Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
“Morning,” Xavier says softly as I roll over, blinking open my eyes. I have no idea what time it is, or when he came into the room. The bathroom light is on, casting a glow into the bedroom.
“Morning,” I reply, voice hoarse. My throat feels a little scratchy. Great. I really don’t have time to get sick. Xavier is sitting up in bed, with a pillow between his naked torso and the headrest of our bed. He’s reading, and he puts his book down to brush my hair back.
“Did you sleep okay?”
“I think so.” I run my hand over my face and tap the screen of my phone, both to check the time and to see if Marie texted me back.
She hasn’t, and it makes a knot form in the pit of my stomach, almost the same way it does when I waited for some guy off a dating app to reply. “I passed out for like six hours.”
“You need sleep,” Xavier states, but it’s almost like he’s reminding himself.
“Yeah.” I cuddle up next to him, resting my cheek on his cool chest. “What happened with your, uh, business partners last night?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“That makes me worry more,” I say, tipping my head up to look at him. “Governor Richards gives me a bad feeling.”
“I have him under control.”
“Good,” I say, though I can’t ignore the nagging feeling that things are far from under control in this alliance. I never wanted to involve myself in politics before, and I should abide by that right now. There’s enough else for me to take care of. “But like…really?”
I just can’t help myself.
“Really, Wren. It’ll be okay.” He kisses the top of my head. “Larkin did ask to meet with you this afternoon.”
“And you’re okay with that?” I ask skeptically.
“Of fucking course not.”
“But I can, ya know. I’m capable.”
“You remind me that multiple times a day.” He slowly runs his fingers up and down my arm. “It would be good if you could meet with her,” he says reluctantly. “She likes you. Trusts you.”
“What do you want me to tell her? I unleashed a demon and he’s responsible for, uh, well, everything that happened last night?”
“Delphi knows the truth, which means Larkin does.”
“I don’t think Delphi would say anything like that.”
“It’s her pack leader. I think that trumps girl code.”
“Does it?”
“Yes, I’m fairly certain.”
My eyes fall closed and I yawn. My body is begging me to go to sleep but my brain won’t let that happen. Who is Eudora Bellamy? Is she alive? If she has a family that’s alive as well, why aren’t they looking for her? Did the Order do the same thing to her that they did to me?
“Your heart rate is increasing,” Xavier notes. “As much as I’d like to believe it’s because you’re imagining all the ways I could fuck you, I know better.”
“I do want to be fucked,” I say and look up into his blue eyes. “I very, very much enjoy it. You’re right though. I found a girl in that notebook who might be related to me in some way. Not like a blood relative, but in a she-might-be-a-witch way.”
“You’ve lost me, mi amor.”
“Does old witch blood still smell like magic?” I push up and reach over the side of the bed, getting the bag off the ground.
“This vial is labeled Claire, but there’s no one named Claire in the notes.
But the last three numbers of her ID are written on Eudora’s page.
And I Googled it, and there’s a girl named Eudora Bellamy who ran away from a group home like a year and a half ago.
Marie said she doesn’t know Eudora personally, but the Bellamy family is another demon-hunting witch family who belonged to the same coven as the Blackwoods. ”
I hand Xavier the vial and he just stares at me for a good ten seconds.
“You found all this out and didn’t think to call me?”
I shrug. “You were busy trying to, I don’t know, keep the different groups from starting a war in downtown Charlotte.” Inhaling, I flop back against the pillows. “Does that blood smell like magic?”
Xavier carefully opens the vial and sniffs. He shakes his head. “Not anymore.”
“Does my blood smell like magic?”
“You do. Your blood tastes different. Better.”
“Okay, so this falls under the magic-dies-with-us category.”
He puts the cap back on the vial and sets it on his nightstand. “Maybe don’t go digging. Not yet. Whoever those names belong to—”
“No,” I interrupt. “I can’t forget about them.”
“You don’t have to forever, but maybe right now, we keep our eyes on one target. Not two.”
“Yeah,” I say, hating that he’s right. His large hand lands on my arm, gently pulling me closer to him. There’s an unspoken tension in the air, something we’re both thinking and feeling but working hard to ignore.
I love Xavier Malus with every fiber of my being. And I know he loves me so much it’s dangerous. But love alone doesn’t destroy the very harsh truth that we were not meant to ever end up together.
He’ll live forever.
I’ll grow old and die.
And worst of all, I am terrified that what Marie said is going to prove to be true. I was never meant to live in the dark.