Rose was always pretty. When she was working her magic… I’d never seen anything more gorgeous, anywhere I’d traveled in the world. Beauty and strength and passion melded into one.
Awe was definitely the right word for what I felt. We wouldn’t get into the other emotions that might be stirring around in my chest—or lower down.
“All right,” Rose said with a smile, lowering her hands. “We don’t have to worry about being heard now. Being sneaky got a whole lot easier with my spark kindled.”
I chuckled. “I’ll bet.” I finally managed to tear my gaze away from her to take in the room.
So this was Rose’s bedroom. Her bed, with a mint green duvet embroidered with a vine pattern along the edges. One wall all full of bookshelves—packed solid with books, of course. And… several novels scattered on the hardwood floor around her armchair. I glanced back to her with an eyebrow raised.
Rose waved off the implied question. She sank down on the floor by the books, folding her legs under her. Her jeans hugged her curves and the spaghetti strap of her black tank top was dangerously close to slipping over the peak of one slim, pale shoulder. I schooled my eyes on her face as I hunkered down next to her.
“You can tell me what you’re doing here now,” she said—lightly, so I knew it wasn’t a way of telling me to leave.
“I heard about your fiancé,” I said. Tyler had come running into the garage babbling the whole story. And then we’d spent a couple hours cleaning up the blood that had dribbled on the driver’s seat and inner door of Derek’s Mercedes. I wasn’t sure if him driving back here in that state was impressive or imbecilic. Possibly both?
“He’s not my fiancé,” Rose said, her back tensing. She frowned at the books. “But yeah. It’s not good either way.”
“Am I right in guessing Damon had something to do with it?”
Rose’s gaze darted up. “Is it that obvious?”
I gave her a half smile. “To someone who knows the guy.” Who knew how that guy looked at Rose anytime she was in his view. If I’d heard that Damon had murdered Derek, I didn’t think I’d have been surprised.
Hell, I wasn’t sure if I’d go that far myself, but I couldn’t say I’d have pushed Derek out of the way of a speeding car if the situation presented itself either.
Rose rubbed her face. “He sicced some of the guys in that gang he works with on Derek. Because he thought it would help. But I’m pretty sure everything’s just more of a mess now.”
“So you… decided to make a mess with your books too?”
A laugh hitched out of her. She clapped her hand over her mouth. But when she lowered it, she was still smiling, if only a little.
“I don’t know,” she said, nudging the nearest book with her fingertips. From the covers, they were mostly romance novels—bodice-ripper historicals and more modern looking ones—along with a few that looked like various types of fantasy. “I’ve spent so much time buried in books. Trying to figure out what was missing in my life. Connecting with the characters. Hoping somehow they’d prepare me for being a grown-up and all that comes with it.”
Her lips twisted. “I’m twenty-five in six weeks and sometimes I hardly feel like I know anything. None of these helped at all, not really. I’ve learned more about my community and all the things wrong with it in the last month than all those years before…”
“That’s not so strange,” I said. “You know what you’ve been presented with. I had no idea what life was like outside this town until I went to find out just a few years ago. I experienced a hell of a lot of amazing things, sure, but I also ran into all kinds of people and attitudes I’d rather weren’t part of my world.” And man, what a wake-up call that had been. It must be so much harder for her, when she’d dedicated so much of herself to being a part of her community.
“I think it’s a little more excusable in your case,” she said. “Your world is a whole lot bigger than my witching one.”
“Maybe so. But now you know. You can act on what you know.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t look reassured.
“I’ve got to tell you,” I said, “I always liked to tease you about how much you loved reading, but I bet you did learn an awful lot that way. Different perspectives. Different lives. Kind of like traveling, but without having to leave your room.”
“So, the coward’s way of traveling.”
“Rose.” I waited until she looked up at me. “I know you. The last thing you are is a coward.” How could she think that even for a second? She’d gone against every rule she’d been taught to protect herself, to follow her heart. She was standing firm with the other guys even when it could be her life at stake. I’d admired her plenty back when we were kids, but now… Now she put me to shame.
“If I’m not a coward, then why do I feel so scared?” she burst out. “I was going to tell him—I was going to tell my dad the whole thing about Celestine and Derek and— But then Derek came in and now my dad is furious about the unsparked. And there’s still this little part of me that’s not even completely sure he’s not worse than both of them. I keep thinking I have a handle on what’s happening to me—to us—and then I get thrown for another loop…”
She made a frustrated sound and shoved her hands back into her hair. My chest tightened. I eased closer to her, setting my hand on her shoulder. On that warm, bare skin. Fuck, I couldn’t think about her like that right now. She needed me to comfort her.
She already had four other guys for anything more than that.
Scooting across the last few inches between us, she leaned into me. I stroked my thumb over the peak of her shoulder. Her eyes slid closed, but her mouth stayed tight and crooked.
“I should be able to do better than this,” she said in a low, ragged voice. “I asked them to be with me, I swore myself to them, and now I can’t even figure out how to admit what I’ve done to my own dad. And every day there’s some new horrible thing they’re finding out about what they’ve gotten into, what kind of people they’re mixed up with now… How long is it going to be before they wish they’d never agreed to the consorting?”