Your Gran
Leona Wilde
My hands shake as I clutch the letter, tears running in hot tracks down my now blotchy cheeks. I wonder at how many times someone’s entire world can shift before everything kind of just falls out of orbit. I should be devastated, but really all I canthink about is how relieved I am to know that my parents didn’t choose to leave me. They chose tosaveme.
Still, nausea roils in my stomach knowing that my family—myentirefamily sacrificed themselves for me, before I was even born. I wait for the familiar weight of anxiety and warring emotions to crush me, but all I feel is a lingering ache in my heart. My head is still spinning but I’m oddly calm. I glance over at the trash bag half-full of musty dried herbs and wonder briefly if my gran put some kind of calming spell on this box, knowing how much of a bomb she’d be dropping on me here. Then it hits me! Mygranis the witch-bitch who fucked with my ghost’s soul!Oh, gods!My head snaps toward Cian, and I freeze.
He’s facing me, only a few steps away. At some point he must have started walking toward me but stopped. I cringe at the pinched look marring the perfection of his face. His expression makes it look like he’s in pain, and I follow his gaze to the bag resting in my lap.Fuck.My eyes drop to the picture he’s gripping with a white-knuckled hold. A picture of my mother, in Gran’s arms.
He lifts the picture, his eyes still trained on my lap. “Why do you have this? H-how… how do you know Leona?” His voice rings with a hollowness that threatens to break my heart and I bite my lip.
I’m unsure how to tell him everything, and terrified that he won’t take all this information as calmly as I have. With a still shaking hand I lift the letter above my head and lean forward. His eyes finally leave the bag to take in the papers still clutched lamely in my hands.
“She was my grandmother.” I watch, nerves swirling in my stomach as his eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. We stare at each other for a few tense moments, hurt and curiosity shinning in his eyes before he reaches for the letter. I watch him closely as he reads, desperately searching for any clue as to what he’sfeeling.Please, don’t let this be the thing that ruins this for me. And wouldn’t that be just my luck—to find a letter from my magical fortune telling grandmother endorsing our love match—which she paid for with the blood of my family—only for that same letter to be the thing that shoots it to the ground like some sort of love killing reverse cupid.
“Trissa…” his voice is pained as he sinks to the ground just out of reach. His throat works a few times before he whispers, “I’m so sorry.”
I breathe out in a whoosh and draw in a breath of relief. I don’t know what he’s sorry for, but at least he’s not mad! “What areyousorry for? My Gran trapped you here. She didn’t die… granted, something terrible did happen… but—but she should have come back and at least explained.” Out of everything in that letter, the thing that angers me the most is the fact that she just left him hanging. Maybe that’s fucked up because of everything with my family, but abandoning Cian without a word was the one thing she did that wasn’t in reaction to something else. She had time, plenty of it, to make it right. I can’t pretend to understand her feelings, and despite some fond memories, Gran and I weren’t super close. Perhaps because she didn’t want to get too close, knowing what she did about the future. I close my eyes against the sting of tears and sigh.
“While I agree that part does still chafe a bit…” I open my eyes at the gentle tone of his voice, cloaked in melancholy but still so damn soothing. He smiles reassuringly when I meet his eyes before continuing, “Leona is the reason I’ve got you… and I can’t be mad at that. I’d wait so much longer than half a century for you, my love. You willalwaysbe worth it.”
Everything looks blurry as tears threaten to spill down my face, which is slightly itchy from the partially dried tear tracks from earlier. I huff and reach into the trash bag for a handful ofdried herbs and stick them under my nose, inhaling deeply to try and get back some of that fleeting overwhelming calm.
Cian quirks a brow and turns his head to the side, looking vaguely avian as one corner of his mouth curls into a smirk. “Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.”
I take another deep sniff before chuckling, “I think these have some kind of calming spell on them or something. Like my gran knew I’d need it.”
His smirk turns into a full-blown smile and he ducks his head, shoulders shaking. I frown and scoot closer, dropping the stuff in my hands and lap to the floor as I close the distance between us. My hand finds his firm jaw and I tilt his face up, taking in the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes… but he’s not crying—he’s laughing. He’s laughing his paranormal ass off.
I scowl and drop his jaw, “Mind sharing with the class what’s so funny?” He shakes his head wildly and I sulk. “That’s not fair.”
Cian wipes his eyes and takes a deep breath, “I’m sorry. It’s just—I don’t doubt that Leona would have the forethought for something like that… but that,” he points to the herbs I’d been sniffing, which are now all over the floor andnotneatly tucked in the damn trash bag.
“That’s just lemon balm. She used it to keep away bugs.” He rolls his lips in and bites down to keep from laughing further at my stunned expression.
“Well, fuck me.” I scratch my head and smile, “It didn’t smell anything like a lemon. Pretty sure this makes me like, the worst witch ever.”
“I don’t know about theworstone. I think you’re absolutely enchanting. And I know quite a few things you do that feel like very potent magic.” His eyes drop to my lips and I grin.
“Hmm, is that so?” He nods quickly and my heart soars with happiness and the liberation of finally knowing deep down in my soul that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I don’thave to wonder if my family would have approved, or if this—this relationship with Cian is crazy. It may still fully be crazy to someone on the outside looking in, but my family died for me to have a chance at this craziness. I’mdamnsure gonna take it and ride him into the sunset. It. I mean it. “Break time?”
He stands and reaches a hand down to help me rise. “Finally.”
I laugh as he pulls me up, but the sound catches in my throat and I let out a breathy moan as I feel the cool embrace of multiple tentacles wrapping around my body.Oh my lanta!Nevermind—definitely ridinghim.
Chapter twenty-two
That's Low
Kyle
Istare at the lights coming from the giant fuckin mansion and pop the tab on another beer, taking a deep swig. You know, and that’s another thing—she can afford to have all those fuckin lights on in that big ass house, but she can’t afford to loan her boyfriend a little money? My face heats with anger and I take another swallow of booze. Some people are so two-faced, it makes me sick! I hock a loogie into the damp grass at my feet and pull my phone out, checking to see if Triss got some damn sense in the last few minutes and decided to stop ignoring me.
I growl at my phone and chuck it across the yard.Fuck!This isn’t funny anymore. She knows how much I hate being ignored… it’s not like she’s fucking doing anything! She doesn’t even leave the fucking house, but she can’t find two seconds to answer an important text? It’s bullshit. She’s just trying to make me jealous.
I finish off my beer and crush the can before tossing it into the brush. When Carmen told me about the deal with this house I saw fucking red. A giant inheritance just for living in a mansionfor six months… for fucking free? My teeth grind and I can feel the vein in my neck pulsing along to the anger coursing through my body. I stuck by her needy ass for like… since middle school, however many years that is, and she drops me as soon as she gets actual fucking money? And now Carmen told me some shit last night after she got done sucking my dick that really fucking pissed me off. She said that she heard from Gabbi that Triss has been texting some other dickhead? So she can fool around with some stranger but I get in trouble if I mess around with someone we know? That’s two-faced as shit.
And it’s not my fault she misunderstood the situation with the movers. I’m a good fuckin’ guy. I let her cry when she was all depressed and miserable to be around. I was faithful to her for, like, most of the fucking relationship. Especially when she was actually giving it up. If she really wanted me to not fuck with other girls she could have tried like even a little bit harder. Guys like to be chased too. What, because I’m a guy I can’t be sensitive? Man, fuck her.
