Chapter 42
During the walk back to my apartment, I mull over Dane’s words and our plan. Something niggles the back of my mind. I don’t know what it is… a thought. A question. An irritation. Like trying to catch a moth at twilight, I can’t grasp it.
Tomorrow we’ll cast the bonding spell that breaks my curse and frees me. I shouldn’t worry, but the pit in my stomach grows the farther I get from Dane.
All this time, bonding to create a soulmate was the answer. The spell I cast as a teenager was the beginning. I was right.
My excitement to complete the bond should build, but it’s waning.
When I push through the gate to my apartment complex, Cal’s sitting on the steps leading to my door. He stands when he sees me and shoves his hands in his back pockets. The light above his head accentuates the hollowness below his eyes and the hunch in his shoulders.
“I’m too tired to fight with you again.” I brush past him and climb two steps before his arm shoots around my waist and stops me, securing my back to his chest.
His overwhelming smell of cloves and sage stops my heart beating in my chest.
Cal is smoke and ash.
Dane is cloves and sage.
That’s not right. It can’t be right.
I force myself not to breathe deeply. Exhaustion is confusing my senses, that’s all.
Cal’s mouth is next to my ear. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.” He sounds shattered, and my heart restarts, erratically pummeling my ribcage in response.
“We’re fine.” Thankfully, I don’t choke on the lie.
“That’s not the same thing as forgiving me.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“Sienna—”
“Dane can break my curse.”
“How?”
“A soulmate bond. His kiss won’t trigger me when we’re bonded.”
“You can’t marry him.” He lowers himself a step and turns me so I can’t avoid his distraught, silver gaze. “A bonding spell won’t work. Not with him.” His throat bobs like the words hurt.
I lift my chin in defiance. “It might.”
“They require love. He doesn’t love you.”
“He could.”
“He doesn’t. He’s using you. I don’t know why, but he is.”
I shove Cal’s chest. “Goddess forbid someone love sad, unkissable Sienna. Why would they bother?”
“I love you.” His words escape on the wind. If we weren’t so close, I would have missed them.
I roll my eyes. “You’re my best friend. It’s not the same.”
“I am in love with you. I have been in love with you for years.” He pulls down the collar of his shirt to reveal his tattoo. It’s a red and orange chrysanthemum, my favorite flower, with the runes that signify my birthdate woven into the design. “My secret crush? That’s you.”
We’re too close. I can’t breathe. I climb two steps. “You’re just saying that so I don’t bond with Dane.”
He follows me up the step. “This is about you and me. I love you.” He’s yelling again.
“You’re going to wake my neighbors.”
He presses a fist against the wall. “Listen to yourself. I love you. I don’t want you to bond to that asshole, and you’re worried about your neighbors?”
“You’re my best friend. That love is strong, but it’s not the same. You don’t know—”
“I know the difference,” he snaps. “You are the only woman I want for eternity.”
I wave my hands between us like his words are a swarm of locusts. “Just stop. You don’t mean any of this.”
“Why not?” He flings his arms wide. “Why do you believe him, but you don’t believe me?”
“I just… I can’t… you’re wrong.” My eyes burn. Not Cal. Anyone but Cal.
He dashes his hat from his head and stalks three steps toward ground level.
“Goddess, you are the most stubborn woman. I need you to believe me.” He climbs the distance between us in two long strides.
“You are strong in a way you don’t even realize.
You have a quiet confidence that puts other people at ease.
I know you hate your curse, but seeing the future isn’t always bad.
When my grandmother was dying, you brought her peace and certainty when you told her when her last moments would come.
She faced her death confidently because of the strength you shared.
” He presses my hands to his heart. It’s strong beat pounds against my palms. “I. Love. You.”
“I don’t believe you.” I can’t. I wrench my hands free. “Leave. Now.”
“I—”
“You aren’t my soulmate. You aren’t the man to break my curse.” I dash the tears from my eyelashes. “The beer. I saw us fight and then we did, so it can’t be you.”
“Dane triggered a vision too, so how is that different?”
“I… it… you need to leave.”
“Dane is taking advantage of you.”
I lift my chin. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?”
No, I don’t. I’m too overwhelmed. I can’t think clearly. All I know is that Cal can’t be my soulmate. I won’t let him be.
“I can’t love you like that, Cal. I can’t. Don’t ask me to.” I race up the steps and slam the door, locking the deadbolt so he can’t use his key to let himself in.
I grab a pillow off my couch and let my tears fall as I fight to ignore his fist pounding on my door.
Calvin can’t be in love with me.
I can’t kiss him.
That’s the worst possible option because seeing his death will kill me.
I won’t survive knowing how he dies.
Not being able to stop it.
I would fight with everything in me to try, but I wouldn’t be able to, and the guilt, sorrow, and helplessness would drive me insane.
I love him too, but that’s because he’s my best friend. He knows how to make me laugh. He holds me when I’m scared. He went along with this stupid plan, even though he didn’t agree with it.
I pull my grimoire off the mantle and flip to the page where I wrote the spell for my perfect man. The pieces I forgot shine up at me as I recite the words to the moon outside my window and remind myself of what my heart needed.
“To my soulmate with this vow, my bonded soul is given.
The only man worthy of my love is the one who honors my word, respects my power, and encourages me to grow beyond the ordinary.
The moon shines from his eyes. He never wavers.
Stubborn and driven, he sees me at my worst and loves me because of my flaws.
He rides a motorcycle. He is strong enough to carry me across a threshold. He can tie a cherry stem in a knot with his tongue. He will get pedicures.
The man I love will love me in return, every fiber of his being aching to be mine, without reservation or explanation, sure in the knowledge we are one. Fearless and heroic, I am written on his heart. Safe in the arms of my protector, when our hearts are one, I will not know fear. Only his love.”
My sixteen-year-old-self wanted to sound wise when I cast this spell, but desperation is all I see.
Can Cal be the man to break my curse? Has it been him all along?
He fits so many of my criteria.
Moon shining from his eyes? Undoubtedly.
Respects my power and encourages me to grow? Every day.
That flower on his chest can be interpreted as me being written on his heart.
Firefighters are fearless and heroic.
But he doesn’t ride a motorcycle. I’ve never known him to get a pedicure.
Do I just not know?
If he’s my soulmate, shouldn’t I have recognized him before?
Either fear of my visions blinded me to what was right in front of me, or my list is the vague rambling of a traumatized girl—and a dozen men could be the one.
Maybe breaking my curse is impossible and my vision was incomplete.
I’m going to drive myself insane asking questions when the only way to know the truth is to test Dane’s theory about the soulmate bond. But that requires putting my faith in a man whose motivations I doubt.
Dane never said he loves me.
He said he wants me. Wants us to be a team. To help the town by combining our magics.
That’s not the same thing.
I don’t want to be his teammate. I want a soulmate. I want to be loved and known regardless of whether I’m freed from my curse.
If nothing else, I know that.
I close the book and press it to my forehead. “What do I do?”
My dreams are restless and chaotic. Snippets of conversations with Cal over countless dinners and Dane’s cocky smile at the Hex weave between images of earthquakes, fires, and tornadoes. What little sleep I manage barely draws power from the earth to restore my reserves.
My heart begs me to give a relationship with Cal a chance, but when I imagine the bond not working, kissing him, triggering a vision, and watching him die with no way to stop it, I can’t breathe. I’d rather not know.
When the sun is up and I can’t stand my claustrophobic apartment anymore, I wander the streets of Driftwood Pointe. I pass the bookstore, the vet’s office, and the hardware store. A cup of coffee sounds therapeutic, but I don’t want to talk to anyone, so I skip the reassurance of a hot beverage.
Hours pass. I settle under a tree in the Town Green and run my fingers through the grass. The earth comforts my soul with a wave of warmth. Like she’s telling me everything will be okay. I’ll figure this out.
I text Lyric. She knows all of us and is one of the most intuitive women I know.
Did you know about Cal?
Lyric:
What about him?
That he’s in love with me
Lyric:
He finally confessed? What did you say?
Why didn’t you tell me?
Lyric:
Not my secret to tell.
Cop out
Lyric:
What would you have done if I’d told you?
Lyric:
Run. Pushed him away. Broken his heart.
I hate that she knows me so well. I couldn’t have stayed friends with him if I’d known before. I’m not sure our friendship will survive now.
Lyric:
You didn’t answer my question. What did you do?
I promised Dane I would bond with him. He says we’re soulmates.
Lyric:
Bad idea, baby cakes
I can’t bear to love Cal, only to lose him
Lyric:
So you’d rather just lose him? That’s what’s going to happen if you choose Dane.
You think I should break my promise?
Lyric:
You should listen to your heart
I don’t trust it
Lyric:
Yes, you do. Don’t be scared.
Lyric:
Calvin is the one for you.
I want her to be right, but his beer triggered my vision even though he says he loves me. That means he doesn’t break my curse.
Lyric:
Why do you think I convinced him to be your flirting coach?
No, you didn’t
Did you? When?
The telepathy?
Lyric:
He loves you <3
You think we can make it work?
Lyric: