Page 127 of Dark, Forbidden, & Taboo

On the way back to the winery, I found out that her name was Sicily. She was twenty-eight, older than both Cedar and me, and didn’t think as highly of him as she should.

Of course, the fact that I had abducted her after her shopping trip in a bid to keep her from burning through his money may have had something to do with the hatred she spewed about him.

She lambasted me for being his “crazy” friend that he always compared her to though I didn’t really let it all register.

I wasn’t crazy nor had I ever been—I simply missed my friend and now that he had returned home, I wanted his undivided attention again.

I had no intention of hurting her, I just needed her to see that Cedar was special and since he chose to love her the most, I wanted her to see how he deserved to be loved.

When we arrived at Folsom Winery, I had her step out of the car. I told her to follow me and managed to convince her that I worked at the winery during the day and knew the perfect bottle she could give to Cedar.

“To dull his senses and make him more relaxed—it will help you get what you want,” I lied to her.

She asked me how I knew where she and Cedar lived and I told her another lie, “He wrote to my parents and asked where he could find me when he got back in town.”

A hope masqueraded as a false statement to make me feel better about what I knew would have to happen in the end.

Sicily turned her nose up at the notion and that’s when I knew it was time. Before I left the winery the last time I was there, I had picked the cellar lock and replaced it with one of my own.

I had watched this establishment long enough to know that the owners seemed to take the weekends off.

“It’s just inside,” I said to her as I put the key in my lock. Once opened, I stepped aside and let her walk into the darkened cellar first.

And then I put my plan into motion to lure my wolf out of hiding once and for all.

Part Four

Cedar

Chapter

Nine

Fire battalions from other counties showed up to help us. It took a total of four hours and thirty minutes, give or take, to put the fucking fire out.

I felt like an absolute bastard at the end of the fight because I had destroyed someone else’s work of art.

No one would ever truly be able to comprehend what these moments are like for me, and I find it a bit unnerving that they’ve started to make me feel so fake lately.

After the fires had finally been subdued, I replaced the hose, then shrugged off my heavy coat.

Most of the crew—ours and the others that joined us—milled about trying to assess the damage while I struggled internally not to set what was left ablaze again.

I decided to stay near the truck on the side where I couldn’t survey the damage because the urge was becoming stronger by each passing second and I had to control it.

None of them knew of my past because that had been expunged once I was released from the reform school boot camp in an attempt to give me a fresh start.

But the fires …

Anytime I would see them burning so brightly, I longed to join in their chorus and add notes of my very own.

I took as steady a breath as I could muster before I decided that being outside and still being able to breathe in the scent of chaos that I missed so much wasn’t going to do me any good.

So I began to walk away from the scene because I knew it would be the only thing that would help me keep my head on straight.

I ignored my fire captain as he called out to me with such anger in his tone that it alone would have been able to ignite another fire.

I walked slowly, deliberately, not knowing where the darkened road would lead me but wherever it went, had to be better than where I had already been.

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