Page 14

The sun is well behind the horizon when we arrive at the cemetery, with only a low violet light across the mountains as the stars begin to flicker to life across the sky. A cold wind whips up and whirls towards us as we head through the huge wrought-iron gates, almost as if it’s trying to stop us.

Clara walks ahead of me, her purposeful stride pushing through the long grass and weeds that threaten to overtake the path. It’s obvious that in this town, no one tends to the dead.

We turn down a narrow path to the south end, where the old woman told us to go. A shimmer of white glows in the darkness, and I see a tall woman standing over a grave with her face turned down. For a brief moment, I wonder if I’m seeing ghosts, but then I catch her scent.

Definitely real… and definitely related to Clara.

As we approach, the woman doesn’t look up, and we stop awkwardly beside her. I turn to look at the headstone and see the name we came to find.

“Lily Clarke, beloved sister, blood of the earth, servant of the light”

I have no idea what the words mean, and I can tell from Clara’s expression she feels the same. We stand next to the woman for a few minutes, until the silence stretches beyond awkward and becomes creepy.

“You came,” the woman says with such finality, it’s as if she’s handing down a death sentence. “She said you never would. That you were cursed, like her.”

Clara inhales sharply, her face going white with fear. I stand in front of her and square up to the woman, daring her to face me.

“Faye?” I ask in a commanding tone. “Are you Faye Clarke?”

“I am,” she answers, finally turning around and pulling the hood down to her shoulders. I’m shocked by her pale, gold eyes that shimmer even in the dark.

So much like Clara’s… but slightly yellow, as if the softness in her is tainted with cruelty.

She smiles as if she just heard my thoughts and looks over my shoulder at Clara.

“Maybe she’s been in the ground long enough that the breach between you broke,” Faye says. “She said you’d never be close to anyone… especially her.”

Clara chokes out a small sound like a sob. My protective instincts kick in, making me take a menacing step forward.

“You sound like you know an awful lot about my wife,” I growl. “Do you care to share it with us, or should I take her away from here right now?”

She cackles, the sound getting tangled in the wind until it sounds like all the gravestones are laughing. I suddenly realize Faye could be completely out of her mind, and therefore useless to us.

“Oh, calm yourself, you big scary wolf,” she says in a singsong tone, as if she’s talking to a puppy. “No harm will come to her from my hand, but I can’t promise my words won’t cut.”

“Tell me!” Clara demands, pushing past me. “Tell me what happened to her!”

Faye sighs, the sound blending with the wind. I get an eerie feeling again, and if I couldn’t hear the woman’s heartbeat and smell her blood, I’d be sure she was an apparition.

“Dane came through here when Lily was so young. She enchanted him, and they shared a wild kind of love. He begged her to return with him, but she wouldn’t leave the coven. It broke her heart, you see. She was never the same after that.”

I feel Clara tense up beside me at the mention of her father, but she doesn’t speak. When she fumbles for my hand, I wrap my fingers around hers and squeeze gently, hoping to give her strength.

“The coven wanted her to have the baby here, to make the baby a witch. Already, we could tell she was no shifter. But Lily was afraid—afraid of the loneliness in her own soul. Whether she meant it or not, I don’t know, but she begged the gods to make her daughter normal and spare her the curse of becoming an outcast. She was hated here in this town for her powers and her beauty, with only the coven to love her and accept her as she was.”

Clara squeezes my hand hard, and I know these words are wounding her just as Faye warned.

“She birthed you in secret, so the coven could not take you, and went out to find your father. She left you with him and came back to her people, but they were all fashioned of the same ilk as her. I didn’t know it, but they had all pledged to die, and they went through with it not long after Lily returned.”

“Jesus Christ!” I sputter, mortified. For the first time in my life, my words aren’t in vain. I’m invoking him in prayer.

“Yes… They all died,” Faye says. “I came too late. I heard that Dane followed her into the shades not long after. She was tied to him, and I’m not surprised she pulled him in with her.”

Tears flow unchecked down Clara’s cheeks as she begins to sob. “They found him drowned in a small pool on the night of a full moon.” Clara’s voice trembles as the words come through her shuddering sobs.

“As it had to be,” Faye says harshly. “Poor baby Clara, alone in the world, cursed to be alone, always apart, painfully dull and powerless. Her fears for your future cursed you to damnation.”

“Listen here,” I say sternly. “Stop this nonsense. You’re acting like Clara’s fate is sealed, and I can tell you it’s not.”

“My son,” Clara begs, reaching for Faye. “My son has magic. Wild magic, and I can’t help him. I don’t know what to do!”

Faye sighs, shaking her head. “Unfortunate. The child has inherited the shifter gene as well as our magic. What was denied to you has bloomed in him threefold.”

“You have to help me!” Clara moans, clinging to Faye’s hand. “I can’t bear for him to get hurt!”

Faye stares at her for a few moments, tilting her head like a bird spying on prey. “The only thing for the boy to learn is trust in himself. If he has fear, then his power could melt him from the inside out. As with all those who have power, he must embrace it. When it comes to his wolf, though, I cannot say. This complicates things, as I’ve never known anyone to have both powers.”

“I will teach him,” I say determinedly. “I will protect him!”

Faye just chuckles, brushing Clara’s hand away. “I must go now, away from the dead—lest I become one of them. They call to me too strongly. Seek no more here, Clara, for there is nothing else to tell.”

She walks away, the fluttering white of her robes winking in and out of the shadows until she disappears.

Clara turns towards the headstone and stares at it, tears trickling down her cheeks.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, putting my arms around her. “It was a terrible thing your mother did to you.”

“No, Galen, you don’t understand,” she moans. “I can’t blame her for it—I can’t blame her at all! If she suffered half as badly as I did, then I know why she did it. She was trying to protect me, and she had to stay loyal to the coven because they were the only ones she could turn to!”

Protests rise in my mind, but voicing them won’t help. So I just hold her, waiting for the torrent of emotions to slow.

“I had no one to turn to!” she hisses. “No one! My mother had something I never did: a family!”

Clara shoves me away almost violently. Her eyes flare with rage, and for a moment, they look as cold and hard as Faye’s.

“Clara—”

“No, Galen. You rejected me! I had been an outcast my whole life, used to being in the shadows, but then you noticed me. It was like my entire world lit up with beauty and warmth. I felt so safe, so accepted, that I opened my body and soul to you. I did things I never thought I’d do—”

Her voice cuts off as she chokes on a sob. My cheeks burn with shame as I remember some of those wild, passionate nights, how far we went in our lust. Even though I’m ashamed of what I took from her, my wolf reacts to the raw, primal lust of it. My body hardens, and my hands twitch, desperate to feel her again.

“And then you took it, Galen!” she wails. “You took everything I had to give, and you left me with nothing!”

Her voice is thick with tears, and even though my arousal doesn’t die, the flames of it are quieted by her sorrow, and my protective urge overcomes my desire.

“Clara,” I say, swallowing hard. “I need to tell you something.”

“What can you possibly say?” she answers, shaking her head. “You can’t fix this.”

“No, I can’t,” I reply. “But I can tell you why I did what I did.”

She looks up at me warily, as if she thinks it might be a trick. The words are heavy in my heart, like stones I have to force through my mouth.

“My father found out about us,” I begin, my voice harsh with old anger and fresh shame. “He pushed me one night, asking why I didn’t court any of the daughters in the higher-class families. He wanted to know where I was going every day. We were in the process of him stepping down and me taking my place as alpha, and he wanted to make sure I made the right choice for my mate.”

Clara wraps her arms around herself, listening closely. Her face is drawn, but I can see her anger fading.

“After dinner one night, I was getting ready to leave—to see you,” I continue. “He started grilling me about where I was going, and I dodged him as best I could until he finally exploded at me, and I went after him in return. I told him about you, that I was going to marry you, and there was no one else in the world for me.”

I can see fresh pain on her face, but I can’t stop now. The words that I couldn’t bear to say have broken down the floodgate, and my tale is desperate to be told.

“He went very quiet, and I knew things were about to get really bad,” I say. “He told me that if I saw you again, he would personally destroy you and make your life a living hell. He said if we tried to be together, he’d dig into your past, slander your father’s name, and leave you without any standing in the pack. He’d turn everyone against you, until even I didn’t want to stand by your side.”

Clara cocks her head a little, narrowing her eyes. “Was that a possibility?” she asks.

I shake my head violently. “Never! But he said if I tried to run away with you, he’d chase us. He’d hurt you to punish me. He told me to break it off with you immediately, or he would make all his threats come true.”

“And you did,” she whispers. “You went and broke up with me on that very night.”

“I did,” I say, my voice firm and strong. “I shouldn’t have done it… I shouldn’t have caved in to him. Especially since I knew that soon, I’d have control of the council, even of the higher families, and no one—not even my own father—would be able to stand against me. I always planned to come back to you and tell you the truth, but the next day, you were already gone.”

“I left immediately,” she remembers. “After you left, I cried until I thought my chest would crack. Then I gathered my things and took my foster mother’s car.”

“The next morning, when I realized you were gone, I thought Father did it,” I remember, my chest tightening with rage. “He didn’t confirm or deny my suspicions, so I blamed him completely, almost as much as I blamed myself. I fought with him, brutally, and refused to speak to him after that. Within just a few weeks, he was dead, I was the alpha, and I had no idea where you had gone.”

Clara looks at me with a steady gaze, her bottom lip trembling. “How did he die?” she asks. “Even though you hated him, it must have been hard, especially under those circumstances.”

“I loved him,” I answer truthfully, running a hand through my hair. “And I hated him. We don’t know exactly how he died. He was found in the woods, torn up as if he’d been fighting. There was an investigation, but we never discovered who did it.”

All is silent for a moment. “Galen,” Clara says softly.

For a moment, I’m afraid that she’s going to push me away, call me a coward, and tell me I’m not worthy of her.

It’s exactly what I deserve.

Then she opens her arms and beckons to me, and the surge of joy that floods through me almost knocks me off my feet. She sobs as I pull her against my chest, linking her hands behind my back and squeezing me as hard as she can.

“Oh, Galen,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

Pain lances through me, and I pull back to touch her cheek, shaking my head. “No, Clara, no! Don’t you ever apologize to me! I am in the wrong here. I should never have hurt you like that, for any reason. I also can’t forgive myself for not searching for you when I found out you were gone. My heart was broken, and I believed that you never wanted to see me again. I wasn’t worthy of you.”

And I’m not. Even now.

“Galen,” she says, stroking my cheek. “I understand. I do. I don’t know where we go from here, but thank you for telling me all of this. We both have terrible wounds that need to heal before either of us understands what we want.”

I fight the urge to shake my head. I know what I want.

I cradle her in my arms, reveling in the soft feel of her skin and her thick, sweet scent. Even though my mouth waters and my body hardens, I make no move to turn the hug into something more. She owes me nothing, but I owe her the world.