“Fine,” Olivia replied stiffly.
Seeing that he wasn’t going to get much more from her with the mood she was in, he turned and left the room.
After a few more minutes of sitting in the silent empty kitchen, brooding into her cold tea, she got up and dumped it down the sink, rinsing the mug out. She was startled out of her silent musing when her phone rang and the caller ID showed Mags was calling her again. Sighing, she declined the call.
She spent the rest of the day avoiding Theo. She knew it was childish, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. He brought out a side of her she just wasn’t ready to deal with, so she concentrated on trying to find Nathaniel Boothe’s family instead. She closed herself in her bedroom with her laptop like a surly teenager and spent most of the day going through every ancestry website she could find. She also spent hours on the phone to Renata, the curator at the museum who’d taken on the challenge with relish.
However, several hours later, Olivia had come up with nothing but empty hands and a pounding headache. Not only had neither of them been able to track down anything of Nathaniel Boothe’s family history, but they had been unable to find a single historical reference to the man himself. It was as if he’d never existed.
Frustrated and tired, Olivia stretched out the kinks in her spine, yawned, and unfolded her stiff legs from the bed. Her stomach growled and she glanced over at the clock. She listened but could hear no noise coming from downstairs, so she tossed her laptop on the bed and headed out of the room.
Wondering if Theo was still in the house or if he’d taken up her suggestion to go back to Jake’s, she padded down the stairs, trying to figure out how she’d feel if he had left. She stopped in the doorway of the library and found him asleep at her desk, his head pressed to an open page, and a mountain of books stacked around him.
She crept quietly into the room. Stopping next to the desk, she ran her hand gently through his dark hair, letting the curled ends slip through her fingers.
“Theo,” she whispered. He lifted his head and blinked. Something in her chest throbbed and did a funny little roll. “Theo,” she murmured again.
He sat up, looking first at her and then at the clock on the mantel.
“It’s getting late,” she told him. “I guess we both lost track of time.”
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked quietly.
Did she? He would go if she told him to, she knew he would. Just as she knew he wanted to stay. Her belly shifted and rolled again, her heartbeat knocking against her ribs so loudly she was afraid he’d hear it. The way he made her feel confused her, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t know what to do.
The sensible answer would be to send him back to Jake’s, but the thought of once again being alone was unappealing, to say the least. She’d survive—after all, she was used to being on her own. It was the thought of him specifically not being in the house, not being close to her that she didn’t like, and she simply couldn’t explain it. She’d never needed anyone before, but when he was near, it was like the warmth of the sun, and she yearned for him.
He was right. As confusing as things were between them, whatever was going on obviously involved them both, and it would be easier to figure it out together.
“Olivia?” He drew her attention from her thoughts. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No.” She sighed.
They sat in mutual silence, trying to figure out what to say, then Olivia simply held out her hand to him and watched as he took it. Her arm tingled the second their palms connected, like static electricity ran through her veins.
“Are you hungry?” she asked after a moment.
“I am.” He smiled slowly as his fingers entwined with hers.
“Come on then.” She tugged his hand, leading him out of the room. “I’m going to introduce you to the delights of Chinese takeout.”
The fire banked down as they left the room, but as the old house creaked and settled, one of the books that was balanced precariously on the desk slipped and toppled to the floor, falling open on an illustration of dual serpents in the shape of an infinity symbol.
19
Deep in the heart of the woods, the snow had settled crisp and white, the starkness broken every now and then by dark, twisted branches. Huge, dirty paw prints lead in a never-ending circle along the perimeter of the clearing, marring its edges.
The pale winter sun had dipped low on the horizon, setting the sky ablaze with pink and purple. On its heels followed a blanket of pure black, punctuated every now and then with a scattering of stars. Everything was so still and quiet it felt like the entire forest was watching and waiting to bear witness.
Olivia lay on her stomach, splayed out on the freezing cold ground. The giant hellhound stood over her, snarling, its teeth sunk into the back of her neck, pinning her in place. Her fingers clawed at the snow, but it was no good. Bright rivulets of blood spilled down her neck staining the snow crimson.
Theo beat his fists against the pale-colored shield of magic keeping him out of the clearing. His hands were bloodied and left red smears as he tried desperately to get to her.
Tears spilled down Olivia’s face, her neck bent at an agonizing angle by the hellhound, which seemed intent on forcing her to watch the scene unfolding before her rather than delivering a killing blow.
A terrified cry filled the clearing, and Olivia’s eyes were drawn to a young man staked out on the ground. A hooded figure kneeled over him, holding a hand above the victim’s chest. The boy screamed in agony, his back arching unnaturally as his chest split open and his heart was wrenched out of his body.
The killer dropped the heart into a large jar and moved to the hollowed tree twisting up from the center of the clearing. Four symbols glowed a sooty orange color through the snow-covered ground. Moving past them, the killer stopped at the last gap, and the earth and snow began to churn upward, revealing a deep hole. The jar was placed in the hole, and the earth suddenly folded inwards, burying the jar containing the human heart. A fifth symbol appeared, and all five symbols continued to burn brighter and brighter until they burst into flame. Lines of fire ran between each of the points until they joined to form a perfect pentagram with the tree at its center.
