Chapter 8 #2
Cillian wanted answers, even though he knew he probably wouldn’t like them.
Bran seemed disinclined to give them. But what battered at the walls of the cabin and kept Cillian’s fight-or-flight reflexes on a knife edge meant he’d get them.
They weren’t going anywhere until dawn at the earliest, and there was no chance either of them was sleeping tonight.
“We were friends once. You used to trust me,” Cillian said in a low voice.
“You pushed me away,” Bran said heatedly. “After I kissed you, you pushed me away, and I know what rejection looks like when it’s standing right in front of me.”
Cillian stood, long-leashed temper finally fraying. “You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
“You looked pretty pissed when you put your hand over your mouth at the time. Like I was so disgusting you were going to puke.”
It’d been seven years, but Bran seemed to remember that moment in high definition just like Cillian. Even after all this time, Cillian remembered that night, remembered what had caused him to live the past seven years with the realization he was missing something vital and integral in his life.
It was a loss he should have been able to get over, but Bran had been his best friend and his first love, even if he hadn’t told the other man.
He’d meant to—he’d wanted to—but the first and only kiss Bran had given him when they were teenagers had burned like iron against his lips.
Cillian had been so startled at the time that he had reacted out of instinct.
Bad instinct, he’d come to realize over the years he’d lived without Bran in his life.
“It wasn’t disgust, and you never gave me a chance to explain. You changed your number and ran to Boston and never let me know when you visited after I moved back,” Cillian argued.
“I wasn’t going to be friends with someone who seemed to secretly hate me.”
“I never hated you! Stop putting words in my mouth.” A heavy thud against the wall and an ear-piercing scream made both of them flinch.
Cillian swallowed hard and lowered his voice from the angry shout he’d been trending toward.
“You were my best friend, Bran. Losing you was horrible. It was like half of me was gone.”
Bran crossed his arms over his chest, shoulders hunching forward.
He had a scratch on his right cheek that was coming up red on his pale skin, gained at some point during their mad dash through the forest. He looked chilled, but his sweatshirt was nowhere to be found.
Probably lost somewhere in the forest. He was sweaty, T-shirt damp with it, and Cillian knew he probably looked the same, both of them smelling like they’d spent the day outdoors because they had.
Despite all that, Cillian drank in the sight of him because it was only them there in a cabin in the woods, having outrun a nightmare that still desperately wanted in.
And while Cillian would think it was possible the horror out there might break down the door, Bran didn’t, and he wanted to know why.
“Why did you push me away?” Bran asked.
Cillian didn’t know how to answer that, not with his mother’s voice whispering a long-lived warning through his mind. Never trust a witch.
The Gallaghers were Wiccan, but Cillian’s mother had seemed grudgingly okay with them.
Cillian hadn’t cared either way, but his mother had, and he’d always listened to her as a child.
By the time he got older, the habits were too ingrained to break.
He’d shared everything he could with Bran as a kid, just not that iron burned him because he always forgot about his allergy.
So had Bran’s kiss, and Cillian didn’t know why.
Saying that sounded strange and ridiculous, but then again, they’d been chased through the forest by monsters Bran wasn’t surprised to see.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” Cillian hedged.
They’d been at Cillian’s house while his mom had a late shift at the hospital, fighting over who’d won at the latest video game.
In the ensuing squabble, Cillian had found himself pinned to the floor with Bran stretched over him, their faces so close their noses brushed.
Looking back, the kiss seemed inevitable, but at the time, he hadn’t been sure.
Bran had kissed him, and Cillian’s lips had burned from it, heat streaking through his skin like being branded.
He’d shoved Bran off him, scrambling up and back, and Bran had taken it for the rejection it wasn’t.
Cillian had spent the last seven years regretting his actions and trying to stop thinking about Bran.
He’d dated other men in college, but once he’d moved back to Pelham, it had been slim pickings.
There weren’t many men close to his age, and of those that were, none liked men.
When the urge for something more than his right hand hit him, he spent his day off in Boston, haunting the clubs and bars, kissing people whose lips didn’t burn him and wishing they did.
Another crash against one of the walls had Cillian’s entire body tensing. He stood, looking past Bran at the door, which hadn’t yet caved in. “You seem real sure they can’t get in.”
Bran wouldn’t look him in the eye. “They won’t.”
“Tell me why. Tell me what you did out there.”
Bran went, if anything, paler. “What makes you think I did anything?”
“Don’t play stupid. I saw you throw whatever that was at the creature and knock it back.”
Bran swallowed audibly. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
Cillian let out a rough laugh, gesturing furiously at the nearest wall and everything beyond it that shouldn’t exist but did and was trying to get in. “I believe in that. In the lights.”
“You thought they were stories.”
“That’s not a story out there.”
“Can we not do this?”
“We’re stuck here until whatever is out there leaves.
We might as well start talking. Seven years of silence has to be broken at some point.
” Cillian dragged a hand through his hair, fingers catching on the hair tie.
He yanked it out and redid the ponytail.
“Why can’t they get in? What do the witchmarks really do? ”
Bran was silent for long enough that Cillian thought he wouldn’t talk. Scowling, Cillian approached the storage cabinet and yanked open one of the doors to dig through the supplies there. The energy bars weren’t expired yet, and he ripped open a fruit and nut one, biting into it.
“They’re magic,” Bran finally said so quietly that Cillian thought he’d imagined the words.
Cillian turned around, swallowing the food. “What?”
Bran kept his back to him as one of the creatures outside screamed out its frustration. “The witchmarks are magic. My coven has carved them in the forest for generations to mark the paths to the cabins.”
“You’re Wiccan,” Cillian said slowly.
Bran laughed, thick and ugly, as he turned around. “Witch. I’m a witch. There’s a difference when it comes to guarding against the wyrding and the Fae.”
Never trust a witch.
His mother’s voice again, ripping through his mind like a knife.
The hideous ringing sound in his ears drowned out the creatures and their screams as he stared at Bran like he didn’t know him—and he didn’t, not seven years out from their last moment together, one burning kiss that was scarred into Cillian’s memory the same way this moment was going to be.
He still wanted to.
“You’re a what?” he asked in surprise.
Bran shook his head, sliding both hands through his hair to lock his fingers together at the back of his skull.
He bounced a couple of times on his heels before lowering his arms and pacing.
He wouldn’t look at Cillian as he moved, gaze focused inward as the creatures outside moved around the cabin. “Do you believe me?”
He didn’t have a choice, not after surviving what they’d barely outrun. “Yes.”
Bran startled, head snapping around as he planted his feet. “You do?”
Cillian tipped his head at the door, gaze flicking to it, unable to see what hunted them beyond the cabin’s entrance. “I don’t have a choice not to.”
“You could call me crazy.”
“The lights aren’t stories. Stands to reason witches aren’t either.”
“Right.” Bran cleared his throat. “You remember the old warnings?”
Cillian nodded shallowly and set the energy bar aside, suddenly not hungry anymore. “Always keep iron with you. If you’re lost, follow the witchmarks. If the forest stares back at you, you’re already prey.”
“My coven has kept those superstitions alive since my ancestors moved out here centuries ago, following the threat. The lights are creatures of the Fae. They come through the wyrding in the forest, hunting humans.”
Cillian frowned. “What’s the wyrding?”
“A barrier between our world and the Fae’s. The lights only ever come out of it. They’re used to clear the way, to prepare the land for the Fae to return by killing humans. Witches are the only ones who can stop them. With magic.”
Bran raised his right hand, palm up, fingers slightly curled.
In the cage of his fingers, a soft, golden glow sparkled into existence.
Cillian didn’t know he’d gasped until the sound rang in his ears.
He closed the distance between them, eyes locked on the glittering brightness hovering above Bran’s palm.
The light wasn’t like the cold, white flickers of illumination that had hunted them.
Instead, it was warm, carrying a softness to it that reminded him of a cozy winter day, when the snow was high and the fire inside was warm.
Cillian let his hand hover over the golden glow held in Bran’s hand, unable to look away. “How?”