Verum (The Nocte Trilogy, #2)(35)

Like always.

“That’s a loaded question,” he tells me as I approach and he watches my body as I move. I swallow hard because his expression is heavy and dark, and it’s meant for me.

He’s staring at me like he wants to eat me, and I am once again reminded that he’s a wolf.

“So give me a loaded answer,” I suggest, and my words surprise me and Dare.

What am I doing?

What am I doing?

His eyes widen, then narrow.

Dare practically growls as he yanks me to him, and he’s hard against my body. I sigh into his mouth and he groans.

Sensations blur and conscious thought ceases.

Consequences be damned.

Sweet Lord.

Dare’s tongue plunders my own and I’ve never felt so sexily invaded in my life. God, I’ve missed this. I’ve missed him.

So much,

So much,

So much.

It’s like every nerve ending in my entire body has exploded, like I’m standing on fire, like I’m fire itself. I’m ore, I’m magma, I’m lava. I’m melted, I’m the sun.

He’s ignited me.

His hands clutch me, big and strong and splayed against my back, and I somehow feel like I’m balanced in his hands, like he’s holding me steady.

Maybe he is.

Maybe he always has.

My head falls back and he slides his lips along my neck, grazing the soft skin, inhaling my scent.

“You smell like apples,” he tells me again, his voice husky in my ear. I feel urgent and rushed and desperate, yet his voice is even, controlled. I don’t know how he’s managing.

I pull back to ask, my hand on his rock hard chest, and suddenly the world spins.

Fragments, scents, sounds… so many things swirl together in my head and I’m not living in the present anymore.

I’m in the past,

And the past is a prison.

My eyes flutter closed because I can’t take the overwhelming sensations, and even though I hear Dare’s voice, asking me if I’m ok, I can’t respond.

Because I see him.

Not in front of me in the moonlight, but in my head.

He’s real, and he’s familiar, and he’s mine.

His face is twisted in pain, and he’s trying to tell me something, but I don’t want to listen. He’s bloody, he’s dark, he’s broken.

He wasn’t supposed to be there.

My memories are wrong.

But I can’t find the right ones.

“Calla, are you ok?” he asks with bloody lips and his teeth are red.

I can’t move,

I can’t think.

He grabs me to him and screams,

And the scream builds into a roar,

And the roar is the ocean.

“Help!” Dare shouts, but I think it might’ve been me.

I close my heart, and he opens his lips, and words fall out, and I shake my head.

Because Finn is on the beach and he’s dead.

And Dare has done something, something, something.

The fear grows and builds and takes me over, covering me up in shadows.

That boy will be your ruin, Sabine whispers. He’ll breakyoubreakyoubreakyou.

In my head, blood spatters and someone screams and I yank away from Dare now, gasping for breath.

He’s here,

and he’s fine.

He’s fine.

He stares at me, nervous, hesitant to approach.

“Are you all right, Calla?” his British words are clipped, and his eyes are concerned. He holds his hand out like he’s soothing a disturbed filly, and I’m disturbed. That’s the only thing to describe me.

Because none of that happened.

None of that is real.

Except for the fact that my brother is dead.

The nausea hits suddenly, in a frightening wave.

I whirl around so he can’t see, and I retch into the bushes.

Humiliation swells in me, but not so much as the sickness.

Over and over, my stomach rebels, and I feel him behind me, trying to soothe me.

“Go,” I tell him over my shoulder, utterly embarrassed.

“No,” he answers firmly. “Maybe you have food poisoning. We should go see Sabine.”

His answer for everything.

But somehow, I feel like she’s causing this. I never felt this way until I met her. These things never happened to me before.

“No, not Sabine,” I rasp, wiping my mouth and backing away. “I’m fine. I promise.”

I’m lying. I’m not fine.

But he can’t know that.

I spin around and flee, running for the house, running away from Dare. He lets me go, surprisingly. I glance over my shoulder when I’m bounding out the garden gates and he’s standing limply, watching me with a strange expression.

I don’t slow down until I reach the house.

I creep into my room and when I do, I imagine Finn waiting for me in the chair by the window, sitting in the dark.

Because that’s what he would do if he were here.

He turns on the lamp.

If he were real.

“Where have you been?” he asks me quietly, judgment in his pale blue eyes.

“Out,” I tell him. “I don’t feel well.”

“Did something happen?” he asks, cocking his head. “Did he do something to you?”