Page 48 of Unmarked Magic

Tell me not to go. Fight for me. Anything. But the silence swallowed us whole.

The last thread holding me together snapped. I turned before he could watch me break.

Leaving his room, I closed his bedroom door behind me, resting my forehead against the wood and squeezing my eyes shut.

Every breath scraped against the ache in my chest.

I stood there, unable to move, listening. Waiting.

Surely, he would come after me. Surely, he wouldn’t let me walk away like this.

My heart counted the seconds for him.

One.

Two.

Three.

Nothing.

The silence on the other side of the door became its own answer, sinking into my bones until hope curdled into something that hurt even more.

He wasn’t coming.

When I was back in the safety of my own room, I shut the door, determined not to cry. I’d been willing to listen with no bias. To let him be as vulnerable with me as I had been with him. I’d wanted to know everything about him, his worries, his truth.

The pain in my chest blared like a siren. The rejection bled through my skin, storming inside me and rousing my magic. Outside, rain struck the glass hard enough to make me flinch.

I forced myself to slow my breathing, to calm the rage, the disappointment tightening in my chest. I really thought he would open up to me.

But I was wrong.

Between my thighs, the ache still lingered. I ignored it, forcing myself to think of anything else. The apothecary, the botanicals I needed to source for upcoming orders. Anything to take my mind off the need grappling my sex.

This would never work. He needed to move out. Tomorrow, I would ask if he could stay at Tyler’s for a bit, and, after that, I needed to forget he had ever touched me. Minimal interactions. Get back into ‘I never saw his dick’ territory.

Maybe the fastest way to forget someone was exactly what everyone said.

Get under someone else.

The thought sat heavy in my chest. But, even as I reached for it, I felt the lie. Because the only person I wanted to forget was the same man I couldn’t stop wanting. And that was the real problem.

***

“I can’t believe we’re here again,” muttered Tyler.

We stood staring up at an abandoned manor, its hollow windows giving me the absolute creeps. Vines climbed its walls, slithering into socket-like gaps like a snake would a carcass, feeding on whatever was left. I shivered as a chill crept down my spine. It was decrepit, to say the least. “Why are we here again?” I turned to Skye, who stood smiling at the ugly thing like she saw something I didn’t. Color, potential, I really couldn’t tell.

Wes stepped down from the front porch that wrapped around its exterior, a wide smile brightening his face. He looked happy, ecstatic even.

“Welcome home, Skip!” he yelled, shaping his hands in front of his mouth as if they were a megaphone.

Wait. Had they…?

“Oh wow, are you guys for real?” Morgan took hold of Skye’s arm, an expression of pure delight on her face. “You brought this place?”

Skye didn’t look away from Wes, both entranced in each other from afar. “Yes. Isn’t it amazing?” she said dreamily.