6. Voices in the Night #2
Together, they were overwhelming. Three different energies combining into something greater than their sum.
And then, as if they felt my gaze, all three of them turned to look at me.
I couldn't breathe. The air had gone thick with three pairs of eyes. I felt pinned, breathless, caught in the crosshairs of something I didn't understand. My camera lowered without my permission. My heart forgot its rhythm.
Jasper winked. Slow, deliberate, a private joke just for me.
Eli inclined his head slightly, a formal acknowledgment that felt more intimate than a wave.
And Callum...
Callum looked at me like I was something precious. His dark eyes held mine across the distance, and I felt it again. That pull. That thread. That invisible tether drawing tight between us.
The moment stretched. Seconds or hours or some unit of time without a name.
Then they were gone, disappearing into the trees, and I was alone with my camera and my racing heart.
I stood there for a long time afterward, staring at the treeline where they'd vanished. The preserve was quiet. The magnolia tree swayed gently. Everything looked normal.
Nothing felt normal.
I called Tara that night.
"Something's happening to me," I said.
"Please tell me you're calling to say you kissed one of them."
"I'm calling to say I feel like I'm losing my mind." I was curled on my couch, watching darkness press against my windows. "I can't stop thinking about them. All of them. It's like there's a thread connecting us, and every time I see one of them, it pulls tighter."
"That's called attraction, babe. Also possibly dehydration. Are you drinking enough water?"
"It's more than attraction." I struggled to find the words. "Attraction is wanting to kiss someone. This is wanting to be near them. All the time. Like being away from them is physically uncomfortable."
Tara was quiet for a moment. "Who's it gonna be? Eeny meeny miney moe..."
"It sounds insane. I barely know these people. I moved here to be alone, to heal, to hide."
"Maybe hiding isn't what you need." Her voice softened. "Maybe what you need is to actually live."
"What I need is therapy and time alone. Not complicated feelings for three brothers who are definitely keeping secrets."
"Secrets like what?"
"I don't know what to call it. They have meetings. Late at night. I hear them sometimes." I hesitated, knowing how it would sound. "Howling."
"Howling."
"Like wolves."
Tara was quiet for a long moment. "As in drunk and howling at the moon?"
"Big dogs. That howl in unison. Under the full moon."
"Okay, are the brothers howling or the freaking dogs?"
“I don’t know. "
Silence. Then, "Okay, you've been through a lot. Your brain might be filling in patterns that aren't there."
She was right. She was probably right.
After Marcus, I'd seen threats everywhere. Shadows that moved wrong. Cars that drove past too slowly. Every unexplained thing became evidence of something sinister. My therapist had called it hypervigilance, the brain trying to keep me safe by anticipating danger, even when none existed.
Maybe that's what this was. Maybe the Voss family was just eccentric, and I was projecting mystery onto them because my nervous system didn't know how to exist without something to worry about.
Maybe the pull I felt was just loneliness, dressed up in mystical clothing.
Maybe.
"I just want to understand what's happening," I said.
"Some things can't be understood," Tara said gently. "Sometimes you just have to feel them."
"That's very zen of you."
"I've been doing yoga. And you know I believe in powers." She paused. "Do you still have that charm I made you?"
"I keep it in my pocket, like I promised." I touched it now; that small bundle of thread and herbs. "It reminds me I have a friend who cares."
"I do care. Also, can I just say, you moved to rural Louisiana to escape your problems, and instead you found three hot brothers and a mystery? That's some serious energy. Could be the beginning of a horror movie or a romance novel, and I'm here for either option."
I laughed despite myself. "You're not helpful."
"I'm extremely helpful. I'm helping you see the bright side." Her voice softened. "Serena. You spent years with someone who made you feel small, scared and wrong. If these guys make you feel something else, even if it's confusing, maybe that's not bad. Maybe that's healing."
"Or maybe I'm trading one obsession for another."
"Also possible. But at least this obsession comes with pie."
I hung up and went to bed.
But I lay awake for a long time, listening to the night sounds of Magnolia Creek. Thinking about threads, energy, and connections. About the way Callum Voss looked at me like I was already his. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Outside my window, the magnolia tree stood silver in the moonlight. Beyond it, the preserve was dark and quiet.
And somewhere in that darkness, I heard howling.
It rose and fell through the trees, that coordinated sound I'd been hearing since my first night here. Three voices, I thought. Three distinct tones weaving together into something that sounded almost like music.
Almost like a language.
I pressed my hand against the window glass, feeling the cool night through my fingertips.
What are you? I thought, not sure who I was asking. What is this place? What's happening to me?
The howling faded into silence. The preserve settled back into darkness.
But I could have sworn, just before I finally fell asleep, that I heard an answer. Not in words. In feeling. A warmth that spread through my chest, a sense of being seen, being known, being claimed.
I should have been afraid.
I wasn't.
When I woke the next morning, there was a white magnolia blossom on my porch railing. Perfect, fresh, still wet with dew.
And fuck, I wanted to know who had put it there.