Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
CALEB
Aweek later, Jesse’s hand had fully regenerated. He wasn’t at full strength—he dropped a coffee mug on Tuesday and swore in Dutch that might have set my hair on fire if I’d understood it—but he was getting there.
Five fingers, working knuckles, the same hands I’d been obsessed with since he pulled a brownie from his cabinet in Hale Valley.
I came in from the garden and kicked my shoes off at the door. I hadn’t really known what to expect when Stefanos said “safe house,” but I’d pictured a concrete bunker and MREs.
Instead, we got a two-story brick manor in the English countryside with a fireplace in pretty much every room, including the master bathroom, which was unnecessary and also completely awesome. Fireside blow jobs and mimosas for the win.
And the kitchen was huge, which meant Jesse was happy and I was fed like a prize hog at a county fair.
Ertem had left a half hour ago after finishing Jesse’s final treatment. I’d watched his car crunch down the gravel drive from the garden, the back covered in bumper stickers that said things like “Honk If I Fucked Your Mom Last Night.”
I’d been wary of the elder at first. Just what I needed, another ancient supernatural eager to boss me around.
But Ertem turned out to be a decent guy.
He was a big, burly dude with a bright red beard and sleeves of tattoos: black ink on the right, deep red on the left.
He owned a tattoo shop in London and had shown up every day to do his woo-woo magic on Jesse.
When I’d asked what the two colors meant, he’d looked at me for a long moment and said, “One hand gives. One takes.”
Okay, then.
I didn’t remember seeing him at my trial. Then again, I’d been a little distracted by Nin peeling my worst fears out of my skull, so my memories of the audience were sketchy.
Whatever he’d done to Jesse had worked, and I was grateful.
And I had very specific plans for Jesse van der Meer’s hands tonight. Plans I’d been refining all afternoon.
I walked into the kitchen and stopped.
A cardboard box sat on the counter. Plain and brown. The size of a toaster.
“Jesse?” I called, eyeing it.
He appeared in the doorway a second later. He was working on a new book, and he’d tucked a pencil behind one ear.
Fucking cute as hell.
He followed my gaze to the counter. “Did something come in the mail?”
“Do we have a mailbox?”
He frowned. “No.”
We both looked at the box.
The safe house sat behind wards fresh from Sterling Moray, and they were so thick it was like wading through wet cement just to leave the property. Nobody delivered to us. Nobody but Ertem had visited.
“It’s probably from Stefanos,” I said.
Jesse moved closer and inhaled, nostrils flaring. His whole body went still. “There’s no scent on it. Not even cardboard.”
“Should we open it?” I asked, drifting forward. It was from Stefanos. There was no reason we shouldn’t open it. Jesse was being overprotective.
No. That wasn’t right. We shouldn’t open it.
But I had to.
It was my box. It was from Stefanos.
Why shouldn’t I open it?
I needed to open it.
“Don’t touch it,” Jesse snapped.
I snatched my hand back, my heart racing. My wolf jumped into my throat and deepened my voice as I said, “I’m not.”
Jesse lunged for me. “Caleb, don’t—”
I lifted the lid.
And I was suddenly in Jesse’s arms, the lid in my hands, and my heart beating so fast my knees loosened.
“Caleb!” Jesse barked.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “Fuck, I didn’t mean to.”
He eased me away from him but kept his hands on my arms. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I yelled at you.” He took the lid from me and set it on the counter.
“I don’t know why I did that,” I said.
He felt my forehead. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
We looked into the box.
A twisted golden ring nestled on a piece of dark cloth. Too big for a bracelet, it was open at the front and worked into little balls at both ends. An intricate design ran around the whole thing.
“It’s a torc,” Jesse said. “Celtic jewelry worn around the throat. We should get rid of it.”
But it was pretty. The gold gleamed in the afternoon light streaming through the window.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice sounding distant in my ears. “We should.”
I blinked, and the kitchen ripped away.
I sped across a black sea. Storm waves heaved beneath me. Wind screamed in my ears. Water and salt lashed my face. An island rose from the water. Rocky and barren, it was a fist of stone that punched from the sea.
Lightning cracked around it in a cage of white light. Someone chanted under the wind, the words too low to understand.
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I was going too fast and the island was getting bigger and I was going to slam into it.
A vision. I knew it, but I couldn’t stop it. I reached for my gift.
Let me out.
Show me something different.
Nothing. The island kept coming. The chanting swelled. The vision held me the way the silver straps had held me to Carlo’s table.
A man’s deep voice boomed over the wind and the roar of the sea.
“YOU’LL LOOK GOOD IN MY COLLAR, LITTLE WOLF.”
Something struck my hand.
The vision shattered. The kitchen slammed back in a blaze of light and warmth. I swayed on my feet as the torc sailed through the air and hit the hardwood with a metallic ring.
Jesse staggered back. He’d kicked it out of my hand.
Except I didn’t remember touching it.
He snatched a towel from the counter, strode to the torc, and scooped it up with the towel between the metal and his skin. Then he rushed to the slider and tossed it outside.
He came to me and guided me to a chair. “Caleb,” he said, squatting in front of me. “Talk to me. What did you see?”
“I couldn’t let go.” I told him everything: the ocean, the island, the lightning. The vision that wouldn’t stop. The voice.
His expression darkened. He rested his hands on my thighs. “I couldn’t hold you back. You were too strong.”
I looked at the torc lying in the grass outside the sliders. “We should bury it. Mail it to hell.”
“We need to tell Stefanos.”
I stayed in the chair as he made the call.
“The box was addressed to Caleb?” Stefanos asked, voice tense.
Jesse and I looked at each other. He tucked the phone against his ear, crossed the kitchen, and flipped over the box.
The color drained from his face.
“What?” I asked, standing.
He showed me the bottom. One word was written in all caps, the letters as thick as a shout.
SERVIZIO.
Jesse repeated it into the phone.
“I’m sending a car,” Stefanos said. “Both of you be ready in ten minutes.”
The call ended.
Jesse came to me and folded me into his arms.
“This is going to be dangerous,” I said against his shoulder.
He smoothed a hand down my spine. “Yes. But nothing is going to hurt you.” Not I won’t let it. He said it like a fact. A foregone conclusion. Etch it in stone, bitches, because it wasn’t happening.
I pulled back and touched his jaw. “And we’ll be together.”
“Always.”
“I guess our vacation is over.”
He shrugged. “We’ll start planning our honeymoon.”
I smiled. “Deal.”