Verum (The Nocte Trilogy, #2)(28)

“I fill my time with this or that. It’s been a long time since I was here without you. To tell you the truth, with my old ways behind me, I’m at a loss.”

“Your old ways?”

His mouth twitches. “In the old days, someone wouldn’t ask me what I do all day, they’d ask me who.”

Lord have mercy.

“I didn’t need to know that.” In fact, the knowledge makes me a bit queasy.

His lip twitches again. “You said you didn’t want secrets. I figure some normal conversation will do you good. I didn’t used to be nice. But then you happened.”

“And now?”

“I’m still not nice, but I am with you.”

“I miss you,” I whisper bluntly, because oh my God, I do. I miss everything about him. I miss his smell, I miss his arms, I miss the LIVE FREE tattooed on his back. I miss everything about him.

With one deft movement, he dips his head and before I even know it, his mouth is on mine. His lips are firm yet soft, and he tastes like mint. I exhale into his mouth, almost a sigh, and he grips my back.

And then very abruptly, he releases me.

“I miss you, too.”

I inhale a shaky breath, fighting the urge to lift my fingers to my mouth, to feel where his lips had just been.

“Why did you do that?” I whisper, not complaining, but just so, so confused.

There’s actually confusion in his eyes, too.

“Because no matter what, I refuse to let you go.”

And then he leaves me standing alone in the garden.





Chapter 14





I stay in the garden alone for the longest time.

In fact, the afternoon has begun the slow turn into evening, the horizon red and orange and amber, before I finally head back to the house, my head somewhat clear and my heart light.

My fingers trail over my lips, the memory of Dare’s kiss still fresh.

The garden has washed away the heavy feeling that I normally carry, the foreboding and the fear. For right now, in this moment, when I think of Dare, all I think of is want.

I want him.

Regardless of the consequences.

Whatever those consequences might be.

The feeling is short-lived however.

The strange man steps out ahead of me on the path, still wearing gray pants and a hoodie, his hood still pulled up tightly around his face.

My breath flutters and I pause on the stones, part of me wanting to run, and part of me wanting to chase him.

I must be crazy because I’m not afraid, even though I’m a woman out walking alone and he clearly shouldn’t be here.

Something about him seems lonely and sad,

And I can relate to that.

Is he a groundskeeper son, maybe?

He lingers on the path, waiting, and I sense that he wants me to follow.

“Who are you?” I call, taking one step.

He turns his face, slow…slow…slow…. and just when I think I’ll see it, I’ll see his face, he stops. His identity is just out of sight, just like he wants it to be.

He wants to play a game.

He turns, hurrying down the path.

But when I fall behind, he waits.

He wants me to follow him.

He takes a step, and so do I. Then we take another, then another.

I’m with a magnificent curiosity, bigger than I’ve ever felt, and I’m compelled to follow him even against my logical judgment, to play this game and see where it leads me.

Mist floats across the path, hiding his legs, but then he’s inside the house, disappearing into hallways. I call out to him to stop, but he doesn’t.

He turns down a hallway.

I follow.

He turns again, then again.

Finally, he stands in front of Sabine’s bedroom door. He faces it, his forehead almost resting on the wood.

And then just as I reach him, he’s gone.

I stand bewildered and confused, alone in front of Sabine’s door.

The man was as real as I am, but yet he’s just simply not here.

I’m crazycrazycrazy.

I take a deep breath, because one thing is sure in my crazy mind. Real or not real, he wanted to draw me to Sabine’s door.

But why?

I knock, intent on finding out.

“Come in,” the old lady calls.

I’m hesitant and scared. But my need to know outweighs my fear.

I enter her living quarters to find Sabine hunched over a table. She’s concentrating, absorbed, something in her hands.

Sabine straightens now, and I see what she’s holding.

Tarot cards.

“He won’t hurt you,” she says, unconcerned with my ire. “At least not right now. You’ll have to trust me on that.”

She saw him, too?

“I don’t trust you,” I reply. “I don’t know you.”

My mother trusted her. And that’s the difference. She clucks, but doesn’t answer.

“Who was he?” I ask, stepping further into the room.

Sabine shakes her head and returns her attention to the cards on the table. “Youth is wasted on the young,” she declares before humming a tuneless song. She puts another card down, then another. “Use your instincts, girl. That’s what God gave them to you for.”

My instincts aren’t talking at the moment and why am I not afraid?