Marianna
“I don’t like this plan whatsoever,” Kenna says sharply, tapping her foot as she watches Blake gather what I think might just be random pieces of paper into a briefcase just to make it look like he’s busy. “No. Nope, Blake, I will not allow it.”
“What, exactly, is the worst that can happen?” he asks, arching a brow. “She’s already cursed. She has, what, a few months before the healing drafts stop working, and she succumbs to the curse still in her system?” I try not to bristle at the ice in his tone, but Kenna isn’t affected in the slightest. She frowns deeply at him as Blake rounds his desk with his briefcase resting at his side, his dark brows still arched, his striking violet eyes shining an even deeper shade than usual. “You’ve been pestering me to tell my parents. So, I am. I’d like Marianna to be there when I do. Plus, they need to meet their grandchild.”
“You’re going to spring this on them and abdicate your title in the same conversation?” She raises her brows, mimicking his expression.
To be honest, I’m… slightly surprised by Blake right now. He’s far more expressive, more open and less guarded, than I’ve ever seen him. Even Soren, who’s been lingering in the corner of the room with Fallon in a sling across his chest, seems to notice the change in Blake.
Skye, who’d been using Soren to reach the shiny glass globes and crystals Blake keeps arranged on his bookshelves, shuffles over to us carrying one of the globes between her hands. It’s a pure, almost flawless sphere of moonstone. She looks around the group before whispering, “Watch this,” and the sphere clouds from within, lighting with her powers.
Blake continues looking at Kenna as Skye’s powers cast a violet glare between our bodies. My heart thuds against my ribcage.
“My parents can help with her training, and you know it. Plus, you and my mom love to gossip about the family, and this will give you more content to work with.”
Kenna scoffs, but Soren snorts a laugh from the other side of the room, which he quickly staunches when Maeve glides into the office. “Ready?” she asks, checking her watch. “It’s nearly nightfall. The moon is rising as we speak.”
Nerves I’ve been fighting all day weave through my body, but Blake lightly brushes his hand against my upper arm before turning to Maeve, nodding. “We’ll go to Misty’s house first. If Marianna is ill after traveling, she’ll be able to help.”
“She’s already aware that we’re on our way.” Maeve huffs a breath then glances in Soren’s direction with a soft, secret smile. He just shrugs, bouncing on his heels to try to keep their almost one-month-old daughter settled. “I won’t be gone long. An hour, tops.”
Kenna continues to shake her head. Her silver eyes meet mine with a final look of warning. “I have to remind you that you’re very weak right now, Marianna. The curse isn’t gone.”
“I know.” My voice shakes. “But I–I need to make sure Skye has help, so… this is the right move.” I look at Blake for reassurance. His eyes hold mine for a few seconds before his gaze drops to my lips, then he turns back to Maeve.
“Let’s go.”
“You should leave Skye here,” Kenna grinds out, losing whatever patience she had. She’s been arguing with Blake about this all day, and I can, in fact, see her side of the situation. Even Maeve looks down at her shoes–sneakers–that complete her incredibly casual outfit made up of loose fitting jeans and what I believe is a men’s sweatshirt. Kenna continues, “Just until–until everything is settled and you’ve told your parents the truth about both items on your agenda.”
“That’s what my mom wants as well,” I tell Blake, swallowing past my own nerves. “Skye… she’s been through enough. If this doesn’t go well–”
“My parents wouldn’t deny her–”
“If something happens to me,” I cut in, holding his gaze, “if I can’t make the jump or get sick… I don’t want her to see that.”
All eyes are on me except for Skye’s. She’s already back in the corner with Soren, still gripping the moonstone sphere.
Blake chews the inside of his cheek, deliberating, his eyes downcast on the floor. “Fine,” he says after a few seconds. “Skye will stay here. My parents can come visit when they’re ready.”
Kenna seems pleased, but her eyes still scan my face, my paler than usual skin, and the bandage at the base of my neck with an undeniable wariness.
“Misty is going to use her gifts to try to break the lingering curse,” Maeve says to her mom, who closes her eyes and shakes her head like she doesn’t believe it can be done.
Blake stares at them, his expression tight and guarded.
While Maeve, Blake, and Kenna discuss the jump to Crescent Falls, I look at my daughter. I take her in, memorizing her details. She’s… free. Being around these people, her family, it’s already changed her on a molecular level. Her powers ping from wall to wall around the room, lighting up multiple spheres at once, and Soren just grins at her, egging her on.
No one is afraid of her. No one thinks she’s too much, too strange, too different.
She fits in.
She’s one of them. She always has been.
My neck aches. A weakness has started to spread through my shoulder. I’ve been trying to ignore how nervous Kenna is about it, her comments about the curse still lingering in my body, but Blake is convinced Misty can break it. She’s broken curses before. Her grandmother, Isla, shattered a curse but… sacrificed herself to do it. The thought makes my stomach pinch, but then Blake’s taking my hand, guiding me to where Maeve is standing in the center of his office.
“The full moon is on our side. My magic won’t be completely overwhelming on her system, I’ll be able to use less of it.” Maeve reaches back to tie her hair into a loose bun on the top of her head.
“Will it hurt?” I ask.
Blake squeezes my hand. “Maybe a little.” His tone is soft, laced with what I can only describe as guilt.
“It’ll be quick, and the healers dosed you with herbs that’ll help with the stomachache and the headache that’ll follow.” Maeve gives me a tight smile before glancing at Soren, who nods at her. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
“Let’s go. We’re wasting time.” Blake grips my hand and reaches for Maeve, his fingers closing around her forearm. The room spins out of control.
My legs refuse to hold my weight, but a second later, it doesn’t matter. Darkness swells, replaced by starlight that streaks past me in stripes of gold, orange, and purple. It’s loud–a deep roar that splits my body into pieces–then… silence swells before the floor beneath me returns, and the soft ticking of a clock fills my ears.
I sway into something stiff and immovable. Blake’s arms snake around me, tugging me against his chest as my blurry vision settles on a softly lit foyer in a very suburban home that’s definitely not in Eastonia. Crystal sconces illuminate soft blue walls, lighting a stairwell to a loft overlooking the first floor, where family pictures stretch along the wall beside the stairs. Four people are depicted—a man, a woman, and their two beautiful children—through the space of… twenty years or so.
“I was wondering when you’d get here,” a delicate female voice says somewhere behind me.
Blake turns with me in his arms. I grip his shirt, trying to focus on my breathing like Maeve told me to do to cut through the spinning sensation still lingering in my system, but Misty takes up my vision.
Her golden blonde hair trails down her back in soft curls. Big, bright blue eyes scan my face before looking up at Blake with a tight smile.
She looks exactly like the woman I saw in the clinic, but a bit older, I think. Misty is probably in her mid forties, I suppose. Isla showed herself as a younger woman.
Introductions are made while I linger in a haze of herbs and dizziness. Maeve stays long enough for me to find my bearings again before disappearing in a gust of crimson stardust.
But even as Misty sits me down at her kitchen table and inspects the wound on my neck, I feel… strange. My entire body still seems to be trying to knit itself back together while I watch Blake pace the kitchen. I barely register a word Misty says to him, but everyone back at the palace explained Misty’s expertise–her healing gifts. I feel them under my skin as her powers work through my body. It feels warm, soft. It’s not painful in the slightest.
“She no longer has a wolf,” Misty says to Blake, her voice low and uncertain. “You should have called me right away, Blake.”
“I wanted to. You know how the witches are about this kind of thing.”
“I could have made it more comfortable for her, at least, while they cut out the mark,” she sighs, releasing her grip on my hand and moving through the dark kitchen to an electric kettle. “Cole should look at her wound. There may be something he can do.”
“Your powers won’t touch it, will they?”
“Kenna was right about it being dark magic. We’d need to find a counter-curse, I think, but I never trained in the dark arts.”
“You broke Richard’s curse a few times, though–”
“That’s very different from this. This curse was directly tied to her mate bond, not necessarily her… body. It’s deep, Blake. It’s in her soul.” She shrugs sadly.
I feel Blake looking at me but can’t bring myself to meet his eyes. I feel like such a burden. No one has said it out loud, but I know that whatever time I have is limited. Weeks, months, maybe if I’m lucky, a year or two… all the while, dosed heavily with healing drafts to keep myself functioning, but I’m already so tired, and it’s only been… what, a week, since the mark was cut from my skin?
Maeve told me the reason I’m alive is because my true fated mate is out there. Blake hasn’t said a word to me about it, but he must know by now that’s what the witches think is keeping me alive this long.
He would have… said something about it, right?
“I’ll do some research,” Misty says with marked determination. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”
Blake sucks his lower lip between his teeth and nods as moonlight drifts through the windows overlooking me and the kitchen table.
A few minutes later, I’m in a car speeding down familiar roads. I recognize the buildings stretching to the skyline. We pass the performing arts center. Very few people are out right now, seeing as it’s the earliest hours of the morning. I haven’t even asked where we’re going, but we’re moving in the opposite direction of the castle where Blake lived as a teenager.
He pulls into a parking garage at the base of a large skyscraper that breaches the stars. My view of the heavens is suddenly obstructed as the car drives down into the depths of the building, and Blake parks, hurrying to my side of the car to open the door for me.
“That was very chivalrous of you,” I try to joke, but he looks… withdrawn. Worn thin. “Where are we?”
“My apartment.” He guides me toward an elevator, and we wait for the doors to open. “I haven’t been here for a few weeks.”
He takes my hand as the doors open and leads me inside the snug elevator, pressing the top button–the penthouse.
My body feels light as the little box sprints into the sky, but his hand doesn’t leave mine. In fact, he intertwines our fingers. I look up at him, watching his eyes, which are darker than they normally are. Dark and empty–a hollow kind of grief.
Because I’m dying, aren’t I? That’s the truth of this, the truth no one will say out loud. I’ve been cursed by a man who’s now dead, a man who bound me to him in death.
Blake saw this–saw some version of what he calls my timeline–saw that my time was limited.
For whatever reason, I don’t feel sad. I’m just disappointed, I guess. We could have had a lot more time if we hadn’t been so… scared.
The elevator stops, opening to reveal a simple, modern foyer surrounded by windows overlooking the sparkling city below, and a single door.
Blake wordlessly takes me inside his apartment, which is exactly what I thought it’d be. Clean, gray, and modern. It smells like him–brisk, icy, with hints of that cologne he’s worn since I first met him.
“We’ll stay here for the night. I have a meeting with my parents in the morning, and then we’ll go from there.”
My fingers are still interlaced with his when I turn to face him. I have so many regrets. I don’t want to go into death regretting him.
I rise on my toes, letting go of his fingers and taking his face between my hands instead. His eyes meet mine in the starlit darkness.
“I still love you. I’ve never stopped,” he whispers.
“I know,” I reply, and press my mouth to his.