Chapter 29

29

CAROLINA

I shake my head at his provocation. He thinks he can get under my skin by goading me. That I’ll give in to my magic if he simply says the right things.

When he walked out the door yesterday, a part of me wished I could take it all back. I wished I could let myself have this, have him , but I knew I couldn’t. There was only so much of the future I could change before the Fates intervened.

But was that just an excuse I told myself because I was scared of losing someone else?

I couldn’t be sure.

Seeing Declan die in my dreams was nothing compared to the panic I felt when I saw him get hit with Nightcrawler’s energy ball.

Annabelle’s words ring in my head. You aren’t alone in this lifetime. Maybe you were back then, but you have people to protect you this time. To protect Declan.

If I wanted him in this lifetime, I’d have help—people to help me protect him and ensure a different outcome. Even so, it didn’t change my parents’ outcome…my grandparents’.

“You can’t let a fear of a future that might not happen stop you from letting us be together, Carolina. If we’re mirror souls— if we’re fated —no matter how much you try, we’ll always have this pull, this invisible string that infinitely ties my soul to yours.”

I shake my head again, a frustration growing in the pit of my stomach. “You still don’t get it.”

At this, anger flashes across his features. “You think I wasn’t terrified when you went to the Underworld? I didn’t sleep. I kept seeing you dead in my dreams. I’ve seen so much evil in this lifetime, Carolina. Maybe not your kind of evil, but evil just the same.

“And I may not be a warlock or ever be able to grasp what you’re experiencing in your dreams completely, but your soul and mine are the same . We want the same things; you’re just pretending that you don’t.”

When did he get so close?

His eyes, not his mouth, smirk at my silence. “Have you run out of excuses?”

Yes .

The moment I decided to give in, it was instantaneous. Two magnets colliding so suddenly that they may have altered space and time.

His mouth catches mine, and the stars that gather behind my eyelids are blinding. He pulls back suddenly.

“Whoa,” he whispers.

I blink at him, clearing my vision. “What?”

He looks at me with an awe that I only ever get from him. “I think I can feel it. Your magic.”

My brows raise, and my magic hums in confirmation, so I know he’s not crazy.

“Do you want to stop?” I ask, even though I’m not entirely sure my magic will let me. It’s already uncomfortably humming under my skin, prickling my fingertips.

“What’s that thing you say?” he asks with a ghost of a grin. “ Cauldron , no.”

I laugh, and he captures the sound in his mouth. I groan when his teeth sink into my lower lip, and his tongue takes the opportunity to slip into my mouth. I sink into him. My body presses against the hard ridges of his like I was molded to fit into the shape of him.

“Carolina,” he whispers against my lips, and I know I’m gone.

There’s no escaping this, no avoiding it anymore. I’ll do anything I must to keep him safe, even if it’s at the expense of myself.

My fingers dig into his neck and arm, like I’m trying to fuse myself to him.

He pulls my pajama shirt over my head, leaving the top of me exposed. There’s a growl that emanates from the back of Declan’s throat that has my body clenching.

It’s slow, his perusal of my body. His gaze shifts from left to right and back again, like he’s reading me, and there’s going to be a test later.

“Your turn.” My voice is soft, but it jolts him like a stern command, and he strips off his shirt.

I get it now. The urge to memorize every mark and expanse of skin. I’m doing it now, too. Except he’s done before me and has lost his patience.

“On the bed, Carolina.” The gruffness of his voice sends a pulse to every part of my body, and there’s a rush of desire that tightens my core.

This is nothing like my dreams. It’s so much better. He’s real and here…and maybe I’ll get to keep him.

“Carolina,” his tone is a warning, and if this weren’t our first time together, I might try to push him and test his limits.

He turns me and walks us backward until the backs of my thighs hit the bed, and I sit on the edge. Declan’s still standing in front of me, and I look up at him from beneath my lashes.

His calloused thumb reaches up to stroke my bottom lip, pulling it down. I wrap my mouth around his finger and suck lightly, my tongue drifting over it, whirling around the tip. Declan draws his bottom lip between his teeth, and his eyes dilate, fixed on my mouth.

“God, now that I have you, I don’t even know what to do with you,” he says, pulling his hand from my mouth and trailing it down my body.

The whimper that comes from my mouth is a sound I’ve never made before. “Declan, please .”

His brows raise at me in surprise. “I didn’t take you for someone who begged.”

My tongue swipes across my lips. “Guess I just want you that badly.”

That spurs him forward. His hands grip the sides of my sleep shorts, and I lift my hips so he can pull them down my legs, taking my underwear with them.

His gaze is hungry when he looks down at my newly exposed body. “Lay back, Carolina. I won’t ask twice this time.”

I listen to his command this time as he drops to his knees, lifting my legs over his shoulders. I’m trembling in anticipation, and it worsens when his breath fans across my core.

“You like that, Carolina?”

I mumble a confirmation, my fingers gripping the sheets and twisting. He runs his tongue against my slit, and I buck forward, trying to grind myself against his mouth.

“No, this was a terrible idea. I’m sorry.”

My head snaps to him, panicked that he’s not going to continue. I need him like oxygen, since this room doesn’t seem to have any anymore.

But my panic subsides, and my mouth waters when I see he’s pulling off his shorts, and I see his length. My core tightens, and the lust that runs through me, my magic, is almost too much to bear.

“I wish I could draw this out longer, but my body isn’t my friend right now,” he laughs, and it tugs at my chest.

There’s all of this tension, but even still, he’s him, and I’m me. I’d thought a mirror soul would consume every part of me, but it’s just an extension of the two of us. A sense of completeness wraps around me.

I lean forward and reach for him, pressing my mouth against his, tasting myself on his lips. Declan’s hands thread into my hair, and I grind myself against his lower abdomen, trying to get any relief from the raging inferno growing under my skin and in the pit of my core.

My magic and I grow frustrated when he pulls his hips back slightly, taking the friction off my clit. The whine that leaves my mouth makes him smile.

“I’ll take care of it,” he whispers as he pulls away.

He stands between my legs, the height of the bed allowing him to line up with me perfectly, and I moan at the first nudge of him inside me.

“ Fuck ,” he exhales as he notches himself further in.

He lifts my legs against his body and presses into me completely. The angle letting him hit deep inside me, causing my back to arch and my eyes to roll back in my head.

Declan drops a hand from one of my legs and expertly rubs two fingers against my clit. The pressure builds deep in my belly, and heat spreads across my chest. It feels like I’m going to explode. My hands release the sheets, and I tweak my nipples between my thumb and forefinger.

At the sight, Declan’s hips begin to move faster against me, and my head tips back at the building sensation in my lower body .

“Eyes on me, Carolina. I want to see you when you come undone.”

The moment my gaze meets his, and I see the veins in his neck bulge with his restraint, something unravels in me. The pressure is suddenly too much, and I spill over. Shattering into millions of tiny pieces, never to be assembled in the same way again but somehow still perfectly whole.

“ Christ, Carolina,” he bites out, his hips losing their rhythm, their pace turning punishing as I ride out my orgasm.

He’s not far behind me when he stills. His hand tightens around my ankle, and he presses a kiss against it before he slowly pulls himself out of me. I wince at the loss of him.

My magic ignites at the loss of his skin against mine, and I shift uncomfortably against the sheets.

I don’t have to say anything to Declan; it’s like he knows how much I need him to keep his hands on me because he leans forward to gather me in his arms. My legs wrap around his waist, and my arms cross at the back of his neck while his hands grip the backs of my thighs to keep me propped against him.

Maybe he needs to feel me just as much.

“Shower?” he asks, already moving us to the bathroom as I kiss the expanse of skin that connects his neck and shoulder.

My magic grows impatient to have him again, and I feel like a hormonal teenager. I want to score lines down his back and mark him as mine. I want him to bury himself so far inside me that my magic can’t tell where I end, and he begins. I want?—

He hardens against me, and his skin flushes an even deeper shade of red. “Sorry, he’s got a mind of his own,” he says, removing one hand from my leg to turn on the shower head.

“Probably a similar one to my magic,” I laugh against his chest .

“So, is this how it will be from now on?” Declan asks as I unwind my legs and slide down his body.

Holding out my hand, I summon a hair tie and pull my hair up so it won’t get wet. “That would be inconvenient. We’d never get any work done.”

There’s a smile on his lips as he dips his head back to let the water cascade over his hair and down his body. I’ve never been jealous of water before, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

“What?” he asks when he catches me staring.

I shake my head as I step into the shower in front of him. “Nothing.”

“So, how does this premonition thing work?”

I raise my eyebrows. “Usually, I just touch someone, and I can see flashes of their future.”

“Have you seen mine?” he asks as we swap places so I’m under the water.

I could lie to him. I could tell him no. I could keep the fact that he was supposed to die in the alley a secret.

To buy myself more time, I summon my body wash from home and pour some into my hand before passing the bottle to him.

“Are you…allowed to do that? Doesn’t magic have consequences or whatever?”

I laugh. “Magic is magic. The only magic with that kind of karma is dark magic, and teleporting objects is minor magic. I don’t need a spell, just a desire for something, and it appears.” I demonstrate again by summoning a washcloth in my other hand.

The smile starts in his eyes and ends at his mouth as he pulls me against him. His mouth presses against mine, and I sigh in blatant satisfaction.

It feels like a fantasy. Like he can’t be real. But my magic reminds me he is. It feels stronger and more complete. I feel more complete.

The bond we share isn’t tangible. It’s not something we can see or even pinpoint in our bodies. It’s just an overwhelming feeling of being whole.

Declan drags the soapy washcloth across my back, and I hum contentedly.

“Stop making those sounds, or we’re going to end up getting dirty all over again.”

My cheeks heat, and I pull my lips together to muffle the sound that almost escapes my mouth. I’m worried it might have been a giggle.

When we’re done with our shower teasing, it continues in the room with us both wrapped in towels. We’re making out on the bed again, with me straddling his lap. His hands are in my hair again, like it’s their favorite place to be, while mine hold onto his jaw. This time, I do giggle when he kisses me, and I feel feverish. His touch sparks flashes of heat throughout my body.

He groans when I pull away to grab my vibrating phone off the bedside table.

“Hello?” I answer, sliding off his lap.

“Hey. The crystals are about ready if you want to come by!” Esme’s chipper voice rings through the haze of us.

“Okay, we’ll be there soon. Thanks, Esme.”

“Of course!”

I sigh when I hang up and look at Declan apologetically, “Duty calls.”

He presses a kiss to my forehead and slides out of bed.

Declan’s halfway to his suitcase before he turns back to me and says, “You have seen my future before. It’s why you showed up at the stakeout, isn’t it?”

His eyes bore into mine. He wants an honest answer .

“Yes.” It’s a whisper.

“Not just because you saw the demon…because you saw me die. You came to stop it. To save me.”

“Yes.”

He looks away, his jaw tightening. He doesn’t say anything as he turns around again to get his clothes.

In the vast expanse of the empty bed, I feel the gravity of our situation press on me again.

Just like that, the spell is broken, and we’re forced back into reality.