Riley, Victoria and Mary Ann screamed in pain, each of them dropping to their knees, panting, sweating, writhing. As Aden rushed to them, Riley morphed into human form, his bones realigning, his fur retracting under his skin, then switched back to wolf form, then returned to human form again. The sight was at once astonishing and gruesome.
“Until then,” the blonde said as if she hadn’t a care.
The witches backed up, never giving them their backs, and soon disappeared beyond the trees.
“How will I know where the meeting is?” he shouted. No response. Pushing them and their meeting to the back of his mind, for now, he crouched at Victoria’s side, patting her down for injuries. “Are you all right?”
Grimacing, she blinked up at him. He helped her sit up. “Fine, I’m fine.”
Riley had already recovered and was helping Mary Ann to her feet. “Come on,” he said, striding to his clothes and dressing. “Let’s get you guys home. We’re done with the woods. Understand? No one is to enter them again.”
“My thoughts exactly.” He wrapped an arm around Victoria and pulled her to her feet. “What’d they do to you?”
“Bespelled us.” A shudder rocked her. “With death.”
Breath froze in his lungs, sending frost through his bloodstream. So. His friends really would die if he missed that meeting. A meeting held in a location he didn’t know. No pressure. Really. “You’ll die? Even if I attend the meeting?”
“No,” Riley answered bitterly. “We’ll die only if you miss it. Once you attend, the spell will fade.”
What a wonderful day this had turned out to be, Aden thought, rubbing his temple to ward off the oncoming ache. His girlfriend was engaged to someone else, he was responsible for his friends’ lives, and Caleb might be the next to leave him for a group of witches. Caleb, who was even now pacing the confines of Aden’s mind, muttering about the stubborn blond witch who “should have bowed” to him.
Together, they rushed through the forest, jumping over fallen twigs, around rabbits and squirrels trying to rush to their homes, as well. They must have sensed the danger.
There’s a way to win Victoria away from Dmitri, Elijah said.
“How?” he rushed out.
“How what?” Victoria asked.
Convince her father that you are more important to his people than Dmitri is.
His heart rate sped up. “Can I do it?”
“Do what—oh.” She offered him a faint smile. “You aren’t talking to me, are you?”
He shook his head. For once, he wasn’t embarrassed to be caught talking to the people in his mind. He was too charged.
Anything is possible, Elijah hedged.
Which meant Elijah couldn’t see the results of such an attempt. Which meant Aden would be going in blind. Which meant anything could happen. Good or bad.
TWENTY-FOUR
THAT NIGHT, Riley stayed with Mary Ann. Though her window was shut and locked, she could hear the wolves howling outside as they kept watch. Despite the day’s grave events, they talked and laughed, even kissed again. Only when the sun rose did the howls quiet, and only then did she drift off to sleep.
When she woke, the sun was still shining and Riley was still beside her. Her thoughts immediately returned to the wolves, as if her mind had simply been waiting for her to wake back up to continue. She wasn’t sure their presence was a good thing. Last night, the news stations had blasted the story of Mr. and Mrs. Applewood and how they had been killed by “wild animals.” His brothers—both by blood and circumstance—could be hunted and shot by locals wanting to protect their loved ones.
“Vlad made sure they know how to take care of themselves,” he said, as if reading her mind. Perhaps he had. No telling what color her aura was right now. “Besides, they howled to let me know they’d taken out a goblin.”
Okay. She hadn’t known that. “How many howls have there been?” She’d lost count.
“Twenty-eight.”
Wow. “And just how many goblins are out there?”
“Like wolves, they run in packs so it’s hard to say.”
She snuggled deeper into his side, his heartbeat pounding against her ear. “Maybe the goblins will eat the witches.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced that it could happen.
Made her wonder exactly how powerful the witches actually were. And if that power was actually a good thing. If the witches died, but their spell didn’t die with them, Aden wouldn’t be able to attend their meeting. She, Riley and Victoria would then die themselves.
That line of thought had her grimacing. It was beyond confusing and utterly surreal. She didn’t feel cursed. Didn’t feel like there was a knife hovering over her head, ready to strike her down.
“I negate Aden’s powers, so why didn’t I negate the witch’s spell?”
“I negate your negation, remember? Or maybe I increase his powers. I still don’t know. Either way, I think it means we belong together,” he said, obviously trying to lighten the mood.
“I like how you think.” Because she wanted to be with him. A lot. “Are we really going to die if Aden fails to attend that witches meeting?”
Riley kissed her temple. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Though he’d sidestepped the question, his evasion answered it well enough. Yes, they would. She traced an X over his heart. “Have you ever been bespelled before?”
He nodded reluctantly.
“Tell me about it. Please.”
At first, he didn’t reply and she figured he planned to ignore her. Then he sighed. “A few years ago I…dated a witch. When I tried to break things off, she became angry and cursed me—as well as my brothers. Until the day we died we were to look amazingly beautiful to everyone we considered friend.”
“Uh, that doesn’t sound like a curse.”
“That’s because that was only the beginning of the curse. Anyone we considered more than a friend, anyone we found attractive or wanted to date, would find us plain, even ugly.”
“I don’t find you ugly.” Or plain. He took her breath away. And she knew he found her attractive. He’d kissed her, had said he wanted her. “The curse must have stopped working.”
“You’re able to see me as I truly am because I died and the curse was broken.”
“You d-died? How? How are you here with me, then?”
His hand caressed up and down her rib cage. “I was drained by a fairy trying to get to Victoria. And just as your modern medicine can bring people back from the dead, so, too, can ours. I was brought back. But because I died, the curse was broken. The same is not true of my brothers, innocents in all of this.” Guilt layered his voice. Clearly he felt responsible for their pain. “I wish they could die and be revived as I was, but like your medicine, ours is not a guarantee. There is a chance they would not be able to be revived. So they are stuck, unattractive to all the women they desire.”
How terrible. Would she have wanted to be with Riley if he’d been unattractive to her? Yes, she thought. She’d liked him, even in wolf form. Liked his strength and his intensity. “Nothing else will free them?”
“No. A curse, once spoken, is unbreakable. Even by the witch who uttered it. It takes on a life of its own, its only purpose enforcing the words that brought it into existence.”
So there was no hope for them. Any girl they desired would turn away from them in disgust. And there truly was no breaking the spell that bound her, either. “Poor things.” Poor me. Poor us.
He laughed with true humor. “Do not let them hear you say such a thing. They despise pity.”
As he did, she thought. He was utterly capable and didn’t want her or anyone to see him any other way. In fact, he hid his fears so well, she would almost believe he didn’t have any. Almost. But she’d seen his expression when the witches first approached them. She’d sensed his torment over his brothers’ bleak futures.
“They’ll find love one day. I know it.”
“I hope you are right.” He gave her another kiss and sat up. “What are your plans for today?”
The weekend was here and that meant only one thing. “I have to go to work. I haven’t been in weeks.”
He flicked her a hard glance over his shoulder. “Nor will you go today. Call in sick. Please,” he added as an afterthought.
“I can’t. Not again.” She anchored a hand behind her neck to prop herself up and see him better. “I’m already close to being fired.”
“Better fired than dead. Do you remember the number of witches and fairies in town? It was dangerous before but it is suicide now. The witches know who you are. I’d prefer it if you stayed home.”
He could have forced her. Instead, he was asking. “Fine,” she sighed.
He grinned. “Thank you.”
“And where will you be?”
“I must prepare for Vlad’s awakening,” he said, standing. “Well, awakening ceremony. I’ll return in a few hours to pick you up for the ball.”
She jolted upright. “You want me to go?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t attend without you.”
Whether she sighed dreamily out loud or just inside her head, she didn’t know. When he said things like that, she wanted to offer him her heart on a silver platter.
“I don’t have a costume.”
“Mary Ann,” her dad suddenly called through the door. Since her road trip, they hadn’t spoken about her mother or his lies. They’d just sort of fallen into a routine, a bit formal with each other and staying out of each other’s way whenever possible. “Come down and eat lunch. You missed breakfast.”
She’d been in bed that long? “In a minute,” she called back. They’d make up, she knew they would. As Anne-Eve had said, he was a good man. Mary Ann had already forgiven him. She just wasn’t ready to talk to him about the past again. Losing her mother—a second time—was still too new, too fresh. But soon, she thought. Soon she’d have to tell him she forgave him. She was all he had and he did love her.
