Page 84 of Bring Me Your Midnight

“It was a long time ago,” she says, waving a hand through the air, dismissing his concern. “It seems my daughter is willing to give up an awful lot for you. Why don’t you tell her the truth, though, so she has all the facts?”

Wolfe’s hand tightens around mine as a thick dread begins in my stomach and spreads through the rest of me.

“We should give them some privacy,” Galen says, but my mother stays where she is.

“He didn’t tell her when he had the chance, inprivate,” she says. “Perhaps he will tell her now.”

“Please stop talking about me like I’m not here,” I say to them. I turn to Wolfe. “What do you need to tell me?”

He gently releases my hand, and cold air invades the space where his warmth used to be. I shiver, looking down at my empty hand, then back to his face. The muscle in his jaw tightens and doesn’t release.

“We sent Wolfe to seek you out.” It’s Galen who speaks. “We’ve been trying to get a meeting with the council for the past year to discuss the ocean currents. This is a problem that must be solved soon, and after our last request was denied—”

“Dad, let me,” Wolfe says.

Galen nods.

“They sent me to get close to you. To use you to get to your mother, to get her attention some other way.”

“The moonflowers?” I ask, my voice a whisper.

“That was me,” he says, angrier than I’ve ever heard him. “I planted them for you to find. I magicked the light you saw to lure you to the field that first night.” I hear the way his voice catches on the wordlure, and my breath does the same thing.

I remember my words from just moments ago, my overwhelming belief that the moonflower was fate, and my cheeks burn with shame.

“You were using me?” I ask, the last of my heart leaving with the words, floating out into the infinite darkness, never to return.

“Yes.” Wolfe swallows hard, his stormy eyes never leaving mine. “I’ve hated your coven my entire life, hated everything you stand for. I didn’t care if I had to use you to get what we want. What we need.” His hands are in fists at his sides. “And it was easy to use you—you’re too trusting, Mortana.” The frustration I’ve grown so comfortable with sharpens his voice and stabs me right in my chest.

I take a step away from him.

“It was easy to use you,” he repeats, “and damn near impossible not to fall in love with you.”

Tears sting my eyes, and my stomach clenches. I bend at the waist to ease the pain and take several deep breaths, trying so hard to keep myself together. Then I stand up straight and force myselfto look at Wolfe. “You love me so much that you couldn’t tell me the truth?”

“I wanted to—”

“Then you should have. You didn’t even try,” I say, taking another step away from him. “I was ready to give up everything for you.” I can’t help the tears that roll down my cheeks and drop off my chin, can’t help the way my body starts to shake, suddenly too cold. “Was any of it real?”

“Yes,” Wolfe says without hesitation. “You are more real to me than the waves on the shore or the blood in my veins. How can you not see that?”

“If that were true, you would have been honest with me.”

“I just… I needed more time.”

“More time?” I ask, realizing what he means, realizing he never got his meeting. “You are the one thing I thought I chose on my own. The one thing,” I say, staring at him. “But you chose this for me.” I wipe my face and clear my throat, fulfilling the role he wanted me to play. “Mom, will you give them their meeting?”

“I would be happy to meet with them after the wedding, yes.”

“You’re not seriously considering—” Wolfe begins, but I raise my hand and turn to Galen.

“You have your meeting. Now, please stay away from me.” I look at Wolfe. “Both of you.”

I start up the hill, but Wolfe follows me. He grabs my arm and I turn around, anger and pain burning through my veins like acid. He reaches for my face, and I hate that my first instinct is to lean into his touch. I am too trusting, just like he said.

“Please,” he says, the single word freezing me in place, unable to move or speak. “I can make this right.”

And I want him to—I want him to so badly that I can feel it in my muscles and my bones. I want to cover his hand with mine and tell him it’s okay, that we’ll figure it out together, but how can it ever be okay when I gave him my world and he couldn’t even give me the truth?