‘You have a weird obsession with talking about me and your brother getting it on. You should see someone about that,’ I snapped. ‘But anyway. Callum made such a big deal of me hiding my magic, when he was doing exactly the same thing.’
Bonnie sucked in a breath. ‘Not exactly the same.’
‘How is this not the same?’ I kicked at the ground, half wishing it was Callum’s face. ‘We were both hiding things. We could have both revealed them at the same time, but Callum kept lying to me.’
‘Yeah, but why did you keep your secret?’ Bonnie asked, her voice uncharacteristically serious.
That cut through my righteous anger. I’d expected to bash Callum with her, not examine our secret-keeping motivations. ‘My dad said it was best to. Not many people know actual magic exists any more. They might not like it.’
‘Callum has all that going on too. But, as has recently been shared with me, he also believed for a long time that the first person he ever told about being a furry moon-lover then killed almost our entire family. That would make him understandably afraid to tell anyone else about it, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, fuck,’ I breathed.
‘You see, Aster. Once you’ve studied people as much as I have, you come to appreciate?—’
I ended the call and shoved my phone in my bag.
All the anger drained from me. Callum hiding what hewas hadn’t been anything like me hiding my magic. He had been terrified of anyone finding out, had been so deathly scared that he would do anything to keep his secret.
He hadn’t hidden it from me because he wanted to or because he didn’t trust me, but because the fear that had lived inside of his head since his family died told him he had to.
I only stumbled over one unusually tall tuft of grass as I ran towards the cabin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CALLUM
‘You’re fine,’ I repeated. ‘You’re fine. Nothing bad is going to happen. Aster is coming back.’
Murmuring comforting words over and over to myself helped block out Aster’s conversation with my sister. He deserved privacy. The words didn’t, however, make me feel any less panicked. My heart beat frantically, demanding urgent action. Danger was near, rushing closer. I had to be prepared. I had to fight.
I stopped pacing before the fire and forced in a deep breath. ‘Aster isn’t going to hurt you. You trust him.’
I believed that, but Aster could do things—other than breaking my trust—that would crush me. He’d said he was just annoyed, but I held no illusions that everything would be fine when he walked back into the cabin.
I wasn’t human. Anyone would need time to come to terms with that. But Aster and I didn’t have a wealth of time. He had two weeks left on the island. After this bombshell, he’d want to spend them far away from me.
I raked my hands through my hair, refusing to let myclaws extend. I’d wished this side of myself away a thousand times after my family died. If I hadn’t had anything to reveal, then they wouldn’t have been killed.
Aster wasn’t going to react so horrifically to my true nature, but it was understandable that he would react badly. It was reasonable that on finding out you were sharing a home and your bed with someone not quite human, that you would be displeased.
‘Please don’t be disgusted,’ I whimpered, scrunching my eyes shut against the hot tears forming.
Until today, there had only ever been warmth in Aster’s gaze when he’d looked at me. His anger had been scorching hot. Once it cooled, stark disgust would take its place as he packed his bags and left.
She looked at me differently. She had stepped back, face distorting. She’d refused to speak to me and had torn almost everything I loved away from me.
The door of the cabin swung open and Aster—panting and rosy cheeked—ran inside. I quickly lowered my hands to my sides and arranged my face into a neutral expression. I wouldn’t show him my desperation, wouldn’t make whatever he’d come back to do any harder.
‘I understand if you don’t want to be close to me any more.’ I used the moments while Aster tore off his coat and hopped out of his boots to lay the groundwork for him. Maybe then he wouldn’t show me what a monster he thought I was. ‘If you need space, I can leave. Or, if you don’t want to be here, I can sort out somewhere for you to stay in the village. Kit has a spare room. We don’t have to be around one another.’
Aster marched over to stand before me. Firelight flickered across his hair, his face hard. ‘Do youwant me to leave?’
I swallowed the howl of mourning that threatened to escape. ‘No,’ I whispered.
‘Stop fucking talking about it then,’ Aster growled, then he yanked me hard into his chest.
I still couldn’t settle, panic roaring loud in my mind, but as Aster’s arms wrapped around me, I clung to him. I pressed my face into the side of his neck and breathed, tears leaking from my eyes.
