Page 57 of Swallow Your Sorries

But then something above the wolf’s head catches my attention. Movement.

I look up into the crooked branches of the cedar tree shading the wolf and find a matching pair of golden eyes, this time set in a human head. Bae.

Unlike Hale, who should be advertising underwear, Bae looks like he’s going to lure you to your death. And you’re going to enjoy it as you get lost in his honey-coloured eyes. As his long, jet-black hair that moves like fingers strangles you.

The worst part is he won’t come after you. You’ll go willingly to him because he’s that damn alluring.

He’s lounging lazily on a low branch, like a damn leopard, and there’s a shiny, dark red leather ball in his palm. With his free hand, he gives me a little wave, just like he did in the theatre. Then, he lifts the ball, retches his palm back and utters two words. “Zoi. Fetch.”

The heavy ball sails directly towards my head, and I instinctively duck, rolling to my right, right off the pathway and down a sloping, little hill. The ball follows, and so does the wolf-dog.

I don’t know which sound terrifies me more, my body crunching over the grass blades or the heavy, crossbody satchel filled with textbooks ramming into my back with each tumble. The heavy ball that quickly overtakes me or the footfalls of Bae’s dog and its loud, bloodthirsty, excited panting.

As I spin around like the mediocre ballerina Beaussip has deemed me to be, I catch a glimpse of my braking system. The tall greenhouse with its pointy roofs and shiny glass walls. One of which is broken by the red ball seconds before I crash into the fluffy, low bushes lining the greenhouse.

The last thing I see is Zoi’s airborne body as he leaps towards me, teeth bared.

But the impact doesn’t come.

When I open my eyes two familiar leather boots exit the greenhouse and crease as their owner squats by my head. Gant Auclair reaches out his palm to Zoi who playfully tries to wrestle the ball from his fingers.

“There’s a good boy,” he coos, cuddling the beast’s head.

Don’t run. You said you wouldn’t run anymore.

He’s lured you here. Maybe the timing is now. Maybe this is the perfect opportunity to just swallow your pride and apologise for the damage you’ve done regardless of what he’s done to you.

But the moment I take in Gant’s painfully perfect profile, all my bravado flees through my asshole. Those eyes, those black, pitless eyes aren’t going to accept anything short of my demise.

Still, don’t run. Don’t show him how scared you are because you know how unhinged he is.

We don’t cower anymore.

We don’t….

I scoot forward, getting to my bruised hands and knees. My satchel, filled with heavy textbooks, drags in the grass and weighs me down as I attempt to ease along the side of the greenhouse. Fuck that little voice. I’d had enough for one day, hadn’t I?

“Take it back to Hale. He’ll hit it again for you.” I hear Gant say, but it isn’t his dismissal of Zoi, his kinfolk, that makes me once again freeze in terror.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the image of the glistening lake is burned into my brain.

Slow, measured footsteps sound behind me but I don’t bother to turn around.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Apparently to hell.

Because he’s going to kill me.

Gant

Face down, ass up. Isn’t this the exact position I told Bae I’d get her in?

I trace the arch in Eloisa’s spine and follow the sway of her pasta and grass-covered ass as she edges along the greenhouse. When she freezes beside the lake, I take a moment to appreciate the plain triangle of white cotton peeking out between her legs. It’s the only part of her clothing that’s still clean.

For now.

When my shadow falls over her, she tilts her head back and gazes up at me with those big, round, green eyes that make me want to look away from their familiarity and yet freefall into them all at once.

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