Later that night, when Sawyer knocked on the door a little earlier than planned, I was nervous but ready. I’d just been adjusting the aperture setting on my camera to practice shooting products.
Opening the door, I grinned at him. “Hey.”
His face was stock still, no emotion. “Hey.” He was hiding something behind his back.
Flowers? No. Not with that face.
“Everything okay?” I hedged, my eyes going to Walsh in the hallway.
You rat! Probably told him I almost shifted in public today.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
I stepped aside, letting him fully into the apartment.
“Look, I know today wasn’t ideal but—”
“But you almost showed everyone what you are,” he growled as I shut the door behind him.
I frowned, suddenly getting pissed. “What am I, Sawyer? Because I can’t seem to figure it out seeing as though all of the books are missing from the library and you won’t tell me what the fuck is going on!”
He sighed, pulling a torn book page from behind his back and handing it to me. “I remember reading it when I was twelve. It scared the shit out of me. Gave me nightmares for weeks.”
I grabbed the torn paper with a shaky hand, stroking the image stamped on the upper half of the page. It was a girl on her knees, screaming up at the moon while a wolf crawled out of her chest.
“I think this is what you are,” Sawyer said, and reached up to stroke my cheek. “If anyone were to find out about this … about you…”
I grasped the page and started to read.
The Cursed One is a creature born of the werewolf race, who goes through a trauma so severe it causes a soul splice.
The soul splice is a process that happens to a werewolf creature when they go through a disturbance so horrifying in human form, that their wolf splits from their soul, standing outside the human’s body so that they don’t have to experience or remember it.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I swallowed a sob and kept reading. My rape. My soul split so that I didn’t have to experience the full extent of that night.
In doing so, this creates a magical vacuum, sucking into itself all kinds of magic from the ethers. When the wolf re-enters the human, they are never fully fused, now able to split shift, stay human and wolf, walking side by side. But eventually the magic the creature has taken in starts to express itself. Mental compulsion, telekinesis, strength and speed ten times that of a vampire—
My eyes darted to the final line. The word death pulling at my attention.
These creatures are like a powerful drug to all six types of the magical races. If their essence is fed upon, they give the feeder extreme strength, speed, and all of the powers they possess. It has been determined that they are too strong and dangerous to be allowed to live. They would be hunted their whole life, which is an inhumane way to exist, and no one should have that much power. It is recommended by the Magical Creature Council that they be put to death, and is referenced in werewolf bylaw 390.01: Any Split Shifter Cursed Ones discovered will be put to death.
I dropped the page and it fluttered to the ground like a delicate feather and not the dangerous and heavy thing that it was. My hands shook as tears lined my eyes.
Sawyer stepped closer to me, still one arm behind his back, and held me as I sobbed into his chest.
“Demi…”
I pulled back and looked up at him, his expression painful. “Did … something traumatic happen to you when you were younger? Something like the book says?”
He was trying to figure out if I met all the requirements of this cursed creature.
I just nodded, and his shoulders sank.
My mind was playing catch up. “Our kiss. The vibrating … the light.”
He gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I think the vibrating was your essence. I think I accidently…” He released a shaky breath. “Fed on you.”
“The prime minister…” My voice trailed off and he nodded.
The fey must have sensed what I was and tried to…
I shivered thinking about it.
“I’m never going to let anything bad happen to you. Do you understand me?” His voice was a low growl and I nodded.
I believed him. By some trick of fate, this dude liked me and wanted to protect me.
“The light?” I asked him, so completely lost.
A slight smile pulled at his lips as he stroked my cheek. “That was something else.”
There was a knock at the door, pulling us from this moment. “Everyone is ready to run! Meet us outside,” Sage shouted and then retreating footsteps could be heard down the hall.
His lips turned into a frown. “Remember when I said I was going to have to do something you didn’t like? But that I needed you to trust me?”
My brows drew together as I looked up at him and nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as the bite of steel came around my left wrist.
No.
Before I knew what was happening, he reached out and slammed a cuff on my right. Searing green magic flared up my arms as I fell to my knees, gasping.
He … he caged me. Imprisoned me all over again, I couldn’t believe it. My wolf rattled against me, shaking my chest as pelts of fur rippled down my arms, but it was no use. She was trapped. There was no electric shock so these cuffs must be different, but it didn’t matter, they were still cuffs.
A sob caught in my throat as I looked up at a tortured-looking Sawyer. He looked on the verge of tears, holding the sides of his face like he couldn’t believe he’d just done this.
He fell to his knees before me, looking absolutely distraught. “I’m trying to keep you alive, if my father, or—”
“Fuck you!” I screamed, a half sob and half howl. Tears rolled down my face as the realization that I would be trapped as a human forever tore into me. But it wasn’t just that … it was that the man I’d been falling for had done this to me, without asking. Would I have let him if he had asked? No. My wolf wouldn’t have allowed it, but to not be given a choice…
“Demi.” His voice broke. “I like you so fucking much, I just—”
“Get out!” I roared, reaching out to plant my palms on his chest and shoving him backward. He landed on his butt and I sprang up to my feet, running into my bedroom and slamming the door behind me. What was the point of me even coming here? What was the point of him “freeing” me only to be bound once again?
It’s like I was back at Delphi, back inside a cage where I couldn’t be myself.
He knocked on the bedroom door a few times but I barely heard him through my sobbing into the pillow.
