Chapter 85

I stood near Nell and watched as the dark, expensive car rolled in and stopped in the middle of the road, parked at an angle that made it impossible for me to drive around. The wind lifted, sending a loose strand of hair into my eyes just as the driver's door opened and Lara stepped out.

My whole body twitched, like I had been electrocuted. A dozen thoughts went through my mind at once. Why was she here? What did she know? And God, oh God, she would smell the mark. I glanced at Nell in panic, but she observed Lara with steady, seemingly calm focus.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Lara straightened, all elegant and composed as ever. Her eyes moved from Nell to me. Then she inhaled. I saw it: the tiny flare of her nostrils. The stillness that followed. Her pupils widened so fast the blue around them almost vanished.

My stomach turned into a black hole.

Nell stepped toward her. "Lara."

Lara did not seem to hear. She took one slow step away from the car, still looking at me, as if the rest of the forest had fallen out of existence.

"So it's true," she said. Her voice was calm in a way that hid razors underneath.

I could not move.

Her mouth twitched in an ugly scowl that lasted exactly half a second before she forcibly straightened it. "He marked you."

The words flew out of her mouth like a drawn sword.

Nell shifted immediately, placing herself between Lara and me. "It isn't what you think."

Lara's gaze slid to her. The sound she made was small, almost amused. "Nell. Move aside."

Nell lifted both hands slightly, not in surrender exactly, but in warning. "It wasn't intentional."

Lara stared at her.

"It happened by accident," Nell said, faster now but still controlled. "Kelsey didn't ask for it. She didn't know. Ethan didn't know until he came home. His body reacted before he understood what it had done."

For one second, Lara's face remained immovable. Then she laughed. Only once, through her nose, as if Nell had offered her something too pathetic to insult properly.

"An accident," she said.

"Yes."

"Strong enough for her father to cross half the valley in a rage and challenge your brother at your boundary."

Nell went still. Lara's eyes sharpened.

"Oh," she said, eyebrows drawing together just slightly. "You didn't think I knew that part?"

Nell's voice cooled. "What did you hear?"

Lara turned her head slightly. "Enough."

"From whom?"

"Half the valley heard him," Lara said. "Blackwell howling like that doesn't exactly blend into the wind. People went out. People listened. Some were near enough to hear the fight, to smell blood in the wind. It's not that hard to put two and two together."

My hands had gone numb.

Nell's shoulders tensed.

Lara looked back at me. "And then I find her here. At your boundary. With him all over her ." The last two words were spoken so dangerously quiet that I found myself wishing she had spat them. Shouted. Anything but this eerie calm.

I wrapped my arms around myself before I realized I had moved.

Nell stepped more fully in front of me. "She came for answers. That's all."

"How touching."

"Lara."

"No." Lara's voice snapped then, the first crack in the ice. "No, you don't get to try to make this smaller than it is just because she's so pathetically human."

I flinched.

Her eyes cut to me. "That's the trick with you, isn't it?" she said, her voice a whisper that broke into a hiss. "You stand there all soft and innocent while everyone breaks themselves around poor, little, fragile you." She took a breath. "And the worst part? You don't stop. You just take whatever you want. Without consequences."

"That's enough," Nell said.

Lara's hand moved to the open car door. For a second, I thought she would get back in. Instead, she slammed it shut. The glass crazed into a spiderweb of cracks but somehow held. The sound rang through the trees and faded.

Lara did not even blink.

Nell remained still, but every line of her body changed.

"Why are you here?" Nell asked.

Lara breathed once, slowly. "To see my intended."

The word intended was not loud, but it cut through everything. "To hear from his own mouth what happened," she continued. "To understand, once and for all, where he stands. And where I stand."

Nell's expression flickered. Just once. It was enough to tell me Lara had found the place where the knife belonged.

"He's asleep," Nell said. "You can come back later."

"Really?" Lara stepped closer. "Is Greystone house refusing me entry now?"

The air changed again. Even I felt that. Nell looked toward the house, then back at Lara. I saw the calculation move through her face. Refusing Lara was not refusing a random girl. It was refusing a Winters. Refusing the chosen partner of the Greystone heir hours after that heir had marked someone else and been challenged for it.

Lara knew it. Nell knew it. Even I understood it enough to feel the trap close.

Nell turned her head slightly toward me. There was apology in her eyes before she spoke. "Kelsey. Get in your car."

I swallowed. "Nell."

"Now."

Lara's gaze flicked between us. She let out a humorless chuckle. "Relax. I'm not going to tear her apart on your driveway."

"Appreciate that," Nell said flatly, then stepped closer to her, lowering her voice, though not enough that I could not hear. "Leave Kelsey out of this."

Lara went still.

"She didn't know," Nell continued. "She didn't entice him. She didn't understand what he had done. Whatever you think of her, this was not on her."

For a moment, Lara only looked at me. Coldly. Measuring. Her eyes traveled from my wet shoes to my coat, my throat, my face. Her upper lip curled up a fraction. I felt the weight of her hatred move across me like dirty water.

Nell cut through it. "Move your car. Let her pass." She let out a breath. "Do that, and you can go see Ethan."

For a moment, I thought Lara would refuse. She seemed to consider the offer, and then she turned, opened the cracked car door, and slid inside. The engine started.

Nell came to me in three quick steps. "Go straight back home," she said under her breath. "Right now."

"What about you?"

"I'll handle her."

"That is not comforting."

Nell stared me down. "Go home, Kelsey."

My eyes burned again. "Nell."

She gripped my wrist once, hard enough to focus me, and lowered her voice until I could barely hear her above the wind. "Listen to me very carefully. If she messages you by any chance, don't reply. Do not answer Irene, or Tess, or any unknown number for that matter. In fact, do not answer anyone who is not me or Ethan or your family. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not until we know where everyone stands and I tell you it's safe. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

"Swear to me."

I managed a nod. "I swear."

"And do not come back here unless I tell you to."

That one hurt. She saw it.

"I'm trying to keep you safe," she said, softer.

"I know." I paused. "Thank you."

Nell gave the tiniest nod, her gaze moving to Lara's car, which rolled backward just enough to free the narrow space beside mine. Only then did she release my wrist.

"Go."

I got into the car. My hands shook so badly it took two tries to get the key into the ignition. In the rearview mirror, I saw Lara step out again, smoothing one hand over her cracked window as if it were a wrinkle in fabric. She did not look at the damage. She looked straight at me.

Nell stood between us as I reversed and turned. I watched her in the rearview mirror until trees swallowed the Greystone house, the marker, Lara's car, and her.

Only when I reached the fork at the split cedar did I realize I had been holding my breath. I exhaled so hard my chest hurt.

The road home stretched ahead of me, empty. Behind me, Lara entered the Greystone home, while I could only drive away as she went where I wasn't allowed to go, near a boy who clung to my skin like both promise and condemnation.