Chapter Eight #3
“What do you want, Austin?” My voice is laced with ice, leaving no room for confusion. This is not a friendly meeting among friends. This man is not now, nor has he ever been, my friend.
“I came to see if you’re alright.”
I huff out a laugh as he walks up the steps to the deck. “You’re fifteen years too late for that.”
He freezes at my words. I think I surprised us both. “You’re right.” He sighs, moving over to one of the empty chairs. “You mind if I sit?”
“Would it matter if I did? You tend to do what you like, consequences be damned, if I remember correctly.”
He takes a seat, places his hat on the table, then tugs his glasses from his face and hooks them into the front of his black T-shirt.
His hypnotic dark eyes lock onto mine, and I have to steel myself not to react.
There is something in them I wasn’t prepared to see, something dark and yearning.
I lock down my reactions, not wanting to give this man an inch.
“Well, if you just wanted to know how I am, you can see that I’m good. But I’m sure you have better things to do than drive all the way out here to ask shit you really don’t give two fucks about. Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here? I’m assuming you want something?”
His jaw clenches as he leans forward, his forearms on his thighs. “You got my gift?”
It’s my turn to clench my jaw. I don’t want to answer him, but I have a dozen questions that only he can answer. The problem is, I can’t trust him to give me the truth.
“That depends. Are there invisible strings wrapped around it that I just couldn’t see?”
He huffs out a laugh. “No. The book is more yours than mine anyway. It’s your family grimoire.”
“If that’s true, how did it end up in your hands?”
“Better mine than your father’s.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Well, it’s back where it belongs now. That’s all that matters.”
“Is it? What happens when you decide you want it back? Are you going to waltz into my house and take it? Because, as you pointed out, you seem to have some immunity to both me and the house.”
“The house?”
Shit. I wave him off. I assumed he would know—the house is not alive as such, but it’s more than a regular house.
“It has a built-in system that alerts me to most people approaching. It doesn’t alert me to you, though.”
I don’t mention the knock I felt and wonder if he will. When he says nothing, I have to fight the urge to reach over and slap him.
“Funny, right? Especially as I knew it was you approaching.”
He stares at me, and I can see him weighing what to say.
“I knocked. I wanted to announce myself.”
“Which is just another way of saying if you didn’t knock, you could sneak in.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Yes, you fucking would,” I hiss, done with his bullshit. “You found your way to me in my pasture. You weren’t invited, but you let yourself onto my property anyway so that you could seek me out and torment me.”
He looks stricken. “That’s not it at all. I owe you. I wanted to—”
“You owe me? Are you for real right now? You drugged me. I was sixteen years old, and I fucking trusted you, a mistake I will never make again. You left me—”
“I didn’t know your father would rape you!
” he roars. “I saw your birthmark, knew you were coming into your powers, and did the only thing I could think of to buy us some time. I just thought if I could knock you out for the night, you’d be safe while I could come up with a plan to get you away from him.
Because once he knew what you could do, he’d… ” He swallows hard as I stare at him.
“You were never supposed to wake up, let alone make it home. You should have been out cold until the morning.”
“My father didn’t rape me.”
He rears back. “What? But I heard that you were…and that’s why you killed him, right? If I hadn’t drugged you, maybe you wouldn’t have been so confused, and it wouldn’t have happened. But I fucked up and…I don’t understand. You’re telling me you weren’t raped?”
“My father didn’t rape me. I was raped before I ever made it back here.”
His frown deepens, but then I see the look pass over his face. He’s figured it out.
“You left me unconscious on your sofa and inadvertently served me up on a silver platter to your brother.”
He jumps up and stumbles away, his face paling.
He really didn’t know. Oddly enough, something settles inside me at his reaction.
For so long, I assumed it was some elaborate plan.
He drugged me, either for himself or so his brother could get his hands on me.
I thought he was only nice to me that day so he could slip something into my drink.
Could he truly be innocent in this? No, innocent isn’t the right word.
Even if he hadn’t meant to put me in danger, his reckless actions caused me harm.
Looking at him now, the horror in his eyes, I wonder if my level of hate toward the man is justified or if I’m aiming it the wrong way because of all the things that came after.
I don’t know how to navigate the space between him wanting to help me and orchestrating my downfall.