Chapter Thirty-Eight #2
‘Weres don’t believe in that kind of magic,’ Wyn replied without moving. ‘They think to interfere with the natural order is to corrupt nature itself, but they don’t know you, Em, they haven’t seen the beautiful things I’ve seen.’
‘Or the ugly,’ I replied. ‘They’re right, magic can be used to corrupt. Look at Catherine.’
‘That’s why I never told them.’
He turned to face me, the weight of all our secrets pressing down on his shoulders as he came to stand before me.
He kicked off his boots and laid down on the bed, resting on his side, and the golden cord that tied us together wrapped tighter and tighter as I lay down beside him.
Eye to eye, I studied his beautiful face and thought of every promise we’d ever made to each other.
The first time I saw him from my window, the first day we spoke, our first kiss, our first fight, waking up in his arms at the beach.
Then I thought of the future I’d dreamed for us and tried not to cry when I wondered why the blessing had never granted me a vision that showed me that story.
Wyn’s eyes had turned soft and hazy, more green than grey as his pupils expanded, drinking me in.
‘Do you remember when I said I thought I saw you,’ I said, shaking as I found the words. ‘The night after the full moon?’
‘I was on the mountain. It wasn’t me.’
He stroked my face tenderly and my skin prickled under his touch, the exact same feeling as my magic.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, aching as I made myself say it. ‘This is going to sound crazy, because I know you believe that, but is it possible the pack is using you to get to me without you knowing it?’
Wyn’s hand stopped moving, the back of his fingers stilled against my skin.
‘Just say no,’ I said, calm as I could be. ‘Say no, Emily, it isn’t possible, there’s no way.’
But he didn’t. Every muscle in his face contracted at once, tightening until he turned into a statue.
‘Wyn?’
No response. The panic that had been bubbling under the surface rose up, calling my name and the room shook gently.
Not an earthquake, only a tremor, so slight no one else would notice but to me it was the most tempting invitation.
How good would it feel to lose control? How much of a relief to let go?
‘Wyn, please,’ I said, begging now, fighting my darkest urges and trying to pull him into the light at the same time. ‘It was a stupid suggestion. You know where you were, you even remember the phase, you said so yourself.’
‘I said I remember most of it, not all of it,’ he replied, staring at his own hands as though they belonged to someone else. ‘What if they have done something to me? I could be a danger to you and not know it.’
‘We’re not talking about random Weres.’ I seized his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me. ‘It’s your mother, your own mother. She wouldn’t do that to you.’
‘Wouldn’t she?’
The room shuddered again.
‘The way I see it, there are two choices,’ he said. ‘I go back and we find out the truth, or I stay here and face exile.’
‘If you stay here, we’ll find a way out of this,’ I told him. ‘I’ll protect you the way you protected me at Hilton Head, the way we will always protect each other.’
There was nothing I could say that would soothe the situation, no more promises to make when I didn’t know if they could be kept.
Stick or twist, the choice had to be his but he didn’t say anything.
Instead, he grabbed my shirt and pulled me into a kiss so deep, so powerful, my mind went blank and the world ceased to be.
We spoke with our hands instead of words, with no room for misunderstanding, and a sweet heat exploded in my chest when he pushed me back against the pile of pillows at the head of the bed and weighed my body down with his.
He let me lead, dragging his shirt up over his head so my hands could roam over the muscles in his back, learning the topography of his body, memorizing the moments that made him catch his breath, and I liquefied beneath him.
I wasn’t Emily anymore, or Emma, Paul’s daughter or Catherine’s witch.
I existed only in this moment and only with Wyn.
Forehead to forehead, our eyelashes flickered together and my breathing turned shallow.
I could’ve stared into his eyes forever, the pale green and soft grey, the bronze flecks that danced around his pupils, and a new darker ring of desire that created a halo around his iris.
We couldn’t give up, I wouldn’t give up. All I wanted was an escape.
When Wyn reached for the top button of my jeans, I kissed him again and felt myself slip inside his mind to see the exact same love I had for him mirrored right back.
We belonged to each other, I was his and he was mine, and I needed to show him how much I loved him just as much as he wanted to show me.
My room filled with a soft pink smoke, hazy and fragrant, as roses grew up the frame of my four poster bed, a blanket of flowers covering my floor and covering the door, wrapping themselves around the wood until it vanished, no way in and no way out.
My lips were already tender and bruised but I couldn’t get enough, every touch was new, every sensation shocking in the best way.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Of course it felt this good, of course we felt the same way, it was me and Wyn.
Each step we took together broke new ground, each breath, each sigh, until I was consumed by him.
Then Wyn paused for a moment, bringing his hands back up to my face, staring at me with wonder, like I was brand new and so precious.
‘I love you,’ he said, even though he didn’t have to.
‘I love you,’ I said, wishing there were better words, words no one else had ever used before. Those weren’t good enough, second-hand and shopworn, whatever this was between us deserved something brand new and never seen, with no one in the world allowed to utter them except for us.
Every moment we had together was sacred and I wouldn’t waste a second. All the sounds of the party were far away, all the fear and all the threats left in another world, and the quiet of my room was filled with sharp sighs and sweet gasps and the sound of superfluous clothing hurriedly removed.
The silence didn’t break so much as splinter, shattering with the glass in my windowpane.
Downstairs, I heard screaming but in my room there was only panic and the low growl of the wolf that stood beside my bed.
Huge and grey with gnashing jaws, its eyes were yellow, surrounded by more red than white.
A wolf, a Were, inside Bell House, inside my room.
‘What the hell …’
Wyn threw his arms out wide, his shirtless body covering mine, too much bare flesh exposed for the present danger. ‘You can’t be here. This isn’t possible.’
The intruder didn’t feel like explaining itself. Gashes from the very real thorns protecting the pair of us ran up and down the wolf’s sides but still it crouched, mean eyes flickering back and forth from Wyn to me, as if playing a game to make its choice.
‘If you touch her, I’ll kill you.’
Wyn’s words were pure violence but the threat was redundant.
The Were wasn’t there for me.
Everything happened so quickly. It lunged, seizing Wyn’s shoulder in its jaws, shaking its head to tear through muscle and bone, then tossed him across the room like a chew toy.
I didn’t scream, I couldn’t move, and Wyn didn’t make a sound.
We stared at each other in shock, his body limp against the frame of my window until the wolf grabbed him again, leapt out into the magnolia tree, leaving nothing behind but a trail of blood.
I stared at the jagged pieces of glass, jutting out of the frame like broken teeth.
Wyn was gone. The roses around my bed turned to stone, the field of flowers on the floor burst into flames before dissolving into piles of ash, and finally, when I opened my mouth and screamed, every pane of glass in every window of the house shattered into sparkling sand.