Chapter 4 Esme #2
Sitting here in this forest, surrounded by magic that sings in harmony with my heartbeat, a thought strikes me with crystalline clarity.
Maybe I was meant to lose it all. I’ve been changing from the moment I met Micah, my magic, my confidence, my understanding of what I could be.
Every trial, every betrayal, every loss has stripped away another layer of who I thought I was.
Perhaps I needed to lose everything to become something else.
Something more. Something reborn from ashes.
It feels like I’m unraveling and remaking all at once, like a tapestry being pulled apart and rewoven with different threads.
Like I’m not just healing from what was done to me, I’m changing on a fundamental level.
I don’t understand it or how I will get to where I need to be, but this place feels like it holds the key.
Like it’s been waiting for me to find it.
The glade settles around me like a held breath as I open my eyes, finding comfort in the scattered fragments of my thoughts finally beginning to coalesce into something resembling purpose.
Then—snap.
The sound cracks through the peaceful air like a whip, and I turn toward it, heart stuttering against my ribs.
A figure leans against a tree just beyond the ring of impossible flowers, and my breath catches in my throat.
He’s tall, towering, really. The kind of height that seems designed to intimidate.
Dressed in sleek, dark leather that clings to a body built like a weapon, all sharp angles and controlled power.
His shoulders are broad enough to block out the sun, arms corded with muscles that speak of years spent training with those twin blades strapped across his back.
His skin is warm bronze, smooth and sun-kissed, unmarked except for the intricate tattoos that wind over his visible chest and shoulders in patterns that seem to shift in the dappled light.
Light catches on a series of small silver piercings along his brow and lip, and when he pushes off from the tree and steps forward, the most devastating pair of eyes I’ve ever seen meet mine.
Not just any green. Green like poison and envy and all the dangerous things that hide in shadows.
Green like spring’s first leaf and moss under moonlight and the deep heart of the forest itself.
They’re alive with intelligence and mischief that makes my pulse skip in a way that has nothing to do with fear.
He’s brutally beautiful in the way of sharp things, all edges and dangerous curves.
He cocks his head, studying me with unabashed curiosity. “You don’t look dead.”
“Should I be?” I ask, surprised at his audacity but not entirely put off by it.
“Not at all.” His voice is low, edged in silk and amusement that I can practically taste. “It’s just, judging by how the wolf’s been muttering and growling like a madman for the past few weeks, I assumed you were either a corpse or actively dying.”
I blink, processing this information. “Excuse me?”
He pushes off the tree fully, twirling what I now realize is a broken twig between his long fingers. “Sorry. Too soon for death jokes?”
I rise to my feet slowly, eyeing him with new wariness. There’s something about him that sets every nerve ending on high alert. Not danger, exactly, but something equally unsettling. “Who are you?”
“Locke.” He gives a shallow bow that doesn’t feel respectful in the slightest, more like mockery dressed up in manners. “At your service. Or not. Depending on your mood.”
I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly aware that I’m wearing nothing but a thin white shift dress that probably leaves little to the imagination. “Definitely not.”
He grins, white teeth flashing like a predator’s. “Starlight it is, then.”
“Starlight?”
He shrugs, the movement liquid and graceful. “Your hair. It’s the color of moonlit snow, and you’re glowing like you’ve got stars trapped under your skin. Thought it suited you better than ‘the half-dead girl in what appears to be a nightgown’.”
I shouldn’t smile. This stranger appeared out of nowhere, has been watching me without permission, and is clearly the kind of person who thinks rules are suggestions.
His irreverence is so unexpected, so refreshingly different from the careful way everyone else has been treating me, that the corners of my mouth tug upward despite my better judgment.
“Locke,” I repeat, testing the name on my tongue. “You’re fae.”
He gestures around us with theatrical grandeur. “I am indeed part of the scenery.”
“I didn’t realize trees were so full of themselves.”
His grin widens, transforming his face from merely beautiful to something that could stop traffic. “Only the handsome ones.”
Gods above and below. He’s ridiculous. Beautiful. Dangerous in ways that have nothing to do with the weapons he carries.
When I look at him, really look at him, something inside my chest pulls tight.
A magnetic snap, like a thread being drawn taut between us.
Like the moment when a key finds its lock, when puzzle pieces slot into place.
It’s the same feeling I had when I first saw Micah across path at HellNight Academy, the recognition that goes deeper than sight or sound or logic.
I take a step back, because it’s not possible. I can’t be pulled toward another person, not when I’m mated to Sam, not when my heart is already split between him and my Tether to Micah. There’s no room for whatever this is.
“Easy,” he says, voice gone softer, less teasing. “I don’t bite. Not unless asked very, very nicely.”
“I should go,” I say, turning toward where I think the path home should be. My heart is racing for reasons I don’t want to examine.
“Should you?” he calls out, and there’s something in his tone that makes me pause despite myself.
“Yes.”
“Because the forest says so? Or because you’re afraid that if you stay here much longer, you might start liking me?”
The accuracy of his observation hits too close to home. I roll my eyes, more to hide my reaction than out of real annoyance. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice, “you’re still talking to me.”
I turn and stomp away, annoyed that my cheeks are warm, that my pulse is still racing, that some traitorous part of me wants to turn around and see if he’ll follow. “I need to get back. My mate is probably wondering where I am.”
“Ah,” he says behind me, his footsteps soft on the forest floor. “So, the wolf is yours. That explains the scent clinging to you. And the general air of miserable loyalty radiating from your little cottage.”
I stop cold and turn to face him, anger flaring hot and bright in my chest. “Don’t.”
He laughs, a deep, rich sound that echoes around the glade and seems to make the flowers shiver. “You chose him? Of all the people in all the Mortal Realm? The bumbling mutt who looks like someone kicked his favorite toy?”
“I’m not doing this.” I spin and walk away, fury rising like a tide. How dare he judge Sam? How dare he act like he knows anything about us, about what we’ve been through?
“Starlight, wait—”
“Don’t call me that!” I shout back, the words ripping from my throat with more force than I intended.
He follows, of course he does. I can hear his footsteps behind me, steady and unhurried, like he has all the time in the world to wear down my defenses.
The forest shifts around us, responding to my agitation.
The path appears beneath my feet like a gift, guiding me home with the same intuitive understanding it showed me earlier.
Branches sway to let me pass without catching my hair or dress.
Roots draw back from my steps so I won’t trip in my haste to escape.
Locke is still behind me, his presence both maddening and magnetic, like a gravitational pull I can’t quite resist. “Don’t be mad. I was only teasing.”
“Your version of teasing needs work.”
He hums, a sound of consideration. “Or maybe you just need more practice taking it.”
I ignore him, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, on following the path that winds between trees whose bark seems to pulse with inner light. The cottage comes into view through the undergrowth, and relief floods through me.
Then the door bursts open like it’s been kicked.
Sam barrels out like a cannonball, his body already shifting in motion, muscles expanding, canines elongating, claws sprouting from his fingertips as his wolf rises to the surface. His eyes blaze gold instead of green, and a growl is already ripping from his chest before he’s fully outside.
“Esme, get behind me.” The words are more snarl than speech, barely human.
“I’m fine—” I start, but he’s not listening.
“Who the fuck is this?” Sam demands, stepping in front of me with enough force that I stumble backward. His whole body vibrates with barely controlled violence, every instinct screaming threat, danger, protect.
Locke raises his hands in a gesture of mock surrender, completely unbothered by the display of aggression. If anything, he looks amused. “Easy there, pup. No need to piss on the grass to mark your territory.”
Sam snarls, a sound that would make most people wet themselves, and takes another step forward. I can see the moment he decides to fully shift, can feel the magic gathering under his skin.
“Sam, stop—” I rush around him to stand between them, one hand pressed against his chest where his heart hammers like a war drum.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Sam asks, and beneath the anger, I hear the hurt. The fear that I’ve found someone else, someone who belongs in this realm in ways he never will.
Before I can answer, before I can even begin to explain what I don’t understand myself, my mother steps through the cottage door.
Her presence fills the clearing like a storm front, magic crackling in the air around her until the very atoms seem to vibrate with tension. Her eyes are narrowed, and when she speaks, her voice carries the authority of someone who once held power in the Blue Mountain Coven.
“Locke Erron,” she says, and his family name falls from her lips like a curse.
Locke’s entire demeanor shifts in an instant. The playful mask drops away, replaced by something wary and respectful. He turns toward her and bows properly this time, the movement fluid and formal.
“Cashira.”
“What brings you to my part of the forest?” she asks, and ice forms in the syllables.
Locke straightens, and for the first time since I met him, he looks serious. Dangerous in a way that has nothing to do with charm or flirtation. “The king has summoned you and your guests.”
My mother goes very still, her hands clasp in front of her so tight her knuckles are white. She looks at me almost nervously, then back to Locke. “My daughter will not be going to court.”
He looks between the two of us, those impossible green eyes widening slightly as understanding dawns. “Well, this is a revelation. I can see the resemblance now, the bone structure, the way you both hold yourselves like queens in exile.”
Then his playful smile shatters completely, expression going hard as granite, voice like stone grinding against stone. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid a royal summons isn’t the kind of invitation you can refuse.”
Just like that, the warmth of the glade dies on my skin. The magic that had been singing in harmony with my heartbeat goes silent, replaced by something colder, more ominous. The very air seems to thicken with unspoken threats and political machinations I don’t understand.
I have a feeling that everything is about to change, and the brief peace I found in this impossible forest is about to be ripped away just like everything else I’ve ever dared to love.