Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Four

I let Bell House guide me home. My eyes were open but I was only vaguely aware of cars and crosswalks, and before I knew it, I was in Lafayette Square. Was I imagining it or did the house look fresher? Were the windows shinier than they were when I left? Too dazed to sneak back inside, I opened the front door and let it swing all the way into the wall, Dad's words ringing through my head and silencing all other thoughts.

Catherine doesn't want a granddaughter, she wants a Bell witch.

‘Goddamn it, Emily, do I have to put a goddamn tracker on you?'

I was still numb when Ashley flew downstairs to meet me in the foyer. She didn't look any better than she had that morning. Her hair was fixed but there wasn't much she could do about her sickly pallor. There wasn't a blush and highlighter combination on this earth that could perk her up.

‘Catherine is going to spit when she finds out you left the house.' She hustled me into the kitchen and pushed me down onto a stool. ‘When I say she'll be madder than a wet hen, you'd better believe me. You ever seen a wet hen, Emily James? I'm telling you she's going to be pissed.'

‘I found my dad's diaries,' I said, gazing blankly around the light-filled kitchen. The beautiful painted cabinets, the shining copper pots and pans. ‘He took me away from Savannah to keep me safe.'

‘No, he took you away because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life as your servant,' she replied. ‘And left that thrilling task to yours truly instead.'

‘That's not it at all,' I murmured, not really registering anything Ashley said. ‘He believed in the blessing, our magic, the prophecy, but he didn't want it for me. Neither did my mom. They wanted me to have a regular life.'

Ashley opened the refrigerator door and took out a jug of iced water, pouring two tall glasses. In no rush at all, she put the jug back and returned to where I stood. Then, right in front of me, my aunt raised one of the glasses and quick as a flash, threw the water in my face.

‘Normal?' she yelled as I stared at her in shock, ice-cold water snapping me back to my senses. ‘He wanted you to be normal? News just in, sweetie, you're not normal. You're a witch. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you'll always be a witch. Your daddy didn't hide you away to save you, he stole you out from under our noses because he didn't understand his place, and even after everything that's happened since you got here, neither do you.'

‘He did understand,' I choked, wiping the water from my face. ‘He was trying to help.'

‘Help himself,' she replied, stone cold. ‘Paul resented your magic, he didn't want to be the powerless one. He hated witches.'

‘That's not true!' I exclaimed. ‘He loved me. How can you say he hated women when he was protecting us.'

Ashley scoffed and threatened me with the second glass. ‘That's rich. Paul didn't give a fig about me.'

‘Then why is your birthday the password to his computer?' I volleyed back. ‘Why does his diary say he would get you out of here if he could but there was no way of contacting you without it getting back to Catherine?'

Her arm wavered and she leaned back against the kitchen counter.

‘How do you know that?' she asked, spilling the second glass of water all over the marble surface as she shakily set it down.

‘Because I have his laptop and I found his journals,' I replied. ‘My dad was afraid of what would happen if I stayed in Savannah, just like I'm afraid. Catherine loves to tell me I'd feel different if I'd grown up here but he grew up here, he heard all the stories and he still didn't have her blind faith. What if she's wrong and I'm right? What if I can't control my magic?'

‘People believe what they want to believe.'

Ashley was still visibly mad but there was less conviction in her voice. She opened a drawer, pulled out a tea towel, mindlessly dabbing at the spilled water as it dripped onto the floor.

‘In the eyes of the blessing, your father was no one,' she said. ‘Nothing more than a packet of seeds. You know what you do when you've planted the seeds, Emily? You throw the packet away. As soon as you arrived, Paul went from being Catherine's favourite to completely expendable and he did not like that one little bit.'

‘He loved me,' I said again. ‘He loved you too.'

‘If you say so,' she replied. ‘You really believe he ran away, abandoned me, gave up this privileged life and hid you for all these years, just to keep you safe?'

‘That's what parents do,' I told her as she came closer, holding up the towel to wipe the iced water from my face. ‘They make sacrifices for their children.'

Eye to eye, she paused and shook her head.

‘Not all parents,' she replied before handing me the towel and stalking out the door.

Ashley didn't bother me again and Catherine still wasn't home by the time I fell asleep on my bed hours later, head on my hands, laptop open in front of me. When my eyes fluttered open, my room was pitch black, darker than it should've been with the almost full moon casting slivers of milky light through the gaps in the shutters. But something was on the balcony, blocking those gaps.

Not something, someone.

‘Wyn!' I exclaimed as I vaulted out of bed to throw the window open.

He was only halfway inside but his arms were already wrapped around me so tightly I could barely breathe. My hands travelled up and down his back, his shoulders, his hair, his face. It was really him, he was really here.

‘You're real,' he said, holding my face in his hands and shaking his head like he was the one who couldn't believe it. ‘I didn't dream you up, you're real.'

With one finger pressed to his lips, I pulled him the rest of the way inside and closed the window behind us.

‘We have to be quiet, my aunt is in the next room,' I said softly. ‘I can't believe you're here.'

He pushed his hair back from his face with both hands and stared at me. It was only a month since I last saw him but he already looked so much older. There was a shadow of stubble across his jaw, the threat of a beard I'd never seen before, and dark hollows under his eyes that made me want to pull him back into my arms and hold him there. But something about the grim set of his mouth and unreadable mixture of emotions in his green-grey eyes held me back.

‘I promised I'd come back.' His voice was worn and dry. ‘Sorry it took a while.'

‘Kind of thought you'd forgotten about me,' I said, lacing my words with an attempt at self-deprecating laughter. The attempt was a failure. Wyn looked at me as though I'd just said the sun was green and the moon was red.

‘Emily James, I've spent every second since I left trying to get back to you.'

‘Where were you?' I asked, quickly but quietly positioning a chair underneath the handle of my bedroom door. ‘It's been weeks. I tried to text and call, I sent DMs—'

‘You wouldn't believe me if I told you.' He paced up and down in front of the window, occasionally throwing anxious glances at the closed shutters, as though someone might be watching, waiting. ‘I shouldn't be here. All this crazy shit is going on and you're the only damn thing I can think about. I shouldn't be here.'

He closed his red-rimmed eyes tightly then opened them again, almost surprised to see me still standing in front of him. ‘I don't know what's real anymore, Em. I don't know what to believe or who to trust. I had to break out of my own home to get here, hitched all the way to Savannah. They're already hunting me down, I know it.'

‘Who is they?' I asked, confused, as he prowled around the room, his steps as soft as snowfall. ‘Wyn, look at me, tell me who's looking for you? What happened?'

‘You won't believe me,' he said again. ‘I don't believe me.'

‘You'd be surprised at what I might believe,' I replied. ‘Remember what we said before? You can tell me anything, you can trust me.'

I felt a tremor in my fingertips and a swirling sensation in my belly as he rubbed a hand along his jaw, both feelings unexpected and neither completely within my control.

‘I guess it doesn't matter, right?' Wyn muttered, more to himself than to me. ‘Either I tell you and you send me away or I say nothing, my family finds me, and you never see me again anyway. Better to get it out.'

‘Would it help if I told you something crazy?' I asked, suddenly desperate to close the distances between us, literal and metaphorical. ‘Because whatever you have to say, I know I have something even more bizarre to tell you.'

‘I don't think that's possible, Em.' He raised his chin and looked me square in the eye. ‘Not unless you're planning to tell me you're a werewolf too.'

Thankfully, when I staggered backwards, my bed was close enough to catch me.

‘I told you,' he said as my heart stuttered in my chest, pausing for far too long between each beat. ‘I said you wouldn't believe me.'

My room suddenly felt too small, too dangerous. We both sank down to the floor, kneeling side by side on my rug. Wyn's eyes were wide open, his forehead creased with anguish. There was no need to use my magic to search for the truth, it shone out from his whole being. Werewolves were real, Wyn was a werewolf. And he was right. He shouldn't be here. Not because it put me in danger but because he wasn't safe.

‘I do believe you,' I said, choking out the words and silently begging the house to keep them safe in my room. ‘I wish I didn't but I do.'

He pulled up the leg of his pants to show me the long silvery scar.

‘My scar. It was Cole. When a Were shifts, he doesn't know who he is anymore. Thank God my grandpa got to me before he could do any real damage. I blocked the whole thing out, forgot what happened, but I remember now.'

‘Your family knew,' I said, rubbing my hand against the plush carpet fibres and trying to ground myself. My mind was swirling but I could not afford to lose control. ‘But they didn't tell you.'

‘They knew, they didn't tell me,' Wyn confirmed. ‘You really believe me?'

I nodded. ‘Tell me everything.'

He let his head fall back and scowled up at my ceiling, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed. ‘Short version, according to my mom, this thing, this curse, has been in our family since forever. If Cole had never gone missing, I would never have known. She says she didn't want to burden me with the secret, she reckons some people don't cope with it so well, mentally I mean.'

I exhaled something like a laugh and pressed my fingers deeper into the rug.

‘They do say keeping secrets isn't healthy.'

‘Right?'

His mouth crept up into a crooked smile, just for a second, before incredulity overcame his expression. ‘Growing up, my parents told me Cole had anger issues and I shouldn't be around him unless someone else was there. That wasn't hard, he didn't want to be around me anyways, but I don't know if the wolf made him angry or he's angry because they made him a wolf. All I do know is my parents did this to us and we didn't have any choice in the matter.'

‘Wyn, I'm so sorry,' I said, aching with sympathy. ‘Did you find out why they sent him to Savannah?'

He nodded but frustration made the muscle in his jaw tick.

‘He was supposed to find out what was happening here then come right back home. He shouldn't have been here when he phased.'

‘But he was. He was here during the last full moon.' The sour feeling in my stomach spread. With one hand I reached for my locket, with the other, I reached for him. Slowly, too slowly, I was able to put the story together and I did not like where the ending was headed. ‘What does your family think is happening here that's so bad they had to send Cole?'

Wyn rolled off his knees and crossed his legs underneath him. Cast in moonlit greys, the stubble and dark shadows disappeared and the extra years the last few weeks had added washed away. He looked much younger than seventeen.

‘Something bad.' There was so much fear in his voice. ‘I don't know what exactly but it's strong and dark, and a lot of people are in danger. My mom felt it all the way away in Asheville, Cole too. According to them, we're talking end of the world type of stuff. He was supposed to find out as much as he could then report to my mom so the pack could figure out what to do next. Together.'

All at once, my mouth felt very dry. I stood up, grabbed an empty mug from the nightstand and went to the bathroom, running the tap until it was icy cold. I took a long, cool drink, closing my eyes to avoid the guilty expression of the girl in the mirror, refilled the mug and took it back to Wyn. He drank it back right away, rivulets of water running over his jaw and down his throat.

‘That's all they know?' I asked, taking the empty mug back to refill it.

‘That's all I know. Mom says our intuition is stronger near the full moon but even then we're not psychic. Weres can sense imbalance in nature and whatever this is, it didn't just unbalance the scale, it blew it up. The pack is convinced they have to stop it.'

‘The pack?' I repeated softly, blanching at the thought.

‘My mom, my grandpa on her side. My uncle on my dad's side, he's from a Were family too, and there are cousins I haven't met yet. They'll be here soon enough. Probably here already. Everyone knew where I was headed.'

I looked down at the rug, the sound of the individual fibres bristling against my ears every time he moved.

‘Wyn,' I said, fighting against the bitter taste in the back of my throat. ‘What happened to you in Asheville? Why did you have to escape?'

Tears filled his eyes and I wanted to die.

‘Because the pack believes Cole is dead.'

‘No,' I whispered in complete denial.

‘They demanded another new Were and they got one,' he went on with bleak determination. ‘Tomorrow night, I'm going to phase. When the full moon rises, I will become a wolf.'

We sat on the floor in silence as his statement settled around us. Wyn nursed the mug of water while I concentrated on breathing in and out without burning the house down. Downstairs, the grandfather clock chimed midnight, officially my birthday. There would be no running from it now.

‘I know it's a lot to ask,' he said, looking at me with so much pain and fear, I felt tears well up instantly, ‘but will you be with me tomorrow night? They said it would happen when the moon was at its peak, around eight thirty, I think.'

Of course. The same time as my ceremony.

‘I'll find a way to keep you safe, I swear,' Wyn added. ‘But I don't want to be alone when it happens.'

‘You won't be on your own,' I answered fiercely and without hesitation. ‘You'll never be on your own again. I love you, Wyn.'

‘I love you too,' he whispered, the sound of the words clearing away all that was dark and dreadful. ‘They chained me up and locked me away but I still found my way back to you, and I swear I always will.'

He pulled me into his arms, tucking my head under his chin, and I heard what I knew he must be able to feel. His heart was beating faster than a normal man's, filling his muscles with blood, strengthening his organs and softening his bones as they prepared themselves for what was only hours away.

‘It might not even happen,' he said. A hope, a dream. ‘The initiation was such a blur, I don't recollect all that occurred but no one seemed sure that it worked. My mom could be wrong about all of it, even Cole. He's taken off so many times in the past, there's every chance he's hiding out someplace, still alive and if he's alive, I won't turn.'

‘Every chance,' I made myself say, even though I knew it wasn't the truth.

Wyn might not know for sure but I did.

Cole was dead.

He'd been dead since he attacked me and Catherine in Bonaventure on the last full moon, and if that wasn't bad enough, it meant Cole wasn't the wolf I'd seen, snarling over Catherine's bloody body.

The wolf in my vision was Wyn.