Tell Me Your Secrets(22)

The earring was important to her. Her mother had gifted the pair to her on her twenty-first birthday, and they had been her grandmother’s before that.

“Jesenia, what are you doing?”

She glanced over her shoulder at Dorian, still in the water waiting for her. “I dropped my earring. It’ll just be a minute.” She skimmed the ground with her hands, looking in the low light. Her heart rate increased as she feared she wouldn’t find it, but then she noticed a glint of light. She reached forward and plucked up the pearl, sighing in relief. “Found it!” With a quick glance she looked for the back but didn’t see it. As long as she had the pearl she could get a new back later. Carefully she placed it on top of her dress so she wouldn’t lose it.

She stood and headed for the water, ready to get back to the business of seducing her wolf.

“Jesenia, wait!”

And then she heard it. A deep, rumbling growl filled her ears. She turned and watched as Grady made his way toward her. Foam dripped from his sharp teeth. His eyes looked crazed. She held up her hands, palm out. “Grady, if you can hear me, we want to help you.”

A snarl tore from his maw as he kept advancing. Her pulse jumped and she tried to control the shaking of her limbs. Part of her really hoped he was in there somewhere and she could reach him. But as he drew closer she knew the disease had taken him. Grady leapt toward her. She cringed, not sure she could avoid him pouncing on her. A yelp reached her ears as she dived to the side, landing on the ground.

Pebbles dug into her flesh as she skidded sideways. She drew her limbs in tight, curling into the fetal position.

When claws didn’t tear into her flesh she risked opening her eyes. The sight before her made her heart break. Her first look at the man behind the wolf.

Grady lay curled on his side, shaking. A knife protruded from his chest and lines of dark moisture rolled down his side and abdomen. His red hair was shaggy and matted next to his head. Dorian rushed to his side, dropping down to grip Grady’s hand. Blood bubbled from between dry, cracked, dirty lips. She noticed the jeans Dorian was wearing had been tossed into a different place. The knife must’ve been in his pocket. He’d thrown it and hit his mark. She shivered.

Water drops rolled down Dorian’s back as he squatted next to his friend. Jesenia crawled over to them.

“I’m so sorry,” Dorian whispered over and over again.

“No…don’t be.” Grady inhaled a shaky breath. “Thank you.”

Dorian’s head hung low and Jesenia wiped at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. He was dying. His breaths and words became labored.

“I was…lost…to the beast. You…freed…me.”

Grady’s gaze, now weary and less crazed, turned to her. “Take care…of him.”

Jesenia nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. Her hand went to rest on Dorian’s back and she could feel the tension in him. His sadness seemed to hang in the air, and when Grady breathed his last breath, she wrapped her arms around Dorian as he roared his grief into the night.





Chapter Nine




“Are you sure about this?”

Jesenia smiled up at Dorian. “Yep.”

“Okay.”

She walked behind Dorian as he led them deeper into the woods. Sunlight danced in spots on the ground as it filtered through the canopy of trees above. They were going to meet Riona, a witch who would bind their life forces together. Jesenia let loose a giggle.

Werewolves, witches and God knew what else. Maybe the ghost stories were true too. This whole new existence would take some getting used to. But she loved the man in front of her to distraction and she would do anything for him.

It had been a month since that night on the beach where they’d watched Grady die. She’d gone with Dorian when he carried the body back to his den. Cottages were set up in a semicircle near the cliffs on the other shore in the deepest part of the Bás Woods. A place of death had become filled with life.

The people of his pack were wonderful and very nice. They’d all welcomed her into the fold without question. There were even a few humans who were mated to wolves in his pack. And it had been shocking to realize just how old those humans were. They didn’t appear a day over thirty. But one woman was two hundred-eighty-three.

It happened when their life forces were bound. They would live and prosper for as long as their mates. And werewolves mated for life.

She watched the muscles in Dorian’s back shift as he walked a pace ahead. It was hard to believe that she would have more than a lifetime with him. But she looked forward to every second of it.

Explaining it to her mother had been a totally different story. She’d decided to leave off the part about him being a werewolf for now, but still her mother freaked when she told her she was getting married and moving to Ireland. It had taken a few hours to assure her she hadn’t been brainwashed by a cult. But in the end, her mother had calmed down, and Jesenia promised to buy her tickets to Ireland soon. Now she moved through the woods with the love of her life, marching toward her new existence.