“I’m sorry I questioned your gut feeling about Balthazar,” Embry half shouted at Rye over the tide, gulls, and breeze, finally finding the courage to admit that for once her internal compass was not correct. “I should’ve listened more closely to your concerns.”
Rye looked up from where he’d had his gaze pinned on thepath ahead of them, a little smile curving in his profile. “Apology accepted.”
Embry couldn’t believe that was it. Acquiescing to Rye Knighton wasn’t an experience that usually went so smoothly. She waited and was rewarded.
“The sorcerer was manipulating all of us from day one. Not just you, but the rest of us.”
Rye tapped his chest without breaking stride as they curved around the lighthouse on the northern tip of the island, skirting toward the harbor side.
“Balthazar knew exactly what he was doing befriending you as a way to get more access to Oakley. He killed her, that act revealed her family, and he’s been running all over New England on a vampire-hunting expedition when he’s not busy framing you and by proxy the coven. I know it, you know it, and hopefully in the next few days the Table will know it, too.”
“I hope you’re right,” Embry agreed. “But I worry they’ve already made up their mind—we’re the easier target and therefore the preferred one. Which means that we’re going to have to prove to them that he was stealing her magic for the secret well sorcerers use or whatever, but it’s just so callous and, I don’t know, methodical that it’s kind of hard to believe he could be both a cold-blooded vampire serial killer and a card-carrying musical theater kid, too, you know?”
Even Rye couldn’t deny Balthazar had the chops to play any role inInto the Woods, even if he’d been cast as Cinderella’s Prince in their production.
Rye punched out a frustrated breath. “You’re not wrong, Woodcross.”
Suddenly, the exhaustion of the past few days seemed to electrify every single atom in Embry’s body. It’d been great to get out and move her muscles after being cooped up and stressed, but now she didn’t just want to move, sheneededto move.
“How would you feel about a negative split, Knighton?”
Rye side-eyed her. “I’m a rower not a runner, but in a boat that means you want to go faster on the way back. Is that—”
“Same concept. GO!” Embry took off.
“Wait! Is this a race?” Rye called, hesitating before beginning to chase after her.
“YUP!”
It turned out that though he was not apparently a runner, Rye could move, and Embry was both out of breath and deliciously exhausted by the time they sprinted through one final mad dash toward the towering gate of the Woodcross Residence.
Well, it was a mad dash until a squirrel picked an inopportune time to skitter into Rye’s path—but not Embry’s. As he hit the brakes to avoid squashing the fluffy-tailed little guy, Embry lunged past and tapped the wrought iron first.
She lifted both arms above her head in triumph—which felt good, because honestly, she was on quite the losing streak—and whirled around, grinning widely. “I win.”
“Only because I’m not a squirrel killer.” Hands on his hips and chest heaving, Rye smirked. He knew she’d done animal-directing magic, just as well as she did.
Embry flipped her ponytail and, instead of making a joke about aborted squirrel love spells, waved him off. “You could’ve dodged him just fine. You’ve got the reflexes.”
“Do I?” Rye asked and tapped the gate just as she’d done.
Embry was sure that smirk was more smile than anything else. Beyond that, his eyes were most definitely twinkling. It wasn’t even a trick of the light—dawn was behind him, illuminating the curling ends of his hair, which were extra wild from the wind.
Rye smelled of rosemary oil and sea salt.
That was when Embry realized how close they were, their hands looped around the iron bars of the gate, the tips of theirrunning shoes nearly touching. Then Rye’s fingers were in her hair. Collecting pieces that had flown out of her ponytail and slipping them behind one ear, then the other. He always found an excuse to touch her hair, didn’t he?
Embry held his gaze through the whole movement.
Again, her fingers wanted to catch his hand. To kiss his fingers. To lean up and kisshim.
This feeling ebbed and flowed like the tide, never quite far enough from being in the forefront of her mind. No matter what she did to shove it away, it came back. It’d been barely twenty-four hours since she’d realized her heart bent toward him, and now she couldn’t—couldn’t—be without that knowledge, lurking in the shadows and spotlights of her mind.
It was the absolute worst time for these thoughts to be running through her head. The absolute worst time to admit how her heart swooped so low in her chest at the sight of him in that moment that she thought she might literally swoon. The absolute worst time to feel the most.
With strength she knew she possessed but never had to use in such an amount at once, Embry Woodcross turned away from Rye Knighton, unlocked the gate and the wards, and slipped onto the grounds, holding both open for him.
Rye hesitated.
