Now, please pardon me for writing you a tome of my own!
Very much looking forward to meeting you.
Yours in humble service,
Gavin Brynnon
Chapter 38
I sat there on the edge of my bed for a long time with a sort of pinging sound in my head. The joy and relief of it left me light, the news made me want to take off for Yorkshire tonight, write back that we were on our way. Or could we come for Sunday dinner at the latest?
Someone to talk to. Finally. Previously nothing but wolves and a couple of druids who, if somewhat helpful, really hadn’t been much to go on. Now, a real mage, an experienced sort who spoke forty languages and lived in an old manor in Yorkshire with a library of probably thousands of books.
Moving forward again. I hardly cared what, if anything, the Blood Tome actually had to tell us. Just to talk to someone like Nana: to advise, to help chart a course.
The blue Moon. Time to take a good look at our lives. Families and faith. Correct the sails if we’re off track.
Do not fear, or fight, your own heart. Strongest energy. Greatest strength.
To battle your love is to battle yourself.
Back on track. Clear sailing.
Except on the inside. Except for personally. Those were the sails I had to adjust.
First step was coming clean to Isaac. Admitting I was afraid. Letting him be a part of this choice, not forcing my decisions on him. Then the others: going back to Kage, to Zar—apologizing.
But where to start now? Was I still too much of a coward? Holding logic in one hand and love in the other and waiting for one to win, to make sense and show the perfect path and everything fall into balance? Ultimately never to act at all? Only to hide from future suffering?
Maybe I really was that much of a coward.
So I closed email, opened texts, found Isaac’s thread, and typed in two words.
Force me.
The instant I’d sent it, I began to second-guess. Was I crazy? Would he have the faintest idea what I meant? Would this be like Andrew and him having to explain the joke? Therefore spoiling the whole thing?
I actually jumped when the phone dinged in my hand.
Let’s not need one, right? But, to be sensible, a safe word?
My heart pounded even faster, breaths coming tight with sudden pressure in my chest as I scrambled to my feet. I’d never done anything that needed a safe word.
I’d already brushed my teeth several minutes ago when I’d hidden in the bathroom. Anyway, it didn’t seem to be playing the game to get “ready.” I just went out, slipping on my sandals. Atarah now read with the lamp on. Sun behind the trees.
Unicorns. I texted back as I started to walk.
I followed the path we had before, reliving the steps, trying to go back to that space. Nonsense. My heart seemed to pound against my jawbone like a frog trying to jump out of a jar. Wham, wham, wham.
I had to make these decisions for myself. I couldn’t wimp out like this. But I had made the decision, right? The wimp part was trying to make myself feel like I wasn’t: that I was the helpless victim.
And since when had I enjoyed being a helpless victim?
Since that damn dream. Since too many choices that I just couldn’t make on my own. Time for a second opinion.
And Atarah’s advice: my own power and strength. If cutting off my love was cutting off my power this was an empowerment exercise … right?
Why are you still trying to justify and balance yourself. Stop it.
He’d come to meet me. Soft smile, perfectly normal, still in his slacks and dress shirt from work, the top buttons undone, otherwise the same.
It was just before twilight, the sky a rich blue. He looked like a painted artist’s impression of a perfect sky and perfect handsome figure on that backdrop as he approached down the alley.
I stuffed my phone in my back pocket.
“Try again?” Isaac asked. “What were we on about here?” He joined me and we walked toward his door just as before.
“I was telling you about Gabriel.” I tried to take long, deep breaths without it being apparent that I was struggling to do so. “But I regretted not asking you about your day.”
“That, as you wisely noted, was already long enough without revisiting. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, you don’t have to talk about it.” But this attitude surprised me. I felt a bit more settled with something else to think about. “I thought you really liked your job?”
“I do. I find my work rewarding and interesting at its best, not least of which because I am involved now with green building which I care about. However, at its worst, it is draining, intense, and a bit much when piled together, trying to catch up. These past two days have been a social slog.”
“Introvert,” I said, thinking of Atarah’s words.
“But wouldn’t life be easier if we weren’t?”
I chuckled a little, making me feel even better, less jittery. “I’ve often thought the same thing. And I already have an advantage. I’m a social introvert at least. The kind who loves to be out with friends and have people to hang out and talk to. I just also need plenty of recharging quiet time.”
“To be left alone.”
“Yes.”
“How’s that been lately?”
“Dreadful. Thank you for asking. Cleaning Kage and Jason’s home was fun, though. That cleared my mind.”
“You’re welcome to clean my place.”
“Yours is spotless.”
Isaac shrugged. “We could … mess it up first.”
“Would you really do that for me?”
He hesitated.
I stopped, looking up at him on the path. “You’re having to think about that?”
He turned to me. “Cassia, love.” Very serious. “Please understand that I would do anything for you. I would lay down my life for you in a heartbeat. Not only because of my oath. Anything … except turn my home into a sty. I’m sorry. I hope … this won’t come between us.”
“Well…” I threw up my hands. “Yeah, it’s an issue for me. What kind of nutcase wants to live in a neat, clean, organized environment all the time? But I believe in compromise and … for us … I could probably adjust.”
“I’m grateful to you.” We walked on. “Have you ever tried a sand garden to restore mental order?”
“No. And I find it incredibly difficult to believe that doodling in the sand with a stick can be as satisfying as a good cleaning. But I could experiment.”
“You’re an inspiration to all of us who are too set in our ways.”
“Thank you.”
We’d reached that corner again. The same spot. I stopped. Isaac found me missing from his side and turned.
“Have you had dinner?” he asked.
“Yes. I better—”
“Care to stay anyway?”
“I do. But I can’t.” I couldn’t remember what else I was supposed to say. “This can’t work, Isaac.”
“Why’s that?” He moved back to me, making him seem even taller as he was close. I was glad for elevation of the sandal heels.
“I’ll be gone soon. The more time we spend together… We already know none of this can last—”
He kissed me.
I turned my face away. “If not for that, I’d have been here the first night. I’d have come to your door in the rain. I thought about it all the way back. About how I wanted that. And how I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it because—”
Another kiss, hard and pulling me in, stepping around so I was the one with my back to the sand garden.
“Because I was afraid I’d never leave,” I managed to finish.
“What are you afraid of now?” He pushed me toward the door with the force of the kiss and his body against mine.
As I stumbled on gravel, he caught my arm, holding me against him. He was so strong, he did this the way I would have caught a box of cereal toppling out of my shopping basket.
&n
bsp; “Of being in love,” I gasped against his mouth, heart in my throat again.
“More than bittersweet to you? Actually afraid?”
“This is a special circumstance.”
“Because we have the rest of our lives going on around us? When is there a time everything’s exactly so? All the planets just right and everything else pauses and we meet and Moon smiles and the sky fills with shooting stars and the pack sings a perfect hunt song? When does that happen?” As he spoke, his voice changed, rougher, almost growling the last angry question. He’d never spoken to me like that. Never held onto me like this either—like he could snap a bone.
I hit the few steps up to his door.
Isaac reached for the handle behind me.
I twisted away. “No, Isaac. I can’t. I won’t do that to either of us.”
He caught my wrist and neck, kissing again: shoving me until I had to climb two steps backward and found my shoulders pressed against the door, still not open.
“Stay,” he said and bit my neck, down my throat, painfully hard, his short beard rough on my skin.
“Stop it. I told you no.” I tried to wriggle down the door, slip out from under him.
Isaac held me against the door, following me down, one hand at my breasts, the other still gripping my arm.
My shirt was pull-over—no button blouse—and he yanked up the hem to reach my bra.
I gasped not only with the touches but force of him, pain in my wrist where I tried to twist away against his thumb, yet he kept my arm too flat to the door.
“Not out here—” My free hand on his arm, pushing his hand away.
He wrenched at the bra, exposing my breast.
“Isaac, no, not here. You’re hurting me—” I caught my breath at the stab of his teeth on my nipple.
“Make up your mind. You don’t want to go in, you don’t want to be out—”
I had half my weight leaned into that door, slid down it, Isaac’s weight also pressing me. When he turned the knob, it burst open and we crashed to the wood floor.
He hadn’t turned on lights before coming out and the place was dark, full twilight outside, and inside thick with shadows.
While I was breathless from impact, struggling to sit up and get out from under him, Isaac tugged my shirt to force my arms up, yanking it off over my head.
He jerked open the hook and had my bra off by the time he was pulling me back to my feet, kicking the door closed behind us. I kept telling him no, we couldn’t do this. And he kept telling me to stop being afraid, to admit what I was feeling: not the fear, but everything else.
My sandals came off, then Isaac had my jeans and underwear pulled down, as he pushed me backwards into the bedroom. With these twisted around my knees, I fell against the duvet.
“Don’t, Isaac—” Me pulling away, him yanking off remains of my clothing so I was completely naked—besides the golden moon necklace, one ring, and a leather bracelet—and he was completely dressed. I heard the phone case in my back pocket thud on the hardwood as the jeans fell.
“Stop caving to fear and just act—” he said, following as always, holding me down as I tried to squirm away across the bed.
“Not like this—”
“Because you’d rather be with someone else?” He pulled me back along the bed, leaning over, holding with one hand while he opened his fly.
“No. Because we have no future. And yes—” I panted, fighting with him still as he struggled both to hold me down and to separate my crossed knees. “Maybe there’s someone else, but that’s not about us. The only similarity is that I have to keep all loves at arm’s reach here. To protect us. I’m leaving—”
“Tonight?” His voice still angry, matching savage power of his body.
“Soon enough—”
“So you’d rather live in fear than in love?”
“That’s not what—”
He pulled me back again and, this time, forced inside me, breaking off my words in a gasp. His hold grew tighter, clutching me to him while he thrust as if to break a record, saying my name but nothing else then.
Even dazed with my own arousal, I was no match for him. Isaac came while my body was just adjusting to him, struggling to turn for contact where I needed it.
“Cassia—” He shuddered and I felt his climax as he bit my neck, still thrusting. “Stay, Cassia,” he said over and over. “Stay, stay—be my mate.”
I wasn’t expecting much return by then, but he dropped on his side against me, withdrawing as he moved. I didn’t have a second to miss him or regret that I hadn’t been able to come as fast because his fingers were between my legs as soon as he’d slipped out. Facing him, also turned on my side, I rocked into him, mouth over his, and rapidly followed him.
In the fresh silence, I heard nightbirds, people still out chatting and pups laughing in the distance on a star-filled Saturday night. Maybe they had a fire going in the pit by the barn. Maybe the rest of my pack was out there. I had news for them with Gavin. Not that I cared.
After a long time lying still, breaths and pulses gradually slowing, I opened Isaac’s shirt buttons so I could rest my head against his chest and he withdrew his hand.
Another long stillness. The room really dark by then. The shrill, youngest voices subsided, sent to bed.
Isaac gently disengaged to sit up, remove his shirt, then slide down slacks and briefs, pushing all his clothes to the floor. He lay again across the bed so we could feel skin contact all the way down.
I crawled on top of him, my head below his chin, listening to his heartbeat with my ear against his chest. Isaac wrapped his arms around me.
Another ten or twenty minutes like this. An owl hooted. All the outside voices had gone, yet I still heard stirrings and soft sounds like whines and growls in the night.
“What brought about the change of heart, arä?” Isaac’s voice, though back to his usual—soft and unflappable—still startled me in our hush.
“I dreamed about you,” I said. What had he called me? Something in Lucannis.
“Moon’s scrying?” He sounded amused.
“It was the coward’s way out,” I admitted. “Being forced into it so I didn’t have to wrestle with my own issues. Thank you.”
“Of course.” He ducked his chin to kiss the top of my head. “You’re very welcome. And, anytime, I might add. Are you all right? You had me wondering but I didn’t hear anything about unicorns.”
“Just fine. They never crossed my mind.”
“Good to know.”
“But, now, we have the same dilemma, don’t we?”
“Did we have a unicorn dilemma before?”
I sighed. “The more I get involved…” I stopped for a moment. “Not just you. I love all of you. But I meant what I said—you’re all your own … feeling for me, somehow. Different. You’re the one I knew I could never trust myself to go back to.” I took another slow breath against his warm skin. “Because this can’t … we can’t be…”
“That’s another Moon.”
“You all say that, but the sand is running out and … then what? Every moment I spend with you leads to a more painful death. Is that right?”
“Every moment you choose to spend with me is a gift, Cassia. I can look at it no other way. Being with you is perfection. Moon’s light: bliss. Turning away just for something that may happen in a later Moon … where is the rightness and balance in that? Those are actions guided by fear, not love.”
“Or guided by simple common sense.”
He kissed my hair again. “I could go with you. My career has been taking a hit of late. We don’t know—”
“No, you can’t. You can’t work in America. And I can’t imagine you’d be able to get sponsorship or a permit either. As far as I know, there’s no shortage in your line of work. I suppose you can always look into it, but think about that, Isaac. Doesn’t it sound a little crazy? How long would it take? Even if you could stay? Years?”
“Then you stay. I’ll take
care of you. You don’t have to work.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d been through this already with Zar.
“I want to work. I want a career. I can’t walk away from that after—” And I’d thought I wouldn’t, thought I knew what I was getting into. But I was crying and Isaac held onto me, a hand at my back and another in my hair, not saying anything for a long time.
When I lay silently, breathing deeply through my mouth, Isaac finally said into my hair, “We have the moonrises we are given. No more. No less. At the threshold of each Moon, and each Sun, we decide how to use that time. We can look behind, think of what has been, and act on past mistakes, fears, or triumphs. We can look ahead, acting on uncertainties, doubts, plans, and dreams—the outcomes of which we can drive ourselves to distraction speculating over.
“Or we can face every Moon, every Sun, and say, ‘Thank you, bless you, for this gift, this moment. To honor your light and my own, I will use every part of this fresh light cycle you grant me, do my best, give my best, and live my best and fullest in this time.’ That choice is as individual as a fingerprint. Not some of the time: every Moon, every Sun, every hour, every breath.”
After another long quiet, I whispered, “Isaac? What does that mean? That you called me? Ah-ray…?”
“Arä is a Lucannis word for dear one, or beloved. Singular to lovers. You would use amuu as a formal address type of ‘dear sir’ or among platonic loved ones. ‘Love’ is amaus.”
“Strangely enough, I know that one. Neä amaus Vinu.”
Isaac turned his face again into my hair. “Someone’s been saying that to you?”
“Not exactly. I’ve been eavesdropping.”
He kissed me and answered, “Neä amaus Vinu, arä.”
Chapter 39
I dreamed of Kage. He wore a thin, steel collar, shrinking into his throat, slowly killing him while I screamed and ran for him, fighting to get there: to save him. All without moving, trapped, pinned by shaggy figures of darkness. Not wolves. My own fears mocking me.
No! I won’t let this happen!
You already did. You lived in fear.
I made a mistake! Never again! I love you, Kage! Love isn’t wrong—but I was. I know now. All of you have been right all along. The biggest mistake I’ve made on this whole trip was saying goodbye. I’m not going to be afraid anymore!
Moonlight Heart: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 4) Page 25