29. Uninvited Guest
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Uninvited Guest
DYLAN
There was no way I was staying behind on this. Not after everything that had happened. It took me seconds to make up my mind.
“No,” I said. “You might need me.”
“You’ll be putting yourself in danger.” Miles reached for my hand. His fingers gripped mine tight.
“And so will you. It’s safer if there’s two of us there.”
“Seeing you could upset her.”
“She’s the one who’s currently sneaking around inside your house. She isn’t going to be upset. She’s going to be caught, red-handed. I won’t interfere, won’t say anything if you don’t want me to. But I’m not staying behind.”
Miles seemed angry for a moment. His nose twitched, his lips were pursed tight.
I didn’t want to upset him, but I definitely wasn’t going to let him go through this alone.
“I get that she knows you more and clearly isn’t a big fan of mine,” I continued with trying to plead my case.
“But having us both there could get her to back off. She can realize it’s a losing game and that she needs to stop… ”
Fuck.
It sounded like such a massive task. Macie may have already crossed the line of irredeemable.
She threatened my life with a silver bullet.
She worked with death magic and cursed Miles, made his life a living hell these past few years.
It was difficult to reconcile and feel bad for her, but I could see the pain in Miles’ eyes that made this different for him.
I saw tonight as a last chance. A single and final life raft we could throw at her and have her decide to either grab it or sink.
“Fine,” Miles said on the exhale of a very deep breath. “Let’s go. I want to make sure we catch her there.”
Hunter jumped up from his chair. Macie’s face shimmered in the reflection of the water as she looked up from the book, lost in thought. Except her eyes seemed to stare directly at me. Miles was already reaching for Hunter’s front door.
“Please keep me informed,” Hunter said, keeping up with my hurried pace as I followed Miles out onto the porch and toward his car. “This really shouldn’t be held from the council long.”
Miles paused before getting into his car. “Give me tonight.” He appeared to be pleading. He viewed this last-ditch effort in the same way I did. And the heavy dip in his brows and sadness in his eyes told me he didn’t have very high hopes. I swallowed what felt like a boulder-sized lump.
We got in the car, silence heavy between us.
Miles reversed out of the driveway with a speed he didn’t quite have on the way here.
I reached across the gap and placed my hand on his leg, his thigh was tight with tension.
He had his eyes fixed on the road ahead, lit only by the headlights as we drove out of the woods that surrounded Hunter’s home. The shadows were long, stark, haunting.
What the hell were we driving toward? I didn’t have a good feeling about this at all, but I made my choice in leaving with Miles. I wasn’t going to start asking him to turn around.
“You okay?” I asked, trying to gauge his emotional state.
He had the steering wheel in a two-hand grip.
His fists were tight. “I think I will be. I’m just happy we finally know who’s behind all of this.
But I’m also nervous. Scared. I care about her, Dyl.
I know that sounds crazy, but I’ve seen her grow up.
Maybe she just needs to talk to me, heart-to-heart. ”
Miles was convincing, but I wasn’t sure if even he could defuse this situation.
“Should we tell Emmy?” I asked.
“I don’t know…”
“Honestly? I think, him being her brother and him being the alpha of the pack, he should know what’s happening. And he might be able to help.”
Miles chewed on his bottom lip so that the skin went white around his teeth. I expected him to draw blood any second. “Should we tell him about what we’re doing?”
That was a tricky question, and I didn’t quite know the right answer. “I think it does deserve a face-to-face conversation, but I think that also… he might be helpful in getting through to her. Like an intervention?”
Miles slowed down at a stop sign. He closed his eyes.
Rubbed the bridge of his nose. I reached up and squeezed his neck.
Scratched the back of his head. “It’s going to be okay.
This is you closing a chapter. The next one’s going to be great, you’ll see.
” I couldn’t necessarily promise him that, but I certainly felt brighter about the future now that we’d gotten to the bottom of the blocked fated mate mystery.
He pulled out his phone. I saw him open a text chain to Emmy. I didn’t read what he said. He didn’t say it out loud, either. Just said, “Done,” and started to drive again.
It was silent the rest of the way to Miles’ house. It was a short drive that felt as if it had taken decades. Like the roads somehow continued to unravel in front of us and created a street to infinity. My heart rammed itself against my ribs, my leg bouncing uncontrollably.
As we got closer to his house, Miles slowed. He turned off his headlights and pointed at a red Toyota parked a couple houses down from him. “That’s her car. I’ve seen it at Emmy’s house.”
“So she must still be in there.”
“Good.” He reached his house but stopped before turning into the driveway.
He parked on the street, behind a thick oak tree that gave a little bit of cover behind its large trunk.
Before getting out he turned to me. He reached up and put a tight hand around the back of my neck.
If the moment weren’t so tense, I would have had to fight back a moan.
“I’m going to ask one last time. Will you stay here, in the car?
It’s close enough that you can run in if anything. ”
The safety was tempting, but… “No. I’m sorry, Miles. I’m not going to let you go in there alone.”
He took a moment to look into my eyes. I thought he was going to be more forceful about his request. I didn’t like to back down, but I wasn’t exactly excited to get into my first fight with Miles tonight.
Instead of arguing or fighting the issue, he pushed in for a kiss, his grip still tight around the back of my neck.
“I love you,” he said when we broke. “My mate.”
“I love you too.” I kissed him back, my hands cupping his face.
I tried not to think about why that felt like a goodbye kiss as I got out of the car, slowly shutting the door so that it didn’t make a sound.
My anxiety was starting to rise with every step.
There was a light on in his living room, but the curtains were drawn.
I didn’t see any windows open, and the door didn’t appear to be open either.
How the hell had she gotten in? Like that last time with the dove.
How often had she been doing this? Without anyone knowing?
The thought sent a handful of spiders tickling their way down my back. I shook it off. No time to turn around or stop now. We’d get our answers in just a few minutes.
We reached his porch. The wood creaked the tiniest amount as Miles and I went up the couple of steps.
He put a hand out, signaling for me to stay behind him.
He slowly turned the knob on the front door and opened it as if it had never been locked, even though I knew Miles locked his doors religiously.
The porch became washed in light from inside.
Macie was still on the couch, her feet propped up on a pillow.
At first she didn’t appear to realize we’d just walked in.
But her instincts must have kicked in because she peeked over the book and gasped.
She launched the book up in the air and rolled backward, falling over the couch arm.
She banged into the side table. The lamp fell to the floor with the loud crash of glass and porcelain breaking.
There was only one floor lamp that lit the rest of the space. Macie got to her feet, completely shocked. She looked between Miles and me, taking steps backward. Her shoes crunched on the glass. “I didn’t… Oh my god. Oh no.”
“Macie.” Miles said her name with the heavy weight of disappointment. No fear, no anger. Just… disappointed. “Macie. We know everything. Why? What’s going on?”
She shook her head with wide, saucer-like green eyes. She wore an oversized Rocky Mountains shirt that I’m sure… fuck. That was Miles’ shirt. He’d mentioned it had appeared to be missing a couple of weeks ago.
My stomach turned. It felt like a hawk dove down, sank its claws into my gut, and tried to yank it up out of my throat.
“I don’t even know what to say right now.
I had ideas—I always imagined this being different, though.
With more control. You know I’m a control freak, Miles.
You know me.” She cupped two hands and pressed them against her chest. “I always kind of had a thing for you. But you were always so off-limits. Older, brother’s best friend…
You were mysterious and smart and so attractive.
And… my relationship, it didn’t end because he was cheating.
It was because he found the letters I’d been writing to you.
Just never sending them.” She was on the verge of tears.
Her focus was pinned on Miles. I wasn’t entirely sure if she remembered I was even here.
“He left me. And I was okay with it. I just wanted you.”
She stopped walking backward. She had her arms around her chest like she was trying to keep herself warm even though it wasn’t at all cold.
“And the black magic?” Miles asked bluntly.
She blinked, shocked, almost as if he had slapped her. “How do you know about that?” She glanced to Miles’ wrist for the first time and her jaw went slack.
“It doesn’t matter how I found out, all that matters is that I did. Macie—”
“Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It gives me everything. A high whenever I work a spell that cocaine, ecstasy, LSD can’t even touch. Nothing can match it. It gave me everything I wanted, except for you, and that just made me more desperate.”
The more she spoke, the more I realized the Macie that Miles had known was no longer around. This Macie had her brain poisoned by death magic.
I was on high alert. I had no idea what she was truly capable of, and that scared the fuck out of me.
“Then you came in the picture.” She turned her attention in my direction.
Her stare became icy. The frightened and surprised girl we’d just been interacting with shifted, turning into someone much more venomous.
“I knew that you two were fated, even before I confirmed it. I wish I could have welded that bracelet onto your wrist.” She clicked her tongue.
“You need to stop this, Macie,” Miles said. “You need to stop using black magic. You need to leave us alone. That dove stunt, it went way too far. It can’t ever happen again, or we will have to tell The Drudic Council about what’s going on.”
Her eyes went wide at that threat. I could see calculations being made inside her head in real time.
Something appeared to settle behind her eyes.
The fear shifted. Her eyes narrowed and her head cocked to the side.
“No, no. I’ve been thinking about that a lot.
And I apologize. I don’t think the dove needs to die anymore.
” Macie shook her head, hands down at her sides.
She had the body language of someone giving up.
Someone exhausted from having to fight for so long.
“No, I don’t. Because if I can’t have you, then—”
It happened so fast. So, so fast.
She reached under the large shirt. A flash of silver in her hands. She shouted something. Took aim. Finger pushing down on the trigger. No time to second-guess, no time to fear. Only time to act.
I shoved Miles out of the way. The barrel had been aimed directly at him. The muzzle lit with flame. The bullet whizzed through the air, missing me by mere inches. Miles and I slammed into the floor as I shielded his body from another shot.
But she didn’t shoot again. She shrieked. A wailing, chilling, horrifying shriek.
Shock mixed with confusion coursed through me. I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. Of the fact that Emmy was standing at the door, his eyes wide as he looked down at his bleeding chest, red soaking through the Burlington Bobcats jersey he still wore from tonight’s game.
He clutched at his chest and dropped to his knees.