46. Adrian
Adrian
W orry flashed in her eyes as she stood up and walked toward the window. “I should have told you a long time ago, but—I wasn’t sure if I should.”
He cocked his head at her, raising a curious brow. “If there’s something you need to tell me, then tell me.”
She squared her shoulders and sucked in a breath. “My father visited me. In spirit form, and he told me something that—” she choked on her words. “Something that changes everything.”
His heart dropped as he sat up in bed. “When did he come to you?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “In the middle of the night. On the day that I was kidnapped.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “That was months ago,” he said, dumbfounded. Heat curled over the surface of his skin. How could she have not told him about this?
She twirled her bracelet around her wrist as she paced the floor. “I meant to tell you. I was so shocked by what he told me that night. I’m still processing it.”
Adrian stood, closing the distance between them. “What did he tell you?”
She met his gaze, her eyes wide. Her voice shook. “My father gave a prophecy of his own. Before I was born. He predicted Enzo would kill me, and to assure that it never happened, he killed himself.”
Sound sucked out of the room, replaced by a deafening buzz in his ears. Adrian scrubbed a hand over his forehead in disbelief. “Fuck. Cori...”
She took a deep breath, her brow knotted. “Because of my father, Enzo can’t kill me, but Calvin can kill him. And my mother. I need to stop the LARC. I need to be present with Enzo on the night of the solstice.”
A heavy beat of silence passed between them as the buzzing became deafening. He ran his hand through his hair as if he was pressing the weight of her words into his head. “Are you serious? Your brother betrayed you, and you want to run directly into the line of fire to save him?”
Her lip trembled as though the words were begging to break free. “If my brother and my mother die on the solstice, my father’s death would have been for nothing.” Desperation edged her words.
Heat built in his chest. How could she have kept this from him? “Did your mother know about your father’s prophecy?”
She nodded, and the fire spread through his veins.
More lies. Another secret . He thought he had done enough to earn her trust. “That’s why she sent you away. Not to save you from dark witches but to save you from Enzo. Your own flesh and blood.”
She stepped closer to him, closing the distance in the thick air between them. Golden embers flared in her eyes. “Why is it so difficult for you to understand that I need to save them? I haven’t seen them in almost ten years. I know you have your opinions about my family, but they’re all I have.”
Her words twisted into his chest like a knife. “How can you say that? They aren’t all you have. You have a family that will do anything they can to protect you. Here.”
“And the sacrifice they made for me eats away at me every day, Adrian.” She spun away from him, letting out an exasperated breath. “Your sister almost died. For what? I shouldn’t even be here.”
His words tightened in his throat. “We’ve been through this a thousand times, Cori. What can I do to make you realize that you’re worth protecting?”
She spun back around toward him, her eyes glowing with all the light of the sky, amplified by welling tears. “You can support me. I need to face this. I have a chance to save my family. My father died to give my brother a second chance. He sacrificed everything for me—for all of us—and the least I can do is try.”
He took a steadying breath. “Enzo can’t kill you. Calvin and the LARC can. You can’t put yourself in that kind of danger.”
Her face softened. “I would never ask you to come with me, I’m just asking you to understand. This is why I was so scared to tell you.” A single tear fell down her cheek.
Scared to tell him? Through her whole adult life, she had been conditioned to hide, but he thought he might be immune to that instinct. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel compelled to hide from him. His hand lifted instinctively, this thumb brushing away the teardrop. “Because you thought I wouldn’t want you to go?”
She whispered. “Yes.”
“Of course, I don’t want you to go. If you got hurt—if you died, Cori—it would rip me to shreds.”
“I know.” Her voice was a whisper as she cast her eyes down to the floor.
He hooked his thumb under her chin, tilting her head toward him until she was forced to meet his stare. “I’m not going to let you go alone.”
“I’m not asking you to come with me.”
He shook his head. “If you need to do this, then I’m coming with you. Because if one of them tries to kill you, I will rip them to pieces,” he said in a low voice.
“This is exactly what I was afraid of. ”
“You were afraid that I would want to protect you? Damn it, Cori, let me feel the way I need to feel about this.”
She considered his request, her chest rising and falling in the silence. “What about how I feel?”
His voice was a rough whisper. “Tell me.”
She shifted her body toward him, pulling him into a kiss, pressing her lips to him with such urgency he nearly lost his balance. His magic connected to her with the power of waves on the ocean, urged on by the storm building inside him. As his hands grazed over her body, his tension melted.
A rush of heat washed over them, the cool air in the cabin becoming thick and humid. She traced the edges of his tattoos with her fingers as though she had memorized them, trailing over the muscles of his back and arms.
After so many years of trying to hide herself—conceal who she really was—his greatest wish was that she would hold nothing back from him again. He wanted all of her. All the messy visions, the messages from ghosts.
The feeling of the moon pulling him into the sky. The magic of the stars raining on them with the speed of their light.
Hands, rough and thick against the smoothness of her skin, slid up her back as he undressed her. Her bare skin brushed up against his chest, and she gasped, calling out his name.
Claiming him.
Electricity danced over his fingertips, and the surrounding air fractured into a million droplets of water, swelling with the weight of his magic.
His fingers tangled in her hair as she pulled him closer. “Cori, please.”
A whispered plea—to let him in, to allow him to worry, to understand what she was worth, to allow him to love her with everything she deserved.
Her magic washed over him, and continued to course through his veins as their bodies moved together, his arms braced on both sides of her. Water clung to his skin, shimmering in the muted glow of the moonlight .
They were still for a while, connected as their breaths steadied and their hearts slowed in tandem with one another. She turned and nestled herself beside him as he tucked her into the blanket and pulled his arms around her.
He fell asleep, his face buried in her hair.
When he awoke in the morning, the tide around the cove was low. And she was gone.