Page 71 of Wolfsbane Hall
Celestine bit the inside of her cheek and waited for him to continue. In her experience, if one person stayed silent, the other would usually fill the silence. It was a dangerous game to play with Dean, because he could stay quiet for days.
“I don’t speak much in general, because I am not good with words,” he said. “I am not eloquent, and I often mix things up. It’s hard to be the one brother who is such a major disappointment to my family. Everett is everything that I am not. He’s smooth, brilliant, and academic; James is the engineer. He builds things, tests them, and understands how people and things work. I am just…me. Quiet, dangerous, and—”
“Mysterious?” Celestine couldn’t help herself; she cut in, and her gaze caught on his hunter-green suit jacket.
“Yes, I guess that.” He ran another hand through his hair. “I am the protector. The fixer. I step in when my brothers get in trouble, which they inevitably do.” He paused for a long moment in thought, but Celestine was exceedingly patient. He had to be the Specter. “But you never answered my question. How are you feeling?”
Her cheeks tingled and pinched. It was like he cared,refusing to let the question drop. The problem was that Celestine didn’t know the answer, not really. No one ever cared about her or her emotions, so she had learned to suppress them deep down into the abyss of her chest. But she thought on it for a moment and slowly said, pulling the words out like taffy, “I’m…so angry. All my life, I have been abandoned, first by my father walking out on us when I was five and then by the brutal murders of my mother and older sister.” She didn’t know why she was sharing all this with him. “No one stays. No one fights for me. I am just an object to be used. And I don’t want that anymore.”
24
Saturday, November 11, 1939
Dean’s Private Study
Dean said nothing.Nothing. Once again. He was calamity-made flesh, and the tension in the room was suffocating her worse than Lorraine’s hands had. And she didn’t know why having him say something—having him affirm her—meant so much, but it did, and he wasn’t giving anything.
Of course, he wasn’t. He hated her. A tear leaked from her face, followed by another, until a cascade of them fell. Her tongue grew heavy, and she refused to say another word.
He could have her tears, but she’d give him no more secrets—not that her secrets were worth anything to begin with. She was foolish to think someone would actually want them or even cherish them.
Dean cleared his throat, reached out, and wiped a tear, then another, and another away. In the process, his legs slid in next to hers, kissing them.
“I am not good with words or comfort,” he said in a low baritone. “And I can’t promise not to leave you, since I stand by my earlier statement that you should get as far away from here as possible, as far away from my family, and especially me,while you can.” He paused and scooped up another tear with his thumb. “I know you deserve someone to choose you.”
Celestine lifted her head, and her gaze locked on his. “Dean.” It was only a breath.
Her heart thrummed in her chest as he leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers. “We are only devastated by you.” Then he kissed her forehead and leaned back, giving them space once more.
“Holy hell.” Everett’s energetic voice was followed closely by James’s deeply methodical tones. “I wondered when you’d finally give in.”
Dean cleared his throat and caught his brothers’ gazes, one after the other. “I was merely comforting her.”
“Sure,” Everett said disbelievingly.
The side of James’s mouth quirked upward. “Well, perhaps it is my turn to comfort her, then.” He strode over to her, his hands in his pockets, and he looked like midnight sins coming to roost.
Dean nodded. “As you should.” He stood, and without another word, he disappeared from the room.
He literally disappeared into thin air.
“Ah, we’re no longer pretending we can’t do that,” Everett said with a jungle-cat grin.
“There’s no use when she knows we’re not normal,” James said. “You can thank your mother for that.”
“What are you?” Celestine’s voice was still so pained and raw. It felt horrible to talk, and whispering hurt more.
“We can’t tell you that yet, my love.” James sat next to her and pulled her into his lap. His fingers examined the bruises forming all over her body. “I am going to kill her…again. But this time, I get the knife.”
“Only problem is she won’t stay dead.” Everett loosed anexasperated sigh. “Trust us, if we had figured out how to keep her dead, we would have done it long ago.”
“Everett.” James glared at his brother, the look so dark, it made Celestine shiver.
“Ah, yes,” he cleared his throat. “Well, I see that you are okay, my sweet Cece, so I am going to go…examine my cufflinks. It’s a very important job, that.”
“Vital,” James agreed, and turned the force of his attention back to Celestine. A seething anger like she’d never seen before painted his face. “No one hurts what is mine.”
“Am I yours?”
