His fists are clenched so tight that his skin is white with streaks of red at his sides. Hair sprouts up along his arms as anger swirls in his eyes.
“After she turned, they pumped her with enough Belladonna to kill a Witch, and then dumped her in the woods, leaving her for dead. That’s when I found her and took her to a Witch friend who cleaned her system, and we’ve been on the run since,” Lukah finishes. He cracks his neck. Cracks every one of his fingers as his eyes land on Chett. “I should kill you,” he says.
Chett’s shoulders stiffen.
“But you won’t, Lukah,” Evangeline says, staring him down. She moves in front of him. “Chett had nothing to do with it, and we’re here to work together.”
“I’d rather shoot myself than help a Carter,” Lukah spits.
“Be my guest,” Katie says, pulling a gun from the back of her pants. She holds it out to him.
“Katie!” Jonathon says sharply as everyone jumps back. “I told you all no weapons.” He grabs the gun from her and stuffs it in his holster.
“Are you kidding me?” one of the other wolves says. It’s a man with skin the color of milk chocolate and eyes as bright as the sun. “We should go. Now. I told you this was a mistake.”
“No, Damien,” Ava says sharply. “We will not leave. We’ve made an agreement, and we will stick to it.”
“At what cost?” Damien says, throwing his hands up in the air. “They clearly don’t want us here.”
“He’s right. You should go,” Katie says loudly. “Because this can never work.” Chett’s gripping her shoulders, staring at the wolves with more hate than I thought was possible.
Lukah’s staring back, not willing to back down.
I’m breathing so hard that my body is shaking. My mind panics the moment people around the fire begin to stand, wolves and Primevals alike. They start moving, heading away from the fire, saying things like, “Screw this,” and, “I knew it was too good to be true.” The truth of what’s happening scratches at my conscious. They’re leaving, abandoning the idea of working together. Hope is drifting further away, even from me, because what if Damien is right? What if Katie is right?
My skin crawls just being near them, and it’s not for lack of trying. I want to make this work. I want Jaxen to have his mom, and for her pack to have a place in our society, but where is the middle ground between us? How do we let go of old prejudices made by so many ignorant, scared people before, and begin to form our own way of thinking?
By someone leading by example. By someone continuing to fight for what they believe in, even when the chips are down.
“Wait!” I yell out, stealing the attention of everyone, even the ones who are halfway across the yard. “She doesn’t speak for all of us,” I say quickly, cutting a harsh glare in Katie’s direction. “Please, don’t give up. Not this easily. Not on something that is so very important to shaping the new ways of the Coven we hope to form one day soon.”
My heart jumps when the ones furthest away relent, heading back toward the fire. When the wolves who have already started walking away stop and turn, waiting for me to give them something worthwhile to hang onto. Something that will ensure change amongst our people.
“Look,” I say calmly as soon as everyone is within earshot range. “Everyone here is tired. We’ve had a lot to absorb tonight. So many faces and stories. There’s enough heartache around this campfire to fuel a war, and that’s exactly how it should be used. Not against one another, but against those that threaten us all. Against Clara and the Priesthood, and against Bael and his ideas to awaken the biggest evil known to us all. Mourdyn.
“Sure… this is going to be hard. No one said otherwise. And we may even lose. But if we don’t try at this… if we don’t try to right the wrongs that have been ignored for so long… too long… then we can already consider this battle lost.
“I believe we can work through this, one step at a time. Things have happened to all of us. Bad things. We all can agree that that comes with our line of work. With the bloodline we were all originally born into, turned or not. That much we have in common. So let’s build off it. Why don’t we start fresh tomorrow morning?”
“Start fresh how?” Ava asks me, head tilted slightly.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Katie says, looking up at me with remorse in her gaze. “Too much has happened. Too much to forget.”
Lukah shakes his head. Grabs Harper’s hand.
They’re about to leave. They’re giving up on this.
I can barely breathe when Sterling stands up. Everyone goes still. “I have an idea of how this can work. Our middle ground isn’t as far away as any of you would think.”
“Oh yeah? How so?” Lukah says.
“We’re fighters. Each and every one of us,” Sterling says surely. Strongly. “We need to train if we want to have a chance at winning against both Covens when we go to break the Unholy Seal.” He looks at me. “Your idea behind this bonfire was a good one, but I think in this situation we can learn more about each other during training. Let hand-on-hand combat do the talking.”
“I agree,” Ava says, rubbing Sterling’s back. “Nothing speaks more clearly about a person than how they fight.”
No one looks impressed.
“Then it’s settled,” Mack rushes to say, standing up. He latches on to Sterling’s shoulders and forces a strong smile on his face. The crowd of newcomers, rebellion members, and lost crows alike, begin to protest with groans and grunts, still not buying it. Mack hurriedly follows up against them, raising his voice over the commotion. “Your hesitations are understandable, and we will address them after we give this an honest go. There’s no other choice here. We must work together if we ever want to return to easier times. We will begin training in the morning,” Mack says. With that, he looks at Seamus. “Any closing words? Something to settle the nerves maybe?”
Seamus stands. Runs his hands down the front of his shirt like he’s smoothing out his speech. “We’re in the midst of a critical time for our people. We’re on the precipice of writing a new chapter in our history. Despite the truths revealed tonight, and the pain that has followed them, we have to keep in mind that everyone here has one thing in common. The only thing in common that matters. We all want freedom.”
He folds his hands behind his back, walking around the fire, making sure to connect with each and every member of our newfound Rebellion. “If we can all connect on that level, then we can find it in ourselves to work together. The strength it will take to cast down our enemies will require this from us. We have all been burned by the Coven in one way or another. And we all have the opportunity to help not only ourselves and each other, but all those still out there, fighting alone.”
“We need to know you’re in,” Mack adds. “Wholly and completely. This won’t work if there are rifts between us. We need to have complete trust with each other. If you can’t find it in your heart, then now is the time to walk.”
He turns, waiting for any who wants to take him up on his offer. When no one moves, he adds, “See? It’s like Seamus said. We’re all in this together.”
“That doesn’t change what’s happened in the past,” Lukah adds.
“No, unfortunately, it doesn’t,” Seamus says. “But the past is not what defines us. It’s how we choose to move forward.”
Lukah takes a step back.
“We will meet in this spot at dawn tomorrow. Sterling is in charge of our training. The leaders will meet to discuss the next phase in our plan.”
“And who are the leaders, exactly?” Weldon asks. “Because the last I checked, nothing has really been established since we decided to band together.”
“He’s right. We do need to establish how the decision making will be done,” Evangeline says. “I will speak for my pack.”
“I created the rebellion,” Mack says. “Seamus, Weldon, and Sterling are who I have chosen to stand beside me.”
Jonathon flinches back a little.
Weldon’s shoulders straighten a little. I don’t think he expected to still be considered by his brother.
“Then it’s the five of us,” Evangeline says, putting her arm around her daughter’s shoulder.
“No more secrets, no matter how grave the issue is,” Mack says.
“Agreed,” Evangeline says.
“Okay then, we will meet in the morning,” Mack says.
The groups disband as everyone heads to their beds.
“Maybe tomorrow I could show you the family weapon room,” Jaxen says to Chrissa. “If you want to, that is.”
She looks up at Evangeline, who nods at her, and then back at Jaxen. “Okay,” she says with a smile. Her singsong voice is like the sweet chirping of a bird.
“Come on. Off to bed for you,” Harper says to her. She takes Chrissa by the hand and guides her away from the fire. Jaxen, Gavin, and Evangeline stay behind.
“A sister?” Jaxen says as he puts his arm over my shoulder. “She’s… she’s…”
“Beautiful,” Gavin finishes for him.
“I wanted to tell you everything,” Evangeline admits, staring at Chrissa’s distant shadow. “So many times I would look at her, and my heart would crush from knowing that you didn’t know about her.”
“Did she know about us?” Jaxen asks.
She nods. “I’ve never hidden the truth from her.”
“Lucky her,” Jaxen mutters.
“I deserve that,” she says. She leans forward and kisses them both on the forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
After she leaves, we head back into the house. “I don’t know about you, but I’m beat,” Gavin says. “See ya in the morning.”
“See ya,” Jaxen says, reaching for the milk. He pours a glass and downs it. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get some sleep.”
SLEEP DOESN’T VISIT THOSE WITH RESTLESS MINDS.
I don’t know what time it is. I’m too tired to check, but I know it’s late and I know I’ve been awake ever since we shut the lights out and said good night. I can’t stop thinking. Can’t stop my brain from replaying everything that’s happened.
Jaxen has a sister. Chett’s family is responsible for turning that poor girl Harper. Our entire group is standing on a bed of rocks in the middle of a slope, and I feel like we’re all on the verge of falling past any chance of rescue.
But what bothers me the most is I’m helpless to fix it.
I can’t undo what’s been done, and I can’t… won’t… force anyone to stick around and fight when they may not want to. All I can do is hope, and that hasn’t really worked out for me so far.
I roll under the covers, searching for Jaxen, and curl up to his side, closing my eyes. Thinking about Jaxen and his sister, and the fact that Jaxen used to draw. Something I didn’t know. Something I wish I had.
“Can’t sleep either?” he asks quietly, pulling me closer to him. “Your thoughts are practically screaming at me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, running my fingers lazily along the contours of his stomach.
“Don’t be. Mine are too.”
He mindlessly twists his fingers through the ends of my hair.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask, feeling the edges of sleep pulling at me.
“Chrissa.”
I move up so I can see him, propping my head on my hand.
“She looks like my mom, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
He folds his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m going to make things better for her,” he vows. “I’m going to be there for her the way Gavin has always been there for me.”
“I know you will,” I say, running my hand along his cheek. “Your heart is one of my favorite things about you.”
Moonlight flows in from the window, outlining the angles of his face. Caressing the peak of his lips, the tip of his nose, and the edges of his eyelashes. I want to follow the trail of light with my lips. Kiss away the world and all its worries.
“What else?” he asks, rolling over to face me. His hand finds my hip, his thumb grazing the skin under my shirt, sending electric sparks along my skin.
Empty clouds fill my mind.
“Hmm?”
“What else is your favorite about me?”
His hands are live wires, trailing under my nightgown, searching for skin.
“Your hands,” I say, closing my eyes.
“And?”
“Your lips.”
He presses them against my collarbone, skimming them all the way up to my neck.
My brain is on his merry-go-round.
“You know what’s weird?” I ask as he moves his knee between my legs, asking for an invitation.
“What?” he asks me, his voice quiet and raspy in the dark.
“I feel like I know every part of you, yet there’s so much that I don’t.”
He stops kissing my neck and looks down at me, half on top of me now. “Like what?”
“Like your favorite color.”
“That’s easy,” he says, pressing his lips against each of my cheeks. “It’s the color of your eyes. A bluish-gray hue that reminds me of the stones I used to skip across the lake with my dad.”
His lips move to my forehead, and then down to the tip of my nose.
“Or your favorite book? If you even like to read?” I say, trying to stay present even though his lips and his hands are tugging me into his future.
“I do like to read,” he says, his hands pushing the covers back now. “And The Hobbit is my favorite. You?”
“Jane Eyre,” I say as he pushes my shirt up, tracing the outline of my bra. His touch is light, careful, calculated, and it’s lighting me up from the inside out. “What did you want to be when you were little?” I ask, tugging on his shirt now.
He lifts his arms, and the shirt disappears within the shadows of our room. He leans in, his electric scent wrapping around me, and runs his lips over the edges of my ear, his warm breath stirring molten heat inside of me. “A Hunter like my dad. You?”
“Same,” I say as I sit up and let him remove my shirt. Wait anxiously as he unclasps the back of my bra. “And also a photographer, but that was a backup if I were to be a Defect.”
My bra is swallowed by the shadows.
His eyes graze hungrily over me as he pulls wantonly on the waistband of my underwear. “You’re far from defective, Faye.”
His words and his touch pour fire into my bones. I lift my hips for him.
“Ask me where my favorite place in the world is,” he says, taking his time to pull them down my legs.
“Where?” I ask, willingly falling under his spell. Feeling every delicious inch of his torture.
“Right here,” he says, and then he moves in between my legs, resting on top of me as he presses his lips against mine. “This is heaven,” he says against my lips, his words strained with desire and love. “This is where I want to stay.”
He seals his words with a kiss that releases fireworks under every inch of my skin. That freezes time and sets flames to the world around us.
“Ask me what my greatest accomplishment is,” he continues, running his hand down my waist and over my hip.
“What?”
He kisses my chin. Trails his lips down the slope of my neck. One feather-soft kiss after the next, until his lips are hovering just over my pounding heart. “This,” he says, planting a light kiss on my chest where my heart is. “Being lucky enough to be loved by you.”
My heart surrenders to him.
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him down to me, unable to take a second more of not being one with him, and his desire meets mine as the world melts away and love wraps its arms around us both.
MORNING HAS RUSHED TO MEET us, dumping pails of warm sunshine into our room.
Foreign voices and loud footsteps stir in the hallway, pecking at the edges of sleep until my eyes pop open. Falling asleep at two o’clock in the morning might n
ot have been such a good idea. I groan and pull the cover up over my head, turning into Jaxen’s warmth. It’s too early to be awake, and far too easy to go back to sleep, rather than dealing with the outside world.
But the outside world doesn’t understand the word easy. Or tired.
My eyes lazily close. My thoughts scatter like leaves in a breeze, but then someone’s pounding on our door and the sound beats in sync with my rapidly beating heart. I contemplate using magic to permanently quiet those sounds, but Jaxen’s on his feet, pulling sweatpants on as he wipes at his eyes with the palms of his hands.
“What?” he says when he cracks the door open.
“Morning to you too, sunshine. Man, you look like shit.”
It’s Gavin. Of course. Our personal alarm clock. I swear he gets some sort of sick pleasure from waking those who aren’t morning people.
“Gee, thanks,” Jaxen groans, his voice raspy with sleep.
“Any time,” Gavin shoots back. “Listen, the leaders are meeting in ten in the kitchen, and they want you both there. So get your lazy asses up and get dressed. Coffee’s waiting downstairs.”
I sit up, holding the blanket to my chest. “I resent that!” I call out, running my fingers through my hair.
Gavin peeks around Jaxen and smirks knowingly at me.
Jaxen lightly shoves him back and shuts the door. He stumbles back over to the bed, falling face-first into his pillow.
I wrap my leg over him, hugging him to me. “Why can’t we just sleep in for once?” I say against the soft skin of his back.
“Because hell doesn’t allow it,” he mutters into his pillow. He rolls over, pulling me on top of him. “But you’re worth a thousand mornings of burning eyes and sleepy limbs.”
I kiss his cheek, smiling, and then force my body to get up.
“I’ll remind you of that when we’re in the middle of another of Sterling’s training sessions,” I say with a small laugh.
Everlost (The Night Watchmen Series Book 3) Page 23