by H G Lynch
He snorted and muttered something under his breath, scowling at the grass.
“What was that?” I asked, raising my eyebrows expectantly.
He shook his head. His expression hardened, and he closed his fist around the pebble. “Nothing. What do you want me to say, Tilly? What do you expect me to say to you?”
I sighed. “I want to know the truth,” I said quietly. “I want to know why you tried to push me away...and then nearly pulled your hair out because of it.” A wry half smile tugged at my lips.
He made a last ditch attempt at whatever game he was playing. He glared at me, and snapped, “I was not stressing out because of you.”
It was a lie. I noticed what I hadn’t earlier—he had a tell. When he lied, his shoulders twitched. It wasn’t quite a shrug, but awful close. I’d seen it before, but I’d mistaken it for an actual shrug. He was trying not to hunch his shoulders, because he didn’t like lying. Not to me, anyway.
He muttered, “I don’t care what you do, so long as you quit stalking me.”
“Oh?” My eyebrows went up, and I called his bluff. “Then I guess you don’t care that I was just making out with your brother. For the record, he’s a lot gentler than you are. He knows just exactly what to do with his tongue.”
He growled, a dark sound that rose from his gut and rumbled through his chest. I saw his eyes flash gold, his possessive wolf instincts snapping to alertness. I hid my smile.
“Ah. So you do care.”
A look of exasperation and agony crossed his face, so fast, I hardly saw it. I didn’t understand it.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked, his voice half-snarl and half-pleading.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I retorted, sliding off my rock. I stormed up to him, looking up into his face with determination, trying to read his eyes.
He turned his head away. Softer than before, he muttered, “Go away, Tilly.”
“Give me an honest answer, and I will.” I folded my arms stubbornly.
He ran both his hands backwards through his hair, tousling it. He sighed, but it rumbled into a growl in his agitation. “You are the most frustrating, most stubborn girl I’ve ever met.”
“And you’re the most irritating, unfathomable guy I’ve ever met. So we’re even,” I shot back.
He frowned. Very quietly, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it, he said, “No. We’re not.”
I puzzled over what he could possibly mean for a moment, confused, and then let it go without an answer. It wasn’t important. I tried to steer the conversation back on topic to get the answers I really wanted.
“Spencer, why did you lie to me?”
“Tilly…” he started, his eyebrows pushing down over his darkening eyes.
I set my feet a little wider apart, glaring up at him. I wasn’t budging. “I want an answer. I won’t leave you alone until I get one,” I warned.
Suddenly, his expression broke and turned into something softer. There was something almost vulnerable in the shape of his mouth, and in the pleading in his eyes. “Tilly, please, don’t make me explain,” he murmured, his gaze not quite holding mine.
My worry and curiosity both rose, and I frowned at him. “Why not?” I asked, gently.
He shook his head, his hair flopping into his eyes. “Just...please go, Tilly. It’s better if you do. Just accept that I can’t be with you.”
“Can’t is different from don’t want to,” I pointed out.
He groaned at my insistence, shutting his eyes, and shaking his head. A totally inappropriate butterfly of warmth fluttered in my stomach at the sound. I remembered how he’d groaned the night before, when I’d said he could sleep in my bed, the desperate longing in the sound, the hunger in his blazing gold eyes even as he refused my request to kiss me.
Blinking away the memory, feeling my face already growing hot, I forced my mind to stay on topic. I asked, “So why can’t you be with me today, when you could yesterday? What changed overnight?”
He stared at me expectantly until the obvious answer smacked me in the forehead.
“The gathering. It’s something to do with the gathering, isn’t it? And Frank?”
He didn’t answer, and a thought struck me.
“Oh, god, did he—” My eyes widened as I considered the possibility that Frank had seen Spencer leaving my cabin that morning. If my face hadn’t been red before, it was then, imagining what Frank would have thought.
Spencer shook his head, reassuring me. “He didn’t find out. That’s what makes it worse. He wants to hurt me, and he doesn’t even realise how well he’s achieving his goal.” He choked on a bitter laugh.
I frowned, becoming more confused and more worried. He wasn’t making sense to me, and I needed real answers from him. “Makes what worse? Spencer, what are you talking about?”
His sour, mirthless smirk died away, replaced with an expression that broke my heart. It took me a moment to identify it as I’d never seen it, and had never expected to see it, on Spencer’s handsome face. It was despair. Dark and sucking, turning his eyes to bottomless pools of the most glacial blue.
“The packs are joining, Tilly,” he said in a ragged murmur. “Two packs joining together...there are certain rules for such things. Old rules.” His sigh seemed to hurt him, dragging up from the depths of his lungs, and his eyes darted away from mine to the round coin of the moon hanging solemnly in the sky above us. “The only way two packs can join together is when a member of one pack marries one from the other pack.”
At first, I didn’t understand what that had to do with us, our conversation, or our relationship. I stared at him, at the raw pain and anger in his eyes, at the flickering muscle in his clenched jaw and his flaring nostrils. Then it clicked, and I understood. My mouth fell open, a gasp strangling in my throat. Spencer’s lids fluttered down in shame as he realised I’d finally caught on.
Feeling as if someone had their hand around my throat, I choked, “And...you’re...?” I couldn’t even finish the question, but he knew what I meant.
Grimly, his mouth a thin white line, he nodded. “I’m the lucky groom,” he said it as if it was a death sentence.
I made a small, breathless sound—a whimper that escaped my mouth as his words hit me like a blow to the chest. “Oh.”
Turning away from me, he clenched and unclenched his fists. His nails were long, curved into claws, stained with dark liquid. Blood dripped from his hands, through his fingers, and I reached to make him stop gouging his palms, but he snatched his hands away from me.
“In less than two months, I’ll marry Lilac. For the good of the pack,” he spat.
I recognised that he was quoting what he’d heard—what Frank had undoubtedly told him.
I caught my lower lip between my teeth, plagued by doubt as I remembered the way he’d smiled at the brunette girl—Lilac. Of course she’d have a pretty name to match her pretty face. Weakly, I squeaked, “But...you don’t...you don’t want to, right?”
With a sharp scoff, he turned his face away from me, so I couldn’t see his expression. His back to me, he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I don’t have a choice.” His voice was flat, matter-of-fact.
I shook my head and stepped toward him, taking his hand. He tried to yank it away from me, but I held tight, and he subsided. He let me pry his clawed fingers out of a fist, and I watched the cuts in his palm slowly stitching themselves up. Blood coated his hand, and I knelt, tugging him down with me. Reluctantly, he sank to the grass by my side, and I drew his hand into the stream, letting the cool water wash away the blood. His claws sank away, becoming blunt, dirty fingernails once more.
Softly, as I rubbed my thumb between his knuckles to scrub away the blood, I said, “We all have choices, Spencer. You don’t have to do it just to earn Frank’s respect.”
Gingerly, he pulled his hand out of mine and wiped it thoroughly dry on his jeans. His hair shadowed his face. “No, Tilly,” he said. “I literally don’t have a cho
ice. I’ve been ordered by the alpha to do it. I can’t fight that command. Some commands I can fight, but he put his whole will, the full force of his power into this one. There’s nothing I can do.”
I put a hand over his to stop him from rubbing it raw against his jeans. He paused, looking at our overlapping fingers, and his shoulders slumped.
Very gently, he said, “I had hoped that, if I could make you hate me again, it would be easier for you to let me go, when the time came, than if I let your feelings for me grow.”
Tears stung my eyes, and I pulled my hand away from his, leaning back. My mouth felt dry and my eyes wet. There were a hundred things I wanted to say, all crowding on my parched tongue, sticking there. Eventually, I managed to push back the tears, and anger welled up.
Fury at Frank spilled across my tongue, hot and acidic as bile. “He can’t do that!” I snapped, my own hands balling into fists on my knees. I slammed my fists against my legs hard enough to bruise myself.
Spencer sighed. “He can and he is. He’s selling me out for the good of the pack.”
“But you’re his son!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Spencer muttered.
I gaped at him, astonished at the way he was acting—as if he was accepting the order, as if he’d already given up hope of fighting it. “Yes, it does, Spencer! It matters!” I yelled, lunging to my feet. “He can’t just treat you like that! He can’t...he can’t just take away your freedom like that!” I threw my hands up, stomping my foot like a child pitching a tantrum. “Dammit!” I snarled.
That dangerous sparkling feeling, the feeling of my magic reacting to my rage, crackled along my nerves and filled my skin. Gritting my teeth, I sucked in deep breaths, pushing the Dark part of me that fed on my nasty emotions back down.
Startled by my vehemence, Spencer stared up at me, blinking. The way his black hair fell across his wide eyes made him look younger, innocent—too young to be forced into marriage to a girl he didn’t love.
My lips trembling, I crouched next to him, putting a hand on his head and tangling my fingers in his soft hair. Leaning in so we were nose-to-nose, I looked intently into his eyes, so blue under dark lashes. “Forget about Frank, the packs, and the other girl for a minute. Tell me the truth. Do you love me?” I asked quietly. My heart pounded in my throat as I watched his pupils dilate at my nearness, waiting for his answer, praying I was right.
Slowly, his hand came up and cupped the back of my neck, his forehead leaning against mine. He blew out a gentle sigh that brushed against my lips. Unblinking, his eyes flickered with sparks of gold. “Yes,” he breathed, “I love you.”
A smile trembled across my lips, and I closed my eyes briefly in relief. Then I looked at him again, my fingers curling tighter in his hair. “Then promise me, promise me, Spencer, that you’ll fight this. I don’t care how strong Frank’s will is. Yours is stronger, I know it. Promise me, if you love me, you’ll at least try. Not just for me, or for us, but for yourself. You deserve to be happy, Spencer, even if it isn’t what Frank wants for you.”
For a moment, he just stared at me, our noses pressed together, breathing each other’s air, lips barely a centimetre apart. His eyes sparkled with shifting swirls of gold. “I’ll promise,” he said carefully. “I’ll do whatever I can to fight the commands, whatever it takes to be with you…” He paused, his brow furrowing. “I’ll promise, if you tell me one thing.”
Very slightly, I nodded. “Anything.”
His voice soft as a breath, never breaking his intense gaze, he said, “Tell me you love me, too. Tell me that, and I’ll promise you anything.”
My breath caught in my throat, and I bit my lip. My heart thrashing an erratic rhythm inside my chest, I fought to hold his gaze, fought to make the words come to my lips. They were there, on the tip of my tongue, in the shape of my mouth, but they were silent. I couldn’t say it. It was true, but I couldn’t say it. Why couldn’t I say it, when it mattered most, when he was staring at me with the bright light of hope slowly dying out of his mysterious eyes?
He was already drawing away, his expression shutting down. Desperately, I opened my mouth and closed it again silently as tears flooded my eyes. I choked on the horror rising in my throat as I realised why I couldn’t say it, why I couldn’t tell him I loved him, even though I knew I did. Dominic. His face flashed behind my lids, flushed and smiling, curls tousled after I’d kissed him earlier in a misguided and desperate attempt to push away the pain of Spencer coldly telling me he didn’t love me, lying to my face.
Part of me, a part much larger than I’d realised, cared about Dominic too much to tell Spencer how I really felt. I didn’t love Dominic, but what I felt for him was almost as strong. I couldn’t hurt him again, not after kissing him as I had earlier, after making him believe I was done with Spencer. I’d thought I was finished with Spencer, I’d thought Dominic would be better for me. If I told Spencer I loved him, I’d lose Dominic. If I didn’t tell him, I could risk losing Spencer. Either way, I lost someone I cared about too much to lose.
And I had no idea how to sort that out before it was too late.
Through blurry eyes, I looked pleadingly up at Spencer as he pulled away from me and got to his feet. His face blank, he brushed grass off the knees of his jeans, not looking at me.
I stumbled to my feet. “Spencer, please,” I begged, not sure what I was asking him for. Not to leave me, maybe. Not to give up his freedom just because I couldn’t say three little words.
He was already walking away. Terror wrapped around my heart like crushing tentacles. Desperate, I called, “Spencer, I…” He paused, his back to me, waiting. Breathing hard, I tried to force the rest of the words out. Tears spilled down my face. “Please,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
Silently, he shook his head, and walked away into the trees, a shadow blending into the darkness. I stood where I was, unable to force my feet to follow him, and I pressed a quaking hand over my mouth. I squeezed my burning eyes shut. I wasn’t sure what scared me most anymore—the witches hunting me, or my own heart betraying me.
Chapter Twenty Four
** Tilly **
“Tilly? Earth to Tilly?”
I blinked sluggishly, my blurry eyes focussing on Dominic’s concerned face hovering in front of me. He was standing opposite me, leaning over the low wall that separated the kitchen counter from the breakfast bar. Sitting on one of the tall chairs at the breakfast bar, I dropped my gaze to yesterday’s newspaper resting on the counter. Dominic had brought it over and read it nervously. The headline read, “Hunters Found Massacred in Woods,” and underneath, in smaller print, it said, “Reported wolf sightings lead local police to believe this was a savage animal attack.”
I turned the paper over and looked down at my bowl of untouched cereal, half surprised I hadn’t completely passed out and dunked my head it—yet. I slid it away from me, just in case, and laid my head down on the counter, my arms forming a reasonable pillow.
I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept at all. Without my Charm, and without Spencer, I couldn’t dare. So, all night, my brain kept whirring, while my heart kept tearing. I couldn’t stop thinking about Spencer, what he’d told me, and his face when I couldn’t tell him I loved him. No matter how I’d reworked the conversation in my head, no matter how many different ways I’d tried to justify it, it always ended up the same—with me saying nothing, because my heart was in two places at once.
I’d imagined Spencer with the brunette girl, Lilac, imagined him kissing her the way he’d kissed me the other day at the stream, and every time it had made me feel sick and made my chest ache. I’d imagined Dominic kissing the blonde I’d dragged him away from, and found it hurt too, though not as much—but still too much. Lastly, I’d imagined Olivia coming for me and dragging me, kicking and screaming, from my cabin. As loud as I had screamed, nobody had come to help me. Not Spencer, not Dominic, not anyone. Olivia had laughed as she stole me away into the darkness and thrust me to the ground at th
e feet of the hunter with the orange cap. The man had raised his gun to my head, and that time, he’d pulled the trigger.
That image had terrified me until my heart pounded in my ears and my chest felt tight, and I couldn’t stand to close my eyes. I laid on my back, grasping the covers, staring at the darkest shadows of the room and squealing at every rustle beyond the window, until the sun had begun to rise.
I’d been up since six am, and Dominic had come knocking at a little before nine. I had been expecting him anyway. It was nearly ten o’clock, and I was barely even able to keep my eyes open. I couldn’t think straight. Just trying to think made my head hurt, and I put my arms over it, resting my forehead against the cool surface of the breakfast bar. I heard Dominic move around to my side, touching my arm lightly in concern.
“Are you okay? You look shattered,” he said gently.
I almost wanted to laugh at how appropriate his word choice was. Shattered. I was shattered, and it went beyond the exhaustion. My heart was shattered, or at least cracked.
Without sitting up, I mumbled, “Didn’t sleep well.”
“Nightmares?” he asked.
“Something like that.” I sat up slowly, my head flopping on my neck, and groaned. The light was too frickin’ bright. I squinted. Then I was overcome with a yawn, and covered my mouth with my hand, almost tumbling backward off my chair. Dominic caught me as I started to slide, his mouth pulled down in a worried frown.
“Come on,” he said softly, “I think you need some fresh air. It’ll help wake you up, and you can do that meditating thing you do.” He laced his fingers through mine, and opened the door, pulling me out onto the porch.
The sun was shining strong, and the breeze was unseasonably warm for late August. It breathed across my face and neck, lifting strands of my hair and rustling Dominic’s curls. The woods looked very green, the hazy sunlight beaming through the leaves tinted with colour as it fell to the dirt.
I didn’t resist as Dom tugged me after him into the trees, not caring where he was taking me. I blanked out for a while, my body operating on autopilot while my mind took a short vacation to nowhere in particular. When I regained my senses, I found Dominic had taken me to the clearing where they’d had the full moon ritual. The giant oak tree was still hung with lamps and ivy, and the mossy space under the expansive boughs looked cosy and comfortable.
