Page 19

Chapter 18

Rolf

H is hands rested on her hips, holding her steady while he waited for her to reveal something. Anything .

A century of not knowing what had happened before that ill-fated night. A century of guessing, of hoping that his memory would return one day. It made for a lonely existence.

When he woke in the alley, his head had ached as if he had been hit with a croquet mallet. He found no evidence of any injury. Based on the design and color of his coat, he figured he must have been a member of some regiment. But a member of what army and what country was a mystery since he could not find any identifying markings—even the buttons had been torn off.

Adeline gasped and crumpled into his arms. He shifted onto his side and pulled her into his chest, cradling her while she sobbed.

What could have been so bad that I cannot remember what happened?

When she finally came back down, her eyes were blown wide, and her eyebrows formed a soft frown.

She ripped open his shirt, pushing it down from his shoulders. Her fingers trailed along his right shoulder, down his pectoral, and stopped at the small spiderweb scar. She pressed in, and he hissed in response, the ache still very real despite the age of the mark. Her hand slid underneath his shoulder to his back, finding the opposite side of the scar that marked the exit wound.

“This,” she breathed. Her eyes were rimmed with tears. “This shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not?” he asked, confusion coursing through his veins. What had she seen?

She sat up quickly and started to undo all of his buttons. He almost pulled her back, but her hands continued their frenzied exploration of his body. Tears fell from her eyes, and she dragged her hands down to his leg, where a jagged scar traveled from his mid-thigh to the top of his knee. The two scars she had found were the only ones that hadn’t faded over time.

Finally, her hands stopped roaming, and she cursed under her breath. She swiped at her face quickly with the backs of her hands.

Rolf grabbed her face, pulling her back up to him. “What is it? What did you see?”

Her eyes were unfocused and cloudy. Slowly shaking her head, she whispered, “I don’t want it to be possible.”

“What do you mean, Adeline?”

Her breath hitched in her throat, and she finally looked into his eyes. Her lower lip trembled as she murmured, “Say it again.”

“What do you mean?”

“My name. Say it again,” she implored. Her blue eyes were almost gray, and her entire body looked as if it was ready to collapse from the weight of whatever she had seen.

“Adeline,” he said, wiping more of her tears away with his thumbs. He hated seeing her so tormented. Surely his life before turning couldn’t have been that bad.

“Oh, gods,” she wailed and then crumpled again into a heap in his arms. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed against his chest.

“Shhh,” he crooned into her hair, his arms wrapping around her tightly. Rolf turned to his side, taking her with him, and she curled into a tight ball. He rocked slowly back and forth, one hand rubbing her back as she cried. “It’ll be okay. I can withstand whatever information you give me.”

“I have been such a fool.” Adeline’s eyes went hard as she looked at the door to his cabin.

“Please tell me what you saw, Adeline.”

Her eyes flicked back to him, and she pushed up to sit back on her heels. She brushed a few stray hairs out of her face and cleared her throat. He sat up with her and leaned in close, eager to understand what it was she had seen.

“Let me see if I can be more persuasive since I am stronger now.” She sniffled, letting him wipe away the tears on her cheeks. She leaned into the touch for a moment, but then her eyes glazed over. “You will remember everything from the time before you woke up.”

She chanted the last sentence like a prayer, and it washed over him in waves. They sat facing each other on his bed, holding hands. He was pulled into her glassy-eyed stare, and he had leaned forward to get closer when a low ringing filled his ears. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could have sworn the shadows in the corners of the cabin shifted into shapes.

Gooseflesh erupted over his skin.

Too late to turn back now. He swallowed thickly, the shadows growing in the corners of his vision.

A searing pain tore through his head, and he stifled a cry, closing his eyes tightly. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his heart was beating in double time, and he clung to her hand as he tried to stay grounded.

“Shh,” Adeline said. And then, for the last time, she said, letting the sentence land softly, “You will remember everything from the time before you woke up.”

The pain ceased, but he was too nervous to open his eyes.

Something sweet and thick, like rich honey, coated him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Adeline’s amber scent floated over him. He closed his eyes and breathed her in as soft images floated in his mind: her laughter, her curves, her smile. He was swimming in the deepest waters, completely unafraid, and knew that deep down, he had only ever felt like that when she was around.

“I remember,” he whispered. His eyes flew open, and he met her vibrant blue gaze with awe. “It was the first time I told you I loved you.”

“Yes.” Adeline nodded, holding back more tears.

His memories flooded his thoughts, and he fought against the onslaught as it threatened to overwhelm him.

How hard he had laughed, running around with his brothers in the garden, the squishing of their boots as they ran through the mud, all of them oblivious to the death of their parents and how it would tear their family apart.

But then he met Adeline, and everything changed.

His loneliness was replaced by hope and yearning. The sadness he carried slowly metamorphosed into a love so pure and deep that he could not picture a life without her. It didn’t matter that she was a vampire, and she was sent here to kill him.

“There are so many memories…” He drifted off, savoring the gift Adeline had given him. She had brought him back from this numbing abyss, mere hours before she was supposed to end his life. But now, he didn’t want to greet death so easily. He overflowed with gratitude to have these precious moments back.

And it was her. It was always her. The scent of her cloak, the tiny shred of fabric that had snagged on the post of his porch, had triggered all of this. It made sense now why he had felt so pulled to her from the beginning.

Adeline shifted, her watchful eyes taking him in. She rubbed her palm over the hair on his chest and down the hard planes of his stomach, but stopped before going any lower. “The memory was so hazy, I couldn’t tell it was me. But it was the scents from that moment, the rain on the cobblestones, a hint of my amber perfume , and…”

“Your laugh, your smile,” he breathed. And it was her giggle from mere moments ago that meshed with the scent of her cloak. Even if he didn’t understand why, there was a bigger magic at work here that had brought them together and led them to this moment.

She nodded at his revelation, biting her lower lip. Her hands framed his face, and she bent down, kissing him delicately. “You changed so much when your magic came in.”

“Magic?” he asked, confused.

Adeline nodded. “Yes, the stones. They amplified your shifter magic.”

He stared at her. The stones amplified his magic? Which must have meant that he’d had some magic to begin with when he was still Colin.

“And what should I call you? Colin? Rolf?”

“Whatever your heart desires,” he said, and he meant it. “Call me Frederick or Gertrude, I don’t care. So long as you’re the one calling me.”

Adeline giggled again, a smile that split her face in two, and he felt like his heart would burst. “I will not call you Gertrude.”

“You haven’t changed at all,” he said, breathless at the volatile beauty who sat next to him. It was his turn to get emotional, tears welling in his eyes. She brushed them from his face, and he captured her hand in his, stroking her hand with his thumb, never wanting to forget what it felt like to have her skin at his fingertips. “I have loved you every moment of my eternal life, Adeline. I never meant to forget you.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. Adeline stared into the distance, eyes boring a hole in the door opposite them. A slew of emotions passed over her face until all she wore was cold fury. It was at this moment that he saw the emotionless killer that she could be. “It was my maker. The glamour you were subjected to couldn’t wipe away our love for each other.”

Her maker. Of course.

And her coven would be here tomorrow at sundown. He rolled his shoulders back, imagining how his wolf would happily tear into each and every one of them if it meant that Adeline could be with him forever.

Rolf gathered her in his arms again, her head nestling against his shoulder with the scars. He tried his best to hide his sorrow as he said, “Well, this time, I’m not letting you go.”

I’d rather die than live without you, he almost said out loud. But he didn’t; he didn’t want to think of either of them dying. Instead, he focused on how it would feel to tear apart the vampire who had caused so much destruction in their lives.

“You won’t have to,” she said, her voice hard as steel. A shiver crawled down his spine when she spoke again, her voice deadly. “I plan on never letting them near us again.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” he asked, trying not to sound excited at the possibility of destroying the vampires who had a hand in keeping them apart.

“We’ll kill them all,” she said simply.