Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The late afternoon sun casts long shadows across the park, the warm golden light filtering through the trees.
While Ash spends some much needed time alone with Annemarie and Betsy, under the guise of practicing further, I remove myself from the line of fire.
Probably literally. The progress she has made is promising, but I’m trying desperately not to let my hope run away with my common sense.
Things could still go sideways and we’ll be stuck here. I need to remember what’s at stake.
But it’s so beautiful to watch her rediscover all she’s lost, all she'd locked away. To watch her come back into herself.
People are out walking their dogs, joggers passing by with music pounding in their ears, and I can hear children playing, their giggles carrying on the wind like specters.
I’m so lost in my thoughts of Ash that I nearly miss the unsettling stillness at the far corner, near where the trees grow dense.
A man stands, cast in shadows. Head down, hood up.
I reach out with a tendril of power and know he’s watching me.
With a snarl, I recognize the greasy feeling of this particular human.
Fucking Brett. I watch through narrowed eyes as he adjusts his baseball cap, which seems like overkill given the hood in the hot weather. I know his eyes are on me, despite his best attempts to try to appear like he belongs, just another man hanging out at the park with no real purpose.
His lack of child and activity should betray his lack of belonging to anyone, really.
Even being who I am, the feel of his eyes on me makes my skin crawl. I know he showed up here expecting that she would be with me, but he’s doomed to disappointment.
I’ve tried to be good. I know the human world is weird, especially in regards to cisgender, heterosexual, white men like him.
I‘ve reigned in my temper and baser instincts to protect my soul-bound mate when this…
thing… has shown up. Has harassed her. Has touched her.
Has followed her and terrified her. And I deferred to the general recommendation — when in the human world, you play by their rules.
I feel him lying in wait when I spot him at the far end of the park, loitering near the swings. A grown man who has no business being there. The moment his eyes land on me, his mouth twists into that smirk I’ve come to hate — a smug little curl that screams entitlement, ownership. Rot.
“Flint,” he says, spreading his arms like we’re about to hug. “Long time, no see.” I can feel him chuckle at his own joke.
The rage that has always hummed beneath my ribs goes sharp. I keep my shoulders squared, jaw tight. “Stay away from Casie.”
He chuckles, stepping closer. “Can’t. She’s delicious when she’s flustered, as I’m sure you know.
The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s nervous.
Like she’s just waiting for someone to grab her hand.
I’ve seen it a hundred times.” He leans in close.
I let him. “Sometimes… I think she does it just for me.”
I don’t realize I’ve moved until my fist connects with his mouth. The crack of bone and the spatter of blood should be enough.
It isn’t.
He staggers back, wiping his lips and laughing through red teeth.
“She ever tell you what she does in her sleep? Those little noises she makes? I’ve seen them, I’ve heard them.
” He sneers. “Oh wait — of course you do. You live there, right?” He rubs his crotch, rolls his eyes.
Steps closer. “Or those cute noises she makes when she comes?” Sweetest thing in the world, knowing she doesn’t even realize she’s giving it all away. ”
My vision goes white with rage. I slam him into the nearest tree, instinctively creating a sight and sound shield around us. My forearm digs into his throat. He claws at it ineffectively, spittle flying in my face as he wheezes.
It brings me a grim satisfaction.
“Pathetic,” he rasps. “You think you’re the only one who knows her? I know the books she reads, the songs she skips halfway through, the panties she leaves on the floor between getting off and the shower. Hell, I bet she tastes like–”
The rest of it is cut off when I drive my fist into his gut. He folds, gagging. I hit him again.
And again.
Every word he’s said sticks like barbed wire under my skin, but the one that guts me the most is that he believes it. He firmly believes that his obsession entitles him to witness her in her most private moments. Entitles him to be in involved in her life. To be hers.
I throw him to the ground. He tries to scramble to his feet, but I’m already on him, raining blows until his laughs turn to choking, until the only sound left is the dull thud of my fists against his flesh.
Fuck. I’ve broken a cardinal rule.
When in the human world, abide by their rules.
Yes — I’ve used my powers on the humans. Technically a breach of the rules, but no harm was done, no evidence left.
That rule, passed down from the elders, is the sole reason I haven’t beaten Brett to a pulp before now. Why I haven’t followed through on any of the threats I’ve made against him. At the bar, yes, I had put my hands on him. But that I could explain away as being in defense of others.
Was part of it hoping — desperately — that Ash would remember, come back into herself, and finish him on her own? Absolutely.
He coughs, dragging himself onto one elbow. “You hit like a jealous boyfriend.” He wheezes. “Have you noticed she cries at night? Maybe she’s remembering another man. Maybe she’s remembering me. Bet that’s why you’re so fucking desperate — you know you’ll never measure up.”
The white in my vision is replaced with red. My boot connects with his ribs, hard enough that the air leaves him in a strangled gasp. He curls into himself, like a steamed shrimp, coughing wetly.
“You don’t know her,” I snarl, leaning close enough that he can see the truth in my eyes. “You’ve never known her. You’ve stolen pieces — glimpses she’s never even offered you — and twisted them into something foul. That isn’t knowing someone. That isn’t loving someone. That’s poison.”
He tries to laugh again, but it comes out like a rasp. “Poison or not, I’m under her skin. You’ll never get rid of me.”
That’s my final straw. The warnings, the teachings from the Elders fly out of my head. I drag him up by the collar, shoving him back against the tree until the bark scrapes his scalp, leaving bloody furrows in their wake.
“You’re nothing but a shadow, lurking in the dark,” I growl. “And I’ll burn every shadow if I have to.”
My fist connects, one final time, and his body goes slack.
I let him crumple to the ground, chest heaving.
The early evening sounds of the park filter back to my senses — crickets, distant traffic, children laughing, the leaves rustling.
The world is moving on, but here I stand, shaking, bloodied, with a man at my feet who has dared to make Casie afraid.
Terrified.
For just a moment, doubt with Brett’s voice slithers in, cold and sharp. She’ll never forgive you for this. You’ll remind her of me.
I clench my fists, forcing the thought back. I am not him. I’d fight tooth and nail, and have, to keep her safe — not take, not trap. Not twist.
I crouch beside him, grabbing his jaw and forcing his swollen eyes to meet mine. “If you so much as breathe near her again,” I whisper, voice low and steady, “I will end you. No more warnings. No more second chances. Understood?”
His answer is a whimper, broken teeth clicking as he nods.
I shove him back, and stand, hands dripping with blood that isn’t all mine. The air bites into my skin, grounding and cooling. Bringing me back into myself, I turn back to the path that will take me home, to Ash, chest still pounding with fury, disgust and fear.
I need to wash the blood from my knuckles before she, or Betsy, sees me. I have to decide how much of tonight I need to bury — because some truths will only add to her scars.
I stare down at Brett’s broken body, chest still heaving, the weight of what I’ve done sitting heavily on my shoulders.
My fists throb, but the ache inside is so much worse — the knowledge that I’ve wanted this since the first time I saw him at Wanderlust, all predatory eyes and swaggering confidence.
The truth? I could have ended him weeks ago. From the first time I saw him circle her like a vulture, from the way his hand lingered too long on her arm at the shop, from the smirk he worked like he already owned her. Every part of me had screamed to tear him apart.
But I didn’t.
Because of the Elders. Their laws echo in my head even now. We do not strike the powerless. We do not bring violence into the human world unless forced to. We are guardians, not tyrants. I swore to those rules when I was but a boy, and breaking them meant more than a punishment. It meant dishonor.
And then there is Ash. My Ember. She isn’t helpless.
She’s not meant to be wrapped in cotton and hidden away whilst I handle her demons.
She’s a sorceress, a queen in her own right — even if she doesn’t remember or isn’t willing to take up that mantle.
Part of me held back, hoping she’d stand up, find that spark of herself again.
Hoping she’d learn she could put a man like Brett on his knees without any outside interference.
She can. She has.
But tonight… the culmination of everything. Every moment of her unease, her fear. Every moment of discomfort, of him touching her without permission, of him inserting himself into her life.
Watching her. Messaging her. Stalking and terrifying her. Twisting small, tender, intimate things she does when she thought no one was looking — he made them dirty, claimed them as his.
And then…
Then he spoke her name like it belonged in his mouth.
That was when the rules stopped mattering.