller dinner table off the kitchen, sipping tea and eating pastries. She lifted a perfectly manicured brow as her red lips formed a frown.

“Have things changed between the two of you?” she asked.

“Me and Kylo? No. Well, yes, but only for the better.”

She made a face, in classic Mena fashion, that alerted me to her skepticism.

“What are you thinking?” I asked with a sigh.

“He’s wonderful, Evie. But my loyalty is with you, always,” she said. “Getting swept up in love is a wonderful feeling, but if you’re losing yourself in the process, something is wrong.”

Oh, of course. Mena must’ve assumed that because I was spending so much time with Kylo this soon in our relationship, and because I was no doubt wearing my trauma and stress plainly on my face, that meant Kylo was being overly controlling. It was a reasonable assumption from an outsider’s perspective.

“It’s really not like that,” I assured her. “We actually lost a mutual friend recently,” I explained. “To born violence.”

“A witch?” Mena inquired, her eyes welling with fear as she reached for my hand.

I nodded. “Kylo would never isolate me on purpose. He’s protective, but he’s not deceitful or manipulative. Not like Jacob was. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Mena took a sip of her tea. She stared out the window nervously. “Helia above, I just don’t know how to tell you this.”

I braced myself.

I’d already been towered. How much worse could things get?

“You know that you and your brother mean the absolute world to me. When I saw you on my doorstep, and I saw Idris’s—well, you know what I saw.”

I flinched, rebooting my brain and shoving the memory away.

“I knew that I was always meant to take care of you kids. I didn’t give a damn what anyone had to say about it. Still don’t,” she said, balling her free hand into a fist. “Cindy came around again, drunk and a mess.”

No. Cindy had to keep her mouth shut for four more days. I had to believe it would all be okay until then.

Mena rubbed my hand as she met my eyes. “She says they hired a witch to look into Jacob’s disappearance. She says they know for certain that the boy is dead.”

My vision tunneled. The words were a shocking stab in my side. I slowly shook my head.

“No. No he’s not,” I said. “Men like him don’t just die .” I searched Mena’s eyes as if they had all the answers. “How? Do they know how?”

“She said it was violent. She still thinks whatever happened can be traced back to you.”

“So they don’t actually know,” I said bitterly. “They just want me to be the easy answer.”

All my life, everyone besides Mena and Idris had misunderstood me. No matter how good I tried to be. How helpful, agreeable, and conscientious. None of it had ever mattered. From the day I was born, I’d been hated for what I was. Not human enough. Not witch enough.

Too much of this, not nearly enough of that.

The harder I tried, the more everyone misunderstood every piece of my heart and soul.

Even Jacob, my first boyfriend. Maybe especially him. Through the increasingly unwinnable trials of our relationship, I sought to prove my worthiness—of acceptance, of love, of care and patience.

Kylo had taught me that those things didn’t have to be earned. So I’d recently learned to despise Jacob and his cruelty instead. I finally saw his actions not as excusable or mindless, but as conscious decisions to treat me poorly and make me smaller than he felt inside.

But now, Jacob was dead .

I shook my head.

No . No way that was true.

“The witch could’ve been scamming her,” I said quickly. “Preying off a desperate drunk woman.”

“Precisely what I told her before slamming the door in her face,” Mena grumbled. “I love you so much, my special, empathetic, resilient girl. I’m sorry you got wrapped up in this. But I needed to warn you. Because I don’t know how far this is going to go. And I know how unwilling you are to use your magick to shut a bitch up.”

Inappropriate laughter burst through my lips. It broke through the haze of disbelief and anger and strange wilted grief. It transformed into a shaky half-sob.

“I didn’t want Jacob to die,” I whispered. “All I really ever wanted was for him to be nice to me.”

“He wasn’t a nice person,” Mena said. “If something violent befell him, it was likely his own doing.” She sighed. “Helia rest his soul.”

I should’ve known that this period of chaos wasn’t done with me yet. God forbid I live a calm, peaceful life, in love and safe with the man of my dreams.

“I love you endlessly, Mena. You’re everything to Idris and me, too,” I said. “It’s going to be okay. I can fix this.”

I tried to spend the next hour with Mena the way I’d set out to do—but it ended up feeling forced and heavy.

Because all I really wanted to do was cry. And on my walk back to Kylo’s home, I couldn’t shake the glaring intuition that something was wrong.

My chest felt tight, a heavy weight in my stomach. Could Jacob truly be dead? And if he was, how could that have happened? Even if I knew I was blameless, I couldn’t temper the rising panic, shame, and guilt eclipsing my mind.

I still cared for that man, no matter how much I’d learned to detest his behavior. He hadn’t deserved to die for it.

Something wasn’t adding up about any of this. The timeline of events since Kylo had entered my life, the way they’d all led me to this point where I was leaving and rejecting everything I once knew…

The way Kylo was somehow both deranged and gentle, controlling and reasonable, a ruthless clan leader and a patient, selfless caregiver.

Amid the converging, intertwining paths—all the strange and unexpected puzzle pieces that somehow fit snugly together—I couldn’t shake the intuition that something had gone wrong when I hadn’t been paying attention.

I didn’t tell Kylo about Jacob. I wished I could pretend not to know why.

But I knew. Just like I’d known Kylo was the masked man stalking me, even if I hadn’t wanted him to be.

I didn’t tell Kylo, because despite how much I loved him, despite seeing him drop to the ground and help my brother…

If Jacob was murdered, right after being shitty to me in front of an entire restaurant, there was a very obvious suspect.

A protective, obsessive suspect. Someone I thought would never lie to me or harm me so profoundly.

I didn’t want to have these thoughts. Gods, I just wanted to go back to how I’d felt yesterday, when I’d stared into Kylo’s eyes and seen eternity.

Kylo knew something was wrong, but I had an endless list of excuses to give him as we cooked dinner together. He didn’t mention anything about clan matters, still treating me like an outsider.

Maybe he thought it would only make me more curious. Increase my yearning to be a part of it all.

Fuck. The lump was back in my throat, and while I was turned away from Kylo, I squeezed my eyes shut.

That nasty paranoia was back, encouraging thoughts I hadn’t entertained since Kylo had told me he loved me, since before he took my virginity, and before we were bound by blood.

I want the truth, I whispered to my guides and spiritual allies inside my mind.

A rush of otherworldly wind assailed me, and I knew it was the kind of wind only I could feel.

“You okay, angel?” Kylo asked.

I opened my eyes and cleared my throat, slowly turning to him. I reached for his arm, studying the sigils etched in ink on his skin.

“I’m okay,” I lied. “Are these the same sigils I saw on your dagger?” I let my cheeks heat, hoping Kylo might mistake my fear with arousal.

“The one I used in the gardens?” Kylo said, looking down to where I traced his tattoos. He smirked, no doubt recalling the blade cutting through my panties.

My stomach fluttered. I wanted to lean into the lust. I didn’t want to keep watching my world crash down around me.

Maybe I didn’t want to know the truth.

“Yes, there are symbols in my tattoos that correspond to the dagger—linking the weapon to my magick.” Kylo reached for the hidden holster at his hip, sliding the dagger out with graceful ease. “Be careful, please, baby.”

He handed me the weapon without a second thought.

The moment my hand wrapped around the hilt, I realized it was too late to take it back.

I saw it all .

Jacob, thrown up against a tomb in the cemetery. Kylo taunting him, telling him he wanted to kill him the moment he saw Jacob with me. Merely for touching me.

Kylo declaring I belonged to him, before I’d even had time to come to that conclusion myself. Before I truly knew him, before he truly knew me .

I watched Jacob piss himself. I watched Kylo destroy him verbally before slitting his throat. At the splatter of blood and the sound of desperate gurgling, I let go.

Kylo caught the weapon I’d dropped with vampiric speed. He cursed. He stared at me incredulously, sheathing the dagger. “What happened? Did you try to read the magick again? You know there are protective wards…”

I couldn’t hear the rest of Kylo’s words about how I’d nearly cut off my cute little toes.

My survival instincts kicked in as if by brute force. I laughed nervously, offering a demure apology.

Classic Evie, always apologizing.

Always blindly trusting those whose only intents are to harm and use her.