It was not quite nine the next morning when Connor’s phone rang. We’d both gotten up early, our sleep restless even after making frenzied love sometime after midnight, when he’d woken me and pulled me to him, clearly needing the reassurance of my flesh against his. Of course I didn’t protest; I needed his touch just as much as he needed mine.
We were tired and preoccupied, but at least we’d already showered and dressed. No TV this morning; we were sitting at the dining room table and nursing another round of coffee when the call came through.
The hesitation before he reached for the phone was obvious, but after the third ring he picked up, handling the phone as if it had been infected with some sort of highly contagious virus. “Marie,” he said. A pause as he listened for a moment. Then he asked, “Are you sure?” Another pause. “Okay, we’ll be out there as soon as we can. I’ll need to get Lucas’s car from him.”
I stared at Connor, mystified, as he ended the call and set the phone back down on the tabletop. Finally I asked, “What was that about the car?”
“Marie said they’d guessed wrong — Damon…the wolf…whatever…anyway, he did come back to the house last night. He’s still there now. So we need to go.”
“And you need to take Lucas’s car so the illusion will be complete.”
A mirthless smile. “Something like that.”
“How did she know? A vision?”
He nodded. “Yes. She said she meditated on the problem last night, and as she lay down to go to sleep, she saw the wolf come back to the house, sniff around the perimeter, and then go inside.”
Frowning, I asked, “Wasn’t it locked up?”
A lift of his shoulders. “The clean-up crew made sure every door and window was locked. But I guess locks are no big deal for a skin-walker.”
Somehow I managed to repress a shiver. Facing down a large, angry wolf was bad enough. One with magical powers? I didn’t want to think about it. “Well, that’s…convenient, I guess. I mean, at least we don’t have to go wandering around in the woods, trying to find him.” And it’s not so strange after all, I thought. Wolves do tend to return to their lairs. “So now we have to go get Lucas’s car, then drive out there?”
“Yeah. Not sure how I’m going to explain that.”
“He’s not in on the plan?”
Connor shot me an unreadable look. “No. I don’t know for sure that he would try to stop us…but I don’t know that he wouldn’t, either. So I’ll have to figure out some sort of excuse for needing his car.”
I didn’t envy him that task. But, as it turned out, that part wasn’t so difficult. Connor called Lucas and said he’d screwed up and forgotten that he had a meeting with the gallery owner down in Sedona, and Angela had a doctor’s appointment that she couldn’t cancel, and if Lucas could help him out?
Of course Lucas agreed, and Connor said we’d be over right away to get the car.
“Doctor’s appointment?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him as we went down to get in the FJ.
“First thing I could think of. Besides, I know everyone’s wondering when you’re going to get pregnant. A doctor’s appointment just sort of feeds into that, you know?”
I nodded, although I couldn’t help but feel grimly amused at the subterfuge. Connor and I knew there was no chance of a pregnancy, thanks to the charm I used every time we were intimate, but his family wouldn’t have any clue about that.
A late storm had dropped some snow the night before, but it had already begun to melt. Still, the roads were slick and treacherous, and I wasn’t looking forward to driving Connor’s SUV back to the apartment after he picked up Lucas’s car. Hard to believe it was almost spring.
No, wait. Things had been so insane lately that I hadn’t been paying much attention to the actual date, although earlier that week downtown Flagstaff had been even livelier than usual, since it was Saint Patrick’s Day. But today was the twentieth. The vernal equinox, sometimes called Ostara. Not quite there, as that moment of perfect balance between shadow and light was due to arrive later this morning.
It was a day of power. Not the same strength as the solstice, but I tried to take heart in that. Perhaps I could harness the power of balance in my confrontation with Damon. After all, what he had done was a perversion of nature, of the order of things. It wasn’t that huge a leap to think that maybe the universe would lend me a hand in restoring the balance to what it should be.
We pulled up in front of a house not quite as large as Damon’s, but still pretty impressive, wood and stone, sitting on a lot that had to be almost an acre. The other homes in the neighborhood were equally large and well-kept. If there were any poor Wilcoxes, I had yet to meet one.
Connor got out and came around to the passenger side, then helped me down to the ground, holding my hand firmly as we negotiated our way up the icy front walk. Or maybe he was holding on to me for reassurance, just as much as providing a steady hand so I wouldn’t slip.
It took a moment for Lucas to answer the door after we rang the bell. I knew he’d been expecting us, but the house was big enough that I thought it could possibly take him a good chunk of time to get to the front door, depending on where he’d started from. When he did finally open it, though, he smiled at us, cheery as ever.
I had a feeling he wouldn’t be quite so cheery if he knew the real reason why we were there.
But since he didn’t, he gave us a hearty greeting, invited us in. Even though the place was just a little smaller than Damon’s house, something about it felt cheerier, more intimate. The colors were warmer — honey oak floors, walls a soft parchment color. And he had a fire going, sending the sweet scent of wood smoke through the building.
“Thanks so much for this, Lucas — ” I began, but he just waved me off.
“No worries. It’s not like you’re leaving me stranded. I’ve got the Beemer SUV as a backup if I need to go out.”
I raised an eyebrow at Connor, wondering what the hell Lucas’s primary car was if the Beemer was merely a “backup.” He didn’t respond, though, and only said to Lucas, “No, we do appreciate it. With everything going on….”
The cheerful expression quickly faded from Lucas’s face. “I know. But we all have to keep up appearances, and that means not missing any appointments, right?”
“Right,” Connor agreed, although I thought I saw him wince slightly, and knew he must be thinking about a certain dark appointment we needed to keep out at Damon’s house.
“Well, here you go,” Lucas said, and held out a key with a leather fob to Connor. He took it, holding it as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it. “I’ll go open up the garage for you. Heading to Sedona, huh? Oak Creek Canyon might be slippery.”
“Oh, I’m going to take the 17, even if it’s going the long way around. I figured that would be safer.”
Lucas nodded, appearing a little relieved. I couldn’t blame him; that road was twisty and treacherous on a good day. On a morning like this, where you’d be more likely than not to come upon sudden patches of ice? Not the sort of place I’d want someone driving my borrowed car, that’s for sure.
“Well, we need to get going — ” Connor began.
“Oh, sure. Come on. And Angela, you can just let yourself out the front door.”
“Thanks, Lucas,” I said again, no less awkwardly, and waited as Connor gave me the key to the FJ. After that I headed back out to the SUV, walking gingerly on the icy flagstones of the front path, and sighed in relief as I let myself in and slid behind the steering wheel. Since it was cold and I wanted to get the heater going, I went ahead and put the key in the ignition and started up the engine.
A flash of red in the rearview mirror told me Connor was backing out of the driveway and about to start heading toward downtown. I squinted at the car he was driving, and my mouth fell open slightly. It was — well, I didn’t know what it was, since sports cars weren’t something you saw a lot of in Jerome. There was slightly more flash in Flagstaff, but more along the lines of Damon’s Range Rover or the Audi SUV that one obnoxious client of Connor’s had driven. Whatever the sports car might be, I was just glad Connor was the one driving it, not me.
I headed back into town, feeling my stomach clench as a pale sun slowly rose higher in the sky. It was easy to distract myself with thoughts of cars. That way I wouldn’t have to think about what was coming next. How on earth could I possibly survive another confrontation with Damon…with what Damon had become?
But I couldn’t completely lose it, because I had to stay focused on getting back to the apartment in one piece. I’d already passed one fender-bender at the intersection of Butler and Route 66 where someone obviously lost control and slipped into the intersection, getting sideswiped by a pickup that couldn’t quite maneuver out of the way in time. Luckily — or not, depending on how you looked at it — I made it to the alley without incident, then pulled into our designated parking space. Connor hadn’t told me to do that, but I figured it made the most sense, since we’d be leaving right away in Lucas’s car.
I was just getting out of the FJ when Connor emerged from the building’s back door. He must have parked on the street in front and come through the access hallway on the ground floor. In one hand he held his phone, but he slipped it into his pocket as he saw me.
“That was Marie. Damon’s still at the house, so we need to go.”
The lump that had been steadily growing in my stomach seemed to balloon to twice its size. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You have to.” His green eyes bored into mine. “If I can, then so can you. Besides, there’s no one else. If we don’t — ”
“Then more people will die. I get it.” I gulped in a breath of icy air, and although it bit at the back of my throat, it also seemed to brace me, give me the strength I needed to get moving. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go.”
He led me back through the building, through the hallway that always smelled like an odd mixture of dust, beeswax, and mildew, and out to the street. The red car was sitting at the curb, looking very out of place against the dirty snow piled on the sidewalk.
“What the hell is this thing, anyway?” I asked, after he’d opened the door for me and then gone around to get in the driver’s seat.
“‘This ‘thing,’ Angela, is a Porsche Cayman.”
“I’m surprised he gave it to you to drive instead of the BMW.” Not that it really mattered, but discussing the car seemed safer than just about anything else.
“I think he wanted me to impress Eli.”
I supposed that made some sense. “It doesn’t seem very practical for Flagstaff,” I said, almost primly, as he edged out onto the street and then pointed us back toward Route 66.
“Probably not, but Lucas likes his toys. You should see his stereo.”
Midlife crisis? I wondered. Not that I thought Lucas was quite old enough for one of those. He was a couple of years older than Damon, but not yet forty. “I can imagine.”
Connor even smiled a little, but it disappeared as we began heading northwest toward Damon’s house. “Might as well do it now,” he murmured.
“What — ?” I began, turning toward him.
But then his features began to shift, not a great deal, as Lucas had the same long nose and high cheekbones as most of the Wilcox men, but still, in a few seconds, the man sitting next to me wasn’t Connor anymore, but his cousin, right down to the laugh lines in the tanned skin around his eyes and those first faint patches of gray at his temples.
I swallowed. “That’s…still kind of amazing. And disconcerting.”
He shrugged. When he spoke, even his voice sounded different. It had the slight lilt to it that I’d noticed in Lucas’s inflection, as if nothing could suppress his inner joie de vivre. “I’d say you’d get used to it, but really, I hope I don’t have to use this power often enough for you to get to that stage. I hate it.”
“It feels like lying,” I thought. Connor’s words to me only a few short weeks ago. And how much worse now, when he was using it to perpetrate the worst lie of his life, the one that would fool Damon into thinking this man was coming as a friend?
Breathe in, let it out. I did this again, and again. My aunt had taught me this technique to center myself, to keep my energies clear and unflagging. Despite my efforts, a sudden worry surfaced, and I shifted uneasily on the leather seat. “What if — what if Damon still figures out it’s not Lucas? What if you, I don’t know, don’t smell right or something?”
“It’s a possibility. But the way Marie explained it, he’s taken on the shape of a wolf, but he’s not actually a wolf. His senses aren’t the same. Sharpened, yeah. Better than a regular man’s, but still not close to those of a real wolf.”
I had to hope she was right. Or this could turn out very, very badly.
For us, that is. After all, if everything went according to plan, it was going to be a very bad day indeed for Damon Wilcox.
For all its low-slung sportiness, the Porsche handled the snow-slick roads out to the property very well, and I began to revise my initial estimate of its impracticality. The problem was, since Connor didn’t have to drive all that slowly, we got there a lot faster than I would have liked.
He downshifted as we approached the driveway, hand white-knuckled on the gearshift. “Angela, I don’t think I can do this.”
I’d halfway expected this reaction. How could I not, when we were about to go in Damon’s house and, in Marie’s words, “put him out of his misery”? I licked my dry lips, then said, “All you have to do is get me in there. I’ll do everything else.”
“And what will you do? Do you even know how to fight him?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know now. But I will when the time comes.”
“That’s…crazy. That’s no plan.”
I shifted in my seat, staring at the face of Lucas Wilcox, and hoping to see something of the man I loved beneath those features. Of course I couldn’t; the glamour was perfect. It had to be, for this to work. “Connor, all of this is crazy. The only thing I know for sure is that I love you, and I wish with all my heart that we didn’t have to be here doing this. But I also know we’re the only hope of stopping Damon. Stopping the killing.”
As those words left my mouth, Connor twitched, as if recalling again why we were doing this. It wasn’t simply that Damon had dabbled in forbidden magic. That could have been overlooked, if it had caused no lasting harm…or at least no harm to anyone except himself. But, as much as he might love his brother, Connor couldn’t allow any more innocent blood to be shed. Whatever the cost, he knew that had to stop, here and now.
A grim nod, and he pulled into the driveway. As he parked in front of the center garage door and took the key from the ignition, I could almost see the shift in his demeanor, the way the cloud of doubt lifted from his brow, and suddenly he really was Lucas Wilcox, cheerful and untroubled.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
I couldn’t trust myself to do anything more than nod.
“Then let’s put on a show.”
He got out of the car and came around to the passenger side, then grasped me by the arm and pulled me out. My feet slipped a little on a patch of ice in the shadow of the eaves, and his grip tightened.
“You’re hurting me,” I said.
“Just don’t want you to fall down,” he said sunnily, and dragged me to the front door.
The illusion was so perfect that even I felt a flicker of cold doubt, wondered for half a second whether this had all been some elaborate plan to deliver me to Damon once and for all. No. That was crazy. This was just Connor acting as he thought Lucas might if he really had gone off the deep end and had decided to help out his old friend by delivering me all wrapped up in a bow.
As before, the front door was unlocked. Connor pushed me through it, hand still like a band of steel around my upper arm. Playacting or not, that was going to leave a bruise.
Then again, I had far worse things to worry about.
A low snarl greeted us, and we both stopped dead on the Persian rug in the entryway. The clean-up crew had done a good job. You couldn’t tell that a young woman had died violently here only two days ago.
The Damon-wolf was sitting on the threshold between the entry and the living room, unnatural black eyes glaring at us, teeth bared in a snarl.
Connor held up a hand and said, “Look what I’ve brought you, Damon. Think of her as a present. She’s the one you were really trying to get, right?”
A slight head tilt, and the smallest suggestion of a whine, as if the creature was trying to process what Connor had just said.
“This isn’t going to work!” I cried, going along as best I could. “When Connor finds out what you’ve done — ”
“Well, he won’t, because this is just Damon’s and my little secret, isn’t it?”
Another whine, and the wolf began to pad toward us. I held my breath, not daring to move. But as the creature drew closer, I saw it halt, then sniff the air. Its teeth bared, and a low growl began to emanate from its throat.
Oh, shit. Ohshitohshitohshit…
That was about the only coherent thought my brain could form. Because somehow it must have realized this was not Lucas, that the scent beneath the guise of his friend was that of someone Damon knew even better.
His brother.
Even though I’d been expecting the attack, its speed took us both by surprise. The creature was in midair, mouth open, before I could even begin to react. Connor, acting on instinct, thrust himself between the wolf and me, arm up to protect his throat.
The teeth latched onto his arm. Thank the Goddess that he was wearing a heavy leather coat, or that bite would have sunk straight to the bone. But it was still enough to knock him staggering, crying out in pain as he fell against me and we both collapsed to the floor, the weight of the creature — greater than I would have thought an actual wolf’s would be — driving us backward, slipping along the tile floor.
Although I hadn’t been touched by the Damon-wolf, I still let out a grunt of pain, feeling elbow and knee smack into the hard surface. But nothing seemed to be broken, and I couldn’t worry about bumps and bruises now.
Blessed Brigid, give me the strength of a warrior now, I thought. The glowing energy within me seemed to flare up brighter than the sun, and I pushed out with it, concentrating all its force on the unnatural creature snarling and biting at Connor’s face — now returned to its normal guise, the glamour ruined from shock and pain — as he held up his arm to shield himself, the leather jacket shredded beyond any hope of protecting him further.
An unseen force lifted the wolf and flung it away, aiming it so it plowed directly into the wall. It gave out a little grunt, then pushed itself back to its feet before charging at us once again.
I pushed out again with the power within me, but somehow the wolf seemed to be pushing back as well, resisting the power that was attempting to force it away. Fear surged up within me. I’m not strong enough —
And it leaped, teeth closing around my calf just above the hiking boot I wore. Red-hot pain seared through me, and I staggered backward, blinking away tears of agony, even as Connor burst out, “Damon, no!”
Focus, I told myself. There is no pain. There is only the power.
Somehow that allowed me to regain my balance. Once again I gathered up the brilliant prima strength surging within me and thrust it outward at the wolf, shoving it back so it couldn’t get close enough to do any real harm.
“Please, Damon,” Connor said, moving gingerly to a sitting position, then pushing himself up to his feet. Blood was dripping from his nose, and now I could see that more blood stained the torn leather of his jacket. “Please. You don’t want to do this. Come back to us.”
The wolf seemed to hesitate, black eyes watching us carefully. I didn’t move, didn’t dare breathe. Maybe this could work. Maybe Connor could somehow reach out to the shred of his brother still buried deep within the creature. After all, we’d taken Marie’s assertion at face value when she said the only way to stop Damon now was by killing him. For all I knew, she had her own agenda at work, her own reasons for wanting the primus out of the way.
I could feel the world shift, feel the planet poised in that perfect tipping place between dark and light, neither one nor the other taking precedence. The power throbbed within me, but waited as well, as if it was holding its breath along with the rest of us.
Then Damon sprang. I saw the shock and horror on Connor’s features even as I gathered up the strength I needed to drive the creature back, the power glowing within me like the white-hot center of a star. And as I did so, I felt the wrongness pulsing from the wolf, sensed how anything that might once have been Damon Wilcox had been warped and twisted to serve its need for chaos and death.
How can you save someone when there’s nothing left to save?
As I flung the power outward again, it seemed as if the very earth itself lent its strength to my attack, that sense of balance asserting itself to destroy this thing that had perverted every law of nature. The light arcing out from me was no longer golden, but pure, searing white, the kind of light that will sterilize everything it touches.
The wolf let out an unearthly shriek and dropped to the floor. From the unnatural angle at which it lay, I could tell that its neck had been snapped. It whined, and as Connor and I both watched in shock, the shape of the wolf lying on the tile seemed to melt away, leaving the body of a man behind.
“Oh, God,” Connor groaned, and went to him at once, dropping on his knees so he knelt by his brother’s head. “Damon, can you hear me?”
No movement at first, but then the long black eyelashes fluttered against his pale cheeks. Only enough for him to open his eyes a fraction, to focus on his brother. “Connor…sorry.”
“Don’t try to talk.” Wincing, Connor reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. “Stay still. I’m going to call 911.”
“Don’t…bother.” Damon’s eyes shut. Without opening them, he murmured, “This is why I wanted you, Angela. So…strong….”
A shudder went through him, and he seemed to go even more limp, if that were possible. Not sure whether I should approach or should stay out of the way, I hesitated, watching as Connor sucked in a breath.
“No…please, no.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw movement, and realized Jessica’s ghost had moved toward us, looking almost expectant, as if she’d been waiting here for the moment when Damon would meet her in death. There was even a faint smile on her lips.
Damon somehow managed to reach out and touch Connor’s hand. “It’s yours now. Take care of the clan.”
And as Connor began to shake his head, words of denial rising to his lips, Damon’s eyelids opened one last time. An expression of pure joy passed over his features, and he gasped, “Felicia!”
Then he truly went still, and Connor bent over him, shoulders shaking, a horrible wracking movement, as if he couldn’t allow any tears to fall but at the same time couldn’t contain the agony of grief surging through him.
And I looked up to see Jessica shake her head, tears glittering on her cheeks. Then she melted into nothing.
After that — well, I’d like to say that I’d forgotten large parts of it, but no, Marie came in only a few minutes later. Apparently she’d driven out after us and parked some distance away, waiting to see what would happen. When she spotted me helping an obviously distraught Connor into the borrowed Porsche, she took that as the signal to come in and start the mopping-up operations.
True, she was very efficient, and thank the Goddess for that. She told me to take Connor home, and that they’d manage everything. Numb, I did as I was told, some irrational part of me worrying that I was going to crash Lucas’s car on the way back into town, and wouldn’t that just be the cherry on the cake of everyone’s day.
Crazy what your mind dwells on when it doesn’t want to focus on the really important things.
But we arrived intact. Well, physically anyway. I helped Connor up the stairs after parking the Porsche on the street. Somehow or another we’d have to get the car back to Lucas, but that was sort of low on my list of priorities at the moment.
Connor slumped onto the couch, not looking at me, or at anything in particular. Not that I could really blame him for being shell-shocked; he’d just lost his brother and become the new primus of the Wilcox clan in the space of a heartbeat.
What that meant for us, I had no idea.
I couldn’t dwell on that, though. Instead, I went and fetched him some water, which at least he did take from me, and then got a fire going in the hearth. False cheeriness, but better than the cold emptiness of the space between the two of us, a space that hadn’t been there even an hour ago.
Of course I knew why. I’d killed his brother. Never mind that I’d had no choice, that if I hadn’t done so he would’ve killed me and probably Connor as well in his blind animal rage.
He hadn’t been an animal there at the end, though.
Tears began to sting my eyes, and I blinked them away. I had a feeling Connor wouldn’t much appreciate me grieving over the man I’d killed. And how could I ever explain that they weren’t tears of grief, but of relief and joy? I’d seen that same expression of utter elation on Aunt Ruby’s face when she passed. I knew what it meant — despite everything he’d done, Damon Wilcox had not met damnation as he left this world, but the woman he loved, waiting for him.
It turned out to be convenient that he’d died in his home. Marie and her crew moved him upstairs to his bedroom, settled him there, and removed every trace of a struggle. Then she called the paramedics, saying she’d come to visit her cousin, who hadn’t been feeling well, and found him dead in his own bed.
There were questions, but in the end, since there was no sign of foul play, the medical examiners ruled it a natural death, probably from an aneurysm. The wounds Damon’s skin-walker form had suffered did not transfer to his human body, so there was nothing for the coroner to find. The Wilcoxes were allowed to grieve, to have the public memorial service that someone of Damon’s stature in the community required.
I was surprised to see so many civilians there, so many weeping students — female, of course — so many sad-faced faculty members. Truly, it was quite the send-off. I wished I could ask Connor about it, ask him if Damon had really been that popular. My entire knowledge of him was based solely on what he had done as primus of the Wilcoxes, not as the public man he’d been.
But I didn’t dare broach such a subject, because in the three days since Damon’s death, Connor had barely spoken to me, except about practical things like planning the funeral. Something inside me was quiet and cold and still, frightened, knowing things were horribly wrong and not knowing what in the world I could do about it.
Of all people, Lucas was the one to give me some comfort. I’d thought he’d be furious over our subterfuge, but when I approached him at the reception after the service, he only gave a philosophical shrug and said, “There are some things you can’t come back from, Angela. Damon crossed a line. He endangered all of us.” For a second I thought I saw a flicker of real anger cross his features, but then he laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You did what you had to do. Don’t ever forget that.”
I’d only nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Although I never thought I’d find myself grateful for Marie, I had to admit that she’d done a good job of smoothing things over with the rest of the clan, of trying to make them understand that I’d done them all a service. Whether they truly believed that, I didn’t know, but at least I wasn’t getting death threats.
Then again, that probably wasn’t very likely. After all, I was the consort of the new primus. Or was he my consort? I had no idea, couldn’t begin to guess how his change in status would alter our relationship. Maybe I would’ve liked to have found out, to have the two of us come together while seeking some solace, some comfort, but Connor hadn’t touched me. True, he hadn’t gone so far as to ask me to move back into the guest room. It was enough that he lay huddled on his side of the bed, not reaching out to me, not cuddling together as we’d done so many times before.
Time, give it time, I told myself, trying to ignore the creeping chill within me. But maybe there were some wounds time just couldn’t heal.
It wasn’t that late when we got back from the reception, just a little before seven. A weird time, because usually around then I would have either started making something for dinner, or we would’ve decided where we wanted to eat if we were going out. I certainly didn’t have much of an appetite, and Connor had even less. The past few days he’d barely eaten anything.
We entered the apartment, and I set my purse down on the dining room table. Connor had been looking stiff and uncomfortable in his suit jacket all afternoon, so I wasn’t surprised to see him shrug out of it and drape it over the back of a chair.
I started to limp toward the living room; the Wilcox healer had done a good job on me, but I still had some lingering muscle damage from Damon’s attack. I had the vague idea that maybe I’d put on some music or turn on the TV. Anything to cover up the silence. But I hadn’t gone two steps before Connor said, “This isn’t going to work, Angela.”
My heart started to thump painfully in my chest, but I forced myself to sound calm as I replied, “What isn’t?”
“This. Us.”
I inhaled, then turned to face him. He was still standing next to the dining room table, one hand resting on top of his jacket where it hung over the back of the chair. The puffiness from his bloody nose was gone, but there were bruised-looking shadows under his eyes. Even so, he was so beautiful it hurt me to look at him.
Or maybe that wasn’t why it hurt.
“I know it’s been hard, but — ”
“Hard?” A short laugh, one with absolutely no humor in it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Bad enough to lose my brother, to inherit his power and this clan and everything that goes along with. But then to have to look at you, to see what you did every time I look into your eyes — ”
Something was blocking my throat, making it hard to speak. A monolith of unshed tears, like a wedge between me and sound. But somehow I got the words out. “You said you understood why it had to be done.”
“I thought I did understand. I thought I’d be — well, not okay with it, but accepting. Or something. But I can’t.” He pushed a hand through his hair. It had been cut only the day before, so it wasn’t quite as unruly as it normally would have been, but he still managed to make it look more or less disheveled. “I look at you, and I see him dying. I can’t get the image out of my mind. And I think the only way I might ever be able to is if I don’t have to look at you.”
Cold, so cold, as if every single icy day of that bitter winter had somehow commingled and invaded both my body and soul. At least I didn’t have to worry about crying now, because that cold had completely frozen my tears. “Are you telling me to leave?”
“I’m — shit. Yes. Maybe. I need some time. I need to not be around you for a while.” He wasn’t quite looking at me as he said this, but I didn’t know if that was simply because I reminded him of Damon’s death…or because he didn’t want to see my pain.
“Fine. I’ll go.” I couldn’t meet his gaze, either, not and maintain my dignity. I walked past him and went up the stairs, taking them one at a time, slowly, deliberately, wondering whether there had always been so many of them. First to the guest room, to retrieve the duffle bag and the suitcase I’d brought with me from my brief visit to Jerome, and then over to our room — Connor’s room — to pack my things. My gaze fell on the concho belt he’d given me for my birthday, and that lump in my throat seemed to double in size. I choked, and shoved the belt toward the back of the drawer. No way was I taking that with me, not when it would remind me of him every time I looked at it.
A side trip to the bathroom to get some toiletries and other odds and ends, and then I was packed. I heard feet out in the hallway, and saw Connor standing there.
“What?” I demanded. “I’ll be out of here soon enough.”
“No, it’s not that — ” The words stumbled and fell over themselves. I could see the guilt in his face, as if he knew he shouldn’t be doing this but couldn’t stop himself. “I mean, I can take you home.”
Oh, no. No way. Sitting next to him for more than an hour as he drove me back to Jerome? Not going to happen…especially if he thought by doing so he could somehow assuage his guilt at abandoning me. “It’s all right. I’ll call someone to get me.”
“But — ”
“I said it was fine.” I picked up the suitcase and duffle bag, and pushed past him so I could go downstairs. My purse was still sitting on the dining room table, so I slung that over my shoulder, and then pulled the green wool coat Marie had bought me out of the closet. I’d put it on later, after I was out of here. I didn’t want to delay for even the minute it would take me to put down my purse so I could button up the coat.
When I shut the closet door, Connor was standing in the hall. “You should really let me take you home.”
Anger flared in me then, a heat that began to melt the ice in my core. “I don’t want any favors from you, Connor Wilcox.”
And I marched to the door, opened it, and let myself out. When I was about halfway down the corridor that led to the street, I realized he wasn’t going to come after me. Holding back tears, I went out to the street, then paused for the briefest moment, looking up at the apartment. I saw a pale, sad face at the window, and realized it was Mary Mullen, staring down at me. She lifted a hand in farewell, and disappeared.
It was dark by then. Across Route 66 was the Amtrak station. It seemed as good a place to go as any.
So I waited for the signal to change so I could cross the street safely, then went into the lobby of the station. For one wild moment I contemplated going up to one of the ticket windows and buying myself a ticket to someplace — anyplace — as long as it wasn’t here.
But I knew I couldn’t do that. Connor had abandoned me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still have family back in Jerome. I had responsibilities, ones I had left behind to chase the false love that he’d offered me. I should call my aunt, have her come pick me up. Somehow I’d figure out how to deal with her “I told you so’s.”
No, that didn’t feel right. I needed to go home, but I wanted to do it on my own terms. And that meant not asking a McAllister for help. I needed to call the one person who always had my back, who would support me and let me cry and who wouldn’t guilt me for trusting a Wilcox.
I pulled out my phone, ran down my contacts list, and pushed the button for Sydney’s number.
The story concludes in Darkmoon, Book 3 of the Witches of Cleopatra Hill trilogy.