Withering Rose (Once Upon A Curse Book 2) (12 page)

"Okay," he mutters, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry
for frightening you. I'm sorry for the way I introduced myself. I'm
sorry for snapping at you. I'm sorry for making you so terrified
that you thought you needed to run away. I'm sorry for what
happened right before you ran, for, well, shifting in front of you.
And, most of all, I'm sorry for shouting at you yesterday. I didn't
realize how hard it was for you to tell me your story until I
watched you run away, until I thought about how difficult it would
be to tell you mine."

I lick my lips. There's one more thing he
did, something I'm not even sure he remembers doing. "Are you sorry
for laughing at me?" I ask.

His brows furrow as though he doesn't know
what I'm talking about. And then they widen almost imperceptibly.
He steps closer, but then stops himself, shifting his head to peer
at me thoughtfully. "Yes," he answers, and his voice truly sounds
regretful. "I'm sorry for laughing at you."

My lips twitch into a smile for a second,
but I push it away with a shrug. "All right, then I'll be your
friend."

I extend my arm, offering to shake on it. He
walks close enough to entwine his palm with mine. I forgot how
large his hands were, how large he was. But as I turn up to look
into his face, which towers a foot above mine, I realize he is
already gazing down at me, watching as though realizing for the
first time how small I am. The thought makes me want to laugh. I
grin instead. But the change in my expression makes his eyes darken
a smidge.

We don't shake.

We stand there staring at one another, stuck
on either side of an invisible line.

"The magic," he says gruffly, voice more
aggressive than I think he means it to be, as though the mere topic
causes a surge in his anger. "If we're going to be friends, can you
promise me one thing? We won’t talk about it, won’t discuss it. You
won't ask questions about it or even bring it up. No magic, nothing
at all. Can you do that? At least until I change my mind?"

No.

The word rushes to my lips, but I manage to
hold it back, to keep it inside. No. I don’t want to make that
promise. The whole reason I came was to learn about magic, to meet
another person who has magic, to share that part of myself with
someone. The whole reason I came was so I wouldn't have to hide any
longer.

But I swallow my protests back down.

For now, I can make that promise.

For now, we can be friends, and I can give
him the time he needs to trust me. I can take that time to learn to
trust him.

For now, I can keep my magic to myself.

"Okay," I say, voice strong.

He smiles then, wide and welcoming, and it
makes his entire face light up. All the hard, harsh lines wash
away, leaving someone I hardly recognize behind.

Slowly, our hands pulse up and down
twice.

The deal is done.

But I can't help but notice how he lingers
for one little moment, touching me longer than necessary before he
pulls his hand gently away. I can't help but notice how my fingers
stretch for him, how cold my skin feels without his warmth seeping
into it.

"Come on," he says, nudging his head toward
the door and asking me to follow. "You shared some of your story
with me, I figure it's my turn to return the favor. Unless, of
course, you just enjoy being locked in here by yourself all
day."

"What did you have in mind?" I ask, picking
up his playful tone and using one of my own.

"You'll see," he replies mysteriously and
then walks out the door, expecting me to follow. I do, catching up
to him quickly.

He glances down, smirking.

I look up, fighting my blush.

We walk side by side in a comfortable
silence as he leads me through the castle, toward some unknown
destination. He is finally letting me in on one of his secrets.

Friends.

Is that what this is?

Is this what having a friend feels like?

I like it, I realize quickly. I like having
someone by my side. I like feeling like I'm part of something, like
I'm privy to someone's secrets, like they're privy to mine. For the
briefest moment, I know what it would feel like to belong.

Cole doesn't stop until he's taken me up a
winding staircase, through a heavy wooden door, and out to an
overlook at the top of the castle. My breath catches almost
immediately as I take in the scene.

We're at the end of the world.

Not really, but that's what it feels like
when I look out toward a new view of the town I've never seen
before. The window from my room looks in the opposite direction,
toward the front entrance to the town and beyond into the
mountains. But from here I see the back gardens of the castle.
They're formally designed in intricate patterns, but time has
turned them wild, as it seems to have done with everything else in
this place. Yet the gardens aren’t what has drawn my eye. I look
behind them, gaze following the winding streets full of homes, all
the way to the edge of the city wall. And beyond it, there is
nothing but empty space.

The ground has fallen away.

I see sky and the distant hue of grassy
fields far, far below.

There are no mountains.

There is nothing but what I imagine must be
an impossibly steep cliff stretching down to new land hundreds of
feet lower. And the truly strange part is that the cliff does not
fall away in a straight line. No. The land disappears along the
same curved edge of the crumbling city wall, wholly unnatural in
its arch. And I know immediately this must have happened on the day
of the earthquake. Somehow, Cole's magic was able to protect his
home, to keep the land within the city wall from disappearing. But
the mountains that used to be beyond that back edge of the town
vanished during the earthquake, merging with the flatlands of Earth
in a bizarre seam.

My father and the base can't be too far
off.

They must be out there on the edge of the
horizon, just far enough away that when I used to gaze at these
mountains as a little girl, I never noticed how strangely they rose
from the ground.

"Ten years ago," Cole begins softly, drawing
my attention from the vista, "I was still just a prince."

He leans casually with his forearms on the
balcony, slightly hunched over. But his eyes are anything but
casual. They're as hard as steel, flashing like metal glinting in
the sun right before a deadly strike. He's not looking at the same
view I am, he's seeing something else, something locked away in his
memories, something terrible. And I want so badly to reach out and
comfort him, to simply place my hand on his shoulder, to let him
know he's not alone.

But I don’t. Because his eyes are glazed
over. He's in another world. And I don't want to pull him out of it
before he's finished saying whatever it is he brought me here to
say.

"My father was still alive," he continues,
voice rumbling like soft thunder. "My father was still king. When
the earthquake struck, we were at home. I remember the ground
shaking so much that it knocked me off my feet. I remember changing
forms midway through the fall. I remember even as a bear I couldn't
keep my footing. But when it stopped, we were okay. We were fine.
The city was safe, almost everyone I knew had survived. The ground
outside the wall had fallen away. We thought it was some sort of
strange magic. I wanted to explore, but my father had no interest
in the outside world. As long as I was safe and his people were
safe, he didn't care about anyone else. And then a few months
later, everything changed."

He pauses, breathing deeply, finally
blinking.

And then he turns to me, gaze questioning as
it travels down the length of my body and back up, examining every
inch of me with those piercing eyes, determining if I'm worthy of
this confession.

I don't move.

I'm afraid that anything I do will make him
stop.

But he just turns back toward the sky and
swallows. "Some of the wolves came back after a hunt and said they
saw a group of men with peculiar weapons camped out in the
mountains. My father sent sentries to watch them, to keep an eye on
the strangers. But all the reports came back the same. They were
tracking something. They were creeping closer and closer to our
home. They were searching for us. They wanted to hurt us. My father
decided it would be better to act fast rather than wait for them to
find us. So he took a group of our best fighters and pursued them.
Five days later, four of the wolves who left with him returned,
terrified and confused. They carried my father's body with them. It
was riddled with small puncture wounds, holes in perfect circles
that were too precise to be from any weapon in our arsenal. And I
went crazy. I still don't fully remember changing into a bear and
using the scent of my father's blood to find my way back to the men
who murdered him. I don’t remember slashing their necks with my
claws in the dead of the night, I don’t remember killing them. But
I do remember gazing down at their weapons when the damage was
done. I remember the moment I realized they couldn't be from my
world, the moment I realized that the earthquake had changed
everything."

He runs a hand through his onyx hair,
sighing. Then he stands up straight, turning toward me as he pulls
his shirt to the side. I notice the circular scar just below his
right collarbone. I saw it the day before, but only now do I
realize what it's from. A bullet. A gun. A weapon of Earth, not my
old world. "I got this during the fight. I didn’t even realize how
hurt I was until I woke up in the snow, bleeding out and aching.
The wolves saved me then too. And now it’s a reminder of that day.
It's a reminder of what those strangers are capable of."

My hand reaches out to touch his scar, but I
stop just shy of making contact with his pale skin. "They're called
guns," I whisper softly.

He releases his shirt and it falls back into
place, covering the healed-over wound. "I know," he snarls. But I
know the anger isn't directed toward me. It's just his gut
reaction, his instinctual, animalistic response. "You've only ever
seen me turn into the bear, but I can take other forms. One of
them, if I concentrate very hard, is a hawk. And ever since I
became king, I've been using that form to sneak to the town you
came from and gather information about the people who killed my
father. They've tried many times to make it through the mountains,
but the path is dangerous if you don't know the way, and they're
not the only ones with fine weapons anymore."

"You stole their guns?" I ask,
surprised.

"I just evened the playing field."

Cole turns away from me, back toward the
door leading inside the castle. He's done telling his story.

But questions burn the tip of my tongue.
Everything he's revealed has just made me more curious about what
he's not telling me. Like what happened to his mother. Like why
everything within the city wall was safe from the earthquake. Like
how he got his magic. Like where all the other humans went. Like
who is that glowing woman locked away in that bedroom.

I push my lips together to keep them shut.
He asked me to be patient, and I promised I would be. I can't
betray the little bit of trust he has shown me, not right after he
opened up for the first time.

So instead, I follow him downstairs,
watching as he rolls his shoulders, releasing pent-up tension. As
his muscles flex and coil beneath his clothes, I wonder what other
animals rest beneath his skin.

"Cole?" I break the silence, ready to ask
this one question that I might be allowed. What other forms can he
take? What other animals?

But when he turns, his expression is so
broken that I stop talking. All I do is reach out my hand, making
an offer he can choose to refuse if he wants to.

But he doesn’t.

He takes my hand and interlaces our fingers,
gripping firm enough to hurt. But I stay quiet because I know he
needs it, and I know I can take this little bit of pain if it means
he can let go of some of his.

After Cole drops me back to my room, I don't see him
again until the next morning. He doesn't surprise me, doesn't scare
me. Instead, I wake to the sound of a gentle, hesitant knock
against my door. And for some reason, it brings a smile to my lips
and a warm, fuzzy feeling to my heart.

"You can come in," I call.

He does, poking his head through the door
first, gray eyes widening when he spots me sitting up in the center
of the bed with the comforter wrapped snugly around me.

"You're still asleep?" he asks, puzzled.

I should probably feel mildly embarrassed.
My curly auburn hair is most definitely in disarray. My eyes are
still heavy with sleep. And when I turn my gaze to the window, I
realize the sun is very high in the sky. But all I could think
about all morning was how cozy and warm it was beneath the covers,
and how I had nothing to do all day, and how for once I felt safe
enough to just relax for a little while.