Chocolates.
Lena loved him with a confidence I wanted, something I had a feeling I was about to see Leah have with him. Any minute now they’d walk in here hand in hand, Leah smiling up at him, he down at her. They would share a tender kiss and then part of my soul would die forever. He would kill Silas with my help and then I would hide the pain as we all lived together for the next hundreds of years. I’d be like a celibate nun, pining after my own sister and best friend’s husband.
It was beyond depressing.
I sighed.
“Averly!” Leah’s blood-curdling scream made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I spun, scanning the crowd for her, for him. For the entire pack that I never got to know. When my gaze rested on her, the wind knocked out of me. Her eyes were red-rimmed like she’d been crying, her hair in a messy top knot and barely done. She wore a black gown that looked like an afterthought with its wrinkles and too short hemline. I ran to the other side of the cage to get closer and noticed Brayden beside her. He had a full beard, messy hair, and was wearing a black tank-top and jeans. They both looked like they didn’t care to dress up this year and had been up all night worrying.
About what?I wondered.
His eyes locked on to mine and it felt like the world stopped. I couldn’t help the whimper that left my throat or the single tear that ran down my cheek. My gaze caressed the length of him, drinking him in. I scanned over the tattoos on his arm, making my way to his fingers to see if he wore a wedding ring when an extra name caught my eye. This tattoo was fresher, darker black than the other names, and I steeled myself to read the wordLeah.
Only it didn’t say Leah. It said…It said…
Averly.
It was me.He chose me.
The shock of what I was seeing and feeling hit me like a ton of bricks as they both crossed the space and Leah threw herself at the bars.
“Are you okay?” She reached for me sobbing, grasping my back, my neck, anything she could hug. “I’ve been so worried the past year, we couldn’t find you guys.”
I could only nod, the shock fully immobilizing me.
“I haven’t touched him,” Leah whispered into my ear, her voice breaking. “We’re just friends. I have been getting memories ofbothhe and Castiel. Yours and my memories are meshed together somehow. We need to see a healer together to get them right again.”
One by one, I allowed what she was saying to seep into me, to bring some relief to my aching soul.
She wasn’t Lena? Was that what I was hearing? Or at least they weren’t sure.
“But after the last fight? You kissed him?” I asked her.
Leah pulled back and faced me; her cheeks burned with shame. “I remembered marrying him. I got caught up in the moment and we hugged, no kiss. Then seconds later I got a memory of marrying Castiel. I feel a stronger connection to my Castiel memories. I think I’m Wren and I screwed up that spell, ruiningbothour memories. I’m so sorry! I love you!” Leah wept as I reached through the bars and held her.
“I love you too.” I couldn’t keep the tears away if I tried, and I didn’t want to. This raw emotion was healing. I was finally getting closure to something that had eaten at me over the past year.
When I looked up from Leah, Brayden was there standing behind her, his searing blue eyes burning into me. He cleared his throat and Leah pulled back, giving him room to reach me.
We stood a mere twelve inches apart, bars between us as we stared into each other’s eyes, both breathing heavily. It was like something I’d dreamed of happening a dozen times, and now that it was here I couldn’t believe it.
“I still choose you,” he said, and it was the last thing I needed to hear to break down the wall I’d built to protect myself from him hurting me. I rushed forward, sticking my face against the bars as he did the same. His hands grasped my neck, yanking me against the cold metal, his lips claiming mine in a desperate kiss.
We still weren’t one hundred percent sure if I was Lena or Wren and yet he chose me. He’d tattooed my name on his arm in a place that meant he was putting me first. I would be the next woman in line to hold his heart until the day I died, and I could think of no greater honor.
I parted my lips as his tongue slipped inside my mouth and we both groaned at the same time.
“Well, well…” Lora’s voice came over the microphone. “It looks like our star-crossed lovers are at it again.”
I yanked myself away from Brayden as the crowd laughed and cheered. Panic filled me as I remembered I needed to warn him.
“Lora gave me my full power. Silas is going to use it to kill you.” I raised my cuffed arms.
He frowned. “Kill me? But—”
I cut him off. “She doesn’t need you anymore to hold the Greywolf power. She found a way around it. She found a way to make Silas king.”
