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“Shut up, you stupid slut,” Janet hisses at Blaire over my shoulder. “The only reason he’d even think about fucking you is because you smell like all the foods we can’t eat anymore topped with a fat drizzle of honey. He doesn’t actually like you or think you’re attractive, you pathetic, big-titted slob.”
Blaire’s eyes narrow on Janet’s face, but flick quickly back to mine. “Let me help you tie her up, and we’ll go tell everyone in town that we’re okay. Together.” She glances back to Janet. “And last time I checked, telling someone they have big tits wasn’t an insult, genius. But I get it. Jealousy is ugly, and it makes us say stupid things.”
Janet laughs hysterically directly into my ear before shouting, “Jealous? Of you? That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well Darcy did say you had a strange sense of humor,” Blaire says. “That was right after he told me my pussy was the best thing he’d ever tasted. I guess that means yours is second best?” Her brow furrows in faux sympathy. “Or maybe he didn’t kiss you there? If so, you missed out, pumpkin. The man really knows what to do with his tongue.”
I realize what Blaire’s up to, but before I can warn her to stop antagonizing Janet and fucking run like I’ve told her to several times already, Janet leaps from my back with a howl so raw and high-pitched Blaire and I both flinch and our hands fly to cover our ears.
By the time I force my hands to my sides and sprint after Janet, she’s wrapped around Blaire like a demented vampire scarf. Except unlike myself, Blaire is too small to stand tall under the weight of someone several inches taller than she is and filled with an unholy thirst for vengeance.
She stumbles forward, batting at Janet’s face as she careens swiftly toward the edge of the cliff.
I reach them just as Blaire steps out into thin air and lunge forward, grabbing a handful of hair and pulling hard. I fall back on my ass with a grunt to find only Janet sprawled across my lap.
My heart surges into my throat.
Tossing Janet off of me I shift into bat form and dive over the edge, praying I’ll reach Blaire before it’s too late.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Blaire
Turns out people aren’t kidding about that whole “life flashing before your eyes” thing.
As soon as I tumble over the edge and gravity snatches hard at my body, turning me into a boulder hurtling toward the ocean at what feels like the speed of light, images flash through my head.
I see Annie in our childhood treehouse, grinning the day she found a litter of kittens in the bed she’d made for the wild cat who roamed our property. I see Casey and Delilah and all the little ones giggling like crazy over my annual Samhain play, in which I did such a bang-on impression of our flighty mom that even she couldn’t help dissolving into helpless laughter by the end of the performance.
I see Mom, vibrant and beautiful, on her way to dinner with the ladies I now suspect were her coven mates and smell the orange rind loveliness of her perfume as she bends to kiss each of us goodnight before she steps out the door. I feel the drugging warmth of winter fires in our cabin and the sun on my face in the summer and moments of bliss and hope and a thousand nature smells that have always brought me joy.
No matter where I live, the forest will always be my home.
I’m a part of it as much as I’m a part of Annie and all the other women in my family. I can’t help wishing I was dying there, instead, so I could become one with the trees and the earth and the sweet rot of fall leaves on the forest floor.
The ocean feels so much scarier than the woods.
The ocean is cold and dark and deep and keeps its secrets.
Annie might never recover my body or get the closure only a funeral can provide.
I’m sorry, Annie, I send out with every piece of my heart, I love you so much. And then because I have nothing left to lose, I reach for Darcy with my last few seconds of life. I love you, D. Take care of yourself and my sister and the next time you meet a goblin you like, hold on tight to her and enjoy every minute of it. You deserve it.
A split second later, just as the sea is rushing up beneath me so fast that I can feel the temperature plummeting nearly as fast as I am, a deep voice rumbles through my head, I’d rather hold onto you, thank you very much.
I catch a glimpse of bat wings and then tiny claws are digging into my wrist and—poof, I’m weightless, as Darcy turns us both to mist just seconds before we crash into the rocks jutting up from this section of the beach.
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it reverberating through the vapor that is Darcy and me, making me aware of how connected I feel to him since he drank from me in the shed. This poof is different than any time he’s poofed me before, so intimate and lovely and right that when he shifts us back into our bodies on the cold, wet sand just inches from the waves, the first thing out of my mouth is, “It’s like baking a cake.”
“What?” he pants, hugging me higher on his lap as a wave gets perilously close to his outstretched feet.
“Drinking my blood.” I cling to his shoulders, so grateful that we’re both in one piece I can’t see myself letting go of him anytime soon. “It’s like baking a cake. All the ingredients get mixed together, joined in a way they weren’t before.”
Understanding lights his eyes, followed quickly by a flash of pain. “Not always, no, but for us…I think so. There’s something special about our connection, something I didn’t fully understand before. I’m still not sure I fully grasp what’s happened, but I have my suspicions.”
I cup his cool cheek in my palm. “The spider shifter who let me out of my cage told me we were fated mates. Is that what you’re talking about?”
The pain remains in his eyes as he nods, sending a whisper of unease through the joy pumping through my veins. “Yes. I’m sorry, Blaire.”
