Page 17 of A Castle of Broken Memories

The resulting shriek rang in my ears while I skidded to a stop on the fourth-floor landing. Grabbing the doorknob, I breathed a sigh of relief when it turned, the door pushing inward. Holding it open, I waved Calum and Tenebris inside without looking—my gaze locked on the mountain man.

“You coming?” I shouted.

The noise distracted the giant, who seemed torn between swatting at the man and changing directions to go for me. In that brief moment of indecision, the man swung up onto the banister, leaped over the giant’s hand, and slid the rest of the way down until he came flying off onto the landing not even two feet in front of me.

His chest heaved with exertion, sweat trickling down his face into his beard, but it felt like I was the one struggling to breathe. Those eyes—I knew those eyes, with their pale green irises that darkened around the edges. And that tiny white scar just above his brow? I could tell an hour-long tale about its origins. As impossible as it seemed, up here in the clouds in a castle no one had set foot in for decades, I had come face-to-face with the man who tore my heart to shreds all those years ago…

Not his younger brother.

Not a distant, look-alike cousin.

Jack.

My Jack.

10

Impossible. My eyes were playing tricks on me, conjuring the face of the woman who’d been the center of every dream, every fantasy, for the past ten years. Only, in my dreams, she was frozen at twenty years old, with raven curls down to her waist and a teasing smile forever tugging at her full red lips. The woman who stared back at me now was older, her dark hair cropped short in the back with a mass of wild curls tumbling over her forehead. Faint lines creeped from the corners of her eyes, and her perfect mouth tilted downward.

Somehow she was even more beautiful than I remembered.

Unless…she is an apparition? Heart pounding, I lifted my hand, grazing the freckled brown skin of her cheek. It was soft and supple beneath my fingertips; warm. Ghosts weren’t warm. Her lips parted at my touch, and my entire body trembled at the throaty lilt of her voice whispering my name.

“Jack?”

I swallowed, willing my tongue to unglue itself, but my body refused to work the way it was supposed to.

“Jack!” Her eyes widened as she glanced over my shoulder. “Behind you!”

I blinked, unable to tear my gaze away from her face. “Mari⁠—”

She swore and grabbed my arm, dragging me into the room with her and slamming the door shut just as the shadow giant’s clawed hand raked across it. I barely even noticed while I stumbled barefoot onto the grass. The room’s simulated sunshine danced along her petite figure, strong and curvy beneath her short red cloak, and her amber eyes blazed with a mix of emotions I had the sudden desperate need to untangle.

“You.” The word slipped through her lips with a raspy edge, and she lifted her hand. My heart stuttered as I yearned forward, the draw of her touch overwhelming my senses.

Her palm met the side of my face, sending me reeling backward, and her lip curled in a snarl as she clenched the offending hand at her side. “What the hell are you doing here?” she growled. “And why do you look like a half-crazed bushman?”

I could only gape back at her. She hit me. She… she was really here. I touched my face, gingerly feeling the tender flesh—it was sore. My mouth stretched into a grin, laughter bubbling up inside my chest. My face hurt, and I wasn’t alone.

“Mariana? Are you okay?”

“Oh my gods, is that Jack as in THE Jack? More importantly, are we not worried about that giant shadow monster thing coming through the door? Because that kind of feels like a priority. No offense.”

Male voices jumbled together, and I reluctantly shifted my gaze to assess the other two. The larger (and from what I could tell, older) one stared back at me with a guarded expression, tattooed muscles bulging when he crossed his arms over his massive chest and looked me over in much the same way as I was doing to him. His dark brown hair was cropped short, and thick stubble covered the lower half of his face. It was his eyes, however, that drew my attention—they were the telltale amber of a werewolf and brimming with a wary protectiveness.

The jittery young man beside him couldn’t have been more different. Clean shaven with wavy black hair that looked to have been styled before the wind had its way with it and blue eyes that sparkled with a mix of fear and excitement. Where the werewolf was dressed in flannel and loose-fitting pants, this younger man was wearing fitted black slacks, a tailored blue shirt, and suspenders.

“We’re safe in here,” I assured them. “Gregar never leaves the foyer, and the others don’t come out until the sun goes down.”

“The others?” the younger man squeaked, eyes darting about, but I was already turning back to Mariana, whose scowl had begun to waver. When I reached for her hand, however, she jerked back with a glare. “How did you even get up here? I thought you were living on the outside now.”

Her werewolf companion shifted to stand behind her, and the slighter one’s anxious expression morphed into one of concern. He moved to stand beside her, and a growl rumbled through my chest when his hand rested on her shoulder. Like it belonged there.

The sight of it was enough to snap me from my daze, Mariana’s words finally sinking in. “The outside?” I glanced around the room in confusion. It was a lot like being outside, with its blue-sky walls stretched a good quarter mile apart and its tall, wildflower-speckled grass waving in an enchanted breeze. A thick copse of trees filled the back half of the room, with a bubbling creek winding its way between their trunks and heading off toward the eastern wall. My little cabin, built mostly of logs and moss, rested just before the tree line. “I suppose you could call it that, although not all of the rooms in the castle are like this. Some of them are more traditional.” Others I hadn’t even seen.

The slighter companion rolled his eyes. “She means outside the forest’s barrier, in the world of humans. Not just outside.”

I frowned, distracted by Mariana’s reddening face and clenching fists. “Why would I be living there?”