Page 59 of Ash and Roses

“No, she wasn’t interested in that. She pulled out a vial that was tucked away in the bosom of her dress, and poured the contents down my throat. I don’t know what it was, but it tasted of blood and burned all the way down. Then she was gone.” His brows crease at the memory. “If I hadn’t been so concerned with wetting my dick, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to turn me into thatthing.”

I weave my fingers through his, hoping to quell the anger building inside him. “Was that night the first?”

His answer comes with a squeeze of my hand. “Yes. When I awoke three days later, my father and sister were dead. Along with thirty-one others. I tore them all apart to such a degree that it was impossible to tell where one body ended and another began. Three survived the attack, but they’d been bitten. By the next full moon, they turned too.”

“That’s why you locked yourself away. You were trying to protect your people.”

“I’d been in that room nearly three weeks before my brother ordered Ruben to unlock the door. I’d stopped answering, and he was afraid of losing me, too. To starvation, or other means… When they got the door open, I wasn’t me.”

I know how this story ends, so he doesn’t bother to say it. Ruben lived, Evan didn’t. “It’s not your fault. You tried to keep them safe.”

He pulls his hand from mine and stares down at it, flexing his fingers as if this was the first time he was seeing them. “With every passing month, I became less and less human. This body feels so foreign to me now. As if the wolf is my true self, and this is the mask.” His neck arches, and he sucks in a breath as if the monster inside him is showing its agreement.

“Will you change again?”

He shrugs. “I feel like I could right now if I let myself, but for the first time, it feels like I have a choice.”

I stand and hold out a hand to him. “So then choose to come back with me.”

“I don’t think I belong there anymore.” His eyes slide from me to the depths of the forest which seems to beckon to him on a cellular level.

He’s come too far. There’s no way I’m going to let him run from this. “Do you know what your people are doing right now?”

He looks back at me, curiosity brimming in his eyes. “Actually, no. I was wondering what the activity was.”

“They’re preparing for First Frost.” Thankfully, I remembered the name.

“What?” He jumps to his feet. “What for?”

“Apparently it’s going to snow tonight.” He rolls his eyes at my non-answer and waits for me to explain. “Tess wants a party. Are you going to deny her that?”

“Tess has wanted a party for fifteen years. Why tonight?”

I take his hand and pull him in the direction of Rosewood, no longer giving him the option to stay. Of course, he’s stronger than I am, and it takes no effort to plant his feet in such a way that moving him on my own is impossible. “Because she loves you, and she wants you to come home.”

“I don’t know if I can do that. If I turn—”

“If it gets to be too much, I’ll lock you up myself.”

He laughs. “No, you won’t.”

“Then stay in your room all night if you want to. Just come back to the castle. This forest isn’t your home, the people who love you are.”

He nods, but doesn’t move. “I’ll come with you, but you need to tell me something first.”

“Whatever gets your ass through those doors so I don’t have to disappoint Tess.”

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

I wasn’t expecting that question, and it never occurred to me that he might ask it. He waits in patient silence for me to find the answer. It may not be what he’s looking for, but it’s the best I can offer. “Because I saw the divide between monster and man.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO

QUINN

This is a mistake.

Why did I let her talk me into this? I should have known that Abby giving me permission to lock myself away for the night was entirely different than Tess allowing me to do so—which she most certainly is not. She’d given me the very specific instructions of: scrubbing the wolf off myself, combing the knots out of my hair, dressing like a prince for once, and getting my tush down to that party.

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