Book of Love (36 page)

Jane:

We all piled into Max’s Defender. Wes took
the back without hesitation, scanning the tan interior with lust. I
was a little surprised by his interest at first, figuring his type
was more muscular, definitely not the safari feel of the Land Rover
Defender. The sun was just coming up over the hill, and the frost
was still clinging to the once dewy grass. He started the car, and
I was thankful for the fact that it was quiet.

“
Buckle up, Wes.” Max
looked in the rearview mirror. I heard Wes groan, but then I also
heard the click of the belt.

I liked driving this early
in the morning because everything seemed new and fresh—just maybe
not today. We drove out of town in the opposite direction of
Denver, and the opposite direction of the house I thought was his
only home. The mountains closed in on us, and the trees were edging
the road. We drove for about two miles before I heard Max turn on
the blinker and we exited the main road. We continued down this new
road for quite a ways, and I wondered what his idea of
close
really was—this
felt like the longest ride of my life.

Max leaned close to me. “You should try
riding it in a carriage. It takes almost two hours to get into
town,” he whispered, acknowledging my thoughts.

I smirked, actually finding the fact that he
could read my mind refreshing, though it would be nice to learn a
way to control what he could and couldn’t hear with the ring. A
girl’s got to have a few secrets.

Max chuckled lightly. “I promise to give you
a better understanding of that ring when we’re finished here.

I smiled, reaching for his hand. He grasped
it. The chill of his fingers was soothing, the feeling entering my
body and filling my mouth with the taste of sugar.

I looked back at the road ahead of us. I’d
wanted to talk about the plan in a little more detail, but it felt
awkward talking with both Wes and Max in the car. Though I knew Max
understood what I was thinking at times, this thought didn’t
matter. I just hoped he didn’t know too much about Wes and me, but
I also knew that if he were indeed my angel, it was likely he had
been there for every scandalous moment. I cringed.

The car slowed, and I turned my attention
back to the front. I didn’t see what he was slowing for, so I
looked to him for some sort of sign.

“
Wait, I think I’ve been
here,” Wes announced rather suddenly, sitting up
straight.

The car came to a sudden stop, pressing me
against the seatbelt.

“
What?”
Max looked at him in
the mirror with a hint of horror in his voice.

I was confused.
“Been
where?
I
don’t see anything.” It was true, there was nothing but
woods.

Wes leaned forward in his seat. “Emily took
me here, not long ago. I know where this is. I remember this road
and I’ve seen the house you’re taking us to.” His hands gripped the
edge of the two front seats.

I looked at Max, watching him as he watched
Wes.

“
You have,” he reassured,
likely scanning Wes’s thoughts. “That’s strange, how did Emily…”
Max sat back in his seat, looking forward. “Greg must have gotten
to her sooner than I’d thought, possibly even years
ago.”

“
Years
ago?”
I gaped.

Max nodded. “No one is
ever supposed to find this place. It’s been protected by magick.
The only way she knew it was here is if someone had told her, or at
the very least, gotten in her head enough to draw her to it.” Max
looked perplexed.
“Why?”
he spat, trying to find reason.

Wes and I both stared at him, waiting for
answers.

Max exhaled. “This could be harder than we
think. If he’s had his claws in her that long, we may have to do
this a few times, but at least we’ll be able to get her away from
here.” Max’s eyes were blank.

“
A few
times?”
I felt my heart begin to
pound.

Max looked me in the eyes. “Maybe, maybe
not. Let’s hope for the best, though. Okay?”

I relied on Max to be strong, but even he’d
faltered. He took his foot off the brake. We rolled forward another
hundred yards, and it was then that I finally saw the outline of an
old gravel road.

Max turned down it, the forest grown up
around us on all sides. We drove on for another hundred yards
before something began to peek through the trees, and this time it
was me that remembered.

“
Wait,
Max. You’re not going to believe this, but…
I’ve been here too!”
I
squeaked. “But—it was in my dream, just last night. Just as you
thought, Emily came to me. I found her in there.” I pointed toward
the upper portion of the house. “She was crying, and no matter what
I did, I couldn’t get her to stop. But then, just before I woke,
she turned to me and asked me for help.”

I recognized the yard I’d seen through the
window. This was the exact house. It had to be. I stared at the
fallen in roof, the whole place built from stone and singed with
fire on one half. It was huge, nothing like any house I’d seen
before.

“
How old is this house?” I
asked.

Max looked at it as though he hadn’t seen it
in a very long time. “It’s been in the family since they moved
here. My parents were wealthy aristocrats and the founders of the
town in 1886. Within their social circle, they were very
powerful.”

“
Is Greg in there?” Wes was
fixated on one thing, uninterested in history when there was saving
to be done.

Max drew in a slow breath. “No, he’s not. At
least not right now. He must be out training her.”

“
Training her?” I couldn’t
understand. I didn’t want to understand.

Max shook his head.
“There’s a process to this. He wants to make her like him and that
takes a lot of…
training.”

“
What
kind of
training
are you referring to?” I snapped.

“
She needs to kill and grow
a lust for blood. More than likely, they are hunting beings like
Wes or you—beings that are resisting the Black Angels. The final
step is her death by the hand of an enemy so that she can be an
angel. You’re sister is technically still alive, but I know Greg
well enough to assume that he wants to make her as strong as
possible. If someone kills her, and she becomes an angel, then her
psychic abilities will only grow stronger. She will be an
unstoppable force. We have to hope we can get to her before she
decides to die.”

“
So, to be an angel, do you
have to be murdered? I mean, you were, and Greg, well, he sort of
murdered himself, I suppose.” I tried to find clarity and
reason.

“
I guess in a way. What
really makes you an angel, though, is the fact that you’re not
ready to die and move on. Being murdered typically supports that.
When you choose not to cross over, you are then left
behind.”

“
Like a ghost,” Wes added
from the back seat.

I gave Wes a strange look.

Max shrugged, telling me with his eyes that
it was something Wes and he had already discussed. “We are given
wings so that when we do decide to finally pass, we can fly
away.”

Max’s words chilled me. “Why didn’t you fly
away?”

“
Because,
I was waiting for something—
unfinished business.”
He smiled, and
Wes moaned. Max ignored him. The way his finger traced my cheek
told me that the something he was waiting for was me. “I wasn’t
sure just what I was waiting for, but now I know beyond every
doubt.”

I felt uncomfortable by his forward
comments, but I tried to press it away. I leaned into Max’s touch.
“And Greg? Why doesn’t he fly away?”

“
Greg won’t leave without
me, and even if he could, I doubt he would at this point. He’s in
love with power now. He’ll want to stay and build his legion—his
unfinished business is destroying the world.”

Wes cleared his throat,
interrupting us the same way he had all day. “When will he be
back?” Wes asked. “Not to act like the only one that really
cares,
I just thought
that focusing on saving Emily was rather important.”

Max dropped his hand from my face and put
the car in reverse. “I’m not sure,” he said coldly.

I sat up. “So, are we just going to leave?
We came all this way for nothing?” My face was twisted. I agreed
with Wes; I wanted my sister back.

“
No.” He backed down the
drive, and then into a nook under a tree. “We’re going to wait for
him. But if he comes back and the car is right there—clear as day
in front of the house—then he’ll just run, and who knows how long
it will be until we find him and your sister again.”

Max kept backing the car into the woods, and
with how thick the trees and foliage were, I could no longer see
the house. He stopped the engine and got out. Wes and I followed
suit. Wes stretched as his feet hit the ground, as though the car
were too small for him—which it was.

Wes yawned dramatically. “Let’s get this
show on the road!”

I snorted, thinking his new state of being
seemed rather urgent and yet slow at the same time.

It was cold, so I grabbed my leather coat
off the seat and put it over my shoulders. I shut the door, looking
at the house with both fear and excitement. I understood now, but
still, I didn’t know where I fit in. Was my destiny truly with Max?
Or was our destiny and connection meant for something else?

I needed answers…

Max:

The air around me was thick with memories;
the house they saw run down and tired, now a place of evil. But no
matter what had happened here, that was just one part of my life.
The house I saw was something else—something of love.

I saw my mother on the front porch, my
brother Erik and I playing baseball in the yard. I saw Greg,
sitting on the steps, watching us with that same glare in his eyes.
I saw my father coming home on horseback, the stables still
standing behind the house. I saw the way the alchemist taught me
new tricks, my father’s gaze knowing, but not willing to care.

This home had so much history, far more than
any other.

Jane approached me, owning a look of
curiosity.

“
Max? Tell me about your
life. I feel like you know so much about mine—a friend of my
father’s and all. I want to know you.”

I’d heard the question in Jane’s head long
before she said it, her mind weighing the gravity of such a
question, hesitating slightly, only to wash the hesitation
away.

I took her hand, squeezing it in a way that
told her it was alright to ask. For all I knew about her, it was
only fair. “Before the murders, my world had been far different—far
more straight-forward. College was a prospect, and then, a
respectable job that would make my father proud. My mother wanted
me to marry, but I hadn’t yet found a suitable spouse, and…” I
wanted to say it was because a part of me knew I’d find her one
day, but it wasn’t time.

I moved on. “Magick was something that was
whispered about town. There were a few kids in my circle that had
it, but kept it hidden from most of the adults.”

I looked at Wes, his
golden eyes like a tickle in my memory. I’d thought it for a while
now, wondered if Wes, this abandoned shifter, was indeed
theirs
. Charlotte was a
good friend of mine, and when she’d found Mark, it was like seeing
what I’m sure I saw with Jane now—love. Charlotte and Mark were the
same. Both had the ability to shift, finding in each other a rare
confidant.

Jane cleared her throat. I looked at her,
realizing I’d let my thoughts wander.

“
Sorry,” I smiled. “Soon,
the magickal adults in town noticed that things within their world
were changing, especially within their powerful youth. It was
growing, and those with magick were falling in love with humans,” I
winked at her. “Because of this, a rift formed within in the
magickal world, a rift that is now gaping. The two sides
separated—those that wished to overtake the humans, and those that
wished to preserve them, like your father. Purists within the
magickal world who were on the side of overtaking the humans felt
threatened by the dilution of genes the human and magickal union
would create. What those beings didn’t understand, though, was the
fact that love was blind. Many amongst those that saw the unions as
blasphemy were hypocrites, often cavorting with human women and
men, not bothering to acknowledge their accidental magickal
offspring. Most human never knew, and still don’t know of this
rift, and we hope to keep it that way. Even your mother doesn’t
know about us.”

“
But I know,” Jane
smiled.

I tilted my head, touching her chin. “You’re
different. You’re a Sheol.”

She giggled. “Go on.”

“
My mother and father loved
each other, but my mother’s love wasn’t as strong as my father’s.
Like I’ve mentioned, she fell in love with the clear-blue eyes of
the alchemist across town, and though my father knew, he denied it.
He loved her too much to let the affair ruin them, and so he let it
continue—let her think that he didn’t know. The alchemist was a
doctor, but also a natural sorcerer, mixing potions no human could.
Not long before our death, the affair was exposed, marking the
beginning of the official war when Greg killed the whole family,
placing Greg and I in a position of blame after our
death.”