This time the flinch was not nearly imperceptible. This time he flinched flat out.
“Gods,” he whispered.
“You can say that again.”
His eyes warmed again and his hand came up to cup my jaw. “Love, I’m –”
I jerked my head away, doing my best to angle my body to keep it away. My eyes tilted to him and I reminded him, “I told you, don’t touch me.”
“I scared you,” he muttered, studying me, his hand dropping to the pillow by my head and I relaxed.
“Yep, you did that too. Shitless.”
His brows knit. “Shitless?”
“Yes, shitless, as in, you scared me so badly, I was incapacitated. I couldn’t think. You made me cower in front of you like a weak thing. You scared me so much you forced me to humiliate myself in front of you. So, you’ve shaken me before, you’ve spanked me, twice, and done other stuff that’s not very cool but that, that, Noctorno, I cannot forgive you for. I could fight the vickrants with you and, I’ll admit, I was terrified out of my brain while I did but you… it was you who scared me so much, I couldn’t… fucking… breathe.”
He closed his eyes slowly and with them closed he whispered, “Cora, sweets –”
“Get off me.”
His eyes opened. “My love –”
“Don’t call me that!” I snapped and his hand suddenly was back at my face, cupping my cheek, his thumb pressing against my lips and his face dipped lower so it was all I could see.
“Please, let me speak.”
I lifted a hand to pull his thumb from my mouth and hurled, “Fuck that and fuck you!”
“I’m uncertain I understand all the meanings of this word,” he replied quietly.
“I think you get the gist,” I guessed.
Then he suddenly stated, “We were losing.”
I blinked in my surprise, letting my guard down which was foolish. It was foolish because my fingers were still wrapped around his thumb. He twisted his wrist, laced his fingers through mine and then rested our entwined hands on the bed by my shoulder.
“I was in a foul mood because I was concerned because we were losing,” he semi-repeated.
“Losing what?”
“Against the vickrants.”
This was confusing.
“We were?”
“Yes, love.”
“But I thought we were kicking ass,” I told him and his mouth twitched again.
Then he informed me, “We were but if that village was a mile further away, they would have overwhelmed us. What we fought was only the first wave. The second wave was coming, I heard it, Salem heard it; they were close. If they made it to us, they were triple in number, they would have overwhelmed us and you would be gone.”
I felt my eyes grow wide as my mouth formed the whispered words, “Holy crap.”
“I’m not certain what that means but the way you say it makes me think it says it all.”
“It does,” I whispered.
He held my eyes.
“The second wave was triple what we were fighting?” I asked.
“Minerva’s hungry,” he answered.
Oh dear.
“She needs both the sisters to complete the curse over the land,” he continued.
Oh. Fucking. Dear!
“She’s waited millennia to do it,” he explained.
Now it was oh shit.
“It’s been centuries upon centuries that the vow has gone unbroken,” he carried on.
Ohshitohshit.
“That would be, I’m guessing, the vow that the soulmates wouldn’t see each other prior to the wedding festivities,” I guessed.
“That would be the vow,” he confirmed.
“Oh shit!”
That time, I said it out loud.
His fingers squeezed mine. “She creates the soulmates, love.”
I blinked again. “What?”
“Playing. Torture. She does it only so she can tear them apart. She’s evil. Pure through to her core. She creates them then plays with them, trying to trick them, showing them the promise of joy beyond measure in the hopes to rip it away.”
“My God, that’s… that’s…” I shook my head, “I don’t even know what that is.”
“That’s Minerva.”
“What is she?”
“She was a witch. Through the years, her power grew. Now it so closely rivals the gods’, she is a god.”
“Uh-oh, that doesn’t sound good.”
“It bloody isn’t.”
“But you said the gods pick the soulmates.”
“No, I said the she-god picks the soulmates. Unfortunately, the benevolent ones have been forced to let her into their ranks. We pray to our gods, we fear Minerva.”
Crap.
Then it dawned on me.
“And so Dash had planned it all. Rosa was to stay at her, I mean, our parents’ house and he was –”
Noctorno nodded his head. “You live miles away in the opposite direction to your parents, the church and my father’s castle. We stayed the night miles beyond that. Rosa wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near there. We were dropping in mostly as a joke. Dash wanted to tease you, guessing you’d sleep in. I knew, however, that you would sleep in so, since you were on our way, we stopped by to drag you out of bed.”
My eyes drifted over his shoulder and I asked mostly myself, “I wonder how she got there.”
Since I asked mostly myself, I was guessing this was why he didn’t answer.
Then my eyes went back to his. “If this was happening for millennia, why didn’t Rosa know about it?”
His head tilted to the side and he examined me. He did this closely, intensely. He was a pretty intense guy but this was even more intense. It was like he was doing it for the first time, or, perhaps, seeing something he hadn’t seen before that fascinated him.
Then he said softly, “There are delicate souls, some so delicate, you know, even a child just born, how delicate they are. Rosa is one of those souls. Her parents, and even you, throughout her life protected her from unpleasantness that she couldn’t handle. She doesn’t only not know the curse exists, she doesn’t even know Minerva exists.”
I thought of tra la laling Rosa and I could see this girl had a delicate soul.
“I met her briefly,” I informed him. “I can see this.”
“It’s hard to miss,” he muttered.
Then something struck me. Something bad. Really bad. And my heart lurched as my body went solid when it filtered through me.
“Oh my God, Tor,” I whispered, my free hand lifting to curl around his neck. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
“Sweets, what?”
“Rosa’s delicate and Minerva has her.”
His jaw got hard. “Yes.”
“Oh my God!” I yelled and bucked, trying to push him off.
