by Ruby Raine
“It was his idea...”
Lucas lifted a brow.
“Well, not marriage. Not yet. We have to, you know, go out on a date first.”
Lucas shook his head, amused. Charlie Howard had no idea what he was getting himself into. “Regardless of who you actually wish to see, Lizzy, I don’t think visiting hours start this early at the hospital.”
She conceded he was probably right, but cared nonetheless. Although thinking about it for a few minutes, she decided it did come across a little too eager. And easy. She did care about Melinda’s condition. And Emily’s. It wasn’t all about seeing Charlie. However, the idea of making him seek her out was suddenly much more appealing. It was equally appealing to toy with the idea of dragging him away from the hospital and back to her bed. That’d make quick business of it all. Lizzy had a sinking feeling that would not be happening anytime soon though. If she had to bet money, she’d put it all on the wolf overthinking things and regretting his proclamation.
She hadn’t really talked to Charlie since the night he’d showed up at the manor and told her he’d fallen, hard, and fast. She’d only seen him for a few minutes at the hospital while checking in on things there, and letting him know Riley had left and they were going after him.
Charlie hadn’t brought up the love subject and she’d left it alone. Something told her it wasn’t just the nature of the moment keeping him from doing so though; he was definitely overthinking things. It was obvious by the way he avoided real eye contact with her, and kept things light, almost professional and job-like. It would take some clever coaxing to make him give in, or get the man to stop worrying so damn much. She wondered if Charlie Howard was even capable of such a thing.
The thought of him standing underneath the fire-worked skyline declaring his sudden love brought a smile to her face. It was a good match. A smart match. And she’d already glimpsed the goods. He was pure man. Rugged. Earthy. Ripped in all the right places. Big in all the right places. Adorable in all the right places. She moaned out a hungry exhale.
It wasn’t just his manhood perfected that snagged her heart. It was all of him. She’d never seen a man so willing to demoralize himself if it meant saving the ones he loved. He was dedicated. Endlessly loyal. A blend of total confidence or complete self-doubt. And frankly, needed someone like her to kick him around a little and keep him in line. Then again, so did she. And Charlie Howard was just the wolf for the job.
The ferry ride was almost over already. The Demon Isle coming into view as the sun rose and the fog lifted. It was almost like entering some time-shift that took them back many years.
On the mainland, people went about their lives, working, playing, raising families. And here on the Isle, tourists came to immerse themselves in a nostalgic setting basked in fantasy and the supernatural. A world the locals knew was real. Frighteningly so, after the ordeal they’d all recently gone through. But this was her home and she never wanted to live anywhere else, even after all her years in captivity here.
The Demon Isle rarely made steps forward when it came to modern things. On the mainland, there had been so many mind-boggling, attention-grabbing, bombastic-type gadgets, contraptions, and no-idea-what-the-hells, it had actually caused her to panic, all of it overwhelming the senses.
Lizzy hoped the Isle never lost its old-fashioned charm. She’d take supernatural trouble over the entire world, any day. Magic made The Demon Isle a special place, unlike any other in the world.
An electric tingle zapped through Lizzy. She was almost home.
Lucas joined her by the railing, almost unwilling to step foot off the ferry and onto the Isle. This place was not home, and he was starting to believe it was his own personal hell.
NEARLY THE ENTIRE TOWN had come. The longtime locals at least.
To pay their respects to Emily Morgan’s father. And say a final goodbye to Jack Howard. Who was now dead, for real this time, after coming back to life only to die days later.
Michael drove the jeep into the driveway of the Howard Mansion. Emily was silent as they pulled in; didn’t even look at Michael. He wasn’t entirely sure she was aware they were home; her gaze distant, focused on nothing in particular.
He sat quietly for a minute, getting up the gumption to get out and head inside. To say it had been a rough morning was an understatement. His attention had wanted to stay entirely on Emily, but there was a mass of emotions hovering over the entire graveyard like a vortex had opened up in the sky and tried to swallow him up in it. He was glad to be done with it, and glad to have his girlfriend at his side, all to himself, so he could take proper care of her. It had been one never-going-to-end week, since he’d brought Emily to live here.
Melinda had come home from the hospital and she and Charlie had assisted in the planning of the funeral. Along with a final memorial for their father, and mother, seeing as they finally had closure and everyone wanted to say goodbye.
Michael hadn’t left Emily’s side the entire day. She hadn’t cried, or spoken much as they buried her father. But it was done, she was home where she belonged, and he’d do whatever he needed to see her through this. Something had broken inside her, and it wasn’t getting fixed, easily.
But it also wasn’t getting fixed unless she tried. Or at the least, talked to him. Neither of which she was doing. Mostly, she seemed to be suppressing her emotions around him. Probably for his benefit afraid she’d overwhelm him because of his gift of empathy; his Emily, always thinking of others, almost to a fault.
But the numbness creeping through her worried him. She needed to mourn and wasn’t letting herself. He also worried that when the floodgates opened, it might be too much for him to handle. Being an empath had far too many drawbacks.
He got out and made his way around the jeep, opening her door. She slid out and absentmindedly headed to the house. Charlie and Melinda had stayed behind to finish up at the funeral home.
“Emily,” Michael called out gently.
She stopped, waiting for him to catch up. He grasped her shoulders, Emily’s blank stare cutting through him.
“Talk to me, please.”
Her blank eyes honed in on his face, seeing him clearly. Her silence screaming a thousand things she’d like to say, but none of them forming into actual words.
“What do you need, Emily?”
She shrugged and pinched her face inward.
He sensed out for her emotional state but she was holding it in. Michael worried the bubble she was keeping around herself would burst at any moment, causing him to implode when it did.
“Let me help you,” he told her for the thousandth time.
“I don’t know how you can do that,” she whispered coarsely, wriggling out of his grasp, hastening into the mansion. She made it up a few stairs heading up to their bedroom when Michael got through the front door.
“Emily, I’m grabbing a drink, would you like anything?”
She stopped on the third stair and turned to see him. It took her a few seconds, but she finally replied and it was not a drink order.
“I... I want to... I can’t seem to,” she pushed out a frustrated sigh.
He met her on the bottom stair unwilling to let this moment pass if Emily was ready to open up to him. He waited, not wanting to push too hard and make her close down again.
“I can’t feel anything, Michael. No, that’s not really it. How do I explain it?”
“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
She swallowed uneasily.
“It’s like, it’s all so much, that it’s somehow zeroed itself out.”
Her emotions were still stuck inside, so he couldn’t sense what she meant. “How do you mean?” he asked her to clarify.
“Like it’s stolen my ability to feel anything. Or care about anything. Replaced it with this, nothing. Like I don’t quite exist.”
He reached out and lovingly stroked her hair. “I can guarantee you very much exist, Emily Morgan.”
There was a shy
, downward cast of her eyes. Similar to his Emily as she was normally. It was fleeting, but still more than he’d gotten in the last week.
“I close my eyes and I see everything, Michael. I open them, and it’s all still there. Eva, killing my Dad. Riley, torturing William. Melinda tied to that stake, looking like death. Eva took over my body, and I couldn’t stop her because Stricker stole my ring. Eva killed your father. Brutally.” She drew in a ragged breath. “It might as well have been me. She used my body to kill your father. How can you even look at me?”
Michael was getting the picture now. But he wasn’t positive how to prove to Emily that his father’s death had nothing at all to do with her. She was not at fault, simply a vessel used for an evil purpose. Something out of her control.
“Emily, there’s nothing you could have done. If anything, it’s my fault for not seeing it soon enough. For not realizing you were not you. I was too late. Even Charlie didn’t see it. Eva was tricky. We thought she was dead. And when we found out she wasn’t, and was with us in that cave, we thought she’d shifted into you and had you stashed somewhere. The blame lies anywhere but on you, Emily.”
Her emotions stayed inside. Locked up, even with this personal blame laid out. Which meant Emily was still holding something in, but he refused to press. She’d given him more in the last five minutes than she had all week.
“Even if you don’t blame me for your father, the things I saw. And heard. Are branded into my brain and won’t go away. I feel stupid that I can’t get beyond this.”
“Why would you feel that way?” The very idea bewildering. “You suffered severe trauma. You almost died because of what Stricker and Eva did. You have to mourn and heal like anyone else. You are special, Emily. Smart. Beautiful. Perfect in my eyes, no matter what. But you can’t skip the process. And you can’t force it to move faster.”
“How exactly did I suffer Michael? I watched Eva kill my dad. I watched Melinda bound to that stake. I watched, and listened, to William’s torture. Eva took over my body, I don’t remember any of it. I don’t remember killing your dad. I don’t remember your brother stabbing me. I watched. I listened. I didn’t suffer. Not like everyone else.”
This was beyond Michael, more than he was capable of dealing with. Never mind keeping his own guilt from consuming him as it was he and Charlie that had almost dealt his girlfriend the final deathblow, thinking she was Eva shifted into Emily’s form.
“You were hurt, Emily. And you did suffer. You are suffering. You almost died. That does something to a person. And the rest doesn’t count any less because you watched. Or listened. You had no control over what happened.”
He prayed she was really hearing him.
She leaned her head against his, her body trembling against him.
“I love you, Emily Morgan. That is never going to change. You can take as long as you need to heal and understand your place in this crazy ass world we live in. I won’t give up on you. Ever.”
“This isn’t my life, Michael. I’m a girl who runs a bookstore. I’m the one who helps with research. It’s not supposed to be so...”
“Frightening. Real. Inescapable.”
Emily lifted her head off him. “I understand why you wanted to get away from this place now. I didn’t before. I’m not naïve enough to think I can force my feelings to change. But I want them to change. I don’t like them. I don’t like being in this dark place.” She stopped, a rattled breath on her lips.
He dabbed at the dampness around her eyes with his thumbs, caressing the sides of her cheeks.
“What do you need from me, Emily? Please, tell me. Anything... I’ll do it.”
She didn’t answer with words.
A single need rolled off her, freely. Another tried to surface, but she struggled to let it do so.
Emily needed acceptance. Forgiveness. And him. All of him.
It ensnared his senses completely, seeping into every nerve, every muscle, making him incapable of doing anything but give her everything.
Her hands found the bottom of his shirt and slid the cloth up over his head.
Emily didn’t want romantic. Or gentle.
Wasn’t waiting, or asking.
Michael joined her, shuffling her up a couple more stairs. Lips collided as they climbed up a few more. And a few more, before giving up and dropping down to the hardened oak.
Her lips, body, and emotions were one-minded and flinging at Michael with such ferocity he pinned her to the stairs uncaring of the wince that came out of her when her back hit the oak edge of the protruding stair. He drank it down along with a moan, hands searching for the hem of her dress.
Emily’s hand snaked down between their bodies tugging at the zipper of his pants. She got them undone as he forced the dress up over her ass, yanking it over her head. No bra, it had been built into the dress. Michael crept over her body, teeth raking her right nipple in a necessary torture. Emily gasped, tugging the pants off him. His mouth moved to her left side, using the same torture mercilessly.
“Michael...” He was making her wait for the rest and she didn’t want that.
He sat upward, reached down, tore the thin cotton separating them and unceremoniously thrust into her, filling her, stretching her wide open.
Arms slammed up against the staircase walls, a gasp pushing through her lips at the sting of his entry. It was everything Emily wanted, but it wasn’t enough.
Michael braced his hands on the stair just over her head, his body grinding against hers with each thrust. Each time he pulled out her feelings flung out at him, demanding he fill her again. Deeper. Harder. Again. Again. Again.
Emily took in every inch, gasping each time, hands either flat against the walls, in his hair, or digging into his back. Mouths crashed into each other. Tongues tangled. Teeth nipped. Michael’s knees hit each corner of the stair. There was no deeper he could take her and he grunted in the effort; her emotions demanding more. More. More. Not enough. Never going to be enough.
He lifted her, moving them up two more stairs. Then two more until she was at the top. He pushed her flush to the floor, pulled out, his mouth buried between her legs before she got out a single gasp.
Even sad and broken, Emily tasted of peaches and cream. But he wasn’t here to taste test. He took her between his lips and sucked, nipped, and bathed her with his tongue.
Her hips bucked, his arms pressed her thighs down. She wasn’t moving until he freed her.
She let out a gasping sob.
A slew of emotions flying at him, consuming him.
Too much.
Not enough.
More.
Stop.
Oh, God, don’t stop.
Michael refused any pause.
Her back arched, her body tensing. He let go of her legs, pulled her body up off the floor so her legs straddled him, her breasts against him and pounded her down on him until an explosion of stars was all he could see himself, or feel from Emily; her mind a momentary blank slate of nothing but bliss. His arms held her firm, his body spent, breaths ragged. He closed his eyes, felt her forehead lean against his in a moment of serenity.
It didn’t last long, the sadness crept in. Wetness dripped onto his shoulder; tears belonging to Emily. He kissed them away. Gently swiping across her trembling lips.
Her body remained locked around his and he sensed she was not willing to let go. With a bit of effort, his exhausted muscles got them off the floor and he carried her to their bed.
It would be another long evening and night, worrying that his beautiful light would stay dimmed forever. But he had hope this moment, where he’d had none just a single staircase ago.
CHARLIE PICKED UP THE Mack line the morning after the funeral. When he hung up, Melinda didn’t need to ask, but he told her anyway.
“Another body drained of its blood. This one was found near one of the lighthouses.”
They stared at each other blankly for a few seconds.
“What should we do?” Melin
da asked tentatively.
“We’ll go meet with Mack to start. She’s at the morgue. To be honest, my head is not ready to play this game yet, and all I can come up with is think like William.”
“What would William do?” she responded dejectedly. “I don’t think he’d be trying to hunt down and condemn himself.” Although she and Charlie still did not hold any belief it was William responsible for these recent bloodlettings.
“I’ll tell Michael what’s going on, to keep him in the loop but,” Charlie stopped, cut off to the sounds of footsteps heading toward them. “Oh, hi.” He was surprised when Emily popped into the kitchen, grabbing a coffee. To go. And wearing a smile. Not quite her usual easygoing grin, a slightly forced version of one.
“Morning. I’m off to the bookstore.”
“Really?” said Melinda, catching herself. “I mean, that’s great. But are you sure you’re up to it?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s a workday. I go to work.” She turned, left the kitchen, and marched straight out the front door at the same moment another set of footsteps trampled chaotically down the stairs.
“Emily,” shouted Michael.
Charlie and Melinda met him near the front door. He was dressed in a pair of shorts and his hair was wet.
“She just left,” his sister informed him. “To go to work.”
“Work?”
“Yeah. She seemed chipper.” Charlie’s voice rose at the end, in question.
“She woke up acting a bit strange this morning. I hopped in the shower and when I got out she was gone. I’d better go after her.”
“Maybe she needs some space,” suggested Melinda. “Or needs to keep busy.”
“Emily is in total denial. She’s not herself and she hasn’t been since... you know when. I just...” a steady run of obscenities spit out of him, his hand rubbing across his forehead. “I’m not qualified to help her through this. What the heck am I supposed to do? I thought she was getting better, making progress.”
“A little time and space sounds good,” said Charlie. Although, thinking about it, that’s exactly what they’d done when Melinda had her breakdown and it did not turn out so well. This wasn’t the same situation though. Not exactly.
