Read Darkest Day Online

Authors: Emi Gayle

Tags: #goodbye, #love, #council, #freedom, #challenge, #demon, #vampire, #Changeling, #dragon, #responsibility, #human, #time, #independence

Darkest Day (4 page)

BOOK: Darkest Day
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“Yeah. Couple days, I think. Docs want me to take it easy. But I’ll be back Friday, for sure.”

“How about you, Mac?” Pete asked.

“I’ll be back when—”

“She’ll be back tomorrow,” Josie said from the doorway.

My head whipped around, and I aimed a glare at her.
When did she take over my life?

I hadn’t had a keeper in eighteen years. I wouldn’t start two and a half months before I’d be her equal.

• • •

W
ith everyone gone, each having told Winn to ‘take it easy’ and ‘don’t let Mac wear you out’, I sat on one end of the couch with him on the other and the house filled with quiet. Even Zoe and Winn’s dad left, and I’d sent Suze on errands.

We might have been somewhat alone at the hospital, but we hadn’t been alone-alone in over a month. That meant everything from before Winn had been thrown into the in-between piled up into one invisible heap of tension and sat between us like a stone guard.

I wanted to reach out. To touch him. I wanted him to know I’d meant what I’d said to make him leave, but knowing our time would end sooner than when it had started held me back.

Winn picked at his nails.

I ran a hand through my hair.

Seven months before, I’d have ignored him—a speck of human dirt on the floor. Six months ago, I’d have gone to him, curious about what he knew and uncaring about what anyone thought. As we sat together, but apart, the memories of our time played through my head and left me with an inner turmoil—feelings I’d never really experienced before Winn became a part of my life.

He sat there.

I stayed in my spot.

Questions ran rampant but unsaid. I needed to find answers. I needed to know that once I took my place on the Council, Winn would have a fulfilling, wonderful life without me. Asking him, though, pained my heart. It wouldn’t have if he’d never said those words on Halloween the year before. If he hadn’t, I’d have completed my last year of half-human, half non-human and moved on.

This is ridiculous, Mac! Stop being a human-like pansy and just ask him.

Winn turned, glancing over his shoulder. Our gazes met, but we both shifted back, facing forward.

Take the bull by the horns—who’d want to grab a bull’s horns anyway? Ugh!

“This is stupid.” Winn and I said it at the exact same time.

Our heads tilted up, gazes locked. He rose and moved to my end of the couch, took my face in his hands, and kissed me as if I hadn’t nearly killed him a few times, as if our life together would end in a few weeks.

When he pulled back, we both gulped air. “Mac.”

“Winn,” I said, mimicking his serious but playful tone.

His lips curved, the same expression he’d given me in the past. “We have to talk.”

Well, sheetz,
to use Caroline’s un-expletive-expletive. Even I knew the tone he’d said those four words in meant the end.

4

Winn

Staring into Mac’s eyes, with the knowledge I’d gained while she was gone, I knew I had to both tell her everything
and
walk away. Despite still having three months before we would be forced into the break, a ‘now or never’ philosophy hit me.

Mac’s gaze stayed stuck to mine. As much as I wanted to share right then, to be chivalrous and to step back, I wanted to kiss her more.

You need to tell her what you know. That she has to give you up to even
get
on the Council. That the Council has something riding on her being a part of it. About the split in what they want with humans.

Instead of saying anything, and with a hand behind her neck, I pulled her forward, tracing her lips with my tongue until she opened for me, our movements just as fluid as any other time we’d been together.

Our breaths mingled, coming faster as need consumed my body. Her arms snaked around my shoulders as she leaned back against the couch and drew me on top of her.

Pulling on every ounce of self-control, I tore my lips from hers.

She breathed fast, chest heaving against mine. I forced myself to slow.

“I want you, Winn.”

Oh, god. Why’d she say that now?

Her hands slipped to my shirt, wrapped around the loose material and tugged me closer—if that were possible.

“Mac—”

With a lift up, she reached my lips, taunting, torturing me with her taste. To succumb would be easy. To rein myself in would be much wiser. While my thoughts raced, my body reacted. Hands slipped lower. Legs repositioned. Temperatures soared.

Her addition to my life changed everything. The bad girl to the good guy. If I really wouldn’t see her ever again in two months, what would it matter if we had sex on the living room couch?

No, no. Stop thinking like that. This isn’t the way to start an important conversation.
“Mac—” I broke away from her clutches.

She lay beneath me, as winded as me, with all the buttons on my shirt undone, my belt loose, and her T-shirt up to the bottom edge of her bra.

Until I met Mac, most of life had been simple—not easy, but simple. I’d always made the right decision, whatever that had been at the time. Torn between wanting someone I shouldn’t and needing to walk away, I pushed back.

Mac rose to sit as I moved to the opposite end of the couch, our breaths slowing. With her hair all mussed, I wanted to run my hands through it, to take her
and
what we’d started to my room.

“You cloud my judgement,” I said.

She snorted. “I take it that’s a bad thing?”

“Sometimes. Not always.” I scooted closer to her and reached for her hand. “We have a problem.”

“Well, duh, Winn. We have a gazillion problems.” She held out a hand, one finger pointing in my direction. “I have to find out why Ridge can do magic.” She stretched out another finger. “And—”

“I know them all, Mac. Trust me. I do. I know more than you even.”

She tugged on my fingers. “Listen, Winn.”

“No. You listen.” My tone came out far testier than I’d meant. I closed my eyes, gluing my lips shut before I said something else stupid.

She scooted around in her spot.

Do it. Rip off the band-aide.
“I-I—”

Mac jumped up. “Spit it out already.” She faced the windows as darkness overtook the room.

“I need some time to process what happened in the in-between and to understand all that I took in while you were … gone. And you were. Gone, that is. For a month, Mac. I have pages of notes, and I—”

“You’re still pissed that I left you. Is that it?” She swiveled toward me. “I’m a lot of work for no payout. Totally get ya.”

I stood but kept my distance. “No. That’s not it … exactly. Well—”

She stalked toward the door.

I followed. “Mac, no. Wait—that’s not—I just—”

She kept going. “This is how it’s supposed to be, Winn. You were never supposed to be in my life. Ever.” Her hand raised in a wave over her shoulder as the front door opened, but she paused.

“That’s not what I meant. And I
was
supposed to be. You—”
Just tell her.
“The rules, Mac. You have to give me up. It’s part of the program. It’s the final test.” Even as I spewed the words, my stomach churned.

With her back to me, she said, “I know that. I’ve always known that. And there’s no time like the present.” Before I could speak, she disappeared through the front door, closing it with a soft click behind her.

Hands to my side, I expected her to walk back through, hoping she would so I could tell her I didn’t care if she had to give me up. I wanted my last three months and every minute of it.

She didn’t come back.

• • •

T
he shuffle of feet behind me held the weight and pattern of my dad—one person I needed to talk to, and who wouldn’t walk out on me at some point in my life. The clunk on the table meant he had work to do.

I turned as he unclipped and opened his briefcase. “I hate this.”

Dad chuckled. “Now
that
is how you start a conversation. This about Mac?”

Of course he’d know. I moved to the table and stood behind the chair across from where he sat, with my hands on the back. “Why didn’t you tell me Mom was … one of Mac’s people?”

His head snapped up. “Where did you hear that?”

“When I was in the in-between. And when I was half-dead. Goddess, I’m guessing, from what I heard.”

His pinched face lasted only a second—long enough for me to know my question reached in and grabbed him.

“Why am I human if she’s not? Why didn’t you tell me? Is it because she was like Mac? Was it because she left? Did she really die? Maybe she just left.” I heaved a breath.

Hands clasped on the table, Dad met my gaze straight on. “Are you done?”

No. Yes.
“Maybe.”

“What do you want to know, Winn?” He held his hands wide, encompassing all the papers on the table as if
they
held the answers to all the secrets.

“I want to know—” I pulled out the chair, the scrape along the hardwoods vibrating through my head.

“Winn—” Dad started, but I stopped whatever he had to say with my hands up.

I drew in a deep breath. “I’m not trying to be rude, Dad. I’m not. But it seems like anyone over the age of eighteen seems to believe those of us at or under the age don’t need to know the truth. You didn’t tell Zoe who she is or why. I know what you said about why you did that, but it’s a fact. You spent years lying to her. The Council has been feeding Mac what they want her to hear. Why can’t you all just be honest about it? Why don’t you trust any of us?”

“It’s not about trusting you. It’s about rules,” Dad said. “And you know the first and foremost rule is ‘don’t give up the secret’.”

I did know, but I had already been bound to ‘the secret’, and Zoe existed within it, so his argument didn’t work. “Give me one good reason why you couldn’t have told me Mom was a goddess, that she had a sister who was a Changeling, and that Grandpa went nuts when she picked you over him. One. One good, factual and truthful reason you couldn’t tell your own son about his heritage.”

He rose and paced the eat-in area of our kitchen. “You’re right, Winn. It’s time you know what I know.” He sighed, dropping his hands to a chair in much the same position I’d taken before I sat. “I didn’t know what your mother was when I met her. We were just kids. Introduced by Grandpa at a time I thought magic was still part of mythology. I didn’t know our relationship would change or that I’d fall under her spell and still feel the pain of her death almost twenty years later.” His fists bumped the chair as he closed his eyes, lips pursed.

For a moment, I hurt for him, imagining myself without Mac, without even the friendship I thought we’d developed.

On a deep breath, he opened his eyes. “What I do know is that your mom and Grandpa were friends long before he brought me into the picture.” His lips firmed for a moment. “Remember when I told you I was fascinated by Grandpa’s work? That I studied his materials, and that’s what drew me in?”

I nodded.

“As I grew and learned more, I wanted to believe that mythology was more than the stuff of kid’s bedtime stories. But I knew it wasn’t. Grandpa, though, he had a singular focus. It’s the very reason I’ve fought so hard to give you a well-rounded life. For you
and
Zoe. Human or not. I wanted you to have some normalcy.” He sat again, his hands fidgeting on the table. “When I was in my early twenties, I fell in love with that beautiful woman I’d practically grown up with, not knowing about Grandpa’s plan to somehow become immortal, to use the in-between for that purpose. At the time, I knew nothing of her history. Not even that Grandpa was in love with her. What I did know was she was smart and funny, and I wanted to spend my life with her. And when she agreed, it was the happiest moment of my life, until we told him. It’s why we didn’t speak until you were born. He couldn’t not love his Grandson, and with her death, I think … maybe … he felt vindicated. Like neither of us could have her then. But—”

“But she’d told you about Mac’s world.” It seemed plausible.

“Exactly. So I still lost, but now I know. Of all things, on the day she had you, she told me all about who and what she was, fearing some of that might have passed to you. I didn’t believe her, of course, struck by what was happening right in front of me. She went from my partner in life to … gone in the span of an hour.” His hands clenched and relaxed.

“It’s okay, Dad. You don’t—”

“You were the whole reason she wanted to be human. She wanted a baby without the problems that constantly fell to the immortal. She wanted a legacy that could carry on without all the ridiculous rules. She wanted …
you
.” A small sob escaped him.

I stayed silent. Everything I’d been wondering had passed through his lips on a rush of pained words. A tear dripped down his cheek, landing on the table. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

His head shook back and forth. “I’ve done everything I could, as a human, to give you what your mother wanted. For her. I wanted your life to be what she wanted.”

“How—how did you learn about the Guardian thing?”

“Her sister. Josie showed up on my doorstep about a week after your mom died and told me that I needed to know, needed to believe. For your sake, she said. And for mine.”

“She’s Mom’s sister.”

He nodded, slowly at first. “How did you find that out?”

“I overheard a lot of conversations when I was in the hospital. Don’t think anyone knew I could.”

“Ah.” He tilted up toward me, our gazes meeting. “I loved your mother, Winn. Still do.”

I can tell.

“That’s one of the reasons I keep warning you against Mac. There are rules in her world, and we’re not in them. Your mother gave up her life to be with me. Mac’s not going to do that for you.”

“I know.”

“So what are you going to do?”

The question hung like leaden feathers, ready to drop on top of my head and crush my soul.

5

Mac

Sitting beneath my oak in Primrose Cemetery—a spot I hadn’t returned to in what seemed like years but had only been a month—I dropped my head to my knees.

BOOK: Darkest Day
11.46Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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