Give Me (Wyrd and Fae #1)(42)

They’re together again. We have to release them—and Lourdes.

There was no one in the garden. Everybody had crammed into the cottage to see. Lilith wasn’t dreaming, and the voice was someone new. Not Diantha.

Elyse. Elyse from her dreams. Lilith couldn’t tell where she ended and Elyse began. She was going to vomit.

Cade’s hands were on her shoulders. He spun her around and looked into her eyes. Who did he see? she wondered.

“Lilith?”

Lilith. That’s right.

You can’t fight them. But we can fight them together.

Fight who? “Help me, Cade.” Lilith could barely breathe. “I have to get out of here.”

He swept her up in his arms, and that made her laugh. This was going to be a lot harder than lifting her over a few broken treads. She hugged his neck and laid her head over his heart. It sounded like it would pound right out of his chest.

“Take me to the tree, Cade. To Igdrasil.”

Yes, that’s it. That’s good.

Lilith ignored Elyse, who snickered.

Thank sun and moon, he’d brought the Aston Martin. Sun and moon? That was Elyse’s phraseology. Cade dumped her in the passenger seat. In minutes, he lifted her out again and carried her over to Igdrasil’s trunk.

“Why are you smiling?” he said.

“Because I could walk well enough, but I love being in your arms.”

Cade kissed her.

His kiss was as big as everything about him—his body, his personality, his heart. His desire. She could tell he wanted everything she had, everything she was. He wanted her—but not to keep or to consume or to put on display. Not because their marriage would keep their fathers from killing each other.

Stop! Elyse said. Those are not your thoughts, not yours and the boy’s. That’s Diantha and Galen. Hold them off.

But it was too hard. It would be so much easier to let it all go, let Cade or Galen or whoever he was take over. Not lost in him, but held within for safekeeping. He would take her love and give it, and more, back again. He cradled her head and pressed her closer, his kiss more intense. More desperate, more powerful. “Diantha,” he said.

“Galen, my love, my love,” she said.

It felt so right.

“I’ve waited for you so long.” Lilith’s voice. Not Lilith. She quivered with joy, surprise, virginal anticipation, delight.

Stop her, you fool! Don’t let her in. You were supposed to be stronger than a human!

Stronger than a human?

“Wait.” Lilith pushed Cade/Galen away from her. “Just wait a minute.”

Images flashed through her mind: The gold band on her hand—Elyse wyrding the ring to find her and bring her here. A fae king offering a necklace that looked very like her mother’s. And another image. A memory. Not Elyse’s memory but one from Lilith’s own past: She was young, a toddler, with her arms flung tight around a woman’s neck. The woman was running, fleeing to a place so foreign that the fae king would never follow.

Her mother.

Then Elyse’s memories flooded into Lilith’s consciousness. Lilith knew everything Elyse knew: They were alike, human and…fae.

We can deal with that later.

“Diantha,” Cade/Galen said. “Come to me now.”

Give me control, Elyse said. I can get them back into the ring.

“Great gods, wait!” Lilith cried. Cade looked alarmed, but she held up her hand. She had to think.

The two strands of the ring sparkled. So beautiful. She looked up at the tree’s branches, spread so serenely. This was a special place in the world. She could die here and the tree would take in her soul. Convey her to some kind of heaven. She could forget the world, leave this body to Diantha. Let her have her love.

No, don’t think like that.

“You’ve kept them prisoners for a thousand years,” Lilith said. “How has that worked out for you?” She had to break Elyse’s hold.

Don’t think for one second you can use the breaking spell on me.

Lilith burst out laughing. “I forgive you.”

“What did I do?” Cade said.

“Not you.”

If you do this, you’ll be sorry.

Elyse’s rage was dangerous. It had lead to so many mistakes. Lilith had once felt rage like that herself, when Greg had told her he was leaving her. In a flash, she knew that she had caused the crack in the window behind Greg that evening. It hadn’t been a bird trying to fly into the bar but the explosive energy from the rage within her.

Her fae side wasn’t something to take lightly.

“I forgive you.”

Please. Don’t.

Poor Elyse. A thousand years of frustration, of self-sacrifice. Lilith turned away from Cade and put her palms against the tree and said a prayer: “Igdrasil, take Elyse and keep her. Save her, and give her peace.”

To Elyse she said for the third time, “I forgive you.”

She inhaled and exhaled and waited. Elyse had left her body, but she wasn’t gone. Lilith felt Elyse’s joy as she greeted someone else—someone who existed in the flow of energy that permeated the tree. Someone with a name: Frona.

“Diantha.” Cade’s lips grazed Lilith’s cheek. It was like watching a movie. Cade’s moan, his hand on her waist, his finger tracing her ear. She looked into his eyes and saw Galen. Galen who knew exactly who she was.