Fateful Magic (The Star-Crossed Series Book 8) (9 page)

But what
if… what if he had stopped feeling that way for me? Or didn’t feel as strongly
as I did for him? What if I told him my feelings and he got bored with me?

Could I
go through with this?

New
nerves fizzled through me, turning my chest into a pounding drum and my Magic
into an active volcano of energy.

“Where
are we going?” I asked in a whisper after hours of silent travel. We seemed to
be headed toward the top of a mountain.

“We need
to talk,” he said simply.

That
eased some of my most-recent fears. “Okay.”

“Okay?”
he asked with his thick accent. “Really, okay?”

I smiled.
“Yes, okay.”

“What’s
changed, Lilly? Why are you so willing to speak with me?”

“We’re
going to
talk
,
Talbott
.
I have some things I’d like to say too.”

He had
trouble swallowing but settled down after that. As we continued to climb the
mountain, the warm afternoon sunlight poked through the tall trees and shined
spotlights down on the winding road. I felt this great sense of peace come over
me. My usual anxiety and plethora of fears drifted away and the space they’d
dug out inside me filled with calm and trust.

It was
all
Talbott
, I realized.

I
couldn’t believe that. I didn’t know love would be like this.

I hadn’t
really thought about it, but I guess I had assumed that love would just be an
addition to all the other feelings and fears I felt. I didn’t realize love
would come into my life and negate all that had plagued me.

It took
my fear of being alone and erased it. I wouldn’t be alone because I had
Talbott
. It took my fear of being captured, imprisoned and
tortured and refuted it. I wouldn’t be kidnapped again because
Talbott
would protect me. And if worse came to worst, then
he would save me. No matter what happened,
Talbott
would always save me.

He would
stand up for me. He would champion for me. He would fight for me, just like
he’d done all this time.

Well, if
he still cared about me…

After a
little while longer,
Talbott
pulled the car over to
the side of the road. He paused for a second with two hands on the steering
wheel before shooting me a sideways look. Then he exhaled a long breath and
climbed out of the car.

He rushed
around the front so I waited patiently for him to open the door. He seemed
grateful that I’d let him do that, which seemed a little silly to me. But I
wasn’t going to fight chivalry.

He took
my hand again, slipping it into his without permission. But then again, I
didn’t pull away so that was probably all the permission he needed.

A trail
wound away from the road and into the thick autumn trees. I hadn’t even noticed
it until he started walking us along it.

The crisp
breeze rustled the dying leaves and the air smelled like smoke and fall. I
closed my eyes and tipped my face to the sun when it shone through the thick
canopy of branches overhead.

“You’re
so beautiful,”
Talbott
murmured.

His,
voice as much as his words, startled me. I’d gotten used to our silence and the
peace of the afternoon. And… and I really hadn’t expected him to lead with
that.

“Thank
you.” I didn’t know if I’d made any sound though. My heart hammered in my
throat.

“Can we
talk now?” he asked almost shyly.

I nodded,
still not able to speak actual words. He stopped on the trail and turned to
face me. He reached for my other hand and held them between us as if he were
afraid I would float away.

Or run
away.

“Lilly
I-”

“Did you
get my note?” I squeaked.

He took a
slow breath and then nodded. His eyes were so filled with emotion I didn’t understand
they glistened black in the soft light. I felt like if he spoke now I wouldn’t
be able to hear him over the pounding of my own heart.

“Yes,” he
said. “I got your note. You told me thank you for all that I’d done for you.”

He
sounded a little put off by that, so I tried to reassure him. “And I meant it.
Talbott
, thank you for everything you’ve ever done for me.”

He took a
step into me, bringing us a mere two inches apart. “I don’t want your
gratitude, Lilly.”

“You
don’t?”

“Gratitude
is impersonal. It’s given out of duty and obligation. I don’t want your
obligation.”

“Not
always!”

He
growled at me. Such a typical
Talbott
response! I
opened my mouth to say more, but he cut me off with more words I hadn’t
expected. “I want your feeling, Lilly. I want you to feel something stronger
than duty, stronger than a platonic sense of propriety. I want more than that.
I want everything more than that. I want… I want…”

In a
breathy whisper, I asked, “What,
Talbott
? What do you
want from me?”

“I have
been falling in love with you since the moment I set eyes on you. It’s as
though, the second you set foot in my life, my purpose, my reason for living
shifted. I was born for one, very specific reason and yet within seconds you
changed my whole existence. I want to do the same for you. I want to be the
reason you live, the reason you fight. I want you to fall for me as hard and
eternally as I fell for you. I know that I have treated you poorly in the past,
but Lilly I will do whatever it takes for you to forgive me. And I want you to
know that no one will ever hurt you again.
Never.
I
will never let anything harm you or touch you. I want to protect you from
everything Lilly. I want to save you like you saved me.”

“Saved
you?” His words were a whirlwind inside my chest, spinning my heart into an
unbelievable place. How could someone so perfect care for me? Want to be with
me?

He was a
hero. I was just an ordinary girl.

“Yes,” he
breathed roughly.
“From a lifetime of prejudice, from a
loyalty that would have killed me, and from myself.
You saved me over
and over and over and I only want to return the favor.”

“I love
you,” I blurted.

He
stumbled back a step and I followed him, maintaining our closeness. “What?”

“I love
you,” I repeated. “I have for a long time.”

“You love
me?” His dark eyes seemed to gloss over with the force of his emotion.

I nodded
enthusiastically. “I think for as long as you’ve loved me,
Talbott
.”
I shrugged one shoulder nervously. “I can’t help it. I think you were made for
me.”

When he
smiled this time, it seemed to glow from his inside out. “And you were made for
me,
iubita
mea,
my
beloved.”

My entire
being swelled at the meaning of those words. Our
Magics
united at that moment in a way I’d never let them before. His became mine and
mine became his.

He leaned
slowly forward until his impossibly soft lips tasted mine. And then he kissed
me, sealing our union and our commitment to each other.

He kissed
me for a very long time. The woods were dark by the time we left them and the
stars sparkled overhead.

I hadn’t
even noticed a minute go by.

But I
supposed that was how it was when you were so completely in love. You changed
each other’s worlds and made everything else disappear.

He’d been
doing that to me since the beginning. And I couldn’t wait for the lifetime of
that ahead of me.

Chapter
Seven

Now

“Stay behind me, Lilly.”
Talbott
set me down and faced the three men who had appeared from nowhere.

They prowled toward us with thuggish sneers and hands filled
with guns and swords. I gulped back fear. My wedding dress restricted my
movement and my muscles and bones still felt endlessly tired from the last
round of torture and kidnapping.

I didn’t want to go through this again.

I wouldn’t be able to Shift to help
Talbott
out and I was all but useless without my talent.

Why? Why couldn’t this end? Why couldn’t we just have one
happy night?

“Get behind me, Lilly,”
Talbott
growled.

One shot from one of those guns and he would be unconscious
and helpless.
Damn it
. I hated these
people. More than I’d ever hated anything in my entire life.

I stepped behind my husband and watched his back ripple
with tension beneath his black jacket. His Magic pulsed from him in angry
waves. He looked like a bull about to charge.
A missile ready
to launch.

He looked like destruction and our attackers were his
target.

I stopped feeling fear and apprehension. The strong sense
of dread disappeared and confidence and pride replaced it.

Talbott
would not let me get kidnapped again.
He would not let something happen to me.

Those were his promises.
His life’s
manifesto now.

And I felt the same toward him.

“Kill them,
Talbott
. I’d like to
get on with the wedding night.”

I felt his amusement kick in his Magic, but then like a
good husband, he listened to his wife.

He moved so fast, I hardly saw him. He attacked the man
farthest to our right first. He threw his arm around his neck, disabled his gun
and then used the man’s body as a shield while the other guys opened fire.

If they had been thinking straight, those men probably
should have turned and fired on me. But who could think at all when nobody
expected
Talbott
to get the upper hand. I stood
gaping at him like I was seeing him for the first time.

I had no idea he could move that fast.

He used the gun he’d taken from the now-unconscious or
potentially-dead man to shoot at the other two guys. The dropped like rocks
without even an ounce left of fight in them.

Talbott
scooped up their discarded guns, gave
me one and then took off again.

He’d driven a rental BMW to get here days ago. The car
somehow managed to remain untouched near the edge of the driveway that would
lead back to the main road. Even better, our bags were already packed and
loaded as we’d been planning to leave tonight to start our honeymoon.

Talbott
pushed me into the passenger’s seat and
practically flew to the driver’s side. He didn’t have keys so he started the
car
Magically
and away we went.

“Shouldn’t we help the others?” I asked breathlessly as he fishtailed
down the driveway, bypassing all the other cars trying to escape by driving on
the side of the road.

“No,” he growled. “For once, they can take care of
themselves.”

I laughed, surprised by his adamancy.
“
Talbott
!”

He shot me a look out of the corner of his eyes. “If your
parents were still there, I would have saved them too. But the rest are
on their own
.”

“Just because you didn’t marry them, doesn’t mean they
don’t need our help!”

He snorted. “I didn’t leave so fast because I didn’t want
to help them! I left because you reminded me of the wedding night! I am…
anxious for that.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing again. I
probably shouldn’t encourage this kind of behavior. “But-”

He turned to face me and reached for my hand. Keeping the
car steady and on the road, he dropped his tone and told me seriously, “Lilly,
I will not let anything happen to you again. This is my vow. My priority is my
wife. And you are safe. I have not failed you on our wedding day.”

“I love you,” I swore to him.

“I love you too.”

He returned his eyes to the road and drove us as fast as he
could away from the battle zone burning in our review mirror. We stayed subdued
and silent until we reached the hotel hours later.

Originally, we planned to stay the night at another
vineyard nearby. It had individual cabins that I thought would be perfect for
our wedding night. But
Talbott
wanted to get as many
miles as possible away from
Terletov
and his goons.

By the time we parked the rental in front of a hotel in Monaco,
the sky had turned hazy gray and lit up with predawn light.

I tried to be upset about moving my wedding night,
er
, morning to Monaco, but just couldn’t find it in me. I
also couldn’t find it in me to absorb the all the splendid details of the hotel
Talbott
chose.