Withering Rose (Once Upon a Curse Book 2)

by Kaitlyn Davis

  "That's what we have to find out," I tell him. "If we figure out why she was running, maybe we can figure out how to wake her back up, how to release the magic."

  Cole runs his hand through his hair, scratching the back of his head. "I just." He pauses, dropping his arm and turning to stare at her. "I always thought she was a human queen. I always thought she stole our magic, and this was somehow her curse, this endless sleep. For fifteen years, nothing has changed. She just lies there, perfectly still like a painting, while our magic glimmers around her. I used to get so angry every time I walked by this room, every time I laid eyes on the glow seeping underneath her door. That's why I closed all the curtains, why I surrounded myself in darkness. Because even the sight of the sun became an unbearable reminder of everything she stole."

  "We'll undo it," I say softly. "Whatever she did, we'll undo it."

  He nods absently, silently raging at the faerie woman.

  And deep down, a small part of me wonders if I deserve that hateful look too. Who did my magic once belong to? A misty forest? An innocent town of shifters? My power is nature, maybe it was stolen from a faerie? Is there someone, somewhere, who might also breathe hate at the mere thought of me? Who would lock himself in darkness just to keep from being reminded of me? Whose eyes would fill with the same amount of fury now pouring out of Cole's if they looked at me?

  My skin grows itchy.

  Uncomfortable.

  I scratch at my arms, but the sensation doesn't fade. It just grows stronger, until my fingernails are digging into my skin, scraping it raw. I hardly feel the pain. Not even as my eyes begin to blur. I think I draw blood.

  "Omorose!"

  Cole grips my hands, stopping me.

  I begin to shake instead.

  He draws me into his arms until I'm pressed flat against his broad chest, unable to see or sense anything but him. "Omorose," he purrs tenderly, placing a soft kiss against the top of my head. The rumble in his voice touches me everywhere. "What are you doing?"

  "I don't know," I mumble.

  But I do.

  The itch wasn't skin deep. It was in my soul. It was the tingle of my magic, the prickling of power, and I was trying to claw it out of me.

  This isn’t about my father anymore.

  It’s not about Cole.

  It’s about me.

  Now that I know the magic doesn’t belong, I want it out.

  I want it gone.

  I'm tired of watching my time dwindle away to nothing. I'm tired of feeling the petals fall. I'm tired of sacrificing so much for something that was never supposed to be mine in the first place.

  I step out of Cole's embrace, breathing deeply, unable to meet his eyes. Instead, I glance at my arm, still red and raw. There's one long gash from my nail, from that last deep scrape. I wonder if it will scar.

  At the thought, my eyes travel to Cole's exposed forearm, to the ivory lines marring his firm skin. I always thought they were marks from a life of living among wolves and bears, but now I wonder if some of them are something else.

  "Why don't we get some dinner?" he asks gently, as though I'm fragile enough to break.

  I nod. "And then back to the study."

  His eyes darken. "Why don’t we take a break?"

  "No." I shake my head. "We're not done yet."

  "We can take one night off," he says lightly.

  "No, we can't," I murmur.

  A glimmer of worry passes over Cole's face.

  But I don’t give myself the time to wonder what it means.

  I leave the room.

  And I don't glance back to see if he follows.

  "I can't sit in this room anymore," Cole says suddenly into the silence. "I'm going insane."

  I hardly hear him, I'm too focused on rereading a scroll I've already read twice, searching for any hidden meaning I might have missed before.

  Cole begins to pace.

  A caged animal.

  Every so often his feet walk through the edges of my vision. The floor beneath us quakes with his heavy footsteps. I ignore it, focus sharp as the edge of a blade. There has to be more in this room. There has to be something we missed. And I won't stop until I've found it.

  I can't.

  My back aches. My eyes burn. I'm not even sure how much time I've spent crouched over these old papers, scratching out notes, trying to solve this puzzle in my head. How can I get rid of my magic?

  Break the curse.

  That's the only answer I find over and over again. Break the curse, and the magic will be released back into the world. But my curse is time. How do I break that?

  It's impossible.

  And the only other option I've found is death.

  "Omorose," Cole whispers into my ear, breath tickling my skin.

  I didn’t even realize he had crouched down beside me.

  "One second," I murmur, not pausing as I continue to scan the page for any desperate clue.

  His fingers drift slowly from my wrist, all the way up my arm. Tantalizing.

  I force the shiver away. Now isn't the time.

  "Omorose," he repeats tenderly.

  I don't acknowledge that I've heard him. I'm reviewing the tale of a king who died hundreds of years ago, one of the first to rerelease his magic into the world. Weather was his power. Storms raged with just the twitch of his fingers. But insanity was his curse. The winds he controlled were wild and untamed, just as his mind slowly became. Using his magic stripped a little part away, a memory, an emotion, an ounce of control. Something about it eerily reminds me of myself, of time slowly stripping, of the way my father desperately urged me to get rid of my magic, how he said my mother began to change, how little pieces of her began to fall away.

  The king killed his entire castle in a fit of madness.

  Murdering his children. His servants.

  And when he came to, when he realized the toll of his curse, he put a knife in his own heart to finally end it.

  For some reason, the story has stuck with me.

  For some reason, I can't get it out of my mind. When I close my eyes, I see him. The mad king, covered in blood, clawing at his own skin when he realized what he'd done. The knife glinting in candlelight as it sank deep into his chest. The flicker of relief that must have passed over his eyes in those last few minutes of life, to know that he was finally free from the magic, the curse, and the trap it had all become.

  Where did his magic go when he died?

  Who had it belonged to?

  "You're scaring me," Cole confesses, latching onto my shoulder, tugging me away from the paper in my hands.

  I meet his cloudy eyes.

  But all I can think is, how much time do I have left before my curse claims me?

  How much time do I have left to find the answers I need?

  How much time do I have left with Cole?

  How much time do I have left, period?

  Not enough.

  "I have to keep working," I mumble.

  "No," he interrupts. "You don't."

  I try to shake out of his grip, but he's too strong. My heart begins to beat rapidly. I'm suffocating beneath his stare. "I need to, Cole. You don't understand. I need to do something."

  "I know exactly what you need."

  That stops me. I find his concerned stare. "What?"

  "You need to let it out."

  "Let what out?"

  His thumb brushes across my cheek. "Whatever it is that's eating you up inside."

  "How?" I sigh.

  Cole grins. A wild streak burns across his smoky eyes. And then he takes my hand and pulls me quickly to my feet. "I have an idea."

  I'm dragged from the study and across the library to a pair of doors leading out to the balcony. Cole pulls them wide open. A cold breeze stings my cheeks, forces me to take a deep, shocked breath. My lungs awaken at the touch of that frozen air. Every nerve in my body comes alert in a single moment.

  "Yell," Cole says.

  I glance at him. "What?" />
  His eyes twinkle like the stars just beginning to sparkle in the evening sky. "You heard me. Yell. Shout. Scream. Anything."

  "No," I snort.

  He deepens his gaze. "Do you trust me?"

  A simple question, maybe, but for the two of us it holds profound meaning.

  "Of course," I say without hesitating.

  "Then do it."

  I eye him warily as I follow him into the night, putting my hands right beside his on the railing. But I can't do it. I feel way too ridiculous.

  "Cole," I murmur.

  But he shakes his head and turns his face toward the rising moon, letting the silver glow brush over his skin. He glances at me one last time, before he lets everything holding him back go, throwing it out into the never-ending sky. When Cole screams, he roars, and the whole earth seems to tremble before him.

  I laugh nervously when he's finished, knowing it's my turn.

  But he turns to look at me, urging me. "Don’t be embarrassed, not in front of me."

  I inhale for a long time, trying to build up my courage.

  Then I shout.

  It's a pathetic little noise that trails off after an instant.

  Cole raises his eyebrows pointedly. "Come on, Omorose. I know there's some she-wolf inside of you. I've seen her. You can't hide from me."

  And he's right.

  Because that first little scream unleashed something in me. Something wild. Something that doesn't give a damn. Something that just wants to lose control for a moment.

  Memories start to surge to the surface. Memories of all the times I bowed my head back at the base, pretending to be someone I wasn't. Memories of all the times the magic owned me, all the times it took over and took a piece of me away. All of the times I've ever felt trapped and afraid, alone and unsure, like a coward. All of my anger, all of my rage, all of my frustration, all of it bubbles to the surface until my skin begins to hum, coming alive.

  I take a deep breath.

  And I scream.

  And scream.

  And scream.

  The sound wraps around me, going on and on.

  I release everything.

  I force it out, banishing all the doubts and all the negativity.

  I throw it into the night and let it disappear.

  And when I'm done, I'm heaving in air, but my heart feels open, my head feels lighter. I feel powerful. Almost dangerous.

  "Nicely done," Cole remarks and I turn to find him grinning down at me.

  But I don't want this feeling to end. I pause as an idea springs. Tentatively, I ask, "Do you think I could maybe break something?"

  The corners of his lips twitch. "Sure."

  His voice sounds undeniably intrigued. I follow him inside, and we pause by a glass display. Cole opens it, grabbing all twelve of the porcelain plates arranged inside, handing them to me in a stack.

  I lift one. It's beautiful, painted with delicate flowers.

  But that's the wrong image.

  It only reminds me of my magic. And of my anger. And of the rage I've been suppressing that is suddenly undeniable.

  I hurl the plate, watching with satisfaction as it crashes into the wall and shatters into a thousand pieces.

  Then I throw another.

  And another.

  My arm is sore, but I don't care. It feels so good to just embrace the anger for a little while, to use it all up and let it drain away.

  The plates are gone before I even realize it.

  My hands feel unsatisfyingly empty.

  "Is it wrong that I find all of this incredibly sexy?"

  I turn to Cole.

  The air around him simmers.

  His eyes travel all the way up and down my body, slowly, taking in every curve. But when he finds my eyes, he pauses. "You're not done yet, are you?"

  I want to give in to the temptations dancing in his sizzling silver eyes, but my fingers itch to keep causing some destruction. I don't really know what's gotten into me, but I kind of like it.

  "Hit me," Cole orders.

  "What?" I step back, shocked. "No."

  He rolls his eyes. "You're not going to hurt me. And I'd rather take a bruise or two than destroy the entire castle."

  "But," I protest.

  He steps closer, squaring his shoulders. I always forget how much he towers over me, how truly intimidating he is—long limbs, broad chest, hard muscles.

  "Just do it," he orders, totally amused.

  I can tell he thinks my rage is adorable. I latch on to that annoyance.

  Oh, I'll show him adorable.

  I throw my fist into his chest.

  Cole doesn't even flinch. Doesn't move. He's a wall of stone. The side of my hand stings.

  I do it again. And again.

  Blinded by the fear and frustration, I keep releasing all the pain. Has my life always been one big inescapable trap? I can't escape the magic. I can't break the curse. Will I ever just be free?

  So I let go.

  I lose myself.

  I scream and shout and yell.

  I let the wildness take over.

  I embrace this brief sensation of freedom.

  And when I finally return to myself, I realize Cole's arms are wrapped tightly around me, and he's whispering soothingly into my ear. My tears soak his shirt. I'm trembling. And when I hug him back, pulling him closer, he runs his fingers through my hair.

  "It's okay," he whispers. "We'll be okay. We'll figure everything out."

  I nod against his chest, sniffling, trying to regain control.

  But control isn’t what I want.

  So I lift my head, searching for a different sort of abandon. Our lips find each other immediately, colliding fast and fierce. I run my hands up the contours of Cole's chest, searching to close any distance between us.

  The sound of a gun being fired stops me cold.

  Cole and I freeze. The bullet ricochets off the wall before burying into a book, but the echo of that blast lingers, ringing through my ears, making the hairs on my arms stand straight up. A deadly sort of quiet permeates the air, stretching dangerously on.

  I'm afraid to move.

  The sound came from over Cole's shoulder, but he's too broad for me to peer around. So I glance up, only to realize his eyes are hard and edged with the promise of violence.

  And then a girl's voice breaks the stillness.

  "Let her go, or the next one goes straight through your skull."

  Or the next one goes straight through your skull.

  The words repeat in my head. Twice. Three times. Four.

  Each time, they sound more threatening. More dangerous. Cole's body trembles beneath my hands, and I know it is taking every ounce of control he has to hold back a shift. We're too close. He won’t risk changing into the bear when his arms are still wrapped around me, when his claws could very easily dig into my skin.

  But my magic hums.

  Aches to be used.

  And I'm still too high on the wildness that coursed through me, too eager for destruction, so I give into that pull. I let the recklessness wash over me, and I surrender to the power coursing through me.

  The windows behind me shatter.

  I push my way around Cole as the vines break through glass and soar across the room, roping around the stranger's gun and tossing it to the floor. I bind her arms and legs before propelling the ivy into the wall, knocking her head hard against stone. She blinks as though seeing stars, but I don't pause. I'm too consumed by the magic and by her words. Before she has time to fight back, the twisting vines are latched to the wall, growing steadily around her, securing her so she can barely move.

  Everything is over in seconds.

  I pant as I force the magic to shut off, gritting my teeth as the pain takes over. Fire and ice consume my heart. Cole catches me as I fall against him, watching me with concern and confusion. He still doesn’t know exactly what my curse is, just that it hurts. But the way his fingers run soothingly up and down my arms makes the
ache the tiniest bit easier to bear.

  Another petal falls.

  Another chunk of time slips away.

  Seconds I could have spent with Cole.

  Minutes I might have lost with my father.

  Maybe even days, I have no idea.

  All I know is that some of my life is gone, and this girl is to blame.

  "Who are you?" I spit through my clenched jaw.

  She doesn't say anything. She just stares at me.

  I find myself mesmerized by the emerald color of her eyes. So brilliant, as though backed by fire. And right now they're full of an odd mix of hate and confusion that I can't even begin to understand. Her lips purse as the stare turns into a glare. Something about her reminds me of the sun, maybe the golden glow of her skin, made all the brighter by the dark, nearly black color of her hair. Or maybe it's her attitude, angry and blazing.

  Steps echo from the hall. The loud pound of boots.

  Everything about this hard girl softens at the sound.

  And I realize why a moment later as a boy comes running into the room, crashing against the door frame, panting.

  "Why." He wheezes. "Are you." He takes a deep breath. "So much." He exhales loudly. "Faster than me?"

  The girl smirks arrogantly.

  And then he looks up, searching for her.

  It's my turn to gasp.

  Something about him is so incredibly familiar. The icy blond hair. The fair, pale skin. The gentle smile that is rapidly turning to a frown as he looks around the room, eyes landing on the girl latched to the wall by my ivy. When his glance turns to me, my jaw drops. I would recognize those indigo eyes anywhere.

  I used to imagine them in my dreams.

  I used to imagine him in my dreams.

  "Asher?"

  The question falls from my lips, thick with disbelief.

  His wide, light-hearted smile is back. "In the flesh." He bows deeply, just like the prince I remember him to be. And then he shrugs. "We're, uh, well, we're here to rescue you…?"