Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
His eyes are so dark, so wild, so beautiful.
And they finally see me again.
“Crane,” he says softly, in the sweet, obedient voice that I heard so many times.
I grin at him. “Abe.”
He grabs Kat’s hand, giving it a squeeze before letting it go, and then he comes toward me and puts his arms around me, embracing me, his head on my chest.
I put my hand on the back of his head, my fingers in his thick strands, and hold him there. My gaze goes to Kat again, and she’s crying, tears rolling down her cheeks, but she’s smiling too. She looks so impossibly beautiful. I feel strangely full, like my heart never knew I could love two people at once, desire them both equally.
“Come here,” I say to her.
She gives me a grateful yet shy smile and walks over. Both Brom and I part to let her in between us. Her skin is cold, perfumed with the night air, and it’s only now that I’m noticing she’s just in her nightgown and it’s freezing outside. Some gentleman I am.
We envelop her between us, now the center of our attention.
“My sweet witch,” I say to her, pressing a deep kiss on the top of her blonde head. “We’ve been neglecting you. You’re the most important part here. You’re the glue that holds us together.”
Brom’s embracing her from behind and meets my eyes.
She’s part of us, I say to him, using the voice. And we’re a part of her. We’re going to do everything we can to protect her at all costs.
He nods, his dark eyes gleaming before he kisses the back of her neck.
She sniffles, and I can feel the emotions radiating off her, overwhelming her. It’s been a hell of a night, and it’s not over yet. Despite Brom remembering everything, we still haven’t fixed the fact that he’s possessed. And we haven’t even begun to figure out who called the headless horseman on him.
As if hearing my thoughts, Brom pulls back slightly. “What do we do now?” he asks, trepidation in his voice.
I step back and take off my coat, placing it on Kat’s shoulders.
“We get Kat somewhere safe,” I tell him. “And by that, I mean somewhere away from you.”
His face falls. “Alright. But I don’t think she should go back home.”
“Why not?” Kat asks.
He frowns at her, gives his head a shake. “I’m not sure. There are bits and pieces missing from the night, I guess where the horseman comes in and out. But I know your mother has something to do with it.”
Kat stares at him for a moment, her brows up. “My mother called the horseman to get you…”
“I think so,” Brom says. “But it’s not only that. I think she…”
“What?” she asks frantically. “She what?”
He clears his throat. “I think she wants me to bed you on behalf of something called Goruun.”
“Goruun?” she repeats, and the word is so familiar to me, the memory of where I heard it just around the corner in my brain.
“I don’t know what that is, but I stand by what I said the other day. I don’t trust your mother, and you shouldn’t either.”
“I agree,” I say. “We need to go back to the school. Kat, you can stay with me.” I’m not trusting Brom around her alone, not until the horseman is gone.
She wrinkles her nose in thought. “Why would my mother want you to bed me?” she asks Brom.
He lifts his shoulders in a shrug and then winces. The wound looks much better, but it will hurt him for a few days. “I don’t know.”
“She wants you to be married. She wants you to have children,” I point out. “We’ve never figured out why that is. But I feel once we find out who Goruun is, we will.”
Kat worries her lip between her teeth. “Crane, how did you make that poultice tonight?”
“Just plucked some herbs from the garden,” I tell her, leaving out the part where I yanked half the plants out of the ground in a frantic attempt to find something that would heal a wound. I didn’t plan on shooting Brom, but I knew it could come to that.
“I might need to look up some tincture books in the library tomorrow,” she says, looking concerned.
I wince. The library. Then I notice the same expression on Brom. He remembers what the horseman did there, leaving behind a chopped-up desk and someone’s severed head.
“Alright,” I say. “We have two horses, three people. Kat, you’re riding with me.” I give Brom an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, but I can’t trust you around her until the horseman has been exorcised.”
He nods solemnly. “I understand.”
“Good boy,” I praise him and watch as his face reddens.
We round up the horses, neither of which have gone very far and are standing obediently at the entrance of the covered bridge. In the darkness it looks like a mouth and I have to brush away the unsettling feeling that it wants to swallow us whole. As much as I don’t want Kat to return to her home, I don’t feel all that comfortable going to the school either. But that’s still my job for the time being, still a vaguely public place to keep Kat safe in, and has all the information and magic I need at our fingertips.