Page 115 of Burning Embers

Don’t leave me.

Please don’t leave me.

I don’t know if I say the words out loud or just in my head.

How dare Michelle come waltzing back into my life after what she did to me? The lies she told? How fucking dare she pretend that we’re anything but bitter enemies?

I never dated her, despite the rumors floating around the school. I never even touched her.

Last year, I became aware that the witch harbored a crush on me. It started innocently enough—she would leave notes in my locker, smile shyly at me in the halls, and sit by me in class. I never returned her affection, but I also was never an outright asshole.

Then things started getting…weird. Looking back, I should’ve spotted the warning signs, but I’d been innocent and naïve, at least when it concerned her.

She would show up at all of my football games, even the away games, with my number painted on her cheek. She told everyone who would listen that we were dating. When I confronted her, she simply giggled and said that the gossip was getting out of hand and that she never said such a thing.

Then she would show up at my house uninvited with boxes of takeout and video games for us to play. When I told her to leave, she ignored me and shoved her way into my home. It got to the point where I had to get Ashton involved, and he threatened to put a restraining order on her if she didn’t knock it off.

I thought things were better. She still left me creepy notes and flowers, but she no longer followed me around like a lost, besotted puppy.

However, on the night of junior year prom, she saw me talking to Rebecca Weasley in the hallway. Rebecca was merely asking me for a set of notes she missed out on when she got sick, but Michelle wrongly assumed I asked Rebecca to homecoming. The very next day, Rebecca’s car crashed. No explanation of how it happened. The police were baffled.

But I knew the truth.

I knew it deep in my bones, the way I can tell you the sky is blue, the grass is green, and Michelle is batshit insane.

Fortunately, Rebecca survived, but the experience left her shaken enough to transfer schools. Thank fuck for that. I don’t even want to think about what Michelle would’ve done to her if she remained.

Ashton, the twins, and I confronted Michelle, and she simply laughed it off, saying that if Rebecca had “stayed in her lane,” she never would’ve crashed. It made me sick to my stomach to know that I’d inadvertently caused an innocent woman to be in an accident.

I told Michelle to fuck off.

Andshetold her brother—a powerful warlock—that I fucked her and then broke her heart.

Now, we’re here.

Michelle may no longer go to the same school as me, having graduated a year prior, but she still finds ways to torment me. Her ghost lingers, and no matter how many times I attempt to banish her, she returns like a damn fungus.

What will she do to Izzy?

Will she hurt her?

I’ll rip her apart piece by piece if she dares to even lay a finger on my mate.

Another deafening growl leaves me. I’m the embodiment of rage and wrath. Nothing can compare to the thunderous rate of my heart, pounding, pounding, pounding?—

“You need to calm the fuck down,” a strident voice demands.

Someone touches my shoulder and leads me down a hallway and into a small, cluttered room.

Silas’s office.

The wolf himself stands in front of me, his arms crossed over his chest and a stony expression on his scarred face. His one good eye is narrowed into a thin slit.

“I. Can’t,” I pant out as I struggle to control myself.

Silas’s scowl deepens. “You could’ve hurt Isabella! What were you fucking thinking?”

The implication that I would ever hurt my mate rips a snarl from my throat. The noise is loud enough to make Silas stagger back a step.