by Rachel Jonas
“It’s the right thing to do,” I said. “She’s trying. That doesn’t mean she’s perfect, but … she’s trying.”
It was hard not to sympathize with Elise. Maybe because I, too, understood the fear she must live with whenever she thought of losing Liam and I again.
He didn’t have a rebuttal, but I could tell the decision to stay, to wait it out, made him uncomfortable. It was no secret he didn’t trust Nick. Now to hear that he’d been sneaking out, it only made him seem that much less stable.
“That was Dallas,” Elise announced. “There’s no sign of an intruder and, according to David, our security system’s been unharmed. The blackout was across the entire county, not just our facility, so I believe we’re in the clear.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good,” Liam said firmly. “But I think it’d still be best if, just for tonight, Evangeline hung out here.”
My head whipped in his direction. He didn’t even think to ask what I wanted.
“Just as an added precaution,” he explained.
Elise nodded. “Agreed.” She turned to me, the only one in the room who seemed to remember I had a voice and brain of my own. “Would that be all right with you?” she asked.
It took a moment to answer, feeling my blood heat more and more by the second. Eventually, I gathered myself and was able to nod. “That’s fine.”
She passed a warm smile my way and then left Liam and I to talk. Her timing was perfect, because I had plenty to say.
“I can think for myself sometimes. You don’t have to speak for me.” The words came out much harsher than I intended for them to, but it couldn’t be helped. Maybe my emotions were just running high because the blackout and news about Nick had me a bit freaked out, but I was too old to be pushed around.
By anyone.
Liam didn’t speak right away. Instead, he seemed to be considering my feelings, which I appreciated. At eighteen, I hadn’t done much living, but I’d been through a heck of a lot more than most. It was time I stopped letting my life choices be made for me. I understood Liam’s intentions were honorable, but I had to draw the line somewhere.
“Forgive me,” he said humbly—not even a hint of his ego or pride coming into play. His tone diluted my frustration a bit.
“I know you mean well. I know most people mean well, but if I’m ever gonna learn to stand on my own, if I’m ever gonna become who you all seem to think I’ll be … then I need you all to trust my judgment sometimes, too.”
Liam breathed deep. “You’re absolutely right,” he replied. His expression was solemn and I regretted being so abrasive. “I know I’ve been overbearing,” he explained. “It’s just that … I know what it’s like to lose you.”
My heart sank at the sound of those words. It was never far from my mind that I’d lived a past life, but I had the luxury of forgetting all that came before. Liam did not. He remembered it all—the good, the bad, the ugly. Including the night of my death. I should have been more sensitive to that. Should’ve handled this delicately.
“I understand. And I’m not saying I don’t appreciate you protecting me. It’s just that … I’d like to be included in the plans from now on.” My mind ran through all the instances where that opportunity had been stolen from me.
“I think I’ve earned that,” I added.
Liam nodded, agreeing. “Consider it done.”
Elise returned with bedding and placed it on the couch. I noted that she brought two pillows because she assumed, like I had, Liam was staying as well. It was kind of automatic. The only time he wasn’t at my side was when he had no other choice.
“I’ll leave you two, but if you need anything,” she said with a smile, “don’t hesitate to ask.”
I returned the gesture, but stood to hug her as well. She was, perhaps, the most misunderstood person I’d ever met. I, too, used to misinterpret her intentions, but we weren’t so different, she and I. I saw that now—how she valued her family, how she wore her heart on her sleeve.
I got it.
“Thanks for letting me stay,” I whispered. “And … for everything else.”
Her arms tightened around me and she didn’t let go for quite some time. When she did, water pooled in the corners of her eyes, but I only caught a glimpse before she quickly turned to disappear in her bedroom.
Standing in the middle of the rug, I took a breath, feeling thoroughly drained by the day’s events. But, for some reason, I smiled. Not even Christmas could be normal anymore, and rather than getting bent out of shape about it, I managed to find the humor.
And, all in all, it’d been a good day. Even this power outage proved to be nothing too serious. Dinner with Elise was perfect, and now, I had the chance to spend the rest of my night with Liam—my overprotective, sometimes too macho for his own freakin’ good, warrior. He lived up to that title time and time again. Old habits were hard to break, but maybe I didn’t want him to. All I wanted was a little room to be an adult.
I reached for a thick blanket and spread it out on the floor, then a couple more to make it softer. It wasn’t until I dropped both pillows on top that I even realized what I’d done. Instead of arranging for one of us to sleep on the couch and the other on the floor, I made the pallet big enough for two.
Why was I even surprised? Instead of making a big deal of it, I pulled my hoodie off to sleep in my tank top, and then turned out the light before lying down. Liam did the same, right beside me.
We lie there, staring at the ceiling while a dim nightlight on the wall faintly illuminated the space. Heat from his body warmed the right side of mine and I wanted to get closer. But I was ever conscious of not letting things between us move too fast.
I hadn’t forgotten the kiss we almost shared outside my room, though. Had it not been for the lights going out …
I wanted that moment back. Wanted to recreate the authentic, raw magnetism we allowed to shine through, but here, in Elise’s living room, I wanted to be respectful of her quarters.
No funny business.
Not that I had the guts to let anything like that happen anyway.
“I’m sorry again,” Liam sighed, stealing my attention. “I smother you,” he admitted. He sounded so pitiful, his tone made me laugh.
“It’s fine,” I smiled. “I shouldn’t have come at you as strongly as I did. I mean, I don’t take back what I said, but I could’ve said it differently.”
Somehow, my hand ended up in his, resting in the sliver of space between us. My mind was cloudy and I wasn’t sure if I’d reached for his, or if it’d been the other way around. Either way, I clung to it, feeling the soft leather band on his wrist against my skin, and despite myself, I inched closer—shoulder to shoulder. His other arm went behind his head and I was so aware of him, of his every move, my breaths came shallow.
“So … I totally didn’t see that coming with Elise and Dallas,” I said with a grin, wanting to distract myself from my tendency to overthink things. If I dwelled on the pull, the longing, fear would make me back away.
And I didn’t want that.
Liam’s fingers squeezed mine just enough to let me know he preferred being close versus apart. Just enough to let me know he wanted this, too.
“You’ve met him before?” he asked, referring to Dallas.
“Yeah, he’s been my combat instructor a few times. Seems cool. Comes across as a hardnose, but he’s been nothing but nice to me. He’s the one who dealt with that whole … broken nose incident our first day.”
Being reminded, Liam laughed. “How’d I forget about that?”
“Yeah … not my proudest moment.”
“You’ve come a long way since then,” he assured me. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. We all have things we’d take back if we could.”
I turned to face him in the darkness. “What’s your thing?” I asked. “What would you take back if you could?”
It might not have been my business to ask and, maybe to some degree, I
was taking advantage of his inability to tell me no. But I wanted to know as much about him as possible. It was somewhat of a hidden obsession, part of that perpetual longing to get completely lost in him. It was a feeling I’d fought since the beginning.
A battle I fought and recently accepted that I’d taken a loss some time ago.
“You love asking the hard questions.” I watched him smile in the faint light. “If I had to pick any one thing, I guess it’d be … the callousness that made me feel like I was someone else for a while.”
For a moment, he seemed to disappear to some distant place.
“I was numb and didn’t give much thought to my actions, didn’t give much thought to the people I hurt, the lives I took.”
I drew in a breath and stared at his profile, how the glow outlined unearthly beautiful features—the slant of his nose, the slight downward curve of his bottom lip, the firmness of his jaw.
Without him saying so, I knew the dark stretch of years he spoke of was brought on by my death. It broke him, affected him still. He shared once that he didn’t have much to live for, which made every cause seem worth dying for. To hear him say he’d take it all back if he could, was proof he’d grown, proof he’d evolved since those days.
I released his fingers, but continued to hold on, gripping his wrist with one hand and his forearm with the other as I turned onto my side, watching him. The leather band brushed my fingertips and I thought of them again, thought of how he’d only told me what types of knots they were instead of how they were significant to him.
“Hercules knots,” I said aloud, prompting him to tilt his face toward mine. “I still don’t know what they mean in general,” I breathed. “And I’m still dying to know what they mean to you.”
He only stared a moment, eventually smiling.
“Let me guess, this is another one of those hard questions,” I teased. When he didn’t answer right away, I guessed I was right. Instead of forcing him to give up all his secrets at once, I thought it might be more effective to pry them from his hands one by one.
“Did you have them when I was alive?” I asked.
Letting his gaze slip to my lips for a moment, he nodded. “I did.” His tone was deep and breathy, making my stomach shudder at the sound of it.
I smiled. “Ok. Hmm … Was this another one of those things between you and my brothers?”
He blinked and shook his head. “No.”
A breath hitched in my throat with the way he looked at me right after. I inhaled deeply to keep him from noticing.
“Is there a reason you have two?”
When he hesitated, I knew I was on to something. He nodded, but didn’t say a word.
I felt the air growing thick, felt the heaviness hovering above us. I was compelled to keep pushing, like I needed to have the answer to this one question more than any other I’d asked.
Was it me or did this desperation come from my dragon?
Maybe she, that primal side of me, was the one who needed this brought to the light.
“One was mine,” I exhaled, feeling my chest constrict when the words left my mouth. It was a statement. Not a question.
This time, he neither confirmed nor denied. He shut down.
“Is that a yes?” I asked.
He stared a moment longer and then turned away again, focusing on the ceiling like before.
I wasn’t sure why he seemed weary to continue my game, but I couldn’t take it. Remembering how much stronger Elise’s signal was than what we had to work with down several floors, I took a chance. When I released Liam’s arm and pulled my phone from my pocket, I had his attention again.
“Last chance,” I warned with a grin. “Otherwise, you’re gonna force me to rely on the internet for an explanation.”
“Make sure you really want the answer before you go digging,” he replied, making my stomach somersault. He didn’t find nearly as much humor in this as I did. That was evident when the words left his mouth without so much as a grin.
He was stone-faced as he went back to staring at the ceiling.
I typed in the letters one at a time, feeling my heart race with each, knowing I was this much closer to an answer. Scrolling past the expected randomness that popped up, I stopped on a site that delved into the symbolism of the knot. The others only explained how to tie one, or it’s uses throughout the ages, and other things that were of no use to me. But this one had promise.
I clicked.
I scrolled.
And then … I stopped.
Words leapt off the screen, filtering through my brain, but not sticking. I held my breath as singular phrases confused me instead of clearing things up.
Union.
Love.
Bound.
And then there was another, one far clearer than the others. I spoke it aloud.
“… Marriage.”
All sound left the room in a vacuum. My screen went dark and I held the phone to my chest, letting these things, these words, these meanings register. One, above all, stood out, playing on repeat inside my head. Over and over.
In my voice.
In his.
“Actually, for us, a more fitting term is ‘mated’. But I told you; you’ve got a knack for asking the hard questions,” Liam said quietly, cutting into my thoughts, making my head spin more than it already was.
Mated, married … whatever. It was all the same, and for the first time ever, we both had a complete understanding of our bond. Before now, I thought it was simply that we were tethered—as if that weren’t deep enough—but now to know just how connected we were…
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I heard his request, but couldn’t form a sentence. So many things made sense now—the way Elise willingly took a backseat when it came to Liam putting his foot down in all instances having to do with my safety. Yes, I was her daughter, but I was his … mate, his wife. It also made sense that Elise had no qualms about me sleeping beside him tonight because, in her mind, in his, this was my rightful place.
This was what my dragon wanted me to remember, what she wanted me to acknowledge, because she wanted him.
“I’m only eighteen.” As soon as I said it, I knew how stupid it sounded. Because it was a lie. Regardless of how long I’d been back, I knew I was much, much older than that. It was just a kneejerk reaction to the walls closing in on me.
“I’m not expecting anything, Evangeline.”
He said that like he thought I might run off, like this news might make me back away. I wasn’t sure how I felt, but running didn’t cross my mind.
He turned, letting his eyes settle on me. I blinked, focusing through the darkness. My pulse was going a mile a minute and, with it, came a haze of confusion.
Apparently, he saw it all—my minor freak-out.
“For what it’s worth, I tried to keep it from you,” he explained. “You’ve had enough on your plate, enough big news to cope with without adding … this.”
Hearing him speak this way about something I was sure he held close to his heart, something sacred that couldn’t be diminished by my lack of memory, it made me feel a strange mix of things.
Guilty.
Sad.
Like I was adding to his pain.
My thoughts were turned from within, considering for that brief moment how this must’ve affected him, not just myself. A jolt hit my chest when I put myself in his place. The loneliness, the grief … he carried it all … hid it all … to shield me. I’d be foolish to believe for even a second this had been easy for him—seeing me with Nick, how cold I was toward him in the beginning, how I resisted what I felt.
It must have killed him inside.
He could’ve easily ambushed me with this information months ago, used it to sway me in his direction.
But he didn’t. He waited like a gentleman, letting his incredible strength and restraint show through while I found my own way.
Like always, he put me first.
“
This isn’t what I wanted.” His voice trailed off and I held my breath, waiting to hear his thoughts. When he bit into his lip, I knew he didn’t intend to go on.
“Tell me,” I beckoned softly.
He watched me again, maybe wanting to resist.
“Part of me held out hope,” was how he decided to express himself. “I hoped that, eventually, you’d remember and it’d just be natural,” he bravely admitted. “I hoped everything would just come back to you and, without needing to be reminded, without needing to be persuaded … you’d feel it.”
I breathed a question, bridling my soul as it reached for him. “Feel what?” My thoughts were already lightyears ahead, anticipating the answer.
I had his eyes again and, with so few words, he made me understand completely.
“…That it was supposed to be forever.”
Breathless.
Dizzy.
A deep burn gripped my heart, like a lasso of flames pulling, tugging, roping me into his orbit. My soul circled his until it got to be too much. Unable to keep away any longer, I faced him and leaned in. His breath caressed my skin the instant I stopped being afraid of what would happen if I opened my heart, if I finally let my atmosphere collide into his.
An unfamiliar emotion filled me, making my body vibrate on a foreign wavelength—his.
Frustration.
Longing.
Passion.
Our lips moved together and tears welled behind my closed lids. Fueling those tears? Everything. His touch. His love.
My hands slipped behind his neck, knotting in his hair. I got closer, savoring the familiar taste of him on my tongue. I breathed in, releasing doubt as I exhaled.
That conclusion he needed me to reach on my own? That thing he hoped I wouldn’t miss? It descended on me like a whirlwind, stealing the air right from my lungs.
I sighed against his soft lips before drawing them between mine again. His fingers gripped the hem of my shirt—tight, like he was afraid to let go. Before I could stop myself, I whispered powerful words against his chin as I floated away in a haze.
Words I hadn’t spoken to any other guy, because with any other guy, it hadn’t felt right.
“Liam … I love you.”
