21. Chapter 21
Another motel. Another town.
“Three days to fix my truck,” I complained as I tossed myself back on the bed. Something told me he’d destroy more before he was done with me. That’s what made me nauseous. “All because I figured out what you are.”
As far as I was concerned, that was confirmation.
“That’s not why,” he answered so softly that I’d think he didn’t want me to hear it. “It made sense and caught me off guard.”
Surprised?
So he didn't know what he was. He hadn’t been deflecting me for fun before. Why couldn’t he just say that?
Men made everything more difficult than it needed to be.
Then again, who was I to talk?
My phone rang from across the room, and the shadows pulled into a human shape by the table where I’d sat down when I walked in.
“If you don’t want me to break that thing, I suggest you turn it off.” A threat vibrated his tone in a way that had me jumping up to see who it was.
William.
I did as he suggested and turned the phone off, tossing it back. “I need to check in with Willow soon. Otherwise, she’ll have an aneurysm.”
“I like Willow and Esme. They are genuine and make you happy.” Why did it make me so happy that he approved of them? Probably because William bitched about them every time they came up. “I assume they are your coven sisters.”
“Yes. My cousins,” I answered before I realized I should have been withholding information until I got some from him. It was only fair. “What was your relationship with Margaret?”
“She was my wife,” he answered confidently, with an appreciation that bordered on how he spoke to me, but there was a distinct edge to it. “My best friend. You already know that.”
“If you know I already have that information, why are you regurgitating it?” I crossed my arms. “It annoys me when you do that.”
“Perhaps your questions should be more precise.” I could swear that fucker was smirking. But it was impossible to know for sure, with his featureless face.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “What was your relationship like?”
Two of his big reactions had been when Margaret came up, but other times he was fine talking about her. It was her death that riled him.
“We met in those woods. I bought the land and went to survey the area to plan my first build. I found her hunting something she called a black dog. I told her to get off my property. I’m lucky she didn’t listen, because that night it almost killed me. She saved my life.”
So he was a victim when they first met, not a monster made of shadows.
“I offered her a permanent place on the land, but people were suspicious of her. Her knowledge. Her books. Even her garden. I asked her to marry me, so she could practice in peace.”
“But it wasn’t a real marriage?”
“Sure, it was,” he answered, offended. “I just didn’t bed her. Marriage is loyalty and commitment. We had both of those things.”
“It kinda sounds…” A platonic relationship that was built out of tolerance and friendship. Someone who would stay even when your tits sagged and your skin wrinkled, because that was never what the marriage was founded on.
It sounded peaceful.
Safe.
A more dangerous word never existed.
I’d bet Abiel was a good and honorable man. His demeanor was polite and thoughtful in a way humans usually weren’t. The kind of man that a witch of the 1800s would cry for. Considering my family was quick to sacrifice our husbands, especially back then, that meant something.
It made me wonder how I’d feel if it was Abiel the Builder that I’d met instead of Abiel the Ruin.
The carpet burned under his feet and radiated outwards. Good luck getting the deposit back.
“No one knew about the arrangement, and after fifteen years, a rumor of Margaret’s infidelity made its way around the settlement. They called her a whore, and the witch accusations started up again. My brother attacked her in my house.”
The air grew heavy, and the lights flickered. Shadows quivered and bent toward me like they were reaching for me. “He attacked my wife in my house.”
I could read between the lines. Margaret said Abiel hadn’t killed his brother, then mailed her journal, because she knew she wouldn’t survive.
“But she was a hunter. He didn’t stand a chance.” An easy deduction to make, considering I’d just been in a similar situation.
“She was a fighter, like you.” His voice grew soft and affectionate. I’d spent my whole life downplaying what I was capable of to make men feel stronger. I’d never heard one describe it with soft pride.
“I imagine killing him was as easy as breathing.”
The room grew darker. He pointed to his chest, and the tension in his fingers made me nervous. Something under our feet snapped and vibrated. “It was my job to protect her.”
“Witches don’t need protection.” Not from human men, at least.
“That’s not the point, Dandelion. I vowed to keep her safe. That I would repay that blood she shed for me.” The anger in his voice radiated with a dark threat. That he would never fail to protect what was his again, no matter the cost.
And the cost was so high with him.
“It sounds like you did that.” I hoped my words would calm the rage that I could tell still consumed him even after all this time.
“When they hung me, I could hear her screams pleading on my behalf. I remember worrying that she was in distress. I remember how my skin itched with an energy that tasted old.” The air thinned as if to let me experience what he’d felt hanging from the gallows.
“When they didn’t listen, she tried to shove past the guards, but they surrounded her. ”
The invisible rope around my throat tightened, and I grew lightheaded. I choked, “Abiel.”
“They butchered her in the street, and no one cared.” His voice warbled on the edge of something that didn’t exist. Like forming words had become too hard. “They didn’t even put her name on the headstone.”
What could I say to that?
That was the kind of story that created monsters just as much as Rinah witches did.
“Together we built that world they lived in, and if what Esme said was right, we were the ones who ruined it.”
“I’m sorry.” I clawed at my throat, desperate for oxygen to get into my lungs, but there was nothing there.
“Now you understand.” He snarled. “I failed her.”
“No. You didn’t.” Tears pricked my eyes as the edges of my vision blurred. “You saved her, too.”
The grip on my throat released. I coughed as I struggled to get much needed air.
His face slowly turned to look at me for the first time since he’d gotten lost in his memories.
The position of his neck and face was unnatural and made my heart speed up.
It was like he forgot he was pretending he was a man.
A giant monster made of black shadow with teeth bigger than me. That was how the little girl described him.
He waited quietly for me to recover, but I could sense the impatience.
“Before the 1800s my ancestors were hated so much they created the monsters that still haunt today in retaliation. Because of you, she was loved and accepted for fifteen years, in a world that burned people like us.” Couldn’t he see that? “She got to have a home. That means something.”
Most of us never saw twenty-five.
He gave her his protection for nothing in return. He died rather than giving her up as a murderer.
It was more than someone like me could hope for.
What he did for her… no man had ever done for me.
The shadows settled back into their proper corners and the lights popped back on. Gentle energy filled the space between us. As if he’d expected me to reject him because of what happened to Margaret.
He didn’t realize it only made it that much harder to keep guardrails around my heart.
The rage faded away into recognition and regret. The tension faded out of his shadow and his form grew more solid and less blurred. He stepped forward with his arms outstretched.
“Did I harm you?” The regret in his voice made forgiveness I shouldn’t give warm my chest.
I couldn’t risk seeing the human side of him if I ever wanted to get out of this trap.
That he became this because humans were one of the worst creatures to ever exist and weren’t worth protecting.
If I let that truth sink in too far, I’d forget why I chose a life different from those who came before me.
“I’m fine.” I went over to the mirror to confirm there wasn’t a rope burn around my throat, but wasn’t too surprised to find unblemished skin.
He stood right behind me, leaning to kiss the back of my neck with soft flutters that tickled. I swallowed the giggles that threatened to leave me, so he wouldn’t think I wasn’t pissed anymore.
I didn’t fool him. He brushed his lips back and forth, trying to break me. It brought attention to the tender raw skin back there.
It reminded me of the mark he’d put there. I turned using the hand mirror on the counter to get a look at what he carved into me.
A twisting spiral with an A at the center.
I smashed my lips together as the implications sank in.
A symbol of eternity and his initial.
Abiel’s forever.
Hot oil bubbled inside my chest until it boiled over.
Fucking bastard.
I grabbed one of the little soaps off the sink, throwing it at him. Of course, all it did was go through him, and he didn’t so much as step back.
I wished I knew how to kill him. I’d settle for getting to maim him at this point. This was why I couldn’t let myself fall into the temptations he offered.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” My voice broke with pain I'd stuffed deep down inside me. Only to realize that tears were pouring down my cheeks.
Damn it.
I wiped the tears away, but the floodgates had already opened. I stared at the ceiling, trying to force the tears to stop.
I was so weak.
Shadows wrapped around me until all the light was suffocated and the room disappeared. Darkness hugged me tight in a hold that pressed against every inch of me. I could swear it seeped into my chest and curled in the gaping hole that was there.
“No!” I shoved at nothing. “Go away.”
A dangerous growl rumbled deep enough to rattle my bones. “If anyone ever hurts you again, I will destroy this entire world.”
Why did part of me believe him?
I needed to feel indispensable and desired.
To be whole, for one moment. Even if that moment destroyed me.
Warmth radiated around me that made me want to melt into the comfort I knew he could give.
“Get off.” I tried to shove him again, but of course that did nothing, but make his hold tighten, until it was almost restraining. “Stop.”
He felt too good.
I couldn’t lean into that or I’d be another dead body on his hands.
“Why?” Such a simple question.
Yet it was the last crack in the shield I kept at the ready.
An ugly sob burst free from my chest. “You’re going to hurt me.”
“Never.” More lies.
Anger was easier than the pain. So I punched and kicked where he stood, hoping to get some of that prideful rage to take over. Nothing worked, naturally.
His grip never wavered.
That didn’t stop me from trying. Clawing and scratching at where he should be until exhaustion made me collapse to the ground.
It wasn’t working.
Everything was too raw.
I didn’t have anything to hide behind.
William threw away a decade of my hard work like it was nothing. He’d been a colossal waste of energy that I’d never get back.
My face hid in my knees as the sob finally won out over everything. A body I knew was Abiel sat behind me, but it didn’t feel like a man.
I was so small and defenseless in what I assumed was his arms. There was a sense that he towered over me, but safety washed over me, too. Like nothing could get to me wrapped in his shadow.
I was doomed.
When he let me fall, it would hurt even more.
A panic attack hit me like a ton of rocks, and I had to focus on my breathing to keep from hyperventilating.
He didn’t speak or issue anymore threats. Just held me so tight I was certain he could break me.
I’d never cried like this in front of my husband before.
Why was I showing a monster the pain inside when I never even sat with it myself? Too busy running to the next job, so I didn’t have to think about anything.
Like how I’d known deep down inside that my husband left me long ago, but refused to acknowledge it. I’d created more space between us, refusing to come home, so I wouldn’t have to face the icy chill that rolled over me anytime he was around.
The same way killing myself had been easier than sitting in the silence of my empty home.