Page 43 of Enchantra (Wicked Games #2)

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When Genevieve couldn’t go back to sleep, she and Rowin went to the library. Discussing anything and everything except the Hunt. Eventually, Genevieve dozed off in Rowin’s lap while he read The Devil’s Darkest Desires . Waiting for midnight to finally come around once again.

Just before the bells tolled, they walked to the ballroom, running into Ellin along the way. Grave arrived moments later, then Knox, the latter twirling the Hunting Blade in the air. When the choosing ceremony began and the knife shot straight for Rowin and Genevieve, Rowin caught it easily.

“Game?” Knox requested.

“Ready or not,” Rowin stated. He’d explained earlier that this was the game he would choose because it didn’t allow a head start like most of the others.

Knox dipped his chin in a nod. “Begin.”

Genevieve watched as Ellin lifted her chin and strutted right up to Rowin. Grave watched with a look of astonishment.

“This is between the rest of you,” Ellin told them all. “Rowin, as we agreed.”

Rowin didn’t hesitate. He shoved the blade right into her heart. She disappeared in an instant.

A snarl of frustration sounded from Knox, but no one paid the Devil a second glance.

Rowin turned to Grave next and said, “I can chase you all over this house now, if you wish, or you can agree to leave us the fuck alone until the final showdown tomorrow, and we can Hunt each other in a real match.”

There was a long, tense pause.

Then, finally, Grave grunted, “Done.”

“Have all of you forgotten what your job is here?” Knox inserted.

“Don’t worry,” Grave told the Devil. “This just means all our energy is going to go into making an extra-explosive finale.”

That seemed to placate Knox, though not by much.

Once Grave and the Devil had disappeared, Genevieve turned to Rowin and said, “What now?”

“Now we wait for the end,” he told her, his tone solemn.

Whether he meant their end or the game’s, she wasn’t sure.

Sometime in the middle of the witching hours, Genevieve found herself in the library with Rowin yet again. She’d never spent so much time around books in her entire life, but she found that she had a taste for reading once she’d discovered the right books.

Rowin was right, The Devil’s Darkest Desires is a masterpiece.

She also found that she enjoyed sitting next to him in their understanding silence more than she enjoyed silence with anyone else, but, of course, it could only last so long before she was itching to talk to him again.

“Are you scared? For tomorrow?” she eventually whispered. “About how this will end?”

“Yes,” Rowin admitted. “I am.”

“Everything will be okay, though. Right?” she implored. “Because there are no more secrets between us?”

A pause.

“Right,” he agreed.

Genevieve woke with her cheek resting on Rowin’s chest, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist. She yawned and stretched.

“I don’t remember falling asleep in here,” she said, voice thick with sleep, as she glanced up at his face.

“That’s because you didn’t,” he told her. “You fell asleep in the library. I carried you back.”

She nodded.

“Genevieve, I need to tell you something,” he murmured.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I’m glad you didn’t listen to me, when I told you to leave that first day,” he said. “No matter what happens, I need you to know that you’ve saved me.”

“You’ve saved me too,” she told him as she ran her thumb over her ring and then her bracelet.

He pulled her mouth to his, kissing her in a way that he never had before. Like it might be their last.