Chapter 28
twenty-eight
LIZZY
I’m the only one awake. Sitting in the kitchen with a hot toddy, staring at the wall.
Outside, rain lashes the house. Normally I love rainstorms, but tonight, all I can think about is the hunters who escaped… and the demons trying to keep us safe.
Especially Merrick.
My heart twists. Yeah, I’m pissed at him for withholding information, but… he left without saying goodbye. If something were to happen to him—
A knock on the back door yanks me from my thoughts. I trade my mug for a kitchen knife, for all the good that will do me. It’s not even bedazzled.
I reach the door just as the oh-so-helpful house opens it for me.
Merrick stands on the back patio. Human form, waterlogged. The rain has turned his brown hair black, his honey-gold eyes standing out sharply behind murky glasses.
That twist in my heart eases, just a fraction.
Fumbling for something to say, he mutters, “Oh, I… Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
I shrug. “You knocked. Someone had to answer.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.” Outside, the inky darkness stretches out behind him. Endless. “Any sign of the hunters?”
“None. The others are still making sweeps. Helena continues to search from the skies between here and the house—she says the fire department is on the scene, but the ambulances left without any wounded. Our assumption is anyone who didn’t flee in the immediate aftermath was killed.”
I nod, taking some sick comfort in that.
Merrick’s eyes track to the knife I’m still clutching. “If you’re planning to stab me, I’d really rather you do it indoors. It’s damned dreary out here.”
This gets a tiny smile, but I lock it down quickly, stepping aside to let him in.
“Tea?” I ask, my back turned.
“That sounds lovely, thank you.”
I toss him a clean kitchen towel and busy myself making the tea because I need something to focus on. Something other than his earnest eyes. Something other than the feeling of his arms around me as we danced, the ghost of his hold lingering, refusing to let me go.
More than my frustrations at his deceit, more than that simmering sense of betrayal, what burns inside me now is the unresolved question of the kiss that wasn’t meant to be.
I fear if I don’t, my heart might literally burst…
Damn it.
He sits in brooding silence at the small kitchen table, hair mussed from the towel, water dripping onto the floor beneath him. Every patter sets my teeth on edge, threatens to shatter me.
I bring him a mug of black vanilla tea, not trusting my trembling hands with a delicate cup and saucer.
He takes a sip, offers a nod of thanks. His gaze never leaves mine. “Will you sit with me for a moment? Please?”
With a put-upon huff, I take the seat across from him. As far away as I can possibly get without leaving the room.
Merrick sets down his mug and sighs. “Miss Bonnivarde, if—”
“No.” I wrap my arms around myself, though it’s a shitty substitute for his touch. “Don’t you dare.”
“I’d really like to explain, and—”
“We had a deal, and I expect you to honor it.” I glare at him, the anger inside me cresting, seeking something to sink its teeth into. Anything. “First names, Merrick. Come tomorrow, you can go back to your proper Miss Bonnivarde whatevers. But not until the sun rises.”
Now he’s the one with the flicker of a smile, which was not my intention at all.
Again. Damn it!
“Of course… Elizabeth. What I’m trying to say, ever so terribly, is that I’m sorry. So very sorry, and if it will help ease your anger, I will gladly prostrate myself before you.”
I roll my eyes. “And you claim you’re not one for melodrama.”
“I’m being earnest.”
“Your performance is Oscar-worthy.”
“I was wrong. It’s as simple as that. I was bloody wrong.”
“For what, exactly?”
“When I first arrived here, I had every intention of doing the job I was sent to do. No, you couldn’t grant me guardianship without informed consent, but I thought I had a plan for that.
When the time came, I would figure out a way to convince you, as I said.
But you surprised me, Elizabeth. Truly.” He sips his tea and smiles again, soft and shy, and it melts the ice around my heart a little bit more.
“The more you practiced your magic, the more you made it your own, the more you truly seemed to want it… my duty began to feel like a betrayal. I buried that feeling. I told myself I had a job to do. That it was the only way to satisfy Matthias and return to my work in the archives—the only thing that truly mattered to me at the time.” He shakes his dark head.
“I regret even considering trying to part you from your birthright.”
I rise from the table, the energy making me jittery—mine, his, all of it. I’m pacing. Merrick waits. I can’t meet his eyes.
“I’m not upset that you considered it,” I finally say, leaning against the countertop and forcing myself to stand still.
“You don’t think I would’ve done the same?
If I thought I didn’t have a choice, if I thought my sisters’ lives were at stake?
If I thought misleading you was the only way to save my own ass?
Hell yes, I would’ve thought about it. The difference is I wouldn’t have done it without you.
I would’ve been honest with you. If not from the start, then at least from the moment we started developing a real connection.
Because I believed—I trusted—we could’ve figured it out together.
You didn’t believe that, Merrick. That’s what hurts the most.”
“Some things,” he says softly, “can not be figured out.”
“You didn’t give me a chance to try! And here’s the really fucked up thing. I would have given it to you. No convincing required. All you had to do was ask, and I would’ve transferred the Guardianship to you willingly.”
“Why on earth would you have done such a thing?”
“I would’ve trusted that you had a good reason. That you needed it more than I did. That’s the thing, Merrick. I did trust you.” I sniff to hold back the tears threatening to spill. “I… I still trust you, devil only knows why. But it’s the truth, and I don’t have any more room in my life for lies.”
The admission feels raw, putting me at a disadvantage. But I’m done pretending. With my sisters, with Merrick. With myself. Despite his mistakes, I know he’s wrestling with this. I feel his regret, thick and heavy and dark.
His longing, even now.
“I wanted to do this, you know,” I say. “The magic. The portal work, the spells, the energy stuff. All of it. I wanted to prove myself.”
“You don’t have to prove yourself to me.
I’ve had faith in you from the very first, and that faith has…
It’s evolved into something far deeper. Something I fear I’ve jeopardized beyond repair.
” He lowers his gaze to his mug, cheeks darkening.
A surge of his emotion hits me, too overwhelming and confusing to parse.
I close my eyes. Wait for my wild heart to slow.
“Proving myself… it wasn’t just about you.
God, my whole life, I’ve lived in the shadows.
First, the shadow of being the weird kid without parents.
Then it was the shadows of my older sisters.
Rachel, alway so smart and put together, always ready to take charge and fix things.
Kate—she was the sweet one. Artistic. Kind to a fault.
Endlessly patient. Me? I was the mess. The screwup.
The one you could only count on for one thing—that I couldn’t be counted on.
” The tears slip free, hot on my cheeks, but I can’t stop them any more than I can stop my confessions.
“Being a witch—a good witch—was my chance to do things differently. I worked my ass off for you, not to impress you—well, not entirely—but to show myself that I wasn’t such a grade-A fuckup.
That I, Lizzy Bonnivarde, was actually capable of something other than just… existing.”
Merrick is on his feet now, standing before me at the counter, his eyes full of something I am too damned terrified to acknowledge.
He reaches for me. Tucks an errant lock of hair behind my ear and cradles my cheek. His touch is steady and warm, and I lean into it, the last of my anger dissolving.
In a deep whisper that caresses my lips, he says, “You are a light in an ever-darkening world. If there is anything just about this, Elizabeth Bonnivarde, it’s that I’ve just gone and fallen in love with you.”
I gasp, my heartbeat skipping. “Merrick—”
“I know my bumbling apology can’t possibly atone for what I’ve done, and maybe I’ve no right to ask this of you, but I will ask it anyway—that when you look back on the long stretch of days we spent together, you believe—you know—that it was all real for me, Elizabeth.
Not a con or a trick. And if you can find it in your heart to trust my words once more, I shall give them to you. ”
I nod, struck mute, powerless to resist.
“I have never known love before you came into my life, and if ever we’re parted, by your choice or some other circumstance, I shall never know love again.
” He brushes a thumb across my lips, making me shiver.
“And now I find myself in quite a conundrum, because the monsters who wish your family imminent harm are still out there. Because I’ve just learned that the demon lord I toil for is leading a rebellion against humanity.
Because Hell is fracturing, the fate of the entire world is at stake, and yet all I can think about is how it felt to hold you in my arms tonight.
The silk of your hair in my hands, the taste of your breath on my lips.
Every moment away from you is a torture worse than any I’ve endured in Hell, and I’m terrified that I’ve broken us beyond repair, before I’ve even had the chance to properly kiss you.
So I’ve one final request, my wild, darling witch.
” He closes his eyes and presses his forehead to mine, our breath mingling.
“Even if it’s only to cast me away, please don’t torment me with silence. ”