‘I love you, Emily James,’ he said, holding me so tightly I was sure I would break. ‘Nothing you can say is ever going to change that.’
‘I love you, Wyn Evans,’ I breathed, the only words from tonight he would not remember. ‘And I wish that were true.’
Without letting go, I looked up to the sky through glassy eyes and summoned the clouds to cover the blue moon, turning it blood red. Around the park, the phased wolves whimpered. Staring at a spot beyond his shoulder, avoiding his chameleon eyes, the constellation of freckles on his nose, the curl of hair by his ear, I spoke one word I’d hoped to never utter.
‘Relessen.’
The whole park shook.
‘Wyn Evans, I release you.’
The sound that echoed out of his body would haunt me for the rest of my life. A symphony of pain, excruciating to witness, and as Wyn fell to his knees, clutching at his chest, only breathing in long enough to scream out again, I watched. My face impassive, I refused to let myself cry. If so much as a single tear fell from my face, the pack would question my version of events, he would be exiled and this pain, thisagony, would be for nothing.
After a hundred lifetimes had passed, the clouds moved away from the moon and it lit the park with violent clarity. Wyn lay at my feet, blessedly unconscious. His mother fell to her knees, pressing his hand to her chest.
‘Go,’ she ordered, without looking up at me. ‘We’re done.’
‘What about Astrid?’ I asked, shaking with the effort of ignoring Wyn.
‘She’s a lone wolf, she’s no concern of ours.’
‘But she’ll die if you leave her down there. There’s no way in or out unless I take you.’
‘Then she’ll die.’
The pack leader stood, drawing herself up to her fullest height, as the two women picked Wyn up from the ground, the pair of them ashen-faced. This was not the evening anyone had been anticipating.
They moved as one, Pamela leading the way out of the park while a group of six or seven subdued Cole, still bound, dragging him behind them while the wolves already phased melted away into the deserted city.
‘Em?’ Lydia said, her voice breaking through the hush, an unwelcome reminder that the world continued to turn. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded, finding her hand in mine. ‘I am.’
It was the second-worst lie I’d ever told.
Chapter Forty-Six
‘Did it work?’
Ashley met us at the door of Bell House, covered in soot and sweat and worry. I nodded as the four of us traipsed inside, a sorry band of victors.
‘Alexandra?’ Virginia rushed past us all to her daughter’s side. ‘What on Earth?’
The twins’ mother looked to have taken the worst of it, bruised and bloodied and still shellshocked. Jackson was dazed, burn marks on his wrists from the rope they used to drag him away, sore-looking spots on his face where he’d torn the tape from his skin. Lydia, on the other hand, looked like a goddess, a harnessed storm, leashed lightning. A new witch in thrall to the blessing.
‘How come you were there?’ she asked her mother as Ashley bundled us all into the parlour, directing everyone to soft spots on which to sit or lay, administering water, tea and whiskey. ‘Did they come to Charleston to find you?’
‘They didn’t have to. I came back to apologize to you.’
Words were still difficult for her, hands shaking as she sipped the warm tea laced with honey and valerian Ashleyheld to her lips. ‘I have behaved monstrously over the last few weeks.’
‘We’ve recently recalibrated the scale of monstrous behaviour,’ Jackson stated, sliding down onto the couch beside her. ‘You’re getting a pass. If only because you punched that Were right in the face.’
‘Mom!’ Lydia’s face lit up. ‘You punched a wolf?’
‘Well, she didn’t listen when I asked nicely,’ Alex replied. ‘I was parking the car around the corner and there she was, trying to shove my son into the back of some truck with his hands tied. I got a good swing in too, if there hadn’t been two more of them, she might not have been so lucky.’
‘Remind me never to cross you,’ Ashley commented as the Powells crowded around each other, three generations reconnected.
