Of Magic And Monsters

8. Of Past and Truth

Chapter Eight

Of Past and Truth

✵

FIVE YEARS AGO

"Come on, Cecily. Tell me what you got!" Kim, a five-foot, pink pixie hair, pale-skinned girl squawked over at me. She sat on one of those rolling desk chairs that she'd stolen a few weeks back. Kim, with extremely dark brown eyes, peered over at me with a lollipop in her mouth.

I hoisted the bag off of my shoulder and plopped it on the table. "I got use supper for at least two weeks."

Kim frowned. "Damn. Thought you were checkin' for the good stuff. Like, I don't know, maybe some more hair dye for me. Look, C! My pink is coming out!" Kim whined. She even had a pout on her pierced bottom lip.

Before I could reply, the front door blasted open, and the hot air inside quickly escaped into the blizzard outside. Rory, nearly covered head-to-toe in jackets and hats, stumbled inside. He took off his winter hat, revealing fake red curly hair that fell to his hunched shoulders. Fawn eyes flickered over to me; I knew that look.

"We need to leave. Now." Rory started gathering things.

Kim gasped. "Seriously, Rory? I like it here! We're close enough to that coven that I can use more magic than ever before." Kim, being four years younger than us, liked to make that obvious from time-to-time.

"Not now. We're leaving. A werewolf is trailing me."

That shut Kim up; she started packing her own things. Sighing, I closed the bag I was just about to empty. I didn't have much. Just in case, I patted my jacket pocket for the hairpin that'd come with me when I'd been dropped off at the orphanage. Supposedly.

Rory stepped in front of me when Kim left the main room with her bag. "Cecily," he started with a low voice. His fawn eyes darkened under the shadow we stood underneath, the shadow which made his copper skin darker and red hair nearly a light brown. "He was asking about you: the wolf."

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Survive," I reminded him. "Even if it means we do it alone."

His eyes hardened. "Not this time. Pack up. We're leaving in ten."

Before that ten minutes went up, the door crashed inward yet again that evening. A large man covered in a thin jacket pounced into the room. Dark chocolate eyes widened at the sight of me. Before the werewolf could take a step in my direction, his body flung back by an invisible force. A line of fire separated him from me.

My heart thundered in my chest. Tingles touched the tips of my fingers; I wanted him to come closer.

Rory's hands remained raised in the man's direction. "Stay back," he warned.

The man didn't tear his gaze from mine. "I mean no harm," he muttered. Star-truck; that's what he was. "I... I had to follow your scent," he said to me.

Rory turned to glare at me as though this were entirely my fault. Caught under the same spell that plagued him, I sauntered forward. The fire would have eaten me whole had Rory not cursed and cast it off. The man pulled himself to stand, looming over me like the beast he was.

"Why?" I asked.

The man breathed in through his nose. "You're my mate," he stated.

That's how we met Dominic. He came crashing into our lives with innocent eyes and a looming presence. It took Rory months before he spoke more than a few words to Dominic. I'd begged Rory to let him join, only because instinct alone told me to trust him. I did trust him. Kim adored him, and he treated her like a little sister. Oftentimes, he mentioned that Kim was the little sister he wished he had with his real one.