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Her brows pull in. When I gather she’s not going to stop staring at the headstone, I feel my muscles tense, and the longer time passes, the more my blood boils. I push off the stone and grab her by the hand, pulling her into my chest.
She peers up at me from below. “I’m sorry I can’t help. I want this over as much as anyone.”
I run my tongue over my lip and move her hair away from her shoulder. “And I’m sorry I can’t kill him. But I will.” My jaw clenches, my fingers tightening around her small chin. I force her eyes to mine. “I fucking promise you I will kill him.”
She smiles sweetly up at me. So fucking sweet. Too sweet. I can’t believe I ever deprived myself of her. I know why I’ve been void for so long—because I needed her to fill the parts that were stolen from me as a kid. “You don’t need to do that. But just so you know, Ophelia hasn’t left the bedroom in days, and I’m beginning to worry this is consuming her. She has grimoires spread out over her bed, and papers upon papers on What people don’t want you to know: Scientific facts about how powerful the human mind can become. I think I even saw a paper with the words ‘how to know if you’re using all of your brain.’ I’ve been taking food into her, but she refuses. As if she’s too lost in her train of thought to come up for air.”
“Leave her be, Dea. That will be how she—” I wave my hand, “witches, or whatever.” The afternoon dips behind a large black cloud in the sky as thunder rumbles deep through the forest.
Saint looks around the cemetery. “It’s weird when I think about it,” she says, shaking her head while stepping away from me. “How often I dream about this place. How many times you’ve found me here.”
She runs her hand over the headstone, her long white hair pulled to the side. Over the past few weeks, her body has filled into her clothes. I don’t know if that’s just her changing as she gets older, or if it’s from her obvious peak of appetite.
I’m fucking here for it.
The curve of her ass and the dip in her thighs when she bends over to pick a dead flower from the ground has my cock swelling in my jeans. She turns, looking up at me with the faded orange petals pushed to her cheek. “Maybe I like dead things?”
“You like me, so it makes sense.”
Her eyes are on mine. “I love you, Brantley. Not like.” She turns her back on me, dropping the dead flower to the front of Lucan’s stone. She doesn’t know it’s Lucan, because it’s unmarked, but it still fucking pisses me off that she’s petting it. Enough to ignore the fact she’s suddenly mad about something.
She turns back to face me, resting her hand on my chest as she goes to pass. She pauses. “I’m aware that you will never say those words back to me. I don’t care about that.” When I refuse to take my eyes off that fucking dead flower she placed on Lucan’s headstone, her hand comes to my cheek and she forces my eyes to hers. She’s getting bossy. “But I want you to know that loving you has been the easiest thing I have ever done. It’s natural to me, Brantley. I think I loved you before I even knew you existed, and that kind of love is strong enough for the both of us.” She’s about to continue back to the main house, but I catch her hand before she can leave.
She looks over her shoulder as I run my thumb over her bare knuckles. My mouth opens. What the fuck are you going to say to that? I run my tongue over my teeth. “Come here.”
She ambles back to me, back into my arms where she belongs. Her eyes fall to the necklace around my neck. The same chain she has, only hers is her coven’s crown. The very fucking emblem I thought would protect her has ended up being the very thing that has put her in danger. Her fingers glide over the new pendant on mine. “What’s this?”
I look down to the small vial that’s clipped around my Cuban chain, before smirking up at her behind hooded eyes. “Hmmm, not sure you’d want to know…”
She shuffles on her feet, running the cushion of her palm over the small bottle filled with a drop of blood. A single drop. “I do,” she whispers, and my heart fucking smashes against my rib cage when I see a blaze of fire behind her innocent gray eyes. It’s not a bright blaze. More like a heavy wave of flames, strong and demanding to be felt, more than seen.