Page 32 of An Oath at Midnight

I didn’t know if she’d passed out again—or if she didn’t answer because she didn’t believe me.

CHAPTER 8

Magnolia

My eyes snapped open when something cool touched my stomach.

It was morning, light filling the room, and Bram was sitting on the mattress beside me. His hair had fallen forward, covering most of his face, and he was so focused on what he was doing he hadn’t noticed I’d woken up. I looked down as he smeared healing balm across a scrape low on my belly.

I was wearing one of his T-shirts and a pair of his boxers. They were low on my hips, and there was more balm on a scrape on my ribs, and another beside my belly button, right over the new markings the mother had given me.

“Hey,” I said, my voice croaky as hell.

His gaze shot to mine. “Fuck, finally.”

“Why am I dressed as your female alter ego?”

His gaze darted down my body and back, and the tendons in his muscled forearms popped. “You don’t remember?”

I remembered a lot of last night, and the rest was slowly coming back. “The drive home’s still a bit fuzzy. I got here, then you…appeared, and you…” He’d lifted me into his arms, flown to the tree house, stripped me naked and cleaned the blood and mud off me before he’d tended my wounds. I looked up at him again and wanted to squirm as the memories flooded me. But this was Bram, my best friend. So I was naked, so what, right? “Yeah, I remember. Thanks for taking care of me.”

He sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head. “You’re thanking me now?” His jaw clenched. “I know I’ve been doing a shitty fucking job of taking care of you, of being there for you, I know that, and I promise, I’ll be here from now on. When you need me, I’ll be here.”

He meant it, but he was lying to me, and to himself. It wasn’t intentional. He was deep in denial. Seeing me messed up last night had scared him, and he wasn’t thinking logically. “You can’t promise that, Bram, and I don’t expect you to. I know you can’t tell me where you go and what you do, but you’re bound by a silencing oath, which means you’re working for the kind of people who don’t like to be ignored.”

The muscle in his jaw jumped. “Let me worry about that.”

“You want to protect me? I feel the same way about you. If something happened to you because you ignored an oath? I’d never forgive myself. I’ve done that, remember? Trust me, you don’t want that.”

His expression didn’t change, and he didn’t agree with me or argue his point, because he was going to do whatever the hell he liked.

“Bram—”

“How are you feeling? You were out of it last night.”

Okay, he wasn’t going to talk about it now. Fine. But if he thought I’d just drop it completely, he was mistaken. “I’m fine.” I slid my legs out of bed and stood. Not as shaky as I thought, and my hands that had been cut up were already healing. I walked to the bathroom and lifted the shirt to take a closer look at the markings on my stomach. “Shit.” Thorny vines swirled around my belly button and spread a little out to the sides.

“Check your back,” Bram said, leaning against the doorframe.

“Seriously?” I turned and looked over my shoulder. Okay, that was excessive. “The mother obviously decided less wasn’t more where I was concerned. The belly design wasn’t enough, noooo, she thought I needed a tramp stamp as well?”

“They suit you,” Bram said.

I glanced his way, and his gaze was moving over my exposed skin, lingering on my belly. Warmth curled right under the design, stealing my breath, and I dropped the shirt. “You’re just saying that so I don’t freak out.” The shirt was way too big and had slipped down over one of my shoulders, uncovering more of my scarred skin. “I guess I should thank her. At least they cover a few of my ugly scars.” He made a strange sound, and I glanced up at him again.

He shook his head, making his glossy black hair shift in a way that, if I was close, I’d reach up and touch it. I loved his hair. I’d told him a million times over the years how jealous I was of it.

“There’s not one fucking part of you that’s ugly,” he said.

I stilled. The way he’d said it lifted goose bumps all over me. We stared at each other for several tense seconds, and my heart slammed into the back of my ribs, so hard I lost my breath for a moment.

I tore my gaze from his and busied myself by washing my hands, even though I didn’t actually need to wash my hands, but the weird tension between us was too much. “I haven’t felt the call to my task, but I don’t need it, I already know what it is,” I said drying them off.

“You do?”

“Willow gets accused of murder, then the same night the mother calls me, six months ahead of schedule.” I strode toward him, and for a moment I didn’t think he was going to move, he kind of paused, staring down at me with a look I couldn’t decipher, but then he tucked his hair behind his ear and stepped back.

My breath was knocked from me and I blinked up at him. “What have you done?”