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“Our family was up here a long time too, weren’t they?”
“Oh yes, your great-great grandfather, Titus Lawson, moved over there when it was still just the mining operation. There was always a Lawson in Abelaum, up until us and your grandmother moved.” He paused. “And, well, now there’s a Lawson there again. I suppose that place just draws us back, eh?”
“I guess so,” I felt a bizarre mixture of relief and disappointment. Relief, because my father hadn’t immediately reacted in horror to the Hadleigh name. But now I had even more questions than answers. “How is Grams, anyway? What is she—”
“RAELYNN!”
The voice boomed from the house like thunder, making me shriek and nearly drop my phone. Birds took flight from the trees, flocking away in terror. Something prickled up my back, like nails frantically grasping, trying and failing to get a hold on me.
“Rae? Raelynn? What in hell was that?” Dad sounded alarmed, and I hurriedly tried to calm him.
“Oh, uh, it’s nothing. Everything is fine, Dad. I turned on the TV and it was uh...really loud—”
“WHAT THE FUCK, RAELYNN!”
Shit. Shit, shit,shit.
“I’ve gotta go, Dad, sorry, my uh, my friend just got here.”
Hanging up the phone felt like setting the first nail in my own coffin. I tucked it into my pocket, my fingers suddenly painfully cold, and turned back toward the house.
Leon was awake.
I wasn’t going to kill her.
I wasn’t going to kill her,goddamn it.
But, oh, I was going to make herfucking regret this.
I should have known. I should have stuck to my instincts. Humans weren’t to be trusted. Humans were selfish, advantageous, conniving things that would take advantage of you the moment they had the chance. Her sweet touches, her absolutely irresistible body and tempting wickedness—it had gone to my head and I’d let my guard down. I’d been so eager for a safe place to sleep, to just finally have a moment to rest.
I’d never considered Raelynn would pull off a binding circle after the absolute mess she made of summoning me in St. Thaddeus. I’d been foolish. I’d been weak. Lesson fucking learned.
The cat was staring at me with his ears plastered against his head in alarm and his tail puffed. I paced the circle, which encompassed the couch and coffee table, looking for the slightest error, for even a single missed mark or break in the lines, but no luck. It was constructed perfectly. Impenetrable. A boundary of primitive magic, simple but effective.
What the bloody hell she thought she was going to get out of this, I couldn’t even guess. She’d trapped me, but controlling me was another matter entirely. Unless she’d figured out a way to magically inflict pain, she’d have to keep me in that circle until I rotted, because she couldn’t make me obey.
Stubborn girl. Foolish girl.
There was a soft step and I whirled around, to find that she’d crept in the front door. Her hair was disheveled from the breeze, the round tip of her nose was pink with cold and her freckled cheeks were flushed. She pushed her glass up her nose, nervous fingers twitching before she shoved them into the pockets of her jacket in an effort to look tough.
I jabbed my finger at the floor. “What the fucking hell is this?”
She gulped. Her heart rate sped up. Her fear tasted sweet on the air, but it would be even sweeter when I had her pinned underneath me for a proper punishment. She fidgeted, withdrawing her hands from her pockets again, and said, “A binding circle. If you want to leave it, you have to do what I say.”
If I’d widened my eyes any further, my eyebrows would have flown off my head and speared through the ceiling. “Oh, isthatwhat it is? Ohmy, thank youeverso much for explaining, I’ve certainlyneverencountered a goddamn BINDING CIRCLE.”
The house creaked as my voice rose, and Rae shuddered but her jaw tightened, and her brown eyes hardened as she looked at me. “I didn’t want to, Leon. But I need your help and—”
“I OFFERED YOU MY GODDAMN HELP!” I was certain I heard one of the windows crack. The cat was looking perpetually more alarmed, and Rae was coiling up like a spring, steeling herself against my fury. “Your soul in exchange for protection. It’s an easy bargain, Raelynn.”
She was shaking her head. “That’s noteasy, Leon. That’s eternity. I can’t...I can’t just…”
I scoffed, pacing again, barely able to reign in my anger to even talk properly. I wanted to rip up the goddamn floorboards. I wanted to yell until every window cracked and the foundations shook. That crushing, sickening, smothering entrapment was bearing down on me. I thought of Kent’s concrete prison, the hours alone in the dark, the years of choosing between pain and obedience.
No. Noteveragain. Not even for her.
“I just need you to protect me,” Raelynn babbled on, as if she thought her words would calm me. “Just for a little while, not forever. Just until I—”
