Page 116 of His Trick

My chest tightened with something I didn’t want to name.

Love.

Hurt.

Need.

Maybe all of them.

I dragged in a breath, cursing my stupid ass as I dressed myself and him. Then I gathered him up in my arms.

He didn’t fight me.

He just sagged against me like a child, limp and trusting in a way he never would’ve been sober. His head lolled on my shoulder, and his breath was warm against my neck.

“My Care Bear,” he rasped softly, each word melting into the next.

I carried him back through the woods like a damn bride. It should have made me laugh, but the rain was still pelting down, and that was a cruelty all in its own. Rain held too many painful memories now.

Every step back to my parents’ mansion was a reminder.

He belonged to someone else.

My fucking sister.

He would wake in her bed, not mine. And he’d tell himself it was all a dream, a nightmare brought on by the liquor.

By the time I reached the house, I was soaked to the bone and freezing my ass off. Shiloh was stone-cold asleep, and my arms ached from his dead weight. I slipped through the side door, silent and unseen. Xanthy’s room glowed faintly with the bathroom light she always left on. She was curled in bed, asleep with a book in her hand, waiting, her back turned toward the door like she had finally given up on him for the night.

I laid the man I loved beside her, carefully. She stirred and murmured something in her sleep, then tucked against himinstinctively. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her, nestling in their slumber.

Together.

My chest felt fucking hollow, and I wiped the back of my hand against my wet, cold cheeks.

I stood there a moment longer, watching him breathe, watching her claim what was mine without even knowing it. Then I turned, slipping back into the hall, back into the storm.

I left him there, warm in her bed.

And cold in my heart.

Iwoke to the scent of lilac, unlike the woodsy, smoky smell of Carrington in my dream. Xanthy always doused herself in the damn floral scent, even when she didn’t need to. For a moment, while I was still half-tangled in sleep, I thought the smell was the earth itself: wet soil, crushed leaves, and the sweet ash of the forest floor.

Carrington’s breath had been there in the back of my mind, hot against my throat. The woods were still clinging to me from my dreams, the press of rough bark against my back, the sound of my own ragged breathing as he dragged something out of me I didn’t want to admit existed, but always had.

I blinked, and it all cracked wide, disappearing as my eyes opened.

It was not the trees above me, nor the starry night. Instead, a ceiling fan spun lazily above me. Xanthy’s hair spilled across my chest, pale as sunlight, and soft as thread.

Her arm was draped around me, her delicate fingers curled possessively over my ribs as though she feared I’d slip away. Her hand covered my bullet wound scar. Xanthy always had a way of masking my past. If only she could do so with my dreams.

I let out a sharp exhale and shoved the heels of my hands into my eyes.

Just a dream.

That’s all it had been—some fevered nightmare conjured by alcohol and exhaustion. My father’s voice echoed in the dark, while Carrington’s smirk burned itself into me, but none of it was real.

But it felt real.