Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
“Guys!” Leo shouts, startling me. I’ve been sitting on the family room couch, absentmindedly shuffling my tarot cards for the last twenty minutes. I eventually fell back asleep last night, but tossed and turned until Xavier came home sometime before sunrise. I surrendered to him.
Being underneath him, feeling nothing except the pleasure sex brings me, gave my brain enough of a reprieve that I finally fell asleep again wrapped in his arms. I’ve been awake for several hours now, trying to distract myself while he and Theo deal with business in his office.
“I just got a hit on facial recognition for Claire,” Leo says. “Paired with the police report, it’s definitely her.”
“Where?” I sit up so fast one of the cards slips from my hands.
“A bus station in Pittsburgh. She was trying to buy another ticket heading east, but the woman selling tickets recognized her from the alert. When she tried to confront Claire, Claire ran.”
“We need to get there.” I’m already on my feet. “Now.”
“That’s going to take us hours,” Antonio says. “Driving from Charlotte to Pittsburgh? We could miss her.”
“Oh, we’re not driving.” I look at him. “Xavier has a plane.”
“Of course he does,” Antonio mutters. Then he gets to his feet. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
“You’re just going now?” Devon asks.
“Yes.” I know part of the reason he’s asking is because this feels sudden.
The other part is obvious. It’s the middle of the afternoon.
The vampires can’t come with us. Technically, they could be driven to the airport, loaded onto a light-tight plane, and transported there.
But when it comes to running around Pittsburgh looking for a missing teenager, they won’t be much use until sunset.
“We don’t have time to waste,” Leo says. “If we want any chance of finding her before she gets out of the city, we need to move.”
“I’m calling Marie.” I bend down to pick up the card I dropped.
Death. Of course. Out of all seventy-eight cards in the deck, that’s the one I drop.
Already dressed in black athletic pants and a white crop top, I call Marie as I head toward Xavier’s office.
It goes straight to voicemail. She must be inside the Covenstead.
I stop outside the office door and pause.
Xavier and Theo are on some sort of video call.
I don’t want to interrupt. I raise my hand to knock anyway.
The door opens before my fist touches the wood. Xavier stands on the other side. No matter how many times I see him, I don’t think he’ll ever stop being an impressive sight.
“How quickly can you get the pilot to fly me to Pennsylvania?” I ask. “Claire was just spotted in Pittsburgh.”
He stares at me for a few seconds. Then he steps forward, pulling me with him as he closes the office door behind us. “Unless the pilot is on a pre-booked vacation, he can meet us at the airport within an hour.” His eyes search mine. “You want to leave now?”
“Yes.” I twist my engagement ring around my finger, a nervous habit I don’t think I’m ever going to break. I told Xavier about the dream as soon as I woke up. My mother warned me to get to Claire. He knows how important this is to me. And he knows what’s at stake.
“I can do this,” I tell him. “We’re just going to find her and bring her back.
” I flatten my hands against his chest and look up into his pale blue eyes.
I want to get lost in them. I want him to lift me up, kiss me, press me against the wall until there’s nothing between us but skin.
I want to stop thinking. But I also don’t want to lie to myself.
“You have to stay.” The words hurt as soon as I say them.
I’m somehow finding the courage to say what he hasn’t.
“I don’t know how you pulled everything off last night, but I know it’s nowhere near over. You can’t just pick up and leave.”
“I know,” he says softly. And I can tell the words hurt him too. For a few seconds, we simply stare at each other. Then my phone rings. I pull it from my pocket and hold it up so Xavier can see.
Marie.
I answer. There’s no point putting her on speaker. Xavier will hear every word anyway.
“We just got a live hit on Claire’s location,” I rush out.
“Are you serious?” Marie asks.
“Yeah. My brothers and I are heading there now. We’re going to try to find her before she takes off again.”
“She’s still in Pittsburgh?”
“As of right now.” I look at Xavier. “How long is the flight?”
“If you leave within the hour, I can have you on the ground in roughly two hours.”
I repeat that to Marie.
“I have friends in Pennsylvania,” she says.
“I’ll let them know you’re heading that direction.
They may be able to offer you protection through their coven if you need it.
” She pauses. “At least for you and Claire. I’m not sure they’d allow your brothers inside. Order members aren’t exactly trusted.”
“Fair.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course, honey.”
We end the call. I shove my phone back into the pocket on my thigh and look at Xavier again
“And thank you.” He isn’t stopping me. He isn’t even objecting.
And I don’t know what that means. Is this growth?
Is this us finally learning how to trust each other enough to let the other person make their own choices?
Or is it something worse? The slow realization that our worlds were never meant to coexist?
I hate that this goodbye feels more significant than it should. It really is simple. He has to stay here and deal with the fallout from the coalition. I have to find Claire before Vivian gets to her.
Neither of us can be in two places at once.
But with every turn of the tires, every little bit of distance growing between us, the weight of leaving him settles heavier in my chest. It feels like anticipatory heartbreak. Like I’m grieving something that hasn’t even happened yet.And I hate that I’m questioning us, but I can’t seem to stop.
Witches and vampires are like fire and water.
We don’t mix. My mind runs through every possible version of how this could end as I blink back tears.
Maybe if I were just a normal witch and hadn’t been raised by the Order, things would be different.
Maybe demons wouldn’t be coming after us.
Maybe I wouldn’t be dragging so much chaos into Xavier’s life and putting the entire city at risk.
I have to remind myself sometimes that the Order raised us to put everyone else first. To ignore our own needs. To be perfect little soldiers who never asked for anything for ourselves. So I know it’s okay to want things. To choose things for me.
But this?
This isn’t just about me. People are getting hurt. The coalition is falling apart. And I don’t want to leave Xavier, but maybe some distance—even temporarily—is the right thing.
Maybe I could spend that time at the Covenstead with Marie.
Learn magic. Learn who I am without the Order.
Before I knew I could love someone as much as I love Xavier, that all-consuming kind of love was all I thought I wanted.
Though even saying that feels like lying to myself.
Because what I’ve really wanted, more than anything, is to be loved.
Accepted. And Xavier does love me. He accepts the dark parts of me I still struggle to accept in myself.
But wanting something doesn’t automatically make it right.
And the very real possibility that we could be two tortured souls who love each other deeply and still have to walk away absolutely terrifies me. I don’t know how I would recover if I couldn’t be with him.
Logically, I know I would survive. I know I would keep moving. I’d throw myself into hunting demons. I have friends. Family. An entire coven waiting to welcome me. But would I actually be okay? Would the hole in my heart ever close?
There were nights after Ryder broke my heart when I didn’t think I would survive that either. But I did. I’m still here. So maybe I’d survive this too.
But truthfully…I don’t want to.