But I would do all this and more for Jasmine. As she would for me.
Halfway up the stairs, a sharp pain shot through my chest, leaving me breathless. I clenched my teeth, suppressing the tears pressing against my eyes, denying the emotion trying to overwhelm me. Clutching the handle of my bag in one hand and the wide wooden railing in the other, I practically pulled myself up the remainder of the stairs. I couldn’t collapse where Rose, or even Declan, might see me.
It wasn’t the time for despair. There were more clues to collect. I wasn’t alone hunting for Jasmine. I wasn’t going to be alone in finding her.
I made it to the landing above without faltering any further. I took a deep breath. Rose hadn’t changed the decor on the second floor. Glassed sconces lit the wide hallway that led to the bedroom wing of Fairchild Park. The rooms on the left overlooked the back vegetable gardens. The rooms on the right overlooked the front drive and the landscaped yard.
A soft light glowed from within the first bedroom on my right, the door to which was partially ajar. I deposited my coat and bag just inside the door to the left, which was the guest room Rose had prepared for me. My suitcase had been placed on the foot of the bed. Declan must have brought it in from the Jeep. Then I crossed the hall and tapped lightly on the half-open door. I owed Declan an update of my conversation with Rose, at the very least. We had many other things to discuss, but none of them were things I was prepared to broach that night.
No one answered. Assuming Declan was being unresponsive, but that he would be even pissier if I didn’t at least offer up some information freely, I pushed the door open just enough to scan the interior of the guest room.
A tall bureau came up to my shoulder on the left. Declan’s leather jacket was thrown over a chaise by the paned-glass window. He hadn’t drawn the drapes. Through the window, the near-full moon dominated the dark sky above the trees that edged the property. A lamp on the bedside table threw light across the wood-frame bed. The decor was masculine, resembling nothing of Rose’s taste.
The shower was running in the main bathroom, which could be accessed by the hall and the bedrooms on either side.
So Declan was staying at Fairchild Park often enough to justify having a room decorated to his tastes, which would also explain the Connecticut license plates on his Jeep. Either that or the decor was one of Rose’s less subtle bargaining chips, making him feel as though he might possibly have a home with her. With the Fairchilds. Though he’d seemed just as shocked at Rose’s physical state when seeing her at Dahlia’s as I had been, implying that he hadn’t seen her in a while or that her transformation had been sudden.
The shower turned off in the bathroom.
I stepped back, tugging the door closed with my retreat. But before I cleared the frame, my gaze fell on a hand-turned wooden bowl sitting on the bureau. It was filled with loose change, a money clip, and a single house key at the end of a long chain.
Attached to the chain were each of the tiny reconstructions I’d sent Declan for his last twelve birthdays.
My heart pinched, but not in pain. With hope. An infinitesimal spark of hope bloomed across my chest, flushing up my neck and somehow rooting me to the spot.
Declan stepped from the bathroom, toweling off his hair. Thankfully, he was wearing boxers. But the tight black cotton did little to hide that he was no longer the teenager who I’d tumbled around with in the tall grass, stealing secret moments to learn what pleasured the other.
His shoulders were broader, and the hair on his chest was more abundant. A thin line ran the length of his chiseled abs, disappearing underneath the elastic band of his underwear. The scar I’d glimpsed running down his neck extended out in multiple directions across his shoulder, creating a starburst of healed, puckered flesh. And for one completely irrational moment, I wanted to eviscerate whoever had hurt him that badly — then rush across the room and run my fingers across every inch of him.
Then I remembered how he’d earned that scar.
I closed my eyes, struggling to shove the thought away. But for a single breath, I could practically taste the dank air of the basement, feel the dirt underneath my toes, and the physical pain of holding a barrier between me and the most powerful witch — the most powerful Adept of any sort — I’d ever faced.
“Wisteria?”
I opened my eyes.
Declan tugged a T-shirt over his head, then reached for the jeans slung across the foot of the bed. “You had something to tell me?” Apparently, finding me hanging around in his bedroom doorway hadn’t thrown him at all.
“Yes,” I said. My voice cracked, but I stepped back into the room, pushing the door open. “I … ah …”
“Where’s the vampire?”
“In the library, using the computer.”
Declan grunted in acknowledgement, crossing back into the bathroom to hang up his towel.
“I gave Rose the reconstruction. She says she’ll make some calls.”
Declan snorted.
I took another step into the room, so that I could see his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He was halfheartedly running a comb through his hair. I didn’t see any other toiletries on the counter, nor were there any signs of luggage in the bedroom. Which confirmed that he stayed at Rose’s often enough to leave a toothbrush and a change of clothing.
“Wisteria?” Declan prompted again, brushing past me as he crossed out of the bathroom, then checked the phone he’d plugged in to charge on the bedside table.
“Sorry,” I said, achingly aware that I was just awkwardly standing around in his bedroom. “I’m tired. Rose tried to suggest that …” I trailed off, not wanting to rehash the conversation. “Well, they all play different games, don’t they? Rose’s is just … almost heartfelt.”
Declan straightened, blocking the light from the lamp on the side table. “We all play games. But yeah, the elder Fairchilds are especially skilled.”
I couldn’t see his expression, only the outline of him. But instead of that being unnerving, listening to him in the dark was oddly comforting.
“I’m sorry I barged in. I saw the light.”
Declan laughed. “You’ve seen worse. Or better, maybe.”
I nodded, offering him a smile. But when I turned back to the door, my gaze fell on the tiny reconstructions attached to his keychain. The single key was from his grandparent’s home in New Orleans. Though someone else was already living there by the time Jasper had scooped Declan off the streets, the key was the only personal item he’d brought with him, other than the ragged clothing he wore.
He had attached my reconstructions to the only memento he had of his childhood home. I wanted to reach out and touch all those little bits of magic I’d carefully collected with him in mind.
A tear ran unbidden down my cheek. I hastily brushed it away.
“Wisteria?” Declan’s throaty whisper of my name was desperately intimate.
I wanted to spin back into the room, to throw myself into his arms. But the boundaries between us were exceedingly clear. I didn’t want to ruin what little connection remained.
“Sorry,” I said a second time. “I’m just tired. And …”
“Worried about Jasmine.”
I nodded at him over my shoulder. He had stepped away from the light, so that I could see part of his face.
“You kept the reconstructions,” I said.
“You think Jasmine would let me trash them?”
The tentative smile slid from my face. I forced myself to turn away.
“That’s it then?” he asked. “The vampire is using the computer and Rose has the reconstruction? You don’t have anything else to tell me?”
I knew I should have just walked out the door. I knew I should have just left things as they were, because I’d already riled up my family more than was healthy for Declan. But I turned back into the room. The edge was creeping back into his tone, and I was feeling far too vulnerable to simply let it return full force.
“That scar
…” My voice caught in my throat, but I forced myself to take another step toward him as I finished the thought. “When I saw you just now, I wondered for a moment where you got it.”
His mouth twisted, readying some nasty retort. But I didn’t let him speak.
“Then I remembered the bandages,” I whispered. “And you lying there in the hospital, so still, with the sheet pulled tightly across your chest. The bandages …” I lifted my hand, not near enough to touch him but indicating his neck and shoulder. “The mundane nurses, the doctors, didn’t know what to do with you. The wound kept bleeding …” My voice cracked again, strangling the words. I ignored the tears welling in my eyes, needing to articulate the memory. To own it so that it would stop owning me. “I waited too long to call Rose. But Jasmine wouldn’t wake up, and you wouldn’t stop bleeding …”
Declan turned away from me, running his hand through his hair. “And they made you bargain.” His voice was a low growl. “They made you choose before they would heal either of us.”
“They made me … they demanded an explanation. Later, Jasmine told me that Dahlia and Grey came to the hospital, but Rose, Violet, and Slate went for Jasper.”
“To see if he still lived.”
“I assumed that Rose got him stabilized. And by then …”
“You’d fulfilled your end of the deal.”
“No … I … it was never about me going away.”
“It was me they were going to banish.”
I laughed harshly. “They did anyway, really. All three of us. They sent you to school in Europe?”
Declan nodded, but almost absentmindedly. As though he was thinking of that day so long ago when we’d almost killed Jasper in order to save ourselves.
“But you let them believe it was me who stood against Jasper, not you.”
“Yes. They came to their own conclusions about you and I didn’t dissuade them. But they never believed that we had anything to stand against at all. Simply that we were … foolish. Careless. And in your case, irrevocably damaged.”
He laughed. “They weren’t wrong about that.”
Silence fell between us. I was suddenly and utterly exhausted. I turned away once more, crossing to the door and keeping my gaze away from the bureau.
“I lied,” Declan said behind me.
I paused in the doorway.
“I lied about why I kept the reconstructions.”
“I know.”
“You really think they would have killed me? That only the belief that I was more powerful than Jasper kept them at bay all these years?”
I shook my head. “That’s what I thought then. But I think I was in shock, and desperately scared … about losing you, and about what I’d done.”
“You saved our lives, Wisteria.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t talk about it anymore.
“They wanted us separated,” Declan said, as if trying to convince himself of something. “All three of us?”
“Yes.”
“But Jasmine …”
I laughed, though I had to push through the pain constricting my chest to do so. “You know what they think.”
“That she’s weak.”
“Yes.”
“Even though she was the glue, the mortar. The foundation of Jasper’s machinations.”
“A useful tool. We all were.”
“Except you. Scion.” He snarled the title — the function I’d been groomed since childhood to fill within succession of the coven — with spiteful derision.
I spun around to face him, a rush of anger pushing away my weariness. “Why must you be so harsh?”
“Why must you be so poised and perfect?”
“That’s … just me.”
“There you go.”
Utterly frustrated with how the situation was devolving — frustrated by everything I couldn’t control — I exited the room. Striding across the hall, I wrenched open the door to my bedroom and …
No. I wasn’t done.
I pivoted, barreling back toward Declan’s room only to crash against him just inside the door. He’d been exiting. Perhaps following me.
He opened his mouth to speak, but I thrust my finger at his chest and said everything I needed to say, everything I needed to admit.
“I don’t regret it. Not for one second. Not for any moment we’ve spent apart.”
“We almost got Jasmine killed,” he snarled. “If we hadn’t broken his rules —”
“He was the one who almost killed her! What future do you think we had? What future was he crafting for us?”
“Power. Prestige. No one could have stood against us. The power of three.”
“Except Jasper …” My tone softened as my anger abated almost as swiftly as it had taken hold of me. “He was crafting a weapon. He would have used us until we burned out.”
Declan snorted. “We wouldn’t have burned out. We never would have faded. Not with you at our center.”
I kissed him.
I wasn’t sure why. I knew he was angry. I knew he was possibly seeing someone. But desperate to stop talking, I lifted up on my tiptoes, pressing my lips against his hard, unyielding ones.
Placing his hands on my shoulders to push me away, he ended up gripping me so tightly I was certain to bruise.
I wrapped my hands around his face, caressing downward to touch the scar at the base of his neck while wrapping my other hand around the back of his head.
He returned the kiss, practically grinding his mouth into mine. But it didn’t hurt.
It felt like home.
Declan pulled me the few steps into his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind us without breaking contact.
I opened my mouth, inviting him to do the same by lightly teasing him with my tongue. He let me in, pressing the tip of his tongue to mine with a soft groan that somehow twisted through me in a rush of pleasure, accumulating between my legs.
Remembering the trail of hair that bisected his abdomen, I tugged his T-shirt up and slipped my hands underneath it, touching every inch of his skin that I could reach.
His fingers worked through my hair, teasing it out of its smooth French twist. Then he transferred his mouth to my neck, nuzzling and kissing me just below my ear as he reached up to cup my breast, flicking my nipple through my thin sweater.
“I’ve missed you, Bubba,” I whispered.
Declan stilled. Then he stepped away from me.
My heart sank into my stomach.
He tugged my hands away from him, holding them together between us. Then after a deep, shaky breath, he looked me in the eye.
“I’m your past, Wisteria. Not your future. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”
“Declan —”
“No.” He cut me off sharply. “You don’t get to decide when and where you want me.”
I laughed sourly. “And all your other women? Do they not come at your beck and call? Isn’t it completely fair for me to emulate that behavior?”
He dropped my hands, twisting away from me. I stumbled, the back of my knees striking the bed, and I abruptly sat down.
He yanked open the door, pausing beside the bureau with his hand hovering over his keychain and money clip.
“I always want you,” I whispered. “Whenever, wherever. There is no moment of decision.”
“I’m not that boy. And I was only him in your and Jasmine’s minds anyway,” he said fiercely, though his words were pained. “You love a memory.”
He met my gaze in the mirror over the bureau, dropping his hand without retrieving his keychain. Then he left the room without another word.
I sat on the bed, listening to him traverse the hall, then the stairs. The mattress beneath me was too soft, threatening to swallow me, to suffocate me. Or maybe it was just that Declan had taken all the oxygen in the room with him. I couldn’t even draw a breath to trigger the tears I desperately needed to shed.
I forced myself to stand. Smoothing my sweater, I crossed to the bureau and gazed d
own at the reconstructions on Declan’s keychain. A single key. A key he’d shown up with, wearing it tied around his neck on a shoelace the summer we were all apprenticed to Jasper. A key that opened no door. The locks had been changed on his family home after his mother abandoned him and his grandfather passed away.
I brushed my fingertips across the dozen tiny oyster-shell cubes attached to the chain. One for each year we’d been apart.
He had kept me close. He’d carried me — my magic — with him wherever he went.
“I love you,” I whispered to the magic dancing underneath my fingertips. “Past. Present. And whatever time the future grants us.”
Then I crossed the hall to my bedroom. Locking the door behind me, I kicked off my shoes and climbed underneath the quilted duvet on the four-pillar bed without undressing. I needed sleep. I needed a blank space within which to rest and rejuvenate. There was nothing else I could do at that moment. Even more emotionally messed up and exhausted, I had no ability to help with any technological aspect of the investigation. Kett or Rose would wake me when and if there was news.
And whatever was looming, whatever hurdles were coming, I was going to need to focus. The past — and everything it represented, including my initial fixation on Jasper — had already slowed me from finding Jasmine. I wouldn’t allow it to drag me through tomorrow as well.
Chapter 7
I slept for an hour and a half, waking somewhat refreshed but exceedingly hungry. I hadn’t eaten since the chicken salad I’d picked at on the plane. I splashed some water on my face in the bathroom, then changed into cotton pajama pants and a thick-knit, wide-necked, supremely comfortable sweater that fell down to just above my knees.
Padding past Declan’s closed door, I contemplated waking him, pretending that I hadn’t practically forced myself on him earlier. Then I could invite him for a predawn snack.
But even as I did, I knew that I would be happier alone. Or at least not so seriously on edge. So I slipped down the smooth wooden stairs and made my way back to the kitchen, regretting not putting on socks the moment my feet met its tiled floor.
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