Chapter Seven
Bessi
What was I thinking? How foolish can I be? Why would I go to bed with a stranger? Given myself to a man whose last name I do not even know. What a foolish, reckless, ridiculous thing to do.
Sitting in the back yard of the cottage I share with my sisters—well, shared , as Luci now stays with Gareth—I pop another macaroon into my mouth. It is crunchy and sweet, decadent. It is not even close to the decadence I felt being with Edon during our night together.
It has been almost a week, and I can’t think of anything else but that night.
I baked those cookies to use as an excuse to see him again. To see whatever he was hiding out there in the woods. I had not planned to go home with him. To wind up in his bed. Once he touched me, once he kissed me again, I was completely under his spell.
“It is magic,” I whisper to the darkness. “He wove a spell over me. This is not real. He is not a monster. I am not a monster.”
Whispering those last words, I shake off how wrong the words feel. I am not a monster. But I am different. I have always felt different. All of us girls have always been different than others our own age. None of us fit the mold so many others were cast in.
Being with Edon is the first time I understood that. That there was a feeling of rightness inside of me. His talk of mating, of a wolf inside of him, of something wild coming to life between us scared me.
I believe there is magic in Moon Haven—but I don’t know if I want to be part of that magic. “Can you be with him without his magic?”
My question sounds loud in the otherwise silence of my back yard. Cari is out on a date with some guy she met at an art show. I am glad she is putting herself out there because she deserves everything.
“ What about you? What do you deserve ?” A voice rasps.
Only there is no one there. I am all alone. Well, I thought I was alone. Squinting at the darkness, I catch my breath. All the other times he found me in the woods, I felt him. Sensed him before he even spoke. This time. It is not his voice, not his presence I feel.
This voice is not from the darkness or from anyone else. It is inside of me. A small voice that I have done my best to ignore. It has always been there, but these past few weeks, since I’ve become curious about the magic here in Moon Haven, it has grown louder.
“Why would I deserve anything more than Luci or Cari?”
“ Not more. Just the same. Don’t you deserve something of your own? Don’t you want your own magic? The magic you felt with him .”
Chewing thoughtfully on a pistachio macaroon, I consider this. It is a very good question. I have always deferred to my sisters’ needs. After we lost our parents two years ago, I took on the task of looking after them. It doesn’t matter that I was the baby sister. All that mattered was we were hurting so one of us had to take the lead.
My bakery was how I tried to take lead. How I tried to look out for all three of us. Cari is a dreamer, her head in the clouds, her heart open to anything. Luci was more thoughtful, writing her feelings out in stories or poems. I would not call either of them careful or cautious. That was always my role.
“ They don’t need you now. Not the way they did before .”
“They love me,” I argue against that nasty voice, biting down on a chocolate raspberry macaroon, Luci’s favorite. “They can be happy without me. It doesn’t mean they love me or need me any less.”
“There is nothing wrong with letting them go. Letting them find what is meant for them. While you find what is meant for you.”
Groaning at the voice in my head that won’t shut up, I slam the lid on the container of sweets and push to my feet. I know what is meant for me. Don’t I? Baking sweets for the people of this small town. Looking out for my sisters. That is enough for me.
“Is it still enough? Now that you found him?”
Pain starts to radiate from my chest, almost putting me back on my ass. I press a hand there, as if I can rub this ache away. I know that I can’t. It is an ache that started the night I met Edon. An ache I suspect he alone can help rid me of.
Sighing, I head back inside the empty house. I have been avoiding the quiet of the place since Cari headed out for her date. It has been just the two of us ever since Luci met Gareth. I miss my sisters. I miss the noise and the laughter we filled the house with.
Still, I do want them to find happiness. I do want them to have everything they could ever want. They deserve it. It doesn’t mean I don’t think I deserve the same. I guess I never figured I would find that sort of happiness for myself.
“Oh, cinnamon roll!” I shout as I hear a knock at the front door. I rush past Fuzz, laughing when she meows in disapproval at me. “Hold on, I am coming!”
Throwing the door open as I catch my breath, I smile at my labored breathing. I need to eat a few less macaroons, I think. As I see who is at my front door, I frown. What would ever make him think it was a good idea to come to my home?”
“Ramond. What...what’re you doing here?”
Ramond Knot owns half of Main Street here in Moon Haven. He is a nice guy, dresses up as Santa Clause during the holidays, gives to all the charities, and helps small businesses get their start. Ramond is also a huge flirt who has never met a woman he did not want to make his next ex-wife. Well, he has never gotten a woman to say yes, so I guess his first ex-wife.
“Evening, Bessi. I spoke to your sister a few moments ago, she let me know you were baking at home tonight. I thought I might come by to offer a little company. Maybe score some sweets.”
Ramond has been flirting with me for weeks. His realty office is across the street from my new bakery. He was my first customer in fact. While I do think he is a good man, and a handsome one too, he is just not for me. I tried to let him down gently. Perhaps too gently.
“Well, Ramond, I bake whenever I want to be alone. I will bring some macaroons by your office tomorrow, though.”
“Bessi...I guess I am hoping you might.... I mean I had hoped we could...what I am trying to say is, you’re a beautiful woman with the kindest heart I have ever known. I think you and I could....”
“Ramond whatever would you be doing here tonight?”
Heat flashes through me hotter than a donut dumped in fresh oil. That voice. I could never forget it if I wanted to. He whispered filthy things in my ear, he told me how good we were together, he called me his. How could I ever forget that voice? Not that I have tried much.
“H-hello Edon,” Ramond stammers, backing up as he throws his hands up in defeat. So much for thinking he and I could.... whatever he thought we could, I guess.
Edon fills the space Ramond just vacated, He is bigger, wider, and his presence overfills the space between us. Smirking at me, he reaches past me to hook his hand around my hip, yanking me past the threshold to tuck me close to his side.
“Evening, Ramond. Had no idea you knew my old lady.”
Bristling as he claims ownership of me in the grossest, most barbaric way possible. Part of me swoons, not going to lie. A bigger part of me, that fiercely independent part that never asks anyone for anything, wants to rebel. Tell them both to get lost and stay lost.
“Had no idea she was an old lady.”
“Neither did I,” I chime in, pushing at Edon before his steel eyes flash to me.
There is something in those eyes, in the way they look at me, that tells me to relent. To obey. I dip my head, tilting it slightly, in a way of showing submission. It is not a move I mean to make, not one that I have control over at all. It just happens but when his eyes flash, I know I have made the right move.
“Well now you do. Don’t wait for those macaroons, they won’t be coming. Have a nice night now,” Edon tips his head at him before I am hustled inside, the door slamming behind me.
Turning, I start to argue. To rage. To tell him just what I think about his possessive little scene. I do none of that. His big body pins me to the door, his head bending to run his nose along my jaw. There is something feral about it, igniting the same need he stirred in me the night we wound up in his cabin at the camp.
“Edon,” I whisper, trembling against him as his hard body holds me captive.
“Gave you space. Gave you some time to get right with it. With being mine. Would have given you more if that prick had not shown up at your door. Promising him macaroons, sweetheart? What was the first thing I said? No sweets for anyone else but me. I meant you, Bessi.”
“You mean I can make him the macaroons?” I tease, suddenly wanting to push him, to see how he might react.
“If you’re wearing my mark on your pretty skin, you can take sweets to anyone you want to, sweetheart. They will know you belong to me if they see it here,” his voice hums, his mouth brushing over the spot of my shoulder where it curves to my throat.
My pulse is hammering, I am dizzy, my breathing labored. He chuckles against my skin, his mouth opening and closing to tease me. His teeth sink into the skin and that same pleasure, the shimmering, white hot pleasure I felt with him that night hits me hard.
“Edon...please, I don’t understand...what...you said this is not magic. You said that but this is not normal. How I have felt since that night in the clearing. Please no secrets. Make me understand.”
Edon pulls back, his light metallic eyes flashing in the darkness. My hands press to his firm chest where his heart races. It matches the beat of my own. There is more there...something beyond him. More beyond just Edon. It hums beneath his surface.
Closing my eyes, I focus on it. Not on how good he smells or how right it feels being in his arms. I delve beneath that. I listen to the humming voice in my head. Edon whispers my name, but it is not my name. It is...it is someone else. No, it is something else.
“There she is sweetheart. Open up to her. Let her be free. My wolf adores her, Bessi. Just the way I adore you.”
Inside of me, something is coming to life, humming with joy, begging to be let out, to be set free.
Am I....am I some sort of monster?