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“I don’t know.” River rubbed a hand across his jaw, his mouth set in a tight line. “But if they do know, I’m not sure why they would’ve gotten close to you again in each life.”
“Unless they were trying to keep a close eye on me—us. But why would they do this to themselves? Why would they keep dying somehow just to come to the next life, too?”
That didn’t make sense. Once Ada placed the spell, then why wouldn’t she have continued living her life with Eben? Why keep cutting their lives short? Ada never would’ve placed a hex on Harlow, Jasper, herself, and Eben. Something else had to have happened…
“I think Ada’s spell somehow twisted into something she didn’t intend,” Sadie murmured. “I remember her holding my body in her arms after you killed me as if something else was supposed to have occurred, or maybe she was just grieving the sister she’d once known. Either way, I highly doubt she wanted to take the chance for us to come back to possibly wreak havoc once more.”
“You’re her sister, after all,” River said. “Maybe she had only planned for me to kill myself, not you. And if it wasn’t that, then perhaps she chose to do it to protect Eben in case you ever decided to harm him. Or it could be something else. While here in these woods, I’ve been mulling everything over, day after day. Perhaps Ada didn’t want us to die and only for us to hurt. But her spell reeked of death magic.”
Sadie could still smell that sickly spicy scent drifting around her while surrounded by that absolute silence. “If the spell was only to kill you, then Ada was a fool because if I had lived, I would’ve taken her life and not gone easy on her,” Sadie said between gritted teeth. “Even though this hex makes it so we continue to find one another, it will never be a happily ever after. If you were to continue to kill me, and I knew in the next life we would find each other, then that would still be a happy ending to me. But her spell made us lose our child, for him or her to continue to die over and over again, without taking a single breath, without taking their first steps, speaking their first words, anything.” She flexed and unflexed her hands as tears streamed down her cheeks. Rage and melancholy entwined in her thoughts.
River squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose, reeling in his anger with apparent effort. “If Ada truly is Charlie, she will have to be the one to break the spell. And if she chooses not to—”
“I will make her choose to,” Sadie seethed. “If Ada wanted our lives forfeited, she could’ve tried something temporarily until our child was born, then performed a death spell.”
“First, you need to find out if they’ve known this entire time. And if they have, then we can discuss what our actions will be.”
Sadie imagined herself chanting a spell that would crack open Ada’s rib cage so she could easily tear out her heart. But if Charlie didn’t know, if her memory was like Sadie’s had been, then what…? This was Charlie—the sister she loved more in this life than any other. Their bond was always strong, no matter how different they were. But what if Charlie wasn’t Ada? Yet it was the only thing that made sense. Unless Ada was out there and had somehow found a way to make herself immortal, continuing to torture them. “Once I wake, I’ll call Charlie and invite her over.”
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but put yourself in her place. What would you have done if Ada had threatened you?” River asked.
“I would’ve made sure she was hurt,” she murmured. Sadie was much different at that time, had used hurting others to heal.
Sadie crawled forward and pressed her fingers to a skull symbol etched on the wall. She closed her eyes, chanting the words, feeling the tinge of magic in the air, the burning smell of it. But like before, the chant didn’t work, even though the magic still rested inside her. It had always been there, hidden, locked away. In each life, she’d still been a witch. She just hadn’t known it.
Frustrated, she sat back, wiping her clammy palms against her pants. “Could you try one more time with me?”
“As many times as you wish.” He clasped a hand with hers, and they placed their other palm against symbols on the wall, bowing their heads as they chanted together.
The earthy scent became stronger, but she could feel down to her marrow that it wasn’t working. With a sigh, she let her arms fall back to her sides and peered at River. “How are you always able to control your anger better than me?”
“Oh, it’s there, like a leech wanting to suck and suck until it pulls all the hate and rage out of me,” he said, pushing up to stand. “A part of me wants to return to Salem so we can continue doing what we did. Then there is this other part of me fighting against it. And those parts combined lived much longer than Jasper ever did. But right now, I can’t allow myself to think about those things because all I can focus on in these woods at the moment is keeping myself from harming the one person I would never choose to. I don’t know where our child is right now, but they are safe for the time being. However, you’re not. And I don’t want to lose control. All I can see is what I’ve done to you in every single life, and I loathe myself for it. Is there regret and shame for everything else? Some of it, yes. My coven? Fuck no. Could things have been different after I took out the coven? Yes. But they weren’t, were they? We chose the path we did.” River walked away from her and sat on the bed in the other room.
Sadie shoved up from the stone floor to go into their bedroom and sank down beside him on the fur blankets. “Why did you walk away?”
“Wouldn’t you? I don’t know how much longer I can control these urges, and I don’t want you to pretend they don’t exist. I don’t want to risk you, my sweet nightmare.”
Sadie grabbed the front of his shirt and drew him closer. “Stop. Stop being aggravating.”
He arched a brow. “Aggravating?”
“I’ve already told you I know the signs, so just stop with that,” she said. “Unless you truly don’t want to be around me. Maybe I even conjured all this up because of my grief.”
“You most certainly didn’t conjure it up. And I always want to be around you, always want to hear your stories, want to touch you. Touch you in ways that make your lips part in pleasure, hear those lovely gasps and moans pour from you.” He licked his lower lip as he trailed a finger across her cheek, to her jaw. “Do you feel this? Do I feel real?”
Sadie slowly nodded, a warmth spreading through her as he gently skated that perfect digit down her neck.
“What about this?” he purred, bringing his finger down her chest.
“Mmm-hmm.” She bit her lip, holding back from begging him for more.
As though reading her mind, a smirk played on his lips as he skimmed it down her body to the hem of her shirt. She couldn’t control herself from arching into him—it had been too long—months—since she’d been away from his touch. And she needed it, needed the distraction, needed him.
Sadie helped him lift her shirt over her head. His fingers skillfully undid the clasp of her bra, and she tossed it to the floor. River then glided his digits down her shoulder, to her clavicle, to the valley between her breasts. His lips drifted to the crook of her neck, his hand cupping her breast, his thumb stroking the tender spot. “And here.”
“More,” Sadie whispered. His hand came between her thighs, pressed to her center over her pants. She moaned.
“More?” he asked, his eyes hooded.
