Chapter 49
Evie
“How can my dagger still have any magic if it returned to you?” Evie asked dubiously, walking with Trystan through Hickory Forest after saying their goodbyes to Helena. Marv and Roland had agreed to just a few days more at the Fortis Fortress to try more remedies for Marv’s poison.
“I believe because there is a piece of my magic still living within you. It belongs to you now.”
She was selfish. Because she wanted more than a piece; she wanted it all. The dagger vibrated back at her side. The call to the scar was a little fainter now, but warm and comforting, as was the man beside her.
They ambled back to the manor. Slowly. Taking in the other’s presence after so long apart.
Seven days.
Each as painful as a year passing between them.
She didn’t wish to think of it. “Why did Benedict have Otto Warsen hide it in a dagger at all? Why not the memory flower, like other magic he’s stolen?”
“I suppose the Core Healer magic was too potent for the memory flower Benedict had taken it with. He thought to hide it within a dagger Otto Warsen was forging for safekeeping instead.”
“The one he cut me with.”
Trystan tensed beside her, his fist clenching at his side. “Yes, the one he cut you with.”
“He’s already dead, you know,” she reminded him with a poke to his shoulder, then grabbed it tight when he hoisted her over a puddle without warning before gently placing her back down.
“For which I am glad,” he said vehemently. “For the sake of my torture implements.”
She tried not to swoon.
“So, you’re a Core Healer?” Evie smirked, scanning him up and down. “Are you going to grow a long beard and travel the continent, throwing wild parties?”
“It does seem backward, doesn’t it?” he mused. “That my magic is the healing sort.”
Evie thought of the past months, remembering how he’d quietly protected those he loved. “No,” she replied softly. “It’s not backward at all.”
The red on his cheeks deepened, and he was gruff when he replied, “All right. I’ve had enough of the compliments.”
“No way. I haven’t gotten to commend how handsome and gallant you are!” She laughed, and he turned, capturing the sound with his mouth, wiping the smile from her expression and replacing it with heat.
“You can tell me later,” he murmured in her ear and then straightened, wiping the mischief from his face with dry indifference.
She smiled as they continued walking. “Poor Helena,” she said, thinking of her decimated business and trying for a safer subject. “You’re sure it’s wise to leave her and Raphael alone?”
“Helena seems perfectly capable of managing herself.”
“I was worried for Raphael,” Evie corrected with a laugh.
“Marv and Roland couldn’t stay, and I assumed you didn’t want Helena managing the rebuild alone.”
Marv still held valuable information, and they wouldn’t be getting anything out of him without the poison taking him first.
“I don’t. It was a good idea.” She stumbled over a branch and glared at it. “It doesn’t seem fair that in addition to being a villain, I also must be clumsy.”
“It’s your true origin story,” Trystan added dryly. “Evie Sage: wanted for running into a side table.”
She rolled her eyes at him…and then tripped again on a clump of moss.
He caught her, and the heat between them intensified. The dark mist that had been suppressed inside Heart Village’s borders surrounded them. Trystan’s hands glowed as well, an iridescent opal light coming to mingle with the darkness. When they met, it was like every part of them touched.
She gasped, and so did he. The two of them stared for five long seconds.
And then the truce was over.
With a gasp, he pulled her in, the magic surrounding them in a wave of mingling power. “I want you.” He held her face, asking a question with his dark, beautiful eyes.
“Now,” she breathed, moaning her delight when he swept her into his arms, stumbling until he found a tree root so large it created a small pocket of privacy in the empty wood.
As he carried her, she tore at his shirt, ripping the collar until it split down the middle, giving her free rein to touch his skin.
He growled into her neck, nipping at the skin, so uncontrolled she turned feverish with need.
Together, they fell into the grass beneath the tree root, Trystan rolling her until it covered them.
“Someone could come,” he murmured, undoing her braid, running his fingers through her hair, gripping her curls.
“Could it be me?” she said with an eyebrow raise.
His cheeks blazed.
She giggled at his prudishness, running a finger down his chest, feeling a heady power when she slipped her hand beneath the ties of his trousers, his dark eyes flaring, and he hissed out a breath at her touch. “I’m not worried,” she told him. “I don’t worry…not when I’m with you.”
“And you will never have the need.”
He growled, hardly able to get the words out, tugging down the blue silk dress Helena had loaned her, baring her breasts and taking one in his mouth with laps of his tongue.
She moaned, grabbing at his hair, her whole body tingling. As heat in her lower belly spread everywhere, she began moving her hips against him, panting when he separated them to remove his trousers and her dress, pulling her down on top of him until her legs straddled his waist with a gasp.
She moved against him, and he held her for possessive kisses to her lips, her cheeks; every touch was rightness. Every breath was shared life between them, how close their love had grown into the fabric of themselves. He wouldn’t leave.
He loved her. And he wouldn’t leave.
“I have you.” He kissed her throat. “And you will have me. Always.”
She held herself to him, until they both cried out and she collapsed against him.
They dressed quickly after that, with shy smiles and sweet kisses. As he turned her around to refasten her dress, he lightly accused, “There’s no hope for my shirt,” attempting to pull the sides together while she snorted into her hand.
“Just say you were attacked by a wild animal.” She grinned.
“I was.” He laughed when she swatted his arm. “We can say it was the same animal that left those bruises forming on your neck.”
She gaped, hand coming up to touch the spots where she felt the love marks. “Uh-oh—”
But their joy and playfulness died when out of nowhere, a light shot into the sky from a source they could not see through the trees. “What is that?” Evie breathed, then paled when she realized the direction it was coming from.
Trystan confirmed it when he said in horror:
“Massacre Manor.”