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“Why not?” He asked, confusion coursing through his veins. What had she seen?
Her hands continued their frenzied exploration of his body. She dragged her hands over his chest, looking for other markings, and when she found what she was looking for, she cursed under her breath. Tears fell freely from her eyes, and she kept brushing them away quickly with the backs of her hands.
Rolf grabbed her face, pulling her back up to him. “What is it? What did you see?”
Her eyes were unfocused and cloudy. She whispered, her head shaking back and forth slowly, “I don’t know how it’s possible.”
“What do you mean, Adeline?”
Her breath hitched in her throat, and she finally looked into his eyes. Her lower lip trembled as she murmured, “Say it again.”
“What—What do you mean, Adeline?”
“Just my name. Say it again,” she implored. Her blue eyes were almost grey, and her entire body looked as if it was ready to collapse from the weight of whatever she had seen.
“Adeline,” he said, wiping more of her tears away with his thumbs. He hated seeing her so tormented. Surely, his life before turning couldn’t have been that bad.
“Oh, Gods,” she wailed and then crumpled into a heap in his arms. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed against his chest.
“Shhh,” he crooned into her hair, his arms wrapping around her tightly. Rolf turned to his side, taking her with him, and she curled into a tight ball. He rocked slowly back and forth, one hand rubbing her back as she cried. “It’ll be okay. I can withstand whatever information you give me.”
Sniffling, she finally raised her head, a pained smile across her face. “It’s you, Colin.”
Colin.
He gulped. He hadn’t been lying when he said he knew no man by that name because he wasn’t a man. Not anymore.
“I have beensucha fool.” Adeline’s eyes went hard as she looked at the door to his cabin.
Rolf’s head still swam. “Please tell me what you saw, Adeline.”
Her eyes flicked back to him, and she pushed herself up to sit. She brushed a few stray hairs out of her face and cleared her throat. “Yes, of course. I’m so sorry,” she said. Her hands found him, and she squeezed them. “The most that I could piece together was from a hazy memory that had been locked away so tightly that I had difficulty understanding what I was looking at. It was more… emotions from a moment than it was images.”
A bright smile graced her, and he knew exactly what moment he was talking about.
“The first time I told you I loved you.”
Adeline nodded, holding back more tears. “Yes.”
“I didn’t know it was you until…” He drifted off, closing his eyes, trying to recall everything precisely as he had kept it locked away for so long. But the scent of her clothing outside, the small piece of fabric that had snagged, triggered the tiniest flame of recognition.
“I know, the memory was so hazy that even I couldn’t tell it was me. Just the scents from that moment, rain on the cobblestones, a hint of my amberparfum,and…”
“Your laugh,” he breathed. His eyes went wide as he recalled her giggle from mere moments ago. It brought everything together. He had been attracted to her since the beginning of her stay, and it all made sense now.
She nodded at his revelation, biting her lower lip. Her hands framed his face, and she bent down, kissing him delicately.
“And what should I call you? Colin? Rolf?”
“Whatever your heart desires,” he said, and he meant it. He didn’t care if she called him Frederick or Theodore, just so long as she was calling him something. It was his turn to get emotional, tears welling in his eyes. “I have loved you every moment of my eternal life, Adeline. I never meant to forget you.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. Adeline stared into the distance, eyes boring a hole in the door opposite them. At this moment, he saw the emotionless killer she could be. “It was my coven. The glamour they subjected you to couldn’t wipe away our love for each other.”
Rolf gathered her in his arms again, her head nestling against the shoulder with his werewolf scars. “Well, this time, I’m not letting you go.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” she said, her voice as hard as steel. A shiver crawled down his spine when she spoke again, her voice deadly. “I plan on never letting them near us again.”
Rolf chuckled, “Oh? And how do you propose to do that?”
