A Nightmare to Remember (Wicked Good Witches Book 5)

by Starla Silver

  She wasn’t sure how to answer that. Their actions from the night before were still a little hazy. Returning in little wisps of memory.

  He took a few steps closer and lifted her hair, wiping away the blood. Charlie cringed, afraid he might vomit. How could he have done this? He’d promised never to hurt her again and somehow, he’d managed not only to do it again, but without either of them remembering. He opened his mouth to explain what his bite would do to her, but the words escaped him.

  How? How was this whole thing possible?

  Charlie looked at the bite mark again. It didn’t look as bad as it had a moment ago. He lifted her arm to check the bruise he’d seen there. He swore it was much deeper a minute ago.

  Eva cleared her throat. “I need to go.” She pulled away.

  “Don’t you want to figure out what’s been happening?”

  “Oh, I think I know, Charlie.”

  “I meant, why it’s happening. It doesn’t bother you? Look what I did to you!” He raised her arm to show her the bruise. It was almost gone now.

  “What bruise?” she asked, pretending she hadn’t seen it.

  “What the hell?” he asked, letting go. He swiped her hair aside. The bite mark was nearly gone. Like it was... “Healing...” he stepped back.

  Eva made a move to leave, but Charlie grabbed her arm, stopping her.

  “What are you?” he asked in a strained voice.

  “What do you mean?” Eva replied innocently.

  “You know what I mean. What. Are. You?”

  “Aw, c’mon Charlie. I think you know what I am.” She grinned sardonically. If the game was up, it was up. “I think you know who I am…”

  Charlie lost his breath and let go as if she’d just turned into poison.

  It had been right in front of him this entire time. She’d been right there. All the signs. All the warnings his gut had told him when they’d first met.

  “It’s you. You’re the alpha. You’re the shapeshifter. You’re the wolf that bit me. Turned me.”

  “And now it looks like you’ve been returning the favor,” she retaliated.

  Memories of the previous night, and other previous nights, returned to her.

  Charlie sinking his teeth into her shoulder had been a sign of dominance. She shook her head, disgusted with herself. Her wolf. Eva had no idea something like this was even possible. Their wolves acting on their own accord. Seeking out their own pleasures. She gagged, choking through the memories. She had submitted to Charlie. Willingly.

  Fury seared through her veins. He’d pay for making her submit to him.

  The slightest relief lifted Charlie’s heavy heart. His bite would not do anything to Eva. She was already a werewolf. The wolf responsible for threatening his family. The cause of so much turmoil this summer on the Isle. She’d nearly become his alpha and stolen him from his family and duty. She killed Nina. She impersonated his sister and broke into their home. She had stolen his father’s diary. She was after the power source.

  His silver eyes rose to her, a fierce snarl building in his gut.

  She returned with a lethal yellow eyed gaze of her own.

  “I will never submit to you, Charlie Howard. You belong to me.” She charged at him. He stopped her easily, his large hand strangling her throat. He dragged her across the beach and pinned her body to a tree trunk. She looked surprised that he’d captured her so easily.

  His steely gaze raged back at her. “You’ve already submitted, bitch.” A realization that suddenly empowered him. “You hold no control over me.”

  He loosened his grip allowing her to breathe again. He didn’t care what they’d been doing at night, he barely remembered it anyway. And it was unconscious on his part. A trick… yes. She’d tricked him somehow.

  “How did you do it? A spell? A drug?” he demanded unkindly.

  “I didn’t do anything, jackass. It was our wolves,” she spat back at him.

  “I don’t believe you.” His grip tightened again. His teeth inching precariously close to her throat. He had it in his right mind to tear out her throat. He withdrew his teeth. There was a vibrating hum surging through him. Rage. Anger. And sharp clarity.

  He needed proof. He needed to see it with his own eyes. Charlie realized this was coming from the ring. It was stopping him, giving him pause. It really did work. The acts they’d done together, though unconscious on their human parts, had been consensual by their wolves. He wasn’t actually hurting her. He was just fucking her.

  It wasn’t a trick. Just their wolves… it did not excuse the rest of her actions. He released his chokehold and stepped back. Eva let out a ragged breath, her deadly gaze never dropping.

  “I want to see you shift.” It wasn’t a request. She’d do it or pay the consequence. “I will see the proof with my own eyes.”

  Her chest heaved, her eyes bright yellow and fierce.

  “Shift!”

  She let out a gasp and shook her head.

  “Shift, God damn it!”

  “I can’t,” she claimed in a confused wail.

  He approached her, hand outstretched. “Shift. Now. Or I will cut your throat.” The fingernails on his hand elongated in silent request and agreement. The manner in which he spoke frightened Eva.

  She replied with a shaky nod. “Just give me a second.”

  “You have three,” Charlie told her, showing no empathy.

  Eva closed her eyes, but nothing happened. Her eyes opened and she made a strange face.

  Charlie lifted his hand in warning.

  “I’m trying,” she pleaded. “And what difference does it make if you see it? You’re still going to kill me, either way.”

  “Hurry up and shift,” he ordered again.

  “Fine! Will that make you happy?” she spouted anxiously. “To submit to you.” Just saying the s word enraged her again.

  “Just do it, Eva.”

  She focused, her face contorting oddly as if trying to shift, but nothing happened.

  “I’m done waiting!” Charlie warned, striding forward again. He pinned her to the tree, his fingers ready to slice her throat. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you.” His nail dug into her skin, threatening to cut deeper.

  Eva winced. “I don’t know what happened. I swear. I can’t shift.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Please, Charlie. Really. I swear it. I know what I am and what I’ve done. Please let me explain.”

  “Why? So I can listen to you spew lies. Just shift already so I can see it with my own eyes.”

  “I can’t,” she cried. “Really, I can’t. I don’t know why...” she trailed off, her eyes growing into wide orbs. “Oh...”

  “What?” asked Charlie, thinking Eva was stalling, looking for the right moment to escape his grasp.

  It dawned on Eva what the Feyk had done to her. She listened very carefully for the sound she needed to find. The sound she needed Charlie to hear. Her wolf hearing was good, but she’d have to search for it. She inhaled sharply. “Oh my God.”

  “No more games, Eva. Get on with it.”

  “Wait! Charlie… there’s only one reason a shifter loses their ability to shift.”

  “And that would be?” Charlie questioned indignantly.

  “I... I...” Eva couldn’t say the words. She didn’t know how he would react to this news.

  “Spit it out!”

  “Listen Charlie. Listen to my heartbeat.”

  “Why would I do that? For all I know, you’ve been making me do that all along and that’s why I keep forgetting everything.”

  “Just listen,” she pleaded, as his grip tightened again.

  Charlie’s rage surfaced. But his ears tuned into Eva’s heartbeat pounding in her chest. He heard the racing beats, could feel them underneath her skin. In between her beats was a tremor. Small, almost unnoticeable.

  He used his wolf hearing to listen closer. His ability wasn’t a good as William’s, he didn’t have the distance the vampire d
id. But Charlie leaned his head in, listening for the tiny tremor.

  Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump.

  It was a second heartbeat.

  Charlie let go and stepped back, horrified.

  “No,” he sputtered. “No.”

  “Yes. It’s a second heartbeat, Charlie. One you helped create,” she lied. “Neither of us may have wanted it. But it happened. I’m carrying your child.”

  Eva wondered how the Feyk had known to do this to her.

  Was it real? Was she actually pregnant? Or had the Feyk, faked it, effectively saving her life? Charlie Howard would not kill her. Not if he believed she was carrying his child.

  What a devious plan… creepy ass Feyk knew what he was doing after all.

  Charlie fell backwards, the world starting to spin. He leaned into another tree splaying his hands against its surface, trying to hold himself up. Trying to get a coherent thought out of his brain. Not even the ring could bring clarity into this mess.

  This couldn’t be. Eva pregnant. The alpha werewolf pregnant. With his child!

  What did this even mean? Was it even possible for a child to survive under these conditions? And if it did, what kind of child would it be?

  Part shifter, part werewolf and part witch.

  Part Charlie Howard and part Eva Jordan.

  His child’s mother would be the wolf that bit him and then returned ten years later to finish the job.

  Eva was a murderer, who wanted to control him. And now she was pregnant with his child. Eva had tried to take his ring by forcing innocent mermaids into tricking him. She was after the power source. She’d stop at nothing… and this was the woman carrying his child.

  How had he not seen all the signs? Why hadn’t he listened to his gut instinct? It had tried to warn him. So many times…

  The connection between them was their wolves. He just didn’t know it was because she was a wolf as well. The wolf that had turned him.

  Carrying his child or not, he needed to know everything. All she had done. Was her father in on the plan as well? Were they indeed after the power source? Charlie lifted his head, clarity finally washing away the shock. He opened his mouth to demand she tell him everything, but slammed it shut in defeat.

  Eva was gone.

  She’d taken the opportunity of his shock to slip away.

  Charlie didn’t know where to start his search. Would she return to her father? Flee the Isle? Would the Jordan’s finish what they’d come here to do?

  A gut wrenching pain knotted through him. How would he explain this to his family? He was already a failure… already letting them down, and now…

  Eva was a monster who’d proven she was willing to hurt and kill to get what she wanted. Who also happened to be pregnant with his child, and he’d just let her slip away.

  If Eva fled and he never saw her again, and by doing so the Isle and its power source were safe again, could he live with this outcome? Would it be enough for him to live knowing he’d done his job, fulfilling his duty as protector of The Demon Isle?

  Charlie Howard could see only two choices, neither appealing.

  “I can abandon my child or abandon my heritage,” he breathed out tensely. “I am damned either way.”

  #

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  To read Book 6, A Stake With a View, please visit: www.starlasilver.com