“Th-then why haven’t you tried to complete the bond with me?” She almost says the words with a pout. Aww! My sweet girl, I can’t believe I’ve dropped the ball so much with realizing how my actions could be coming off to her.
Cupping her face, I tilt it up so she’s peering in my eyes. “I want to, trust me, I do. But we haven’t had much time, and our moment hasn’t been right yet. It doesn’t mean I’m not aching to sink into your warm depths, to fuck you so hard you can’t walk the next day.” Okay... I can’t turn off the dirty all the time.
Her cheeks turn pink and her breath is heavy with my words. “Oh,” is all she can say. I can see her mind is picturing me following through, and I can’t help but smirk. My girl wants mebad! Bending my head down, I close the distance between our lips and give her a soft, searing kiss. I hope she can feel my love for her in it, seeing as how she seemed unbelieving at first.
When I finally break off our kiss, she has a dazed expression with eyes hooded. I can’t help but say it again. For some reason, I’m left with the impression she not only needs to hear it but has some healing to do over not being told with her first mate. “I love you, but that still wasn’t our first kiss.”
She lets out a breathy sigh, a shit-eating grin on her face as she lays her head on my chest. I just lie back and play with her hair, letting her soak up all the attention I’ve been neglecting to give her. Things have come a long way if she’s becoming comfortable enough to open up and share what she needs from us. Even though I was missing the mark somewhat with her, I’m glad she let me in enough to tell me.
We lay in each other’s embrace and listen to the world waking up around us. The sky begins to lighten, and birds start to sing their morning song. Marcus can be heard running back from yet another trip around our area, checking to make sure there are no threats. Rustling from the tent says Derrick is waking up as well. The blanket covering Cecily is almost ripped away as Klaus rolls over; he’s going to be such a bed hog.
Seems like our quiet morning together is coming to an end. I wouldn’t trade this time with her for anything in the world.
∞∞∞
I try to picture what this landscape looked like back when Cecily was here last. It’s hard considering how much the area around Silas’ castle has grown through the years. There’s no innocuous way for us to keep humans from living within our areas, so we gave up a long time ago trying to keep them out. Well, actually, now with technology, it could be done. My mind runs off on a thought tangent, of how I could make it possible if we truly want an area with shifters only.
Stopping my mind from getting sidetracked is a chore. Even though there was alongperiod of time where it was impossible for us to keep humans out of our affairs, somehow Silas was successful. I’m willing to bet if we look into it, he used less than honest means of accomplishing his goal. The people who live here all seem a bit off, but I’ve never been able to put my finger on what it is, nor cared to put much thought in it. We always spend as little time as possible here, and get out of dodge as soon as we can.
Due to how populated it is though, we make our way through the streets in our human forms, after having spent the morning traveling at top speed in our wolf forms. After hearing Cecily’s story, we want to get her away from here as quickly as possible. We’re just about to pass the only park within the city, when Cecily comes to a slow stop, and quirks her head at the entrance.
The park might not appear strange to a human, but shifters typically take pride in being one with nature. We respect it, and do our best to nurture our relationship with it. At least we did before beginning to forget our roots. Now with Cecily back, that will change, and we’ll need to begin reversing the consequences of our neglect.
Anyway, the trees, bushes, grass, and wildflowers in this park are all overgrown and neglected. There are no worn paths through the area, it’s just abandoned like it’s useless land. Because we try not to spend much time here, I don’t think any of us explored inside. Cecily takes a deep breath and heads for the entrance without saying a word to us.
We exchange glances and follow her with a shrug. Klaus runs up and grabs her hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles in comfort. She’s radiating a sense of nervousness about something, I mean more than just being this close to Silas. We’ve been letting her guide us all day in how she wants to be treated. She was cuddly with me all morning, then for a long time she just wanted to be left alone to her own thoughts.
Now we’re silent, waiting for her to voice the thoughts plaguing her mind. After walking past the trees making up the outer edge of the park, the inside of the park is filled with tall grasses and a single tree in the middle. She releases Klaus’ hand and makes a beeline for the tree, the rest of us just a few steps behind her.
Her steps speed up until she’s about ten feet from the tree and then she slows down to a snail’s pace, footsteps hesitant. We stop to watch her, and it isn’t until she lifts a shaky hand to the tree that I realize there’s something carved into the trunk.
Marcus takes in a sharp breath. “Oh, shit... This is the tree my uncle complained about not being able to cut down. I totally forgot all about it until now. Apparently it’s protected by an ancient form of magic, something to do with the tree being a memory capsule of an event that occurred here or something of the sort. Silas was so pissed he couldn’t figure out a way to remove it.”
Derrick gets his excited historian glow in his eyes. “Yes! I’ve read about this! It used to happen all the time. Trees would be present for momentous events and would sear a recording of some type into its bark if it deemed the moment momentous enough to be remembered. It’s a practice which slowly died out, either that, or trees just didn’t witness any moments worth carving into itself.”
The sound of crying reaches us, and Klaus walks up to Cecily, pulling her into his chest to comfort her. We all take a few steps closer and I can read the carving now. It’s a heart with a C and a W carved in the middle with an infinity sign underneath it. If this tree wasn’t in the middle of Silas’ highly protected shifter town, I would think this tree was the inspiration for humans to defile trees with their own carvings.
From this angle, I can’t tell if Cecily is crying because she’s upset or if she’s moved by the sight. My question is quickly cleared up when she speaks up, “This is where I finally gained Marcellus’ trust. At least I thought I did... it’s where we had our first kiss after he withheld it for so long from me. We were sitting right here leaning against the tree when it burned this carving into itself.” She traces the lines of the marking as she talks about it.
Above the heart is a pretty design of the same vine on our mate marks. As she traces the vine with her fingertip, she mumbles, “This wasn’t there back then... how weird. It wasn’t a part of the mark back then either.” She seems to mull over the vine’s odd appearance for a few moments.
Sniffling once more, she continues, “I just don’t understand how he could betray me after the moment we had here, a moment so profound it was marked and preserved for five hundred years.” She turns around and stares at us with watery eyes. “I’m so confused on how to feel. My heart is broken and yet I want to believe there’s some explanation ending with him having had no option. I don’t want this torment living inside me anymore.”
Her hands go to cover her eyes, but at the last minute she reaches out with both hands to clutch the front of mine and Derrick’s shirts. Gripping us tight, she pulls us toward her.“Don’t get me wrong, I love that she’s opening up to us... but does anyone have any thoughts as to why she’s all of a sudden more trusting?”I ask my brothers through our connection.
“I told her last night she needs to start opening her heart to us, that we’re here to be her partners in life and she needs to act like it. Guess she took my words to heart,”Klaus responds. Well, that’s probably why she opened up to me this morning too.
Derrick and I comfort her as Marcus and Klaus surround her back, placing her in the middle of her mates. Once she stops crying, she peers up at me with a sniffle. “I’m ready to get this over with.” Nodding, I give her a quick kiss and tuck her under my arm.
We don’t need to say anything else as we walk away from the tree, and hurry toward the castle to get the initial greeting over with. Just as we exit the park, thunder rumbles and the skies open up as rain begins to pummel us. I only get hit with a few drops before a magical umbrella is thrown above us, thanks to Cecily.
Approaching the front of the castle, Cecily again pauses, glancing to where the training yard used to be back in the day. I bet she’s imagining a time she saw her Marcellus there. Shaking off her memory, she allows us to continue walking to the front entrance of the castle. Whelp, here we go.
I almost laugh when we all take a collective deep breath before pulling the door open. Before we can take two steps inside, a butler comes running up. “Silas will arrive in just a moment. Please wait here for his appearance. You know he hates it when you wander upon arrival.” Yeah, we don’t have the best track record for listening to what Silas wants. Probably another reason for him to constantly butt heads with Marcus.
This time we don’t get the chance to ignore his request, as the quick snaps of Silas’ shoes hitting the stone floor can be heard ricocheting off the walls. He appears around the bend in the hall, wiping his hands on a cloth and tucking it away in his pocket when he sees us. “What the fuck took you so long, and where are my prisoners?”Such a lovely greeting for his family and future rulers of his people!
Chapter 28
