Ruck patted my outstretched leg. “Between the three of us, I’m sure we could cover enough ground to find somewhere good, if that’s what you really want.”
“When I saw Ryker lying in the field, I thought he was dead. It tore at something in me so deep that I didn’t know if I wanted to live without him. I can’t stay here and move on. I have to go.”
“We’re ready to go with you, wherever the road may lead us, whenever you’re ready.” Switch leaned over, patting my leg where Ruck had, as if he thought that was what their job was. Pat Bugs and make her feel better. It was helping as much as it could.
“Would tonight be too early? I think the sooner the better. The longer I’m here, the harder it’ll be to leave again.”
“You got it,” Ruck said, then he and Switch knocked hands as they figured out who was supposed to pat me this time.
The fairies finished their song and were flying overhead when I heard a man’s laughter in the air, and then I thought I heard a woman’s join his.
“Was that Knife?” I said, looking upward, as if I tried hard enough, I’d be able to see him in the clouds.
“Dez is making him laugh one last time. That was her magic, but she only used it for him,” Switch said.
* * *
I was shoving things into my bag when the door opened. Ryker filled the room with his presence. I turned back to packing. It was eerily similar to the first time I’d left, except so much had passed in between.
He shut the door and walked farther in. “After everything, you’re still trying to leave.”
“It’s for the best.”
He walked closer, watching my hands as I put things into the bag. “Stop packing. We’ve already done this once. I won’t do it again.”
As if this wasn’t hard enough without him standing here, being his stubborn self. I ignored him, grabbing another shirt and stuffing it in my bag.
The first time I’d left him had nearly broken me, but I’d gone about my day today as if everything were okay. This time I felt as if I were already cracked into a million pieces. I didn’t know how I was walking or talking anymore, and I hadn’t left yet.
He grabbed the bag I’d filled, dumped it out onto the bed, and then tossed it to the other side of the room.
His arms circled me. I planted two hands on his chest and pushed out of his embrace. There was no way I’d be able to have this talk as long as we were touching.
“I can’t do this anymore.” I took a few more steps away from him.
“Why?” His eyes narrowed as he watched my face intently.
“You knew I was going to leave. I never said I wanted to stay. Nothing’s changed.” I grabbed the bag from where he’d thrown it, brought it back to the bed, and stuffed things back in it.
“That’s a lie, and you know it. Everything has changed.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and held it up.
“Where did you get that?” My stomach dropped. It was the letter he was never supposed to get. With everything happening, I’d forgotten all about it.
I went to yank it out of his hand, but he held it out of reach as he began to read it. “Ryker, by the time you get this, I’ll have left for Dorley. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t have the nerve to tell you a lot of things face to face. I need you to know I didn’t come by this decision lightly.”
I jumped for the letter, but he held it too high. I looked past him to the door, but he shifted in front of me. “We’re having this out, whether you want to or not. You don’t get to sneak away again.”
I walked to the bed, sat down on it, and leaned back so I could look at the ceiling instead. “Fine. Go ahead. Let’s get this over with.”
He cleared his throat and continued reading. “I wanted to tell you how much I care for you, but I know your feelings aren’t the same. I thought I could stay here, be your friend, your partner, at least as far as the stones go, but I can’t. It hurts too deeply to see you with other women when I know you’ll never be mine. I’m truly sorry, but this is best for both of us.” He folded it back up carefully and returned it to his pocket.
“Where did you get that?” I could feel his eyes on me, and my skin burned like the surface of the sun.
“Knife gave it to me after he knew we were sleeping together. You should’ve given it to me.”
“Don’t put too much stock in it. I was drunk when I wrote it. That note changes nothing.” Drunk on misery, to be precise. I rolled on my side, looking for a place to hide from his piercing eyes that saw too much.
He stood right beside me. “You’re not walking away from me again, not when I know how you really feel.”
I turned toward him. “How I feel doesn’t matter. Don’t you understand that? I’ve been settling my whole life. Happy to just be safe, to have something to eat, to not be chased with someone trying to kill me. Settling for a man who wants to sleep with me but can’t love me? I’m not doing it anymore.”
“Is that what you really think? That I only want to sleep with you?”
“Yes.”
He squatted beside me. “Do you remember in the pit, when you forced me into killing that monster because it was the only thing that might’ve saved you?”
I sat up on the bed, looking for a way around him. “If you’re going to start on that again—”
He dropped onto the bed, tugging me back down with him, dropping a leg over mine to keep me there. “Listen to me—”
“Don’t feed me lies to keep me here. You didn’t want me. You pushed me away over and over again.”
“When was the last time I pushed you away?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you. It was before we got the stone in the pit. When that happened, and I thought you were going to die, it shredded me inside. I didn’t know if I’d leave that pit if you weren’t with me. But my magic didn’t kill you.
“I’m the Cursed King. You’ve heard the stories. You know what happened. In a single night, everyone I cared for died.”
“That was true?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re afraid you’ll kill everyone again?”
“Not everyone. I was afraid I’d kill you. It’s been a long time, and I have a lot more control than I did then, but that fear never fully leaves you.”
I stared in his eyes, trying to find the lie in them.
“Why do you think I slept on that tiny fucking bed of yours?” he asked, smoothing the hair from my face.
“I thought you were cold. You didn’t want to get up and walk home.”
“And you believed that? Even I had a hard time swallowing the load of bull I was spewing.”
“What does this mean?”
“Don’t you hear what I’m saying? It means I love you. It means I’m not letting you walk away from me again. And before you tell me that it’s your magic I want, that has nothing to do with it. The way you took care of your people, were loyal to them even when it drove me crazy because they didn’t deserve it. The way you would read the picture books at night and spy on the classes. None of that has anything to do with your magic. Bugs, I’m a grown man, and I know who I am and how I feel.”
“What about when you get tired of being with only me?”
“I’ll never tire of you. Every time I see you, hear you, feel your skin, I want you more, not less.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, biting my lip, my eyes getting watery.
“When you find the right one, you don’t keep looking for the wrong one. I’ll prove it to you, however long it takes. Either way, you’re not getting away from me. If you leave, I’m going with you.”
“If you break my heart—”
“I won’t.” He cupped my face, and I almost believed him.
Thirty-Six
Almost one year later…
“Why did you get to place all the furniture? What if I wanted to put the furniture somewhere different?” I asked as Ryker and I walked to the food building.
“It was the only logical place it could go with the door and the window. If we’re going to stay in that room, I’m going to be as comfortable as possible.”
It had taken Ryker a while to realize that we weren’t moving into his place, or a different place. I had a perfectly good room I liked just fine. It was my room, now ours, and I wasn’t giving it up.
“Why can’t we put the couch on the eastern wall?” I asked.
“Because that’s where the bathroom is going to be.”
The bathroom addition had been a hard line in the sand for him. I hadn’t fought that one much. I didn’t want to be totally unfair to the guy.
“If you’d like, you can block the door. You like to run so much, it might be a useful way to slow you down,” he said.
“Or maybe it’ll be a good way to keep the women out in case you have a relapse?” In truth, he hadn’t touched another woman, and I knew it. Didn’t stop me from poking him here and there about his past ways.
“The only strange women that show up at our door are for you. I’m not sure how you’re getting the word out that we’ll break out every man, woman, and child in need, but can we go and eat breakfast in peace before more show up?” he asked, holding the door open for me.
He knew exactly how I was doing it. Switch was spreading the word far and wide that there was a better way to live and there was help available. We’d started with Wyrd Blood. If we broke the power base of all the tyrants around, eventually things would run their course. I never wanted to hear about another mother selling her soul to save her child.
I smiled as I walked past him. I filled up a plate of food, and Ryker dropped an extra biscuit on my plate. I left it there.
Ruck, Switch, Sneak, and Burn were already seated when we got to the table.
“Don’t forget our anniversary party tomorrow,” Switch said.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I squeezed Ryker’s leg under the table, signaling him to stay quiet. Ruck and Switch had gotten married ten months ago, and they had a party every month. I thought it was sweet. Everyone else thought it was exhausting, even Ruck. He’d admitted it to me last week, but it made Switch happy, so he kept doing it.
“You two thinking about making it official?” Ruck asked.
“Can’t talk about that for three more days,” Ryker said.
“Shit, forgot,” Ruck said.
It was one of the things I’d asked for when I’d agreed to stay. We wouldn’t discuss commitment until I was sure he was really committed. I didn’t want to live with my head in the clouds, only to crash one day when I saw him with someone else. I hadn’t even caught him looking at another woman. He’d told me almost a year ago that he only wanted me. I hadn’t believed him, so he’d proven it.
I couldn’t believe I’d almost left him. Ryker’s hand covered mine where it still lay on his leg.
A little while later, I ducked out of the food building before him. I went to my favorite worming spot. I reached down, dug my fingers into the soil, scooped up a worm, and whispered to it.
I placed it in the circle.
It went straight for yes.
“You better not be asking it what I think you are,” Ryker said from behind me.
“Why? You scared the worm won’t lie for you? You know it doesn’t.” I gave him a teasing stare, implying he was guilty of something.
“Because if you need a worm to tell you at this point, I’m going to doubt your sanity.”
I stood, and he took my hand, tugging me after him.
“We’re going to have to set up some rules. You can ask it whether you’re going to eat lunch, or whether you’re going to go for a walk with me after dinner, but not that other question.”
He twined his fingers into mine as we made our way along the street.
“That’s fine by me,” I said. “I don’t need to. You’re very transparent.”
“Am I?”
“Embarrassingly so.”
“Do you think everyone reads me as well as you do?” he asked, smiling with me.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
He stopped in the middle of the thoroughfare, forcing people to weave around us. He wrapped his arms around my back, pulling me tight to him.
“What are you up to now?” I asked, hoping it was what I thought.
“Just in case there’s someone around here who needs a little more help.” His lips covered mine as two people melded into one.
He was right. I didn’t have to ask that question anymore. I already knew he loved me. Now I knew he’d ask me to marry him in three days, too.
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Also by Donna Augustine
Ollie Wit
A Step into the Dark
Walking in the Dark
Kissed by the Dark
The Keepers
The Keepers
Keepers and Killers
Shattered
Redemption
Karma
Karma
Jinxed
Fated
Dead Ink
The Wilds
The Wilds
The Hunt
The Dead
The Magic
Born Wild (Wilds Spinoff)
Wild One
Wyrd Blood
Wyrd Blood
Full Blood
Blood Binds: Wyrd Blood Book Three Page 22
