Chapter 1 - Sean #2
“What the hell has gotten into you?!” Emily demands, getting to her feet, her wrist still pinned in the vice grip of my stronger hand. Our arms are linked across the table, her eyes like icy shards piercing through my soul relentlessly, but I feel a wave of unexplainable admiration wash over me.
My head tilts to one side as if to get a clearer picture of her face, that same realization from five years ago striking me now despite everything that’s happened and changed over the years.
Her skin is creamy white, flawless, and radiant, her eyes glowing like gems, the golden hue of her blonde hair like a crown of ethereal royalty.
A goddess.
An angel.
Everything that exists outside of this demented world, in the cosmos, where everything is pure.
That’s what Emily is, and I am again enchanted, hypnotized.
“Sean!”
Her blistering cold tone snaps me out of my daze, and that’s when she’s able to snatch her hand from my grip, clutching it to her chest as her glare strengthens.
“What the—”
“What are you doing?” I cut her off with a one-eighty question, turning the accusation on her as I lift the vial to my nose. The way she’s scowling at me has me feeling like I’m backed into a corner, and the only way out is to pretend that I didn’t just see what I saw.
The scent of cinnamon and rose enters my airways, threatening to reel me back into the throes of a memory I’ll never truly escape. But it’s not so much the memory that frightens me anymore, because when I look up, I still see Emily that way, even if she’s glaring at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“What I’m doing is none of your business, Sean,” she cuts in bitterly.
“I think it is my business, Em. First, you don’t show up for the meeting with the team, and now I find you doing whatever the hell this is!”
“I’m not doing anything wrong!” she protests, but her eyes flicker suspiciously to a paper on her desk.
My eyes follow to the paper that’s been scribbled on, and Emily quickly grabs it and crumples it, but not before I catch the first word at the top.
“Ritual…?” I murmur as she takes the crumpled page and shoves it in her purse before swiping the vial from my hand.
“I told you, it’s none of your business,” she says sternly, prompting me to cross my arms and tilt my chin with sovereignty.
“I am the alpha of this pack, Emily. I am your alpha. Or have you forgotten?”
Emily takes a deep breath and points her chin with defiance.
“Well, thank you for the reminder, Alpha Sean.” She says my name as if it burns her throat like acrid poison.
“But might I remind you that I am the head of Silverfang’s clinic?
I’m simply developing a new medication for your pack members. ”
“And what might this new medication be, Miss Hudson?” I quiz with a quirked brow, but Emily continues to pack away her things, averting her eyes as she rounds her desk and makes for the door.
“You’ll know when it’s ready,” she says just as she’s about to reach for the door handle, but I stop her by grabbing her arm.
Another lightning bolt of sensation ripples through my arm, shocking me, my vision bewitched by her eyes when they lock with mine.
My breath catches, the close proximity quickly becoming dangerous as my heart races and Emily’s eyes entice me, along with her full, blush-pink lips. I can’t help myself, moving in swiftly until I’m just an inch away from her nose, and I catch the scent of her warm breath on my upper lip.
“I think you’re hiding what you’re really up to, Emily…” I drawl, watching her eyes go from exasperated to fearful, as if she’s been caught. “If you ask me, you were working on an enchantment….”
“Enchantment?!” she chokes out with a bitter scoff. “That’s crazy. You’re crazy!”
“Crazy, huh? Maybe I am crazy, but I think you did something with your little potion to make me feel crazy about you!” The words leave my lips before I can stop them, thoughtlessly, unabashedly, as if I forgot how to control myself around her.
As if I don’t want to control myself around her anymore.
Emily’s heart stops—I can feel it, because for a split second, I can’t feel her pulse in my hand. But when her heartbeat takes flight again, she has a burst of adrenaline that allows her to snatch her arm away for a second time tonight.
But this time, that hand comes flying up, and she slaps me across the face. When my head snaps back at her, she has a finger pointed between my eyes.
“Don’t you ever say shit like that to me, ever again,” she warns, eyes icy and seething with anger.
Just as I lift a hand to the cheek that bites with the sting of her dainty, yet powerful fingers, Emily spins on her heel and storms out of her office before I can get another word in.
My lips curl into a smirk as my palm brushes the tingling on my cheek. It’s not painful, but it feels like something has awakened inside me. For the first time in years, I feel alive again.
I also feel crazy, but maybe I am a madman right now. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? Perhaps that’s what I felt.
Maybe that’s what I needed to feel alive again, to feel Emily’s absence, to recognize what she actually means to me.
And I’m not mad.
Just crazy about her.