“I thought for sure you were going to lay into him,” Julian said, the three of them coming up beside me. Not Adora. Never Adora.
“If I stayed a second longer, I would have.” I turned to look Phoenix in the eye. “She’s been mine for over two bloody months and she was mine last night. The last thing I want to see is another man’s hands on her. It’s poison and brings on a vile imagination.” I blew out a breath and dropped my head back against the brick. “I’ll have to leave Weeping Hollow. I won’t be able to survive.”
Phoenix laid a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have a choice.”
I looked at him, irritated, dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?”
“The chance of you ever seeing the world again was taken away the second your frozen ass crossed the border back into Weeping Hollow over a hundred years ago. If you’re a descendant of the founders, you can’t leave once you return. I can’t leave. Julian, Beck, Zeph can’t leave. Fuck, Adora can’t leave ... We’re all stuck here.”
Julian rested his shoulder against the brick beside me. “I’m sorry, Stone, but it’s true.”
“If this is true, how could my mother leave?”
“Because,” Beck said, “your mother isn’t a descendant of a founding family, so she was able to leave, and she left before you were born. Now that you’re where you belong, the town will keep you.”
It felt as though an entire ocean had poured down my throat, drowning my head, my chest, and my lungs. I turned, laying my palms on the brick, grinding my jaw, muscles spasming under my flesh as this anger brewed inside me.
For an earth man, being trapped was a hell. Not only could I never see the rest of the world, the land, the mountain landscape again, I was forced to live among Adora and her dashing fiancé.
Rage in its entirety overcame me at the thought, and I curled my hands into fists, my nails scraping down the brick as a wild groan left my throat.
Then my fist pulled back and plunged into the brick wall, clay crumbling beneath it.
CHAPTER 47
STONE
Since Goody Estatehad enough space and rooms for an entire coven, this was where I’d been staying, and mostly like where I would be staying until I could find a permanent solution. While Eleanor had been gracious enough to open her doors to Ocean and me, it was never meant to last. And I especially couldn’t see Eleanor and Kioni each day, look in their eyes, knowing I was the one responsible for taking Winta’s life.
One night, Clarence had drunk too much whiskey and stolen my ear to indulge in the history of Goody Estate, his most prized possession. The Greek Revival and Italianate style mansion had a white exterior, black shutters, black iron railings, multi-level wrap-around porches, and massive white square columns surrounding the fifty-something-thousand square foot home. And I’d only ventured into less than five percent of it, spending most of my time in the library.
Outside, an assortment of trees draped lawns, gardens, and a lake with a footbridge, and I imagined the array of color during the fall season to be artwork.
Julian, Beck, and Phoenix left me in the entry hall, advising me to do my best to keep blood off the original hardwood. Under the brass chandelier, I cradled my hand, flexing my fingers, my skin ripped open on every knuckle.
Zephyr’s sister, Winnifred, appeared, walking toward me, carrying a handkerchief and gauze. She was taller than Adora by an inch or two. Julian had warned me about her, referring to her as a promiscuous creature with a sexual appetite and many personalities. The others mentioned finding a distraction, but my only thought, my only fantasy, my only desire was Adora. It seemed the obsession had left my cock and traveled to my brain.
Winnifred took my hand into hers and dabbed my knuckles.
“What happened?” she asked with a sensual drawl.
“A girl.”
She smiled. “It’s always a girl.”
“So the story goes.”
She finished wrapping my bandage, then draped my arm around her waist, laying my palm on her hip as she pressed her breasts up against my chest. Her other bold hand pressed up against my cock, and her eyes opened wide, her mouth falling open. “Monstrous,” she purred, massaging the front of my pants. “My room is next to yours. I can make you feel better, take care of you. Whenever you want, whatever you need.”
I grabbed her wrist and turned until her body moved with her. “You’re not a fraction of the woman I want, nor could you satisfy or handle what I need,” I said into her ear, squeezing her wrist tightly. “Touch me again, and I’ll accept your offer, use this cock to break your jaw and rearrange your stomach, then drop you off at the morgue so Fallon can put you back together again.” I released her and adjusted myself. Winnifred looked at me stunned, so I held my wounded hand in the air. “Ah yes, and my deepest gratitude for the bandage.”
“You’re an asshole,” she said as I stalked off.
Nearly every door in the mansion was eleven feet tall. The heavy oak door at the back of the house, where the other Heathens were waiting, was no exception.
When we entered, the sweet and smoky aroma of tobacco, vintage leather, and cedar noir comforted me as the others sat in regal Gothic thrones around a circular table. Clarence was already present with his back turned to us, admiring a library of wooden cigar boxes made of Spanish cedar tucked into slots on the back wall. Not an inch was wasted.
“Your father was the last to sit in that chair, Danvers,” Clarence said, closing a box and sliding it back into its resting place. “Go on, take your seat, son.”
