23. Chapter 23
Willow
Isat against Logan’s bed, one wrist handcuffed to the frame, watching Christof help him into his uniform. His eyes never left me for a second. He’d not even blinked once, too focused on thieving my soul with his gaze.
I spat out the tie he’d shoved in my mouth after he’d brought me home, washed and dried me, fucked me, and then tied me to the bed again. “If there is something you want to say, you should say it before you run off to die in this useless battle.”
Christof glanced at me and then back at his lord, clearing his throat before leaving the room.
“Scared I might come back to haunt you?” he asked, tightening his holsters. “Because I will, Willow Duncan. I will come back to fucking haunt you.”
I adjusted my bound hand, turning on my side to give him my back. “Do as you please.”
“You really want me to die out there, don’t you?”
I grabbed a pillow off the bed and launched it at his face. “You hateful man.”
Arthur and Henry stepped into the room when Logan’s wrathful gaze turned in my direction.
He slipped out of their grasp, backing me against the headboard and lowering his face until his nose touched mine. “Infuriating woman.”
“Logan, come on, we need to leave,” Henry implored, reaching for Logan’s shoulder, only to be shrugged off.
“Curse me and wish me death, witch, because if I come back alive from this war, you’ll never be free of me.”
Frustrated tears poured out of my burning eyes as I choked on breathless sobs. “I’ll never be free of you. Not even in death.”
A shuddering exhale left his lips, and his head lowered, his brow grazing mine as he held me close. The corner of his mouth slowly tipped up, and his eyes dropped below us to where Thomas was clawing and humping away at his leg.
He was wrenched off me again, no longer a scab, no longer patching a wound—he was part of my flesh, torn off me like a vital limb. His steps lagged as he was dragged away from me by his friends.
The first sob stabbed against my chest. The second burnt through my stomach like acid. And by the third, he was there, on his knees before me, his lips sealed against mine, the taste of tears and blood filling my mouth.
“Don’t go. Don’t leave me,” I told him. “I might not be here when you come back.”
“You will live. Even if it is the last thing I do.”
Slipping my necklace over his head, I said, “You must come back to me before I go. If you die, I will never forgive you. I will curse your soul and bind it to this earth. And I will torment you. Forever if I must.”
“You promise?”
My trembling lips pulled in a smile against his. “Only if you promise the same.”
His lips pressed on his six-edged star necklace before he slipped it off and threaded it around my neck. “You’re my north. As long as you exist, I will find my way back. Always and forever, my love.”
And then he was gone. Leaving me there limbless and wretched as ever, with only a cursed heart beating in my chest.
Morgana’s cane hit the wooden floor with a sharp tick just as the cavalry rode off the estate to join the battlefield. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Sucking back on all the hiccups, I wiped my tears. “I have to do this one last thing for him. To make sure Piper can love whoever she wants. So both of them can.”
She nodded, letting Christof and Theodora enter the bedroom, both cloaked and holding Piper in their arms.
I tugged on her cheeks and pressed a kiss to her eyes. “Rest as the wave, rest as the sea,” I murmured. “Close your eyes, and count to three.”
I blew across her eyelashes, setting the spell in motion. She sagged against Christof’s arms, and he let me briefly hold her to my chest.
Sitting on the sill, I watched Christof and Theodora disappear with her into the woodlands where her paternal grandmother would be waiting for her to take her as far away as it was safe to be.
“She’ll be here soon,” I told Morgana. “We will need at least thirteen witches. A full coven.”