Sunder Page 13

  Miles sighed. “That’s enough you two. I am going to take my leave. Betsy has a house of her own, we will take up residence there. Give you your space back.”

  Briton caught something in Miles’ eyes.

  His father gave Miles a pat on the back. “Thank you, dear friend.”

  Miles clasped a hand over Briton’s father’s and smiled back. He left the room. Briton followed him out of the house. “You knew?”

  Miles never looked back, he walked to the car. “This is not the place or the time.”

  Briton grabbed the old man’s arms. “You knew.”

  Miles’ eyes darted up to the old house. “Meet me at midnight in the grove.” He turned and got into the car with Betsy. She waved enthusiastically. The spell of the witches worked well on her, regardless of being one of them. She couldn’t see the wolves or the vampires or the things the magic hid. And though she might not have been born with the witches’ magic, she still helped hold the spell there in the town.

  Now that his family was home, she could go back to her regular house, staying there all the time, instead of spending most of her time at his father’s house. No—his house. It was his house.

  He frowned, realizing how strange that was. They were guests in his house.

  He turned and looked at the great white mansion and puzzled at how different things had become in such a short span of time.

  “Nicolai!”

  He turned to see his father at the side of the house. “Son, you seem troubled.”

  That wasn’t quite a strong enough word for it, but he nodded. “I am, Father. The portrayal of the events that occurred that night is conflicting in my head.”

  His father nodded and strolled out into the fading sunlight. He lit his old pipe and puffed. The smell tugged at Briton’s heartstrings. “Mine as well. What happened?”

  Briton walked with his father out into the gardens that had long since turned in the cool fall temperatures. He closed his eyes and forced the old memories out of hiding. “I was helping the wolves get their families to the spot the witches had made sacred. Only we could cross the lines. The town had so few ordinary folk, I never gave them much thought, though I suppose some of them must have been dying as we fled. I ran to our house, searching for all of you. We had gotten separated. When I tried to go back to the boundaries of the sanctuary, the witch had sealed them. I couldn’t find them. So I went to the barn and hid, watching the sunset and the smoke coming from where the fight was. I could see the hunters had surrounded the old barn. I didn’t know what to do.” The pain of losing his family had been so brutal, only there recalling the horrid moment he had lost them, did he feel like he had made the right choice in waking them.

  “And then you and Miles fled the village?”

  Briton nodded. “He came and found me, told me you had all been lost in the fire. We fled and I never came back until this month.” He didn’t tell his father what Miles had really said to him. He had a bad feeling about what was really going on, and he hated not knowing who to trust.

  His father smoked his pipe, giving him nothing to go on. He looked out over their land and nodded. “You have done well, my boy. I am proud of your survival instincts.” His father chewed his pipe and puffed the smoke about the crisp dusk air. He was content to be silent. Briton was not. He asked the question burning on his mind. “Why did the witch betray you?”

  His father never moved, not even a slight flinch. “She wanted your brother dead. I said no. She called the hunters, set a trap. I found out what she was up to, and took her children. Cunning bitch! The trap she had set was a ploy. The real trap was in the cave, awaiting us. The hunters were to search the entire town. Your mother would be risked, being one of the bitten. So we made a deal. Little did I know, her deal was the trap all along. When we climbed into the coffins, we were sealed until you opened them with the blood of the young witch.”

  “How did Gunnar die?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.” That was that. His dad was done talking, and by the fine line of the sun that was left, he had somewhere to be.

  “I am meeting a friend. I will be back later.” He turned and walked away from his dad, disturbed by the story.

  His chest grew tight the farther he got from his home. Or maybe it was the closer he got to her, the more anxious he became.

  She was standing on the front balcony of the house looking for him. He breathed a massive sigh of relief. She was there. She was looking for him. It could only mean one thing. She hadn’t changed her mind.

  The pain of that possibility had been at war with the inside of him all day. She smiled when she saw him, pulling a smile across his lips too. He nodded to the right-hand side of the road and walked away from her. He hid inside of a large lilac bush and waited for the moment he heard the front door.

  When her footsteps were on top of him, he walked from the bush. “Good evening.”

  She bit her lip, but everything he needed to see was in her eyes. She was lit up, glowing even.

  He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “Meet me here in twenty minutes.” He leaned in, brushing his lips against her cheek. He took a long draw off of her skin, she smelled like heaven.

  “We have a few weeks. You realize that, right?”

  He nodded, muttering into her ear. “I believe we have less than a few weeks. You are ready to change any minute.”

  “Then don’t waste any time. Let’s go there together now.”

  He smiled against her face, pulling back to see the impatience all over her expression. “We must be discreet—you remember that conversation, right?”

  Her bright eyes narrowed, making a bigger smile cross his face. He leaned forward, lifting his thumb to her plump lower lip that no longer was being chewed. He dragged his thumb across it, smearing the lip gloss that wafted in the air. He wanted so badly for his mouth to take his thumb’s place, but stopped himself. When he kissed her, he wanted it to be special. “I shall see you in twenty minutes.” He turned, eager to see her again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Liv

  I paced the room, weirded out by the fact he had an apartment in a town where he also had a house, though it seemed like he lived at neither. I paced, holding myself, remembering the feeling of his arms around me when I fell asleep the night before or his thumb dragging across my lips in the bushes. Shit, even the image of him staring at me from across the ballroom made my insides twitch.

  I heard the door click but didn't look at it. I stayed close to the wall across the room, frozen in excitement.

  The alarms going off inside of my head were screaming that I was making the wrong choice, but I didn't leave. I waited for him to close the door before I turned to face him.

  Was it possible he looked better than he had twenty minutes ago?

  He looked nervous. It made a blush cross his face but he didn't move. He leaned his back against the closed door, as if trapping me there but taking a moment to study me.

  It made me nervous. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. I didn't want small talk. I didn't know exactly what I wanted, well, besides the obvious, but I wasn’t sure he could do that.

  He looked at me from under his lashes. It changed his face. The blush on his cheeks and the dark stare intensified things for me.

  My hands started to fidget. Would we stare at each other the entire night?

  He watched me for a moment longer. Outside, the sun was setting completely, making the wooden floor between us light up, like it was a barrier between us.

  He crossed it after a moment, grabbing both my arms and pinning me to the wall behind me. He looked down on me, becoming the only thing I could see. His hands pinched a little, like he was angry, but I could see that wasn't it.

  He was holding himself back and when he spoke, I learned why. “I have a feeling that once this line is crossed between us, there can be no going back.”

  I nodded. He always said the thing I was thinking but didn't know it at th
e time.

  His grip lightened as his lips twitched ever so slightly. He ran his hands up my arms, sending chills everywhere. My breath left my parted lips in tiny nervous bursts.

  He lowered his face. I leaned towards his lips but he brushed past them gently and placed a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth. He was torturing me. He lifted his face, brushing across my lips but not kissing, not giving me the thing I wanted so badly. He placed a second small kiss on the other corner of my mouth.

  He pulled back again, pressing his forehead against mine, looking down on me.

  I didn't move, I wasn't certain I should. I didn't know when his red eyes would come back and his fangs would pop out. Some desperate part of me wondered if that was part of the attraction with him. Was being slightly scared of him what was making me so intrigued?

  But he didn't look like a monster. No. He looked like perfection. His dark-blue eyes bore down on me, his lips quivered like he might speak or kiss or scream, and his hands pressed me into the wall.

  His crazy dark hair was a mess, like he had run his hands through it in some attempt to sort things out by tugging on it.

  He lowered his face closer but so slowly I couldn’t take it. I tried to reach my hands up; I desperately wanted to grab him but he lowered my hands.

  He moved closer yet again, and I could feel his breath on my lower lip. His hand slipped up my arm, across my shoulder, and settled on the side of my throat. He ran his fingers up into my hair slightly as he lowered his lips on mine.

  When he finally kissed me, the tension had built so high, it felt like we were flying. My breath got lost, but I didn't need air. I didn't need anything.

  I had him to keep me alive.

  The kiss started so delicately, as did his grip on me. As the movement of our mouths against one another increased, so did his grip. My hands slid between us, not to push him away, but to pull him closer. He wrapped himself around me, but I did the same. My hands ran up into his hair, gripping to him, terrified it would end.

  He lifted me up into him, carrying me to the large bed with the strange old curtains around it. He laid me down, without breaking our kiss off. His hands roaming my thighs and back. It made me smile, regardless of the fact I was still lost in the kiss.

  “I’m not a virgin,” I whispered.

  He growled into my neck, sucking at my skin slightly. “Why did you feel the need to share that with me?”

  I started to laugh. “You seem to be keeping this pretty PG, and I kind of want to take your clothes off.”

  He pulled back. His face was flushed, and I had messed his hair up even more than it normally was. His jaw was clenched but he spoke through it, “I never want to have this conversation again, unless of course you want the young man to suffer through a violent animal attack.”

  I rolled my eyes and sat up. “Fine, I’ll take my own shirt off.”

  He grabbed my hands. “Stop rushing me, Liv. I am not an eighteen-year-old boy in every way. Unlike your previous friend, I am actually quite good at this.”

  He scooped me into his arms, again kissing my neck. I closed my eyes and let him have it his way. It was better than telling him I had actually had two ‘friends’ in my past.

  He laid me back down, lifting my shirt but kissing along my stomach. There was nothing in the world but the two of us. The room was sort of creepy in that it was outdated and dusty, but I didn't notice it anymore. The sun had set but we didn't need the light.

  We searched each other’s bodies for places of pleasure to pay homage. When I kissed his stomach, dragging my fingernails along his chest, he moaned and squirmed. When he pressed me into the bed, finally giving me the one thing I wanted, I wrapped myself around him.

  I lost the time, the world, my mind, and let him claim stake on my heart at the same time as my body. I would have walked across a desert to drink this nectar. I would have done or said whatever it took to make him mine for the remainder of my life, however long it would be.

  Our bodies moved along the walls, like dancers in a play, only seen through shadows made by lights coming in the windows from the street lamps. I felt his teeth graze my skin several times—sharp teeth. I tried not to think about how close he was to biting me. It was easy. He made me feel sensations I didn’t know I could.

  Things happened that had never before. Words left my mouth I had never uttered. Words that came across as demands from a person who knew their way around the bed.

  But he proved I did not. He showed me exactly what excitement from another person’s body could be.

  He showed me what it meant to have someone make love to you. When he was finished, and we lay in a heap of sweat and smiles, I felt like he loved me, like he needed me.

  He kissed my shoulder, pausing and pressing his lips in. “I don't think a week is long enough.”

  I shook my head. “No. I don't want to leave this room—ever.”

  He laughed into my skin. “When you change into a wolf, we will both want you to leave this room.”

  The reality of it hit me like a ton of bricks. I closed my eyes and nestled into him. “Then we had better enjoy this week, Briton.” I was instantly scared of what I had done. I had bitten off more than I could chew, as my mother always said.

  He crawled up the bed to lay alongside me and leaned in, laying a soft kiss on my lips. He hovered there, whispering, “Never was there a kiss destined to such an end.”

  He was always saying the thing I was thinking, before I even realized I had thought it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Briton

  He beheld her for one more moment before leaving through the balcony doors and jumping down onto the grass.

  He was across the grass when he noticed a silhouette across the road. He narrowed his gaze, startled by who it was. “Out for a stroll?” he asked.

  Miles chuckled from under the bush. “I was hoping to catch you before you headed for the grove. I assumed your father had caught our conversation.” Briton stalked over to the old man and offered him his arm. Miles took it and glanced back at the house. “My dear boy, you are barking up the wrong skirt, literally barking.”

  Briton looked back at the mansion and smiled. “I know it. But I have decided to let us have the week before she changes. I need her. I love her, and if I can’t have her forever, then I shall have to squeeze a lifetime into the time we have.”

  “You will not be able to break it off.”

  Briton ached inside. “The fortunate part of that is that she will become my natural enemy. We will despise one another and have no choice but to break it off.”

  “Then why are you torturing yourself with this?”

  “Because, dear Miles, I could spend my life watching her and wondering. Or I could let myself have this week with her and convince myself it is enough. Either way, I will spend the rest of my days thinking of her. At least this way I have something to fill my thoughts.” His words were broken and pained, like his unbeating heart.

  Miles wrapped an arm around him. “I am sorry, son. It is a tragedy that the girl you finally fell for is something you can’t ever have.”

  Briton shook his head, taking in a deep breath of the cool night air. “No. Tragedy would be always wondering. This way I know. I love her, Miles. As unlikely as that is, it is the truth. She is what the people of our village would call a ‘shadow love.’ She is the other half of me—one of us is the good and one is the bad. Like twins, we are the same. We will always find each other, no matter the length of time we spend apart. I have ruined the shadow love for us though by never dying and being reborn.”

  Miles snorted. “That is a load of horseshit, if I ever heard one.”

  They both laughed, though Briton didn’t feel like laughing. He was stuck in the feel of her silky skin against his, the taste of her neck on his lips, and the smell of her hair as she draped it over him. He was stuck in the way that when he closed his eyes and held tightly to her, they were one.

  He had seen shadow love his e
ntire life. His father and mother had it. It was dangerous. It was love you died for, but you killed for it too. Briton already could feel the stain of it tainting his love for his family. They were an obstacle in his way to her.

  “So one week?”

  “Roughly one week.” The words tasted badly, like a dirty lie.

  Miles didn’t look convinced. “Where will you go?”

  Briton shook his head. “I don’t know. Go find my brothers. I won’t be able to stay here.”

  “You won’t mind if I stay though?”

  He wrapped his arm around the old man. “No. You need this place. I hear Dr. Daniels is far too qualified to have the job he does. You’re in good hands.”