Spellbound Fate: A Fantasy Shifter Romance, page 24
Emery pushed him back a step, then grabbed his hand to lead him to the quilt. She shrugged out of the remnants of her dress and undid her bra. With a huff, she bent over to spread out the quilt in the middle of the clearing. It gave him an excellent look at her pussy all shiny from licking and her cream. He couldn’t resist and went to his knees again behind her, grabbing her hips and nosing her folds.
“Callan,” she said with a laugh. He wanted more of that sound, so tightened his hold when she tried to squirm away and growled a warning. Emery laughed again.
“I want this arse, lassie,” he said, exaggerating his accent, which earned him more laughter.
“But I want to see you.” The words were edged with an emotion he couldn’t name, but he let her go so she could turn around. Emery sat on the quilt, goose pimples racing across her skin, her nipples tightening as a cold breeze swayed the branches of the pines. That wouldn’t do. He crawled forward to cover her with his warmth. Emery spread her legs in welcome.
He closed his mouth over a nipple as she laid back, but didn’t tarry, the need to plunge his cock inside her like a spur to his side. Callan positioned the tip against her opening before thrusting forwards. Her body stretched to accommodate him. Once they were joined tightly together, Emery curled her arms and legs around him while her pussy squeezed tight, as if she meant to never let him go.
That was fine with him. Whatever happened, he always planned to be right beside her.
The drive to move eventually made him hitch his hips. Emery moaned and undulated under him.
Callan badly wanted to make the moment last, but his body had other ideas. He bucked hard, driving into Emery with each stroke as if he were trying to forge them together. Beneath him, she rose to meet every thrust until another orgasm shook her and she clung to him as she rode it out, the pulsing of her channel driving him closer to his peak.
“Emery,” he moaned, peppering her face with kisses. “My Emery, my mate.” With the last word, he grunted, his climax nearly shaking him apart. His vision whited out and his limbs became uncoordinated, finally giving out so he dropped on top of her.
She stroked his back while he caught his breath. He blinked the world back into focus, then pushed himself up while looking down at Emery, meaning to kiss her before wrapping her up in the quilt to get her home.
Only she was crying, tears running from the corners of her eyes to drop onto the quilt.
“M’eudail?” he whispered, kissing away a tear.
“I love you,” she said. “You have to know that I love you so much.”
“I love you too.” He frowned at the near panic on her face and the bleakness in her usually warm-chocolate eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I love you, Callan,” she said again. “I will always love you. You have to know I don’t want this because I love you.” Her hand fumbled on the blanket, then rose to press something cold and metallic against his side. She muttered words he didn’t quite catch.
The world ended.
The now comfortable and familiar link between them snapped, leaving a stinging pain in his chest. He could still smell her, but not the sharp freshness of fern and ice, just the everyday scent of Emery.
She pushed at his chest. “Go.” It was a command.
Callan scrambled away from her, hurt and confusion blossoming like twin exploding stars inside him. He shifted, though it didn’t stop the growing maelstrom of agony in his heart.
Emery rolled onto her side, face in her hands, and sobbed. Something fell from her fingers to the quilt. It reeked of magic. What had she done?
The answer hurt too much to contemplate.
She drew her knees up, her body still gleamed from their lovemaking, his release leaking out to coat her folds, the scent of them together only adding to his confusion.
He took a step towards her, but Emery held up a hand towards him, the palm wet with tears. He could smell the salt. “Run, go. You know what I’ve done.”
He had no bloody clue what she’d done, but with the underscore of the bond missing, his instincts screamed for him to do what his mate asked him to.
Tail between his legs, he turned and ran into the forest, dodging trees and losing fur to thickets of thorns that snagged him.
Callan ran until his legs ached and his tongue hung loose from his jaws. He ran in circles, along the bank of creeks, and followed the tops of the tors around the loch. As long as his breath burned in his lungs and his legs moved, he didn’t have to think. All the things he didn’t want to acknowledge, everything he’d lost, yawned like a greedy mouth behind him, waiting for him to falter so it could swallow him.
It took sleet coming down in freezing sheets for Callan to at last stop. He didn’t know where he was, besides deep among the trees. Whining, he turned in a circle. He hoped Emery was safe, that she was warm and dry in the cottage.
His heart reached out for her, but the bond wasn’t there.
He was alone.
In the gloom, he could make out an oddly regular shape against the branches of bare oaks. He hobbled to it on exhausted legs and painful paws. It was a chimney, connected to a stone fireplace. The rest of the structure had rotted away long ago, and a quick sniff let him know no fire had burned there in decades. The flue must be choked with bird’s nests, as no water dripped down. Callan huddled into a corner of the cold, dead hearth, his tail over his nose.
Emery.
The black mouth engulfed him.
Chapter Nineteen
Emery placed the bag, heavy with spell components, near the front door, the familiarity of the motion doing little to calm the storm of emotions inside her. She expected James would show sooner or later, once the silence of the house began to gnaw at him, once he realized Callan was gone. He’d understand, the way he always did. The absence of her mate would speak volumes. He'd know what it meant.
Not that Emery had any clear idea of what it meant, besides the agony—the kind of pain that seemed to slice right through her, as if someone had torn the heart from her chest and left her with nothing but an empty, raw void. The pain was sharp, unyielding, a constant reminder of the gaping hole in her life.
It had only been three days. Three days since Callan left, and already the weight of time felt as though it had aged her by centuries. The cottage, once a sanctuary filled with the warmth of his presence, now felt like a hollow mockery. The quiet seemed unbearable, amplifying the absence of his laughter, his footsteps, his warmth. The nights were the worst, filled with haunting nightmares that blurred the edges of her waking world. The worst of them was always the same—a return to the grim war hospital where she had worked. She would be there, running down endless hallways, summoned by the frantic shouts of surgeons, scrambling to find the right supplies—only to find the shelves empty, the drawers locked, the bandages torn or missing. And at the end of it all, a body—a wolf—lifeless on the operating table, blood matted in its fur, eyes dull and empty. Every time, the dream ended the same way: with her standing there, helpless, while the wolf died because she had failed.
Once, after waking from one of those dreams, she had rushed to the bathroom, retching violently, her stomach empty. There was nothing in her body to bring up, but it didn’t stop her from trying. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to turn on the radio, or to even touch the blender. Both appliances sat cold on the counter, silent, mocking her. The only sustenance she had managed to swallow in the last three days had been bread and jam, the sweetness of it now a distant, tasteless memory.
The rest of the time, her mind had been consumed by Emily’s final, desperate spell—the one she had studied endlessly until she had memorized the incantations, until she knew exactly what she had to do, and what it meant for James. How she would end it with him, once and for all, before he could tear her soul apart completely.
Memories of the days following the realization that James would never come back came unbidden, as if the past refused to stay buried. A cup of tea, the scent of lilacs, the rhythmic ticking of a clock in the hallway—each memory creeping into her consciousness at the most random moments, uninvited. She had gotten up once, the compulsion too strong, to walk through the cottage, checking every corner, half-expecting to find a clock hidden somewhere. It was better not to hear that ticking. Better to confirm that it existed only in her mind, but even that felt like an insufferable weight.
She sat now, her body curled up on the couch, hidden beneath a cardigan so large it nearly swallowed her whole. It had once belonged to her grandfather, the edges frayed and soft with age, but it still kept her warm—though nothing could melt the icy shards lodged deep in her heart. She tugged the sleeves down over her hands as if trying to hide herself from the world. Her eyes lingered on Callan’s kilt, hanging by the door, where he had left it. It had always been his, the symbol of the life they had shared, and now it was just another reminder of his absence. She kept expecting him to return, but that was the lie she told herself. It was a lie that made this unbearable—this truth that had been hers alone to carry.
Three days. Three days, and her heart still hadn’t caught up with the reality of what she had done. She had washed his clothes, folded them, tucked them away. The kilt, left behind for when he came in from his run, now hung there, a silent monument to her final, cruel act. She had sent him away, sent him far from the danger that lurked, not out of cowardice, but out of love—love that had to be sacrificed.
But, even now, the pain was unbearable. Shouldn’t it be easier? Shouldn’t she be able to take solace in knowing that she had chosen this, rather than having it thrust upon her? But it was different. It wasn’t the terror she had felt during the blitz, or the frantic helplessness she’d experienced in the operating rooms during the war. It wasn’t the hollow numbness of learning that James was dead, or the crushing weight of a life she’d never be able to live. No, this was a different kind of grief, one that went deeper, into the very marrow of her bones.
But it didn’t matter. It couldn’t. There was only one thing she had to do now: fulfill the spell, carry out her plan, and make things right, at least for Callan. Maybe he would never know what she had done. Maybe he would never come to her grave, to leave flowers at the place where her body lay cold. She had made her peace with that. The more he hated her, the easier it would be for him to find someone who could love him the way he deserved, the way she couldn’t.
Her heart twisted, a sharp pang of jealousy rising in her chest, but she silenced it. Callan’s love wasn’t hers anymore.
A sudden knock at the door jolted her from her thoughts. Her heart skipped a beat, then settled into a hollow rhythm. She moved quickly, opening the door to find James standing on the other side, leaning casually against the side of his car. Just outside the protective barrier she had cast, the spell still humming in the air. James dropped the rock he had used to knock.
"I see I don’t need to knock twice," he said, tipping his hat to her.
Emery put her hand on the door frame, her voice calm but firm. "What are you doing here?"
James snorted. "Come now, Emery. We both know why I’m here. We both know why there’s no wolf standing in front of you, snarling and growling. I didn’t think you had it in you to sever that connection." He made a cutting gesture across his throat, his smirk cruel. "The girl I knew ten years ago—so desperate for love and attention—she would never have let go of someone like Callan, not even for their own good."
"You never knew me." Her words stung more than she cared to admit, but they were true. The girl she had been, the one who clung to James as though he could heal her, had faded away long ago. That girl had believed what she and James had could be called love, but it had been an illusion—a lie wrapped in the tattered remnants of old wounds.
James shrugged, a mockery of nonchalance. "I knew you in the way that meant you couldn’t give your mate your virginity."
Emery recoiled at his words, disgust curling in her stomach. "Seriously? Do we need to discuss that, as if it has any bearing on anything?"
James only grinned, cold and unrepentant. "You’re right. It doesn’t." His smile twisted, like a knife in her gut. "Lead the way."
Emery stood motionless for a moment, the weight of what she was about to do pressing heavily on her shoulders. This was it—the culmination of everything she had suffered. The reason she had met James in London. The reason she had inherited her power. The reason she had met Callan, and the reason she had lost him. It all led here, to this moment, where she would confront whatever lay behind James’s eyes, the thing that had taken root in him, devoured his soul, and turned him into a monster.
She reached for the bag of spell components, her hands steady despite the chaos inside her. With her head held high, she stepped out of the cottage, closing the door behind her with finality.
With a simple incantation and a flick of her wrist, she shattered the protection spell, allowing James to cross the threshold. He smirked as he stepped forward, crossing the line she had once thought unbreakable. His feet made no sound on the grass, as though even the earth itself was holding its breath.
She didn’t look back. She marched toward the clearing, toward the standing stone that had called to her since she was a child. The moment she stepped into the open space, the power that hummed through the stone sent a shiver down her spine. She raised a finger, tracing the faint remnants of a labyrinth design on the stone’s surface, grounding herself in the energy that surged through her.
When she turned, she saw James still standing on the far side of the clearing, watching her with an unreadable expression. She did not flinch. She was ready. She had to be.
“Set up,” James spat at her, the command sharp, and without hesitation, Emery obeyed. The ritual was as familiar to her as her own skin, but this time it carried a weight she hadn’t fully prepared for. She moved methodically, laying out the elements the spell required. The candles, delicate and tall, were placed around the ritual space in perfect symmetry. With a wave of her hand, she sparked them to life, their flickering flames casting long shadows across the clearing.
The brazier, an ancient piece she had inherited from her grandmother, was next. It took more effort to ignite the charcoal, coaxing it into a glowing ember. The air felt heavy with anticipation as she sprinkled the packet of incense onto the coal. Instantly, the air thickened with the acrid, cloying scent of sandalwood and oakmoss, choking her senses. It was the smell of power, of old magic, but it felt as though it was suffocating her.
Emery lifted her wand, her hand steady. “Might I suggest being inside the circle?” she said, her voice even, though beneath the calm surface, the tension in her was palpable.
James didn’t answer right away. Instead, he studied her face, eyes narrowing as if trying to read the truth in her expression. He tilted his head slightly, as though savoring the moment. Then, slowly, deliberately, he removed his hat and walked toward the center of the circle. Each step seemed to cost him, his face twisted with some silent pain. The power in this place didn’t seem to welcome him—it recoiled, pushing back with an unseen force. Every step he took seemed to strain against it, a resistance he couldn’t shake. But that was good. She would use it to her advantage.
She held her wand out, and with the practiced grace of someone who had done this a thousand times before, she began to cast the sacred circle, murmuring the ancient words under her breath. The air thickened around her, crackling with energy as the four watchtowers responded, their ethereal forms manifesting at the corners of the space. A flicker of longing stirred in her chest. The covenmates she had left behind—they would have been invaluable now. But they couldn’t know. They must not. They hadn’t sensed the break between her and Callan, or they would have come to her, demanding explanations, wanting answers.
This was a fight she had to face alone.
The war had been waged in her heart for ten long years. She was tired. But it was time to end it.
She knelt beside the brazier, her head bowed, gathering her thoughts, her power. She couldn’t afford to falter now. The ribbons around her wrists—black as night—seemed to pulse, almost alive. She worked the ends free, subtly, by waving her arms through the thick, swirling smoke of the incense, hiding the movement from James. When the ribbons were in her palms, she grasped them firmly.
Power surged up from the earth beneath her feet, a deep, molten strength that poured into her. It was warm, almost painful in its intensity, like liquid lava rushing through her veins. The earth itself seemed to recognize her intent, the very ground bending to her will.
James didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy pacing, his frustration evident in the way he crushed the brim of his hat in his fists. His steps were agitated, erratic. “You’re strong,” he muttered, with a hint of reluctant respect in his tone.
Emery didn’t flinch at the praise, though it stung her more than she would admit. She hadn’t come here for recognition. She ignored the compliment entirely. “I identified a mistake Emily made,” she said coolly, her eyes never leaving his.
His pacing halted. His eyes locked on hers. “What?” he demanded, his voice sharp, low with suspicion.
Her heartbeat quickened, the adrenaline surging through her, but she masked it, keeping her expression neutral. She was already in the thick of it, and she couldn’t afford to show any weakness now. Her voice was steady as she spoke, pulling on the mask she had perfected over years of grueling, relentless situations. “I don’t think she included you directly in the spell. I need a lock of your hair, or a finger, but the hair would be more acceptable.”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face, a momentary crack in the façade he wore so effortlessly. His frown deepened, and for a brief moment, his features rippled as the thing behind them showed itself. A shudder ran down Emery’s spine, but she kept her gaze fixed, unflinching.
His voice was colder now, a growl more than words. “And if I don’t?”
She had anticipated the question, the resistance. It wasn’t surprising—giving a witch a piece of yourself was a dangerous proposition. But it was exactly what she needed, and he knew that. It had to be this way. There was no turning back now.
