I propped myself up against the pillows and rested the book on my lap. Arys remained close, his face buried in a pillow and an arm across my waist.
“You’re never going to finish that, are you?” His voice was muffled, and his eyes were closed, but I knew he was alert. He wasn’t as relaxed as he appeared.
“I will. I’m just not sure when. It feels weird, reading your personal thoughts and feelings from so long ago. It’s hard to wrap my mind around it all.”
I flipped the journal open to the first page. I’d read it so many times already, but I often came back to it. The words were faded but legible.
October 14, 1849
I saw her again in my dreams, the wolf. I wish I knew her name. All I know is that when I see her, she is mine. She haunts me. The image of her lingers long after I wake. I have yet to see her true form. In these dreams, she is always wolf, but I know that’s not her true face. She is human, too, but whom she is, to me, remains a mystery. I’ve known the love of many women. Yet something about this wolf makes me feel like no other woman has. Alive. And somehow, complete. I don’t know who she is, but I know I must find her.
To know that Arys had seen me in his dreams more than a century ago was mind blowing. I still couldn’t quite comprehend how that could happen.
The only witch I knew who had known about things of this nature was dead. However, Lena believed that Arys and I were meant to be together, two beings cut from the same magic cloth, destined to unite.
I could almost hear her voice: Sometimes this is the natural order of things; as hard as it might be to believe, it’s meant to happen. A bond like this lasts to the death.
She had given us a warning though, one I’d never forget. A bond like this could drive one absolutely mad. Lena had made me promise to be careful. I’d never guessed then how deep it went.
I knew why I kept coming back to that very first journal entry. It was because Arys had seen me as a wolf before I’d ever been born. It was confirmation that everything with Raoul, the attack and my change to wolf, had been meant to happen. That was hard to swallow. During my childhood years, playing with my sister as a clueless, happy child, all of this had been there, waiting to happen. The loss of my innocence, my misplaced love for the man who killed my family, it was my destiny. And, I hated that.
“Stop torturing yourself.” Arys made a half-hearted attempt at swiping the book from my hands. “I gave it to you so you could find answers. Not so you’d drive yourself crazy.”
“Cut it out. This journal is fragile. Don’t wreck it.” I turned the page, giving him a teasing glare. “I am finding answers. I’m just not happy with some of them.”
I skimmed through the next page. It was a detailed account of a gruesome night out. Arys and Harley had been busy boys back in those days. The first time I’d read about how they had seduced a young woman and driven her into a sexual frenzy, I’d been disturbed. I didn’t want to read it again. Still, I couldn’t help but linger over a few especially creepy parts.
Harley brought her to the brink of climax, enjoying her pleas for more. She oozed sexual energy, and we devoured it. I bit her wrist, letting the blood flow over my tongue. It stirred my every hunger to life. I longed to be inside her, taking all of her. Body and blood. But, Harley had had enough play. Now, he wanted her to scream.
I shuddered and turned the page before I could read anymore. My own memories of Harley were not fond ones. However, they were nothing compared to the depravity that lay within these pages. Arys and I shared one another’s memories, thus everything he had written about his sire brought those horrific memories from my subconscious to the surface where I was forced to relive them as if I’d been there.
I distinctly preferred to keep those memories safely entombed beyond the reach of my conscious mind, so maybe Arys was right, maybe I never would finish reading his journal.
“Did you get some kind of perverse pleasure out of recording your debauchery with Harley? It makes me want to scream.”
“Yes. I suppose I did. I also get some perverse pleasure from your reaction to it.”
There was no humor in his eyes. It was my own fault. I’d been dumb enough to ask about his past, and he’d answered. I easily forgot how dangerous Arys was. He was part of me in so many ways, and yet sometimes, I felt like I didn’t know him at all.
“Fantastic,” I muttered. Shrugging off the feeling of unease creeping over me, I kept flipping pages.
Bypassing previously read tales of blood play and wicked games, I paused where I’d left off. It had been several days since I’d read the journal. I was starting to think it would leave me with more questions than answers. Only one way to find out.
November 17, 1849