Page 20 of Just a Little Wicked (Wicked Sisters #2)

Over a matter of minutes, or perhaps hours—time ceased to exist—the notes began to come faster, to expand and swell, pregnant with loss and agony so ripe it rested heavily on his soul.

The hairs on the backs of his arms lifted, and his lungs struggled to draw in air.

Her music was a siren song of violence and misunderstanding, loss and chivalry, blindness and knowing.

His heartbeat throbbed, pulsing in his fingers and at his throat.

Something ancient and primal surfaced inside him, drawn forth as if being called forward by a presence larger and more spiritual than he could conceptualize. His skin flushed; his muscles tensed.

The music continued; the waves crashed against rocks and sprayed droplets over them, and still Winter didn’t stop.

The bow flew over the strings, horsehair strands snapping, her fingers moving impossibly, inhumanly fast. The music was pure anguish and despair, and it twisted into the night, fisting his heart, sinking into his blood and stirring primitive urges.

Erikson wasn’t aware that he’d peeled off his coat and dropped it with hers.

He wasn’t cognizant of moving until her lips parted and she gasped, the bow drawing out one last cry.

Her pupils were blown, her hair wild in the wind.

He brought his hand to the side of her neck and backed her slowly toward the scooped-out bluff behind them.

Her violin and bow fell to her sides, her chest heaving and her eyes swirling with the same untethered emotions as his own.

Her back hit the bluff and he angled his head down. In a distant voice he said, “I found you.”

Her bow fell to the ground. She gripped his shirt and pulled him flush to her. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“I always will,” he growled. He bent his face, his lips about to crash down on hers, when the horn of a ship blared, startling them so badly that he jerked away.

He blinked repeatedly, that silky, ancient feeling beginning to slide away from him like a veil, leaving him confused and exposed. Cold swooped in, and suddenly he felt like he was standing in an Arctic winter.

Winter inhaled on a gasp and pressed her hand to her mouth.

He took another shaking step back while she slumped against the hard dirt of the bluff. “What the fuck ?” His voice felt strange and rough coming out, like he had to re-learn how to use it.

“I’ve never—” Her voice was trembling too, and that only made him feel marginally better. “That’s never happened before.”

“One minute you were playing, and the next this feeling came over me.” Even as he spoke, that all-consuming, blood-pounding connectedness continued to slip away, until he wasn’t even sure what he’d felt anymore, only that it had been powerful, like some long-lost magic from the beginning of time.

She bent, hiding her face, and snatched the bow from the ground. When she stood again, she seemed somewhat more in control of herself, although still deeply shaken.

“What did you feel?” he pressed. Now that he was himself again, his investigative curiosity was emerging.

Her eyes met his. “I felt old.”

It was the simplest, and most accurate, description.

He’d felt old too, like his mortal shell had been stripped away to bare his soul.

Words had poured from his mouth that hadn’t belonged to him .

It reminded him of the feeling he’d had in the truck, when he’d almost kissed her.

It made him think of her vision from the past, where she’d stood on the coast of Ireland a thousand years ago, waiting for him to arrive.

“Winter, do you think we knew each other before now? Before this time?”

She stepped around him to nestle her violin in its case, her brow furrowed as she closed the lid and latched it. “You mean because of the vision I had earlier?”

“Yeah, partly.” He helped her into her coat and then zipped his own, the down padding only slightly thawing the ice that lingered in his blood. “And because of what just happened. I said, I found you , like I was actively looking for you.”

She zipped her jacket and scoffed. “Are you talking about reincarnation, Grimm?” He could tell she meant to sound dismissive, but her pupils were still blown and he knew she was just as affected by the otherworldly experience as he was.

He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but whatever had just happened couldn’t easily be dismissed or explained. The music had peeled away their humanity and exposed something spiritual burning inside. “Yeah. Maybe I am.”

They scrambled to the top of the bluff and didn’t speak again until the heat was blasting through the truck vents.

“I’m scared, Erikson,” she admitted. “I need to talk to my aunts. As soon as Connor showed up at Wicked Good Apples last spring, my visions began to change, to come faster. And then you arrived and I didn’t see you coming—and I should have.

Since then, things have only gotten stranger.

My power did something different down there. It’s like it unspooled from my body.”

He nodded slowly. He didn’t have power, but he’d felt something similar, like layers of himself had been sloughed off.

“It was terrifying.” She exhaled and rubbed her hands in front of the vent. “This is the last thing I need to be dealing with right now. I should be focused on Atlantes, not this newest nonsense.”

“What if it’s all connected?”

She gave him a disbelieving look, like he’d just suggested a nonsensical conspiracy theory. “When we get to the motel, I’ll video call my aunts.”