Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
MAVERICK
M y mind should have been reeling over the events that had just occurred. It should have been reeling over the fact that a wolf changed into a man right in front of us, and then said wolf told us he was cursed like it meant nothing at all. My mind should have been focused on the fact that Aron and this El couldn’t be trusted, that we shouldn’t have been following them away from the ruins and toward a “safer” area like Aron claimed. My thoughts should’ve been centered on every single one of those things, and more, but instead all I could think about was Emory. When I’d cupped her cheek with my hand in that crypt, she’d reacted, curled into my touch. Like maybe she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
I couldn’t deny it. Not anymore. I’d tried to keep my distance, I’d tried to tell myself that whatever I felt for her was impossible. Then I’d seen those bruises on her neck, and I knew that I would burn this world if it meant keeping her safe. I’d burn this world for her. And I’d enjoy doing it.
She wasn’t a murderer after all, and guilt speared me that I’d ever thought she was. She was right. I might not have known her name or her face, but through the years, through her notes and our encounters, I’d known her.
That was the problem, in the end. I was the problem. I’d done the same thing to my sister. I hadn’t had faith in her, and it had ultimately been my fault she ended up here. Just like it had been my fault Emory ended up here. Yes, she chose to come after me, but that was because she needed that bolt to bargain for her freedom. If I’d stood up for the white rabbit, gone to the frost queen directly and pleaded her case, the whole thing could’ve been taken care of, and Emory wouldn’t be here in danger.
But I’d put my career first. Helped her escape in secret instead of going directly to the queen and risking losing my position. I scrubbed a hand down my face.
Aron, Driscoll, and El walked ahead of me. Aron had told us it would be better to get to safety before we talked any further.
El had stayed silent the entire time as we trekked from the stone ruins and onto a black-dusted path that led through sweeping hills. Driscoll had wandered too close to one of the hillsides, and Aron had grabbed him and told him in a very matter-of-fact voice that the hills tended to eat anyone who stepped foot on them.
After that, we kept to the middle of the path.
Now we stood in a forest that looked more like what I was used to: brown trunks, green leaves, branches that didn’t have claws or talons. They’d led us to a spot that was flat, protected by the trees and the towering canopies and had enough space for all of us to pick a spot to sleep. It was the best we could hope for right now. Better than any other areas we’d come across so far.
Aron took Driscoll hunting for some dinner while El got to work making a fire. She collected branches, leaves, and twigs, then sat down, the skirts of her simple red dress floating around her. She concentrated on creating a spark with two rocks she gripped in her hands, while her long black hair curtained her face, falling in thick waves around her golden skin.
“I can help.” I gestured to the sticks, then flipped my palm over and summoned my magic. Flames appeared, dancing over my palm. The woman just glared and continued using the rocks to catch a spark .
So much for helping.
Emory stood at the edge of the clearing, arms folded over her chest, back to me. I should’ve been peppering El with questions, figuring more out about this land, about how to find my sister. But when it came to Emory, “should’ve” had never mattered much. I threw “should’ve” out the window the first time I’d seen her. And I’d never looked back.
She held something in her hand that she was studying.
“What is that?”
I reached her side, and she shot me a sideways glance. “I’m really not in the mood for arguing. Aron will be back soon with Driscoll, and I am thinking through all the questions I have for him and El.”
“That didn’t answer my question.” I nodded at the watch in her hand, glass broken, silver chipped and scratched. It was attached to a long silver chain that she’d looped around her neck. “Do you typically use broken clocks?” I lifted the pocket watch from her palm, studying the little hands, all ticking backward. But the tick was slow. Much slower than normal. It wasn’t counting seconds anymore.
“I found it when we first got here. I think it’s counting down to something,” she said. “Let’s just hope it’s not as ominous as everything else here.”
Emory let go of the pocket watch, and it thumped against her chest.
She turned, gaze shifting to El and back to me. “Maybe we can ask El and Aron about this. See if they know anything. You heard Aron, right?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He said he was cursed. What in the bloody frost does that mean?”
Spirits if I knew. Fuck, it was hard to concentrate with her standing so close to me, that freshly fallen snow scent clinging to her, making me want to lean in just a little farther...
“Who would have cursed this place?” Emory asked. “And how?”
I ran a hand over my hair. Right. She was thinking about the logical things, not about us. Not about the revelations we’d made to each other. Not about the fact that our lips had been closer than they ever had in the seven years we’d known each other. My gaze trailed down to those lips, and I wondered exactly what it might be like to feel them on mine.
I needed to get a fucking grip on myself. Annalee needed me to.
“I don’t know,” I finally said. “I can’t imagine how this world came to be. I’ve never read nor heard of anything like these Wilds or Aron or the cat woman I saw in the eyeball forest earlier.”
“Now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear. Cat woman?” She raised an eyebrow. “Do I even want to know?”
I leaned against a tree, crossing my arms. “Oh, it was just a woman that looked like a cat and talked and also purred. And she had a tail. You know, normal stuff compared to men who shift into wolves.”
That got a smile out of her. The first smile I’d ever seen from Emory. It lit up this entire damn forest. It lit me up. Forget the fire. Forget food. I just needed her to keep smiling like that, and it would be enough to sustain me for all my days.
“Hello?” Emory snapped her fingers, and I jolted.
Right. I was falling apart ever since her identity had been revealed. Maybe it was this world, or maybe it was the fact that my sister was missing. Everything was upside down right now, including my brain. Once I found Annalee and got the spirits out of here, all would be right again. Everything could go back to the way it was.
Except this. Except the one thing I didn’t want to go back to normal. Her. Me. Us. “Sorry.” I rubbed my stubbled jaw. “Still processing all of this.”
“Do you think we can trust them?” Emory whispered, chewing at her bottom lip.
A breeze brushed through the forest, leaves and branches rustling. El almost had the fire going as she struck the two sharp rocks together, sparks flying.
“No,” I said, then hesitated. “And I’d appreciate if you could keep what I told you about my sister being here between us. I don’t want to put her in any more danger than she’s already in. Until I can trust them, I don’t want them knowing anything.”
Emory leaned closer, her fresh snowfall scent wafting toward me. “You don’t think they could help?”
“Maybe.” I thought of the cat woman who’d purposely misled me. “But I don’t want to take that chance. I’d rather get information from them without revealing my sister’s whereabouts.”
She looked unsure but nodded. “Okay. I won’t say a thing. And our deal. Is it still on? ”
I laughed. “We just made it an hour ago.”
“Well I’m just making sure you’re not going back on it.” She scowled in a way I imagined she had so many times over the years when I’d frustrated her.
“Have you ever known me to go back on a deal?”
She pointed a finger into my chest, and it did things to me that I never knew such an innocent touch could do. Suddenly I wanted that finger trailing down my entire body.
“Hello?” She’d withdrawn her hand and now stared at me like I’d lost it.
I very well might have when it came to her. Fuck. “Sorry, didn’t hear you.”
She rolled her eyes. “The time on Halfstard Lake when you used your fire magic, even though it was against our rules?”
“I used that magic to save your life,” I said. “To defeat a giant eel that was going to make you its lunch.”
“And then you took the diadem I found.”
“You got your payback with that book in the fire court.”
Her lips twitched. “I suppose.”
Whatever happened in that crypt, I was grateful for it, because it felt like we were finally getting back to our normal selves. To the person I wanted to be when I was around her. My best self.
Shadows passed over her face, and she crossed her arms and stepped back, already retreating away. Like she’d done so many times before.
“What’s going on?” I asked, voice low. “You can tell me.”
“If we don’t find that bolt, I’m as good as dead. I have no one in this world. All alone.” She murmured the last part like I wasn’t supposed to hear it.
It broke my fucking heart that she actually thought that.
I hooked a finger under her chin and forced her to look at me. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know one thing for certain.”
“And what’s that?” she asked, those blue eyes so bright, so pale they almost looked like snow.
“You’re not alone. You’ve never been alone. Not since the day I met you.”
Her eyes flashed in surprise. She opened her mouth to speak when a bush started shaking across the clearing, and we both braced ourselves, magic flaring in our hands. The bush shook harder, and finally Driscoll and Aron emerged, Aron holding what looked like three rabbits, all of them with claws that stretched as long as my fingers as Driscoll chattered away.
“You really knew a woman who did that to a statue?” Aron asked. “Doesn’t sound very comfortable.”
Driscoll nodded. “I know. Crazy, right?”
They both stopped, gazes turning to us like they were just realizing they had an audience.
“Anyone hungry?” Driscoll asked.