Withering Rose (Once Upon A Curse Book 2) (25 page)

"What can I do?"

I turn to Asher. "My father won't survive
another trip through the mountains. If he's still like this by the
time we have to leave, he'll die before the bombs even go off. And
if my magic isn’t enough to save him, then there's only one other
thing that might. Medicine. Earthly medicine. We still have twelve
days before the general is supposed to attack. That's enough time
for you to get back to the base, to steal antibiotics from the
supply room, and to give them to one of the wolves to bring back
here to me."

"You could come with us," Asher says, but
his heart isn’t in it.

I smile at him. "You know I can't."

And he does. He understands. Asher may have
come here to save me, but he can’t force me to leave. To abandon my
father. To abandon Cole.

So he stands because we both know the
conversation is over. "I'll go tell the others there's been a
change of plans."

"Thanks."

But before he leaves, he looks over his
shoulder. There's something simmering beneath those indigo eyes
that I don’t understand, something that reads my thoughts even
better than I can. "I meant what I said before," Asher says softly.
"Don’t do anything rash. Those faerie priestesses put curses on the
magic because they wanted them to be broken, because they wanted
the magic to be freed. So there has to be a way. Don't give up
hope."

I smile at him.

But I don’t say anything.

And he mistakes my expression for
agreement.

It's not.

It's appreciation.

It's gratitude.

Only when he leaves, does it fade.

My memory flashes back to the story Cole
told me. What Asher said was sweet and kind, but also naïve. Not
every curse was meant to be a happy ending in disguise. The faeries
had just watched their entire world fall apart. They had just
watched humans greedily thieve magic from all ends of the planet.
They were helpless. All the creatures they were supposed to protect
disappeared. Everything they loved vanished.

No.

I don’t think they were feeling as
benevolent as Asher thinks when they put those curses on our
bloodlines.

My mind whirls back to the story of the mad
king, the one with the power to control the weather but the curse
of losing his mind, the one who murdered his entire family because
of the faerie's spell.

Not all curses were meant to be broken.

Some were just meant to hurt.

Some were just meant to convince us that
magic wasn't worth the pain of life, that dying was the only
escape, that sometimes sacrifice is the only way out.

My father moans.

I lean over him. "I'm here," I murmur. "I'm
right here."

But in the back of my mind, a new idea
lingers.

One I'm not sure I'm brave enough to
face.

Asher and Jade leave the next day, taking two of the
wolves with them. Cole and I stand at the door for a long time,
watching them slowly disappear into the distance. With every step
they take, my mind wanders closer and closer to the conversation
with Asher, to the idea he brought to life in the back edge of my
mind, the one I know he never meant to put there. If I'm being
honest with myself, it’s been there for a while. Lingering in the
background, waiting for me to finally find the courage to face
it.

But now isn’t that time.

Not yet.

Not when there is still so much left to
do.

"I actually think I might miss them," Cole
murmurs, pulling me closer against his chest. His hands are clasped
in front of my waist, and I fold my fingers around them, leaning my
head back and closing my eyes, just breathing this moment in. "Then
again," he continues softly, placing his lips at the base of my
neck and sending a shiver right through me. "I think we do just
fine on our own."

"Mhmm," I sigh, unable to speak as he trails
light kisses along my skin.

"So," he whispers, breath tickling the
sensitive spot below my ear. He continues to nibble, fluttering my
nerves, making my heartbeat run wild. "That whole engagement thing
is over, right?"

"Oh, I don't know," I comment lightly,
grinning.

He growls softly.

"I think—" I pause, gasping as his tongue
flicks against my skin, burning so hot I think I might just melt to
the ground.

"What was that?"

"I said…" The words come out airy and barely
audible, so I clear my throat as Cole laughs softly into my ear.
"Oh, never mind."

I surrender, spinning his arms so we face
each other and reaching my hands over his broad shoulders. Those
gray eyes sparkle with blue highlights, and a self-satisfied smirk
dances along Cole's lips. But there's something sensitive in his
expression too, something honest and unsure. So I lift my fingers,
playing with the hairs at the base of his neck in a way that makes
him tremble, and with my other hand, I lightly trace those scars
across his temple. When I touch them, he doesn't flinch the way he
once did. He doesn’t freeze up and close himself off. Instead, his
mask falls, revealing the lonely man hiding beneath the bravado,
the one I want more than anything to save.

"The engagement is most definitely off," I
whisper.

The instant the words are out, a smile
passes over his lips, spreading an inner light to his entire face.
Joy. Just pure, unadulterated bliss. The sort I know he won’t be
able to contain because he's a beast, and that's my favorite thing
about him. He's wild and untamed and free. He's powerful and
fierce, filled with raw, untapped energy. And when he feels, he
does it with everything he has. He doesn't know how to hold
back.

Which is why I'm not at all surprised when
his hands grip my waist, and my feet suddenly fly off the ground.
I'm giggling because his happiness is so infectious that it wraps
me up in a glow so bright there's no escaping it. I'm bundled in
him and his joy, free for a moment from all the weight that holds
me down, because Cole is strong enough to lift me and spin me and
make all those burdens fly away.

The moment ends too soon.

My toes barely touch the floor, but already,
the weight of the world drags me back down to reality. Cole's
stormy eyes are still lit with lightning fire, but my roots have
buried deep. I'm grounded.

One by one, the burdens all come back.

My father.

My magic.

My curse.

The faerie woman.

The bombs.

The ticking clock, winding down, reminding
me that time is still running out whether I want it to or not.

"Come on," I say with a sigh, stepping back.
"There's a lot we have to do."

Cole doesn't let go. His fingers tighten
around my waist, as though he wants to hold on to this brief
reprieve for a little while longer. But we both know the moment has
passed. With a deep exhale, he loosens his grip and runs his hands
through his already disheveled black hair.

"Eleven days," he snarls, but I know the
frustration he's releasing isn’t directed at me. "Where do we even
begin?"

I don't know how to answer him. The sheer
amount of work is staggering. Not only do we need to figure out the
bare basics, how to bring food, how to bring shelter, how to move
everyone to the new location he and Jade scouted out. We also need
to figure out how to move my father, if it's safe to move the
faerie woman, what to do with all of the research we've been
reading about the magic. Every time I think of one solution,
another question pops up, another obstacle to face.

"I guess we just," I pause, shrugging. "I
don’t know. Take it one step at a time."

And that's exactly what we do.

One task at a time.

One solution at a time.

One, then the next, then another.

On the first day, we focus on food. For
hours, we stand in the greenhouse, plucking tomatoes off vines,
digging herbs from the ground, pulling potatoes from the dirt.
Anything and everything we can get our hands on is packed away into
baskets. And as soon as one section is cleared, I use my magic to
grow more, repeating the process over and over again until I'm so
exhausted I can't even stand. Cole catches me before I fall, angry
when he realizes how much of a toll I allowed the power to take.
Even as I protest, he carries me up to my room, bundling me beneath
the blankets on my bed and telling me to rest.

The next day, I'm ready to work again, but
when I reach the kitchen, I find the greenhouse and all the gardens
within have been torn apart. Cole doesn’t say anything, he just
leads me away to another room, giving me another problem to solve.
Shelter. For Cole, for his people, living in the mountains will be
second nature. Wolves and bears don't need cover from the cold,
they don't need food, they don't need cloaks or fires or warmth.
I'm the weak link. So we spend the afternoon and the evening
bundling up blankets and warm clothes, a makeshift tent for me to
sleep beneath, and dry sticks for fires. Every time I glance at
Cole, his brows are pulled together, and worry lines are etched
across his face. I know what he's thinking, I'm thinking it
too.

How long can I really last in the
wilderness?

How long will we be able to stay
together?

How long before I'm forced to go back
home?

Neither of us mentions anything as dawn
springs on the third day. Instead, we turn our focus to the
research. The sun crosses the sky before we've even been able to
make a dent sorting through the papers and books, figuring out what
needs to be saved and what we can afford to lose in the bombs. On
the fourth day, we finally pack everything we need into baskets. On
the fifth, we choose a few of our favorite books from the library
and add them to the supplies. My heart aches when I stand in the
center of so much intellectual wealth, knowing in a few days,
countless volumes will be buried beneath rock, perhaps never to be
seen again.

When the sixth day begins, Cole is already
gone from the bed we’ve started to share. I miss his warmth, the
weight of his arms around me, how safe and secure he makes me feel.
But today, he's taking the first group of shifters to the new spot
in the mountains, and I know he won’t be home until tomorrow. So I
spend the day leaning over my father, trying not to panic, trying
to soothe any pain I can. And when it becomes too tough, I take a
break to walk around the castle, grabbing a few things I can’t bear
to let the bombs destroy. Some of the glamorous dresses from my
armoire, ones I know aren’t practical but need to be saved. I take
the painting down in Cole's room, the one over the fireplace. He's
never told me it depicts him with his parents, but I just know it
does, and I know he would be heartbroken to lose it. And then I ask
the snow leopard to take me to his parents' room, the place I soon
realize is where I first found Cole in the form of the wolf,
howling at the moon, so alone. His mother's combs still rest on her
dressing table. His father's coats still hang in the closet. I take
whatever I can fit and put it with all of the other supplies piled
on sleds to be dragged through the snow toward our new home.

Cole returns the next day with a few of the
wolves, and then they lead the rest of his people toward the
mountain. By the evening of the eighth day, Cole and I are alone in
an empty castle, in an empty kingdom. Just the two of us and the
two people we don’t know how to move.

My father.

And the faerie.

"We have two days to figure something out,"
Cole murmurs into my hair.

We're lying in his bed, a spot that's become
my own personal haven, a spot where it feels like there is nothing
we can't overcome. Our legs are entwined and my head rests on his
chest, listening to the heavy thump of his heart beating. One of
his arms hugs me close, latched around my small waist in a grip
that says he might never let go.

To be honest, I don’t want him to.

I want to stay here and pretend that the sun
will never rise. That tomorrow will never come. For the first time
in my life, I wouldn't mind spending the rest of it in the
dark.

"Do you think they'll come back with the
medicine for my father? Do you think Asher managed to steal
it?"

Cole runs his fingers through my hair.
"We'll wait all day tomorrow for any sign of them. We don't have to
leave until the next day. I just want to be out of sight before the
bombs start going off."

I nod. Tomorrow will be the ninth day since
Asher left. We might still be pushing it by leaving on day ten when
the attack is supposed to happen on day eleven, but this is Cole's
gift to me, the one I've come to realize is the most precious of
all—time. Time to wait for a miracle, for the one thing that might
just keep my father alive.