Chapter 15
Through the flickering, golden light of the lanterns, Lucian glimpsed a familiar, vibrant flash of green and red.
Marigold. But she wasn’t moving with the effortless grace he remembered; she was pushing through the crowd, her movements frantic and jagged, as if she were fleeing a fire.
He watched her disappear into the shadows toward the parking lot, a cold spike of confusion piercing through the dull ache in his chest. Why was she running?
She looked back, and the expression on her face made him pause.
Beside him, Ellie shifted, her weight leaning more heavily into his arm.
His mind, unbidden, replayed Ellie’s words from earlier—the warnings about Goldie’s manipulation, the descriptions of how she’d “chained” herself to the town to maintain her victim image.
Yet, as he watched the space where Goldie had been, an uneasy, primal feeling began to itch beneath his fur. Something wasn’t clicking into place.
He looked down at Ellie, the cloying scent of her perfume suddenly feeling like a layer of dust in his throat. “Ellie,” he began, his voice low and raspy. “Do you remember... really remember... showing me those texts about the love spell Goldie used on me?"
Ellie let out a long, theatrical sigh, her fingers digging into the muscle of his forearm with a sudden, sharp intensity. “Lucian, why are you bringing that up now?” She looked up at him, her eyes searching. “Of course I remember seeing them."
“That’s not what I asked.”
Ellie blinked.
“I asked if you remembered showing them to me.”
“Do you know how hard that was for me?” Ellie huffed. “I didn’t want to believe it either. But I saw those messages, Lucian. I saw them with my own eyes. I couldn’t simply stand by and allow you to be used like that. It was wrong. It was just… evil.”
Lucian frowned, prying her fingers off his arm with a deliberate, slow movement. “If that’s true—if you really saw how ‘evil’ she was—why did you come back here? Why would you work for her at Enchantresso?"
The polished mask on Ellie’s face faltered.
She frowned, her mouth opening and closing as she seemed to debate her words, the silence stretching between them as she hesitated just a beat too long.
She reached a hand out to touch him, but he stepped back out of reach.
“I... I just wanted to help an old friend, despite her flaws,” she finally sputtered, but the conviction was gone.
“There was a time we were really close.”
Lucian’s eyes narrowed, golden-brown and sharp with suspicion, cutting right through her brittle composure. He pressed her further, sensing the crack in her facade. “Do you even like Goldie?” he asked, his voice flat, demanding honesty.
Ellie stared past him into the festive crowd, a complex mix of emotions warring across her face—resentment, longing, and a strained affection. “I used to.”
“Used to what?” Lucian prompted.
“Love her,” Ellie whispered. She paused as she stared off into the crowd before she looked back at him. “I loved the girl she used to be... before everything always went her way. But I hate who she has become. I hate everything about her.”
Lucian’s jaw tightened. “Everything?” he repeated slowly.
For just a second, something cold flickered across Ellie’s face before the sympathetic mask snapped back into place. Ellie laughed once, bitter and sharp. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“No,” he said carefully. “I don’t think I do.”
Her eyes flashed with fire. “Goldie always had people falling over themselves for her. Her aunt adored her. The town adored her. You adored her.” Ellie crossed her arms over her chest. An abrupt laugh rang from Ellie’s lips that held no humor.
“Goldie never had to fight for people’s attention. They just handed it to her.”
A strange feeling twisted low in Lucian’s stomach.
Because none of that sounded like friendship.
It sounded like resentment. Lucian stared at her.
In all the years he’d known Ellie, he’d never heard bitterness like this.
It sounded old. Practiced. As though she’d carried it around far longer than he realized.
His jackal stirred uneasily beneath his skin, claws scraping against instinct. He suddenly remembered his father’s warning yesterday. Don’t trust that witch.
Ellie reached for his arm again, her voice softening abruptly. “Lucian, I’m only trying to protect you. She hurts people without even realizing it.”
For the first time in ten years, the words didn’t sound true.
The moment her fingers brushed his skin, another sharp pulse of wrongness went through him.
Not fear. Not anger. Wrongness. Like his instincts were trying to bite through something, his mind still refused to see.
His ears rang faintly beneath the festival noise.
And for the first time in ten years, the memory of that night on his front porch with Ellie… was blurry. Not distant. Blurry.
As he was walking through the crowd, he tried to recall the night Ellie showed him the text messages on her phone.
Wait… why can’t I remember this clearly?
He thought. He couldn’t even remember what the words were, just that he saw something and it made him believe Goldie had cast love spells in his drink.
Lucian didn’t wait for a better excuse. “I need air,” he muttered. He turned and walked away, his pace quickening as he headed toward the parking lot. His jackal was howling now, a silent, internal warning he couldn’t ignore.
He broke past the last line of booths and stopped. He caught her scent before he even saw her. There, leaning against her car with her head bowed, was Goldie. She looked small, broken, and utterly unlike the manipulator he’d been taught to see.