Chapter 25 #2
The passage was likely woven by her second husband—or rather, her false husband and father to her children, the late Shadow King.
Nick wipes his bloodied hand on his pants and meets my eyes. There’s no triumph in his face, only resolve. “We had to, Max.”
Our only way home is gone.
Behind us stands an ordinary tree.
Ahead, the Red Forest awaits.
“Look.” Nick points to a dark shape at the very back of the meadow.
A derelict cabin stands beyond a thin row of trees, tucked beneath the sprawling trunk of a gigantic rowan.
It’s not one I remember. It’s bigger than the cabins we grew up in, wider at the base, with a double-slanted roof.
Still, it’s unmistakably a witch’s hut. One of us lived here once upon a time, before the covens fell and the new order outlawed our way of life.
We move toward it, our boots brushing through tall grass gone copper and brittle.
“And this is the creek from the map,” E says from the top of the ravine.
I climb the mossy hill and look down. A rumbling creek cuts through the earth and slithers toward the cabin, its water tinged red as it slides over slick stones.
The air turns colder near it, thick with the scent of wet earth and rot.
The bend in the stream forms a perfect U, just like the one featured on Mabel’s map.
“Oof.”
The violent rustle of a heavy weight sliding down the ravine slices through the air.
Leaves and grass crumple inward under sudden pressure.
Branches snap, wet earth gives way in clumps, and bushes fold and break around the invisible outline of a body barreling downhill.
It slips, rolls, catches briefly on a root, then tumbles the rest of the way into the creek with a loud splash, muddy water bursting outward across the stones.
For a breathless moment, all I can do is stare at the imprint E left in the crushed leaves and the ripples spreading across the water.
E fell.
The realization hits harder than the sound of his body slamming into the creek.
I put down his lantern and scramble down the slope, my heart hammering. “Are you alright?”
Water rushes around my ankles, mud sucking at the soles of my boots.
“Yes… I think I—I slipped.” His voice is rough, edged with a hint of irritation but softened by awe.
He shifts, and dark sludge curves around something solid beneath the water. “Fuck, it’s cold.”
My stomach flip-flops, and I reach forward. My fingers meet nothing at first, then collide with the firm line of a shoulder. Warm. Shaking.
I trace the slope of his arm, then the solid width of his chest beneath clothing I still cannot see. My palm drags over soaked fabric and hard muscle, and E inhales sharply.
I’m trembling as much as he is as I map him with my hands, inch by impossible inch. I’ve touched him before, but never like this. There’s nothing standing between us now, and it’s not just the parts I reach for that exist, but all of him.
Nick appears at the top of the ravine with both daggers unsheathed. His gaze sweeps the clearing, hunting for a threat.
“What happened?” he asks.
“E fell.”
“You fell?” Nick echoes, disbelief sharpening his voice. “But you’re dead.”
“Gravity still applies to ghosts here, apparently,” E says joyfully, like he can’t believe his luck. “Maybe spirits are more powerful in Faerie.”
Nick’s eyes flick to the churned earth, to the water parting around invisible legs, to my hands pressed against empty air.
His jaw ticks before he sheathes the daggers. “Wonderful. You’ve rediscovered gravity and hypothermia. Now get out of the damn creek. We don’t have time for a swim.”
“I can feel everything,” E says, awe still bleeding through his voice. “The mud. The leaves. The ground under my feet.”
Leaves crunch and mud splatters where his invisible hands probe the riverbed, squishing it between his fingers. He pushes himself up from the ground, water dripping from his invisible frame.
Scrambling for traction, I grip E’s lower arm, the faint trail of hair beneath my fingers turning my insides to mush.
I can barely see straight, let alone climb out of a slippery pit with dignity.
A shiver races up my spine, part fear, part heat, part something I refuse to name.
My cheeks burn. My ears flush. The lump in my throat pulses hard enough to hurt.
“I’m going to check out that cabin,” Nick shouts from above.
“Hold on. We’re coming,” I call.
Nick turns on his heel and strides ahead anyway, vanishing from view.
E leans closer, and my fingers slide over the soaked fabric of his shirt on their way up to his shoulder as I try and fail to steady myself.
Then he lifts me.
Just like that.
A startled cry pops out of my mouth. “What in the name of darkness—”
Serpent flames stir in my blood, coiling up my spine and limbs, leaving me trembling in his arms while my heart explodes against my ribs.
“E, wait.” I press my open palm to his rock-hard chest in half protest. “I can walk.”
“What’s the matter, little fox? Caught in a snare?” he murmurs, his voice warm against my ear.
There’s a confidence to him that wasn’t there before as he carries me bridal style, steady and unflinching, up the slope and out of the ravine.
My mind races with dangerous thoughts. Sinful thoughts. Impossible thoughts.
As we reach the top, my stomach flips. “Let me down,” I whisper.
Nick is almost at the cabin, thankfully with his back turned to us.
“Oh, I get it. You don’t want him to know about us,” he chuckles against my ear. “I’m your filthy little secret.”
I bite my bottom lip. Us.
The word echoes low in my belly.
But I’m not invisible because I can still see myself, which means the second Nick turns around, he will see me hanging in midair, too.
“Let. Me. Down.”
“If you insist.”
E sounds more amused than not.
After he puts me back on dry land, his invisible fingers lace with mine, and my heart somersaults. No more warm-jelly sort of sensation. Just long, warm, hard fingers.
Something irrevocable shifts between us.
Before, I was the fixed point he orbited, and we were bound by rules neither of us fully understood. I decided when to reach for him, when to let him close, when to retreat.
When he upset me, I could step away.
That balance is gone now. I’m no longer the only one capable of closing the distance.
A man denied his own body for that long will hunger for agency with frightening intensity. He doesn’t have to wait for my invitation to touch me anymore, and the thought fills my blood with fire.
Decades without physical contact must change a man forever, years without the simple ability to act.
Needs and cravings don’t fade when they’re denied. They fester.
I feel stripped of a safeguard I didn’t realize I was relying on, left bare in a way that unsettles me. Before, there had always been limits between us, invisible walls I could pretend kept me safe from whatever this is becoming.
I’m not blind to the danger. My ghost saved me in more ways than one, yes, but he’s not harmless. It may be him I need guarding against now—not out of malice, but because the depth of his need is an abyss I might fall into and never climb back out of.
He told me in no uncertain terms that I looked better in ruins, and warned me in a dream that he breaks the ones he loves. Somewhere beneath the surface, the Fae prince is stirring, and I don’t know if his fondness for me will be enough to keep him from destroying me, too.
Whatever happens with E now, it’s no longer something I can manage from a safe distance.