Chapter 47
She woke to the feeling of his fingers pushing her hair off her forehead and the soft voice saying, "There you are."
Even so, Annelise didn't quite open her eyes yet, wasn't ready to face the world as it was. She rolled into him much like she had the other morning when she'd woken up next to him. She’d almost immediately fallen back asleep and if she was right, she’d slept through the whole day.
Now she savored the feeling of everything being right before she had to face daylight and face that it wasn't.
Maybe now it could be.
"You had me worried," he said, his voice soft, lips brushing at her cheekbone as he spoke, the short neatly trim beard almost tickling.
But the word snapped something inside her and reality flooded back in. Throwing back the covers, Annelise bolted upright, yanking away from him as she turned and asked, "Story?"
"She's okay, thanks to you."
Blinking a few times, Annelise tried to put her memories back together, but they weren’t all there.
He’d told her that before when she woke up: Story was okay.
But Annelise remembered casting on her Gram over and over again.
She remembered Rowan telling her to call the other witches and that they'd come. Then she’d done the spell for Story and only remembered that it hadn’t worked.
She protested to him now, “It didn’t work! ”
"It did the second time," he told her.
The last thing holding her in place, holding her upright and in one piece, let go. Leaning forward, face in her hands, she dissolved into tears. Tears of pain, tears of exhaustion, tears of relief.
She'd been too strong for too long, and she knew it. When she found Story on the floor with no pulse, it had hit her like a ton of bricks. But Story was the only one left and she couldn't lose her grandmother.
She might have Jenna now, but Story was the one who had been there all along.
Story was the one who stayed when Marina took Teagan and left.
Story was the one who stayed when Monica disappeared over and over.
Story was the one who took care of her own daughter and managed to survive when Melissa didn't.
Though Story was imperfect and Annelise had spent too much of her time trying to prop up and support a woman who honestly probably didn't need it, she had done so out of love. But now she saw she’d also done much of it out of fear.
Rowan's arms came around her, and for a moment he didn't say anything. He just held her close, letting her let go. Then, he whispered to her, “I love your stubbornness. It's gotten you through things most people wouldn't survive. But maybe . . . maybe it's time to let go. Just a little.”
The words released something in her and Annelise nodded. He was right. She had to let go, let people help. Let him in.
She knew as she leaned against him that she belonged with this man.
She wasn't sure yet how they would work it out, but she knew if she wanted to live the life she dreamed, it would be with him. It was as if the doors of her heart opened a gateway to fifteen years ago. To before the first flood, when she’d believed wholeheartedly in them.
Before she'd started having to tell him the ugly little truths that he'd refused to believe.
But this time he'd seen it and—
As she hiccuped she sucked in air, memories began snapping back into place. She wrestled her way out of his hold and turned, staring at him. "Your mother?"
Vienna had showed up to be part of the circle. She could see it as clear as day now though it was still too much to put together. The Velasco family wasn’t supposed to have magic. But reviving a person was no small feat.
Rowan nodded and Annelise felt her body give the only response it could. She frowned at him, hard.
With his arms no longer around her, he held his hands out, palms up as if to claim innocence. "I didn't know either."
But he did. He had known. She could feel it lurking beneath his words.
She must have tipped her head or made some expression that let him know she saw through him, but he was already replying.
"Okay. I saw that she had a new necklace.
Honestly, I think I saw it for the first time the night of the flood. She was wearing this pentacle."
Annelise felt her eyes go wide at that. She should be talking, but she'd had too many emotions—hormones, fear, despair, and at last relief—flooding her to be able to have a normal conversation.
"I swear to you. That's the only thing that I saw." He paused. “And I had no idea what it meant.”
She nodded, knowing full truth underpinned his words this time. She'd always known how to read him. A lie. A little fudge of the truth. Something he knew but didn't want to admit. She could see it.
But this time the man sitting next to her told her only what he understood in his heart. For that she was grateful. Annelise tried to take a deep breath and center herself, but he knocked her off balance again.
“I'm sorry. Lise, I'm so, so sorry."
She wanted to say, What are you talking about? but she already knew. Still not quite together enough to fully speak, she nodded to him. When she found words she whispered, "Thank you."
"I didn't want to believe," he said, before adding, "They're my parents and they've been good to me."
This time when she leaned into him, her head rested on his shoulder. His arms came around her again, supporting her, holding her in the safest of spaces.
"I owe you fifteen years," he offered, "and I want to spend the rest of my life making them up to you."
This time she shook her head. "No, we were kids. I don't know what I would have done if you had told me things like that about Story. Honestly, if you had just told me the truth about Story I spent all this time learning—"
"You spent all this time being the bravest and the strongest and the most powerful witch in the hollow."
She chuckled at that, more like a wry snort.
"No," he said, "you always were, and everyone knew it, and I think the problem is everyone told you and you believed it."
She must be feeling better, because the sarcasm of how great that was for her floated through her mind. She loved him and he didn't believe in her. But maybe he could read her as well as she could read him.
"It's not that you're not those things, Annelise, it's that you were never meant to be them by yourself."
Her eyes fell closed, the tears squeezing as she absorbed a tidal wave of truth in those words. She hadn't been able to save Story by herself, but she’d been able to call every other witch in the hollow on need alone. A call that was somehow strong enough to reach even Vienna Velasco.
Annelise commanded the circle, but it was Rowan's voice that completed the memory for her. "You saved Story. And the next time the flood waters come, you'll call the others and stop trying to do it all on your own."
She nodded, enjoying the feel of the hard planes of his chest against her face. She could rest here. She was safe with him. Taking in a deep breath, she then breathed it out, letting everything go, "Thank you for that," she told him.
"Anytime." She felt the words gathering strength in the breath he drew in before he breathed them out, "I love you. I always have."
"I've always loved you, too." Damn. It was a physical sensation to admit it. At this point though, she had told him that she loved him so many times. She’d said how much she loved him over and over so easily when they were kids. But this was stronger.
Lifting her, grabbing her by the shoulders, he turned her until he was looking directly at her, hazel eyes boring into hers. "You cannot cast spells on me again like that."
Shit. She had done that to him, hadn't she?
"No matter what," he said, his fingers grasped tightly, and she wondered if he would shake her as if he could shake some sense into her, "You cannot separate us like that again."
She nodded. "Okay, I swear. But you don't get to call me a liar and walk away. You don't get to disbelieve everything I tell you, even if you don't want to hear it."
She watched as that news hit him. That was why she had cast the spell, because she could no longer handle him separating them.
She put words to the pain now. “You chose your family over me.” Then she voiced her confession.
“And I chose mine over you—" there was another deep breath.
She felt it in her lungs and saw it in his as they shared it. "Neither of us can do that again."
He didn't say the words agreeing to the bargain, but Rowan leaned in and kissed her.
His tongue sweeping hers, the feel of him melted into her bones where he belonged.
As he laid her back on the bed, she understood there was still so much to do.
So many broken fences to mend. But for now, she fell back into the crisp sheets and clean pillows and let Rowan make her scream out her promises to him.