Page 91 of Winterfall Destiny

My heart jerks. "What?"

"We're here to mind read, Tobias." Her expression's inscrutable. "Silas has a lot of memories of your nights together."

My breath rushes out. "Maeve, I?—"

"I always wondered about your life before the Winterfalls," she says evenly. "You never speak to anybody about your history. About yourself."

"Because why would I? That's the past and not relevant to now. You know I spent a lot of time out of control. That's why the Dominion recruited me."

Maeve tugs on her bottom lip. "Don't you want to know which memories I saw?"

"No. I can guess," I say flatly.

"Good. Because I don't want to describe any of that out loud. Seeing disturbed me enough." Still, she remains calmly looking into my eyes. "How often?"

"Can we talk about this later?" I ask hopelessly.

I take another sharp breath as she moves until our chests almost touch. "Talk." I nod. "And I mean talk, Tobias."

Before she can step back, I cup her face with my hands, desperate to take away the man in her mind. "I love you, Maeve. None of this matters. We've been through so much shit, and I'd give my fucking life for you. Always."

"I know, Tobias, and I love you," she says quietly. "But enough is enough. You share the whole of yourself or I'll struggle to trust you. And right now, we all need perfect trust in each other, or we'll lose our war."

"You want me to speak to everybody about this?" I ask hoarsely.

"They—we—all know you've a past that stretches beyond killing the Winterfalls. Nobody believes they're the only witches you've killed, just nobody's ever said it."

Fuck. I drag a hand through my hair and close my eyes. I didn't need to read Silas's mind to know what memories he had. But when he looked at me, Silas inadvertently shared them with Maeve who plucked them from his head.

"How many?" she asks. I blink at her. "Or did you lose count?"

"Maeve. Please. Don't do this."

She swallows. "Did you do... any of that to any Winterfalls?"

"No!" I say in horror.

"Why? Because you never had time?" she asks tersely.

Sickness washes over me. I don't answer because I don't know. "I'm not him."

"Yet you insist that he's still part of you," she says. "But then never quite explain what you mean beyond 'witch killer'."

I slump against the wall. "Maeve. Back then, I spent day after day high. I didn't know where I was half the time. Years blur together in my mind."

She makes a derisive noise. "You don't remember how many witches you used your powers on to help the team?"

"Maeve, please," I whisper again.

"Quite the team," she continues. "Very generous of you to share with each other."

"How much did you see?" I blurt. "Why did you not stop looking?"

"Because you never tell me everything!" Her voice rises. "I respect that you want to leave the past behind, but I know nothing."

"And did you want to know that?" I reply, voice rising too. "Does that part of my past change anything?"

"You killed my family!" A passing man glances at us as Maeve's voice rises further. "How can anything be worse than that?" She closes her eyes, takes a shuddery breath, then stares at me. "How long were you like that for?"

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