by Kim Loraine
She shakes her head and toys with the hem of her sleeve. “It felt like the past.”
“Tell me.”
Copper irises identical to my own meet me and she flicks her gaze back toward Grant. “It was about him. His change, his pack.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There was so much blood and death. More than a child should ever have had to see. He doesn’t remember it all, but it’s there in his memory. Everything he knew was taken from him.”
“I can hear you. Don’t talk about me as though I’m not here.” Grant’s deep voice coats me in a layer of arousal, but I push it aside.
“And what did the vision have to do with us now?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. But if I saw it, there’s a reason.”
“Might have something to do with the fact that my pack has been hired to kill you, lass. I don’t think there’s anything more obvious.”
She hums softly, threading her fingers together as she continues walking. “Perhaps.”
I refuse to let myself look back at Grant. I know any minute he’s going to insist we return to the safety of his home. We walk in silence, Gwen’s words weighing on me. More than any child should ever have had to see. What happened to him?
The rumble of a motorcycle breaks the quiet of the country road, causing us to step to the side as it passes, but instead of driving on, the rider slows until he pulls off the road and comes to a stop.
A low growl leaves Grant and he’s at my side in an instant, his arm wrapping protectively around my waist. Dread sits heavy in my stomach as the rider pulls off his helmet and Tristan’s handsome face appears. Instantly I’m flooded with need. I want him. I want his touch, his love, everything we’d missed out on. But Grant’s scent surrounds me, pulling my heart in another direction. I don’t know what I want.
Tristan smiles and a mixture of love and obsession shines in his eyes. “Isolt. I knew I’d find you.”
“Who the fuck is this wanker?” Grant asks, his fingers tightening on my hip.
“He shouldn’t be able to see through my glamor.” I barely whisper the words, but Grant hears them.
“It sure as fuck seems like he can.”
Tristan gets off his steel horse like a damn gallant knight in leather and sets his gaze on Grant. “She told me she had a boyfriend to get back to. I had to see for myself.”
“Tristan, I don’t understand how you found me.” Grant stiffens as soon as I say Tristan’s name. Something is wrong here. But, then again, he was brought back from the dead, it’s not a stretch that he’d be able to find me.
“I followed the pull I feel. There’s a thread connecting us.” When he takes my hand, I panic for a moment, worried Grant might kill him here and now.
“I can’t...”
“No. I love you. You’re my soul mate.”
Jesus and all the saints. This is the worst thing that could happen while Grant is standing with his arm around me. I try to step forward, but Grant tightens his hold.
“She’s not yours. You’d do well to step away and take your hands off what’s mine.” My beast isn’t fucking around. He’s seething, the rage palpable in the tension of his muscles.
“I will not. If I have to fight you, I will. Isolt is mine. I know it better than anything else in my heart.”
Before Grant can get around me, Gwen rushes up to Tristan and places her fingertips on his forehead. The man crumples to the ground, unconscious, but still alive. If it were up to Grant, I know that wouldn’t be the case.
“Grant,” she says. “Pick him up. We need to get him somewhere safe until he wakes.”
Shaking his head, he hefts Tristan over his shoulder and deposits him next to a worn fence. “He’ll be safe there. But I can’t promise I’ll leave him unharmed if he comes around again.”
I stand over the handsome knight and feel a pang of loss. Murmuring an incantation of protection, I drop a veil over him to cloak him from all eyes.
“Gra—” I start, but he shoots me a scathing look and turns away.
We walk in silence back to the house, and before we’ve even reached the driveway, Gwen scurries off. This is ridiculous.
“Grant. Stop this. What are you so upset over?” I’m sure the frustration in my voice is obvious.
“You gave him your name.” His words are acid-laced. “How long have you known him? It can’t be much more than a few days.”
My mouth opens, but I don’t know how to answer him.
“You wouldn’t let me have your name until we’d slept together more than once. Until you trusted me.”
“I…” My throat is tight with guilt. He’s right. Because we’ve already shared a life and lost each other once. “It’s complicated.”
“You protected him.”
“I would have done the same for anyone.”
“He could see you. He saw through your magic. How did he do that?”
I have no clue. Perhaps it has something to do with the love potion. But it all clicks into place when Grant asks that question. He’s not hurt because of one simple thing. He’s threatened because Tristan has all the things I gave Grant—as his mate. “I can’t explain it.” I step forward and place my palm on his chest. “But he doesn’t have me in his bed.”
“But he did. He had your heart. He had your love. That’s the one difference. He’s had the one thing I’ll never get from you. And now I see why. You can’t give what’s already gone.”
The pain in his voice scares me, but the resignation grips my heart. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to change what I feel. I’m confused and torn. It’s like you’re all I see until he appears.”
He rakes a hand through his hair, pacing in front of the house, his expression dark and dangerous. “I’m not sure I can talk something like this through. The look in his eyes…I recognized it.”
“What?”
“It’s the same look I’m sure I wear anytime I think of you. You pulling away these last few days has been torture, and that’s because this…thing between us is uneven. I thought eventually you’d realize the depth of what we have. Instead, it’s been more painful.”
“What are you saying?” I’m not sure I want to hear this.
“I’m saying you’re right. We need space. I can’t continue to let myself fall in love with you when I know you won’t return my feelings. You’re my mate and I’ll never stop wanting you, but I can’t keep you chained to me either. After we break your curse, I’ll leave you be.” He doesn’t give me a chance to say anything, and I’m too shocked to respond anyway.
He just gave me everything I’ve been saying I want. The problem is, I don’t think I want it anymore.
15
Izzy
Grant is here but not here. I can feel his presence in the house, a beacon calling to my heart, but I won’t go to him. He’s not ready to talk and I’m not sure what I want to say. Besides, we have a spellbound, resurrected knight to find and help. I can’t be worried about my overbearing shifter.
“So, Tristan again?” Helena asks, glancing up from the mug of tea between her hands.
I nod. Of course Gwen would have shared the events of this afternoon with her. “I don’t know why I feel this way. It doesn’t feel the same as the love potion that wound around us before. That was such a singular, all consuming love. When I’m around them both, I want them both. But when Tristan is gone, I only want Grant.” I chew on my thumbnail for a moment before turning my gaze back to her. “I need you to go collect him. He’s not safe out there.”
She lets out a sharp bark of laughter. “You can’t be serious. That beast of yours is likely to rip Tristan to shreds. I know the man used to be a knight, but he’s no match for a shifter.”
“He won’t. That’s not the kind of man Grant is. We won’t be able to do a damn thing to help solve this if we don’t have Tristan here. Besides, Grant doesn’t want anything to do with me at the moment.”
“That’s a load of shite. I can practicall
y feel the love radiating off him. He’s besotted.”
“Tristan could see through my glamor.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh, well that is an issue. Are you certain you hadn’t lifted it when you saw him?”
I nod. “Gwen had to remind me to lift it when I came back inside. How can he be immune to my magic but still under the effects of this potion? You use your song all the time as a sort of elixir of love and are able to release them. Why can’t I figure out how to break this?”
“Practice. I left many a man bewitched until he lost his mind. Where do you think the stories of sirens came from? I sing, they fall, I tell them what to do, and they don’t stop until it’s done or they die. There was a time when my heart was nothing but a piece of ice in my chest. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of after what happened in Troy. I don’t deserve forgiveness or happiness. The least I could do for the men I ensnared was to release them. You could finally use your song and make him forget you.”
A shiver runs through me at the mention of her past. I knew she’d gone off the rails for a while, but we didn’t speak of our lost loves often because it’s a tender subject for each of us. “Can you sense a spell on me?” I blurt the question, but I know the truth. Calista did this. She sent him to me and somehow, I’m still affected by the love potion just as he is.
My sister witch closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before holding out a hand. “Come on, then. Let’s see.”
I take her offered palm and wait.
Her perfectly shaped brows pull together and she purses her lips. “I can’t tell. There’s something, but it’s clouded and hidden.”
Damn. I hate feeling this way. Torn between my past and present, wanting two men and unsure who to choose. A big part of me wanted it to be some sort of sinister plot rather than me being faithless.
“We need to go get Tristan. I’ll do it. I’ll use my song.”
Sadness flits across her features before she stands. “Where’d you leave him?”
I tell her the exact location and she leaves without a second glance. My heart hurts for her. I think there’s so much she hasn’t shared with Gwen and me, and there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to know. Helena has always been angry, even when we were first initiated into the coven. But after we were separated, the few times we found each other, she’d been cold and calloused, willing to make deals with the devil himself in order to gain protection. I thought it was because she was determined to survive, but now I wonder if she’d been searching for a way to break the curse so when she died, it would end the cycle of pain she had to endure.
“We have to be careful with her.” Gwen’s voice makes me nearly jump out of my skin.
“Jesus and all the saints, woman. You can’t sneak up on me like that. I might’ve sent a spell straight into your chest and killed you.”
She grins and shakes her head. “You wish you held such power. Helena went to collect your wayward knight?”
I bristle at the word your. “He’s not mine.”
“He came here for you. That makes him yours until further notice.”
“I just can’t leave him out there hidden by a veil. Besides, we need to figure out how to untangle this spell from his heart.” I thrust my hands into my hair and tug. “It has turned him obsessed. He’s not going to stop trying to win me until I agree.”
“I wish I had some insight for you. But, from what I gather of the story you told me, you didn’t know what you were doing.”
Shaking my head, I close my eyes and let myself remember the ship we’d set sail on. The beautiful man who’d been my guardian on the journey across the sea to my future husband. “I couldn’t believe the look in his eyes on that ship. No man had ever looked at me with such devotion. All I did was tell him I wished he loved me instead. Then it was done. Of course, I still had to marry his uncle and my powers and memories all came back shortly after. But I was young and enamored with the handsome knight who worshipped me. God, I was such an idiot.”
“You weren’t an idiot, Izzy.” Gwen places her palm on my cheek and smiles sadly. “You were young, hopeful, and falling for the first time. I know how that feels, with or without a spell.”
Damn the woman, but her tenderness brings a tear to my eye. I’ve spent lifetimes burying this pain and now it’s all rushing back to the surface.
“Do you love Grant?” she asks.
“I…I can’t.”
Her lips press into a tight line and she offers a slight shake of her head. “That’s not what I asked.”
Closing my eyes, I take a long breath and search my heart for the truth, but the door opens and Helena strides in with Tristan behind her. “Good lord, Izzy. He’s beautiful but annoying the ever-loving hell out of me. What did you do to this poor man? Fuck him until he couldn’t think of anything but your magical cunt?”
Tristan shoves past her, desperate gaze trained on me. “Isolt. My God, what happened? Are you all right? That man didn’t hurt you, did he?”
He takes my face between his hands and presses a kiss to my lips before I can stop him. A low growl rumbles from somewhere outside and I know it’s Grant. Bugger. A pang of hurt pushes its way into my heart. I don’t want to cause either of them pain. Pushing Tristan away, I shake my head. “We can’t do this.”
“Only because you won’t allow yourself to see what’s between us. Please, just give us a chance. I know I can make you happy.”
Helena catches my eye and I step away from Tristan in favor of seeing what she has to say. She presses a palm to Tristan’s chest and takes a deep breath. “I can’t tell whose magic brought him back, but I’d bet money it was Calista. Perhaps if we break this spell, he’ll be able to lead us to her.”
Tristan frowns and removes Helena’s hand from his body. “Step back, witch. I’m not here for you.”
He returns to my side and pulls me close. “Tristan, stop,” I say.
Helena’s low murmur of, “Let him,” nearly makes me choke.
“What? That’s a terrible idea.”
“He needs to be at ease. He needs to think he’s done what you told him to do. He’s compelled to love you but he’s never been able to fully do that. In your first life together, he had to share you with his uncle. Now, he barely has any part of you because of Grant. Let him love you. Then maybe we can release him.”
My heart lurches. Grant won’t understand. I’m not sure how much of our conversation he can hear in his shifted form, but I’ve already hurt him enough. “How long?”
“Only until he’s relaxed. Sit with him, be affectionate, tell him you’re ready to give him a chance. He has to believe it.”
I nod and take a steadying breath. I can do this. If I’m going to free Tristan, I have to do this.
Grant
When my beauty…no, not my beauty—Isolt—takes that wanker’s hand I nearly go mad with jealousy. I can’t stand watching her with him, even though I heard every damn word from her and her sisters. He’s bewitched, that much I knew, but I hadn’t understood the depth of her heartbreak when she lost him the first time. I know now. Hours of quality time with Google helped me with that. She might have said she hadn’t truly loved the man, but every fucking story out there says different. There’s even supposedly two goddamned trees growing over their graves with the trunks intertwined to symbolize their undying love. All I have is my desperate need to keep her. I can’t offer fucking magic trees and shining armor.
I’m torturing myself, sitting out here and watching like a stalker. But it’s my bloody house and I’ll stalk if I want to. She’s my responsibility even if she’s not my love. Izzy sits next to him on the couch, a smile on her lovely face and she runs her fingers over his cheek. My choice to return to my human form is something I’m regretting at the moment, but forcing myself not to listen in on their conversation is one courtesy I can pay her. I tell myself I’m watching to keep her safe, but the truth is, my mind would do much worse to my heart if I didn’t witness this.
&nbs
p; Tristan leans in and kisses her, his posture tense and his fingers threading through her hair. I swallow back the revulsion and anger working its way up my throat. It gives me a small measure of comfort to see she’s not relaxing into him. His kiss grows more forceful, more desperate, and even though there are two other women in the bloody room, he’s pushing her back until he’s nearly on top of her. Alarm bells go off in my head at the realization this situation is getting out of hand. They’re supposed to be trying to free him of her spell, but I’ll be damned if Izzy will be forced to accept his advances. In moments, I’m around to the kitchen door and pulling it open. But I’m met with a wall of power and the furious gaze of Helena.
“Not now, beast. Not a damn word.” Her voice is hard, but her eyes betray her understanding of my pain.
I relent, closing the door behind me and standing in the kitchen, arms crossed over my chest, breathing hard, heart aching.
Izzy breaks the kiss, extricating herself from his arms, and flicks her gaze to me. A pang goes through my chest, but I hold back. She needs to do this.
“I’m so glad we’re finally together, Isolt. I feel like I’ve been searching for you forever.” Tristan stares at her as though there’s not another person in the room. As though he is wanted.
She nods. “You found me. Now, stay there. We’re going to seal the bond so you and I can both be happy.”
Helena links hands with Gwen and Izzy stands to join them. They begin whispering, a soft chant and the candles in the room light on their own. Magic fills the air, heavy and powerful as a thin line of blue mist leaves Izzy’s chest and trails to Tristan. The spell winds around him before detaching from Izzy and disappearing into his chest. He gives a gasp of surprise, but the chanting doesn’t stop. The flames rise and the light in the room dims to near darkness, then both Tristan’s and Izzy’s chests begin to glow red where their hearts lie. The glow strengthens with each beat, which are moving in tandem until Tristan’s changes rhythm and Izzy’s stops glowing all together. The lights return and the candles snuff themselves out, leaving curls of smoke in the air.
