Never (The Ever Series Book 2) (2 page)

He steps closer to me, his eyes glowing blue again. Then he stops and seems to see something over my shoulder. Suddenly he lunges toward me, his hands clamping around my wrists like manacles.

“Shift with her again, and she won’t survive,” a voice says from behind me. “You know it as well as I do.”

E
ver
.

Adrenaline pours into my bloodstream, making my legs go weak. I try to wrench free, but my kidnapper’s grip is too tight. I struggle anyway, overwhelmed by the craving to see Ever’s face.

“Let me
go
!”

“If you release her, I will not hunt you,” Ever says from behind me.

His voice is unfamiliar—absolutely deadly and cold.

“There will be others. There always are. So why not leave this one to me?” my kidnapper says in a persuasive tone.

I blink. I cannot believe this negotiation is going on with me right here—like I’m a goat they’re trading.

“I’m not your property, you psycho! And you deserve to spend forever alone!”

His grip suddenly goes slack, and with one final yank, I go flying backward, bracing for impact with the concrete. Instead, a pair of arms catches me and spins me around. Ever crushes me to his chest, and I crumple, crying so hard for everything I thought I lost when I stepped through the mirror. After several seconds, he pulls me back and stares down at me, lifting a hand to touch my cheek. He’s real. This isn’t a dream.

“I didn’t think …” I stop, a sob catching in my throat.

He holds me tighter and whispers in my ear.

“Wren, I will never forsake you. You are a piece of me now. Until the end of time,” he whispers.

His words set off a fresh round of tears. Then he looks up the hill, and my heart thumps. I spin around looking for Alex-Iago, but he’s nowhere in sight. Then I see Edith Rousseau standing at the door I stepped out of. She’s staring at us, her eyes wide with panic.

“We need to move. Now,” Ever says, tucking me under his arm and leading me down the grassy hill.

As we pick our way through a bright green vineyard, Ever keeps a firm grip on me like he thinks I’ll evaporate. And I’m not sure that I won’t. We walk for several minutes before reaching a gravel road, and as we come around the bend, I see another large, ancient stone structure with several cars parked out front. At the front door, there’s an imposing man in a black suit and black sunglasses—with a large gun holstered on his hip. Without breaking his stride, Ever continues to pull me along, closer to the man with the gun. I watch, panicked, as the man tilts his head toward his chest and starts speaking rapidly. Then, in slow motion, I see him reach down and draw the weapon. All my eyes can focus on is the barrel of the gun as he levels it on us and gestures.

“
Arrêtez
!
Levez les mains en l’air
!”

The man’s intent is clear—hands up, or else. I begin to lift my hands in the air until Ever turns his eyes in the man’s direction and raises his arm. Instantly, the guard is blown backward into the door behind him with a dull thud. Without pausing, Ever turns his attention to the closest car, and I hear the locks pop up. When he opens the passenger side door, I jump in without question. The next thing I know, Ever is in the driver’s seat with the engine running, and we’re suddenly hurtling back the way we came on the gravel road. When we reach a small, unmarked intersection, several cars race past us as Ever pushes the gas even harder. The car rockets forward, pressing me into the leather seatback. Biting my lip and staring out the window, I try to keep myself from coming apart at the seams.

Am I safe? Is the nightmare over? When I turn to face Ever, his flawless features are serious and unflinching. The tires skid onto asphalt, and I turn and watch the early morning bustle of what looks like a village ripped from another time. The buildings are ancient, their stone faces hundreds of years old. The car tears around another corner, expertly weaving around the people probably on their way to the outdoor market I glimpsed. Then, almost as soon as we’ve entered the town, we’ve left it again. We’re now speeding along a narrow, winding two-lane road. To one side of us, there’s a steep rock face; to the other, a meandering river with long ribbons of seaweed-looking plants streaming just beneath the surface.

I look through the windshield and see a large tour bus. My eyes widen as Ever slices into the opposing lane and we hurtle directly toward a compact vehicle. Closing my eyes and gripping the armrest, I bite my lip. By the time I open my eyes again, we’re in the right lane again, like nothing happened.

I stare out the window at the passing farmland and try to collect my thoughts as Ever pulls out a cell phone and begins speaking rapidly in French. I don’t catch anything except for the word
papiers
. Papers. Exhausted and lulled into a trance by the hum of the engine, I close my eyes. When I wake from my half-sleep, we’re pulled off to the side of the road. For several seconds I think that the French police have found us. My eyes dart to the window, and I see Ever towering over a short, balding man. From all the gesturing, I can tell they’re in the middle of a heated conversation. Ever, sensing I’m awake, turns and looks at me through the glass before returning his attention to the man.

A moment later, Ever pulls a thick envelope out of his jacket. The man opens it and begins counting the bills. Then he begins arguing again with Ever, who immediately pulls out another stack of crisp bills. The man hands over some documents and begins walking away, turning once to say something else to Ever. Seconds later Ever is back behind the wheel, and we’re pulling onto the road again. He looks over at me and reaches for my hand. When he brings it to his lips, I shiver at the heat.

“You’ll be home soon.”

I smile, but I’m very tired still. I close my eyes again, only waking when someone unfastens my seatbelt and lifts me from the seat. When Ever smiles down at me, for a brief second everything feels right again. I blink as he begins speaking very quickly in French to a uniformed man. He hands the man something and then begins climbing a set of stairs. As he sets me down, I look around in confusion. We’re standing at the entrance to an aircraft.

“It’s okay,” he says, gently moving me forward.

There’s no one else on the plane; it’s just the two of us.

“We only have clearance for a few minutes,” he says, steering me toward a bank of seats.

The plane is smaller than I expected and in no way resembles the crowded, stuffy air travel I remember during trips with my mom to visit my grandmother. The seats of the plane are leather, not vinyl, and one of them is reclined into a small sleeping area. I sit down in one of the upright seats as Ever sits across from me. It feels like we’re in a flying limo, a fact that, under different circumstances, would be funny or awesome. Maybe both. I jump at the sound of a voice over the speaker system, and seconds later the plane begins moving.

“We’re leaving Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport in southwestern France,” Ever says, answering my first question.

I nod. I was expecting something like that, but it still causes my breathing to speed up. I’m in France. I pause before speaking again.

“How long have I been gone?”

“Only two days.”

Only
! My heart begins beating faster again.

“My mom!”

“She’s safe. And everyone else thinks you’ve been home sick with the flu,” he says.

“But if I’ve been gone for days, then …”

“She won’t even remember your absence.”

“Well, I guess that makes two of us,” I say with a small, pained smile.

Ever frowns.

“You remember nothing?”

“The first thing I remember is waking up feeling like I had been hit by a truck.”

Ever’s eyes cloud over, and I remember that day in the rain and how close that had come to happening, if it weren’t for him.

“I woke up, and that old woman helped me clean up. She fed me. She was … nice.”

I stop, feeling choked up thinking of this elderly French stranger who had taken care of me. Something about the old woman, maybe her motherly nature, reminds me of my mom and makes me miss her even more. When I look up, Ever is watching me carefully. I swallow and continue.

“Then she told me that someone named
Alexandre
was waiting for me …”

I pause as Ever’s bronzed hands flex on the armrests, afraid he might snap them off. After a moment, he nods for me to continue.

“So I walked outside, and he was there, but I didn’t remember who he was. … It was like he had erased my memory.”

I shiver when I think of my mental fog slowly lifting before I recognized the person I was with. Ever suddenly leans forward, his green eyes shining in their intensity.

“What did he say to you?”

“Something like, ‘
Imagine having to live alone forever
.’ No, wait.” I shake my head. “No. He said, ‘Imagine being
cursed
.”

Before that moment, I had thought of him, Iago … Alex, as a monster, an anonymous villain. But in those few seconds he had seemed human and vulnerable. It’s strange thinking of him this way. I flinch as Ever makes a sound in the back of his throat, like he heard my last thought and was disgusted by it.

“Cursed?” he growls. “His is a self-imposed isolation.”

I shake my head again.

“I don’t get it.”

“You’re safe now. That’s all that matters.”

I sit up straighter and look Ever in the eye.

“No! Everything matters now. I need answers. He could have killed me …”

I shudder. Or worse. But he
didn’t
.

“You need to sleep,” Ever says, his voice calmer.

He gestures to the sleeping area, but I resist even though I know he’s right. I can barely keep my eyes open despite being unconscious for the past two days. Two
days
! I try to recapture snippets of my life from before this all happened, but everything seems so far away now, like I just floated away from reality. Part of me is still terrified that I’m going to fall back into my nightmare. Forcing myself to stay awake, I stare drowsily at Ever.

“I thought I was never going to see you again,” I whisper.

I blink, and a tear slides down my cheek. The touch of Ever’s lips on mine causes an instant flush of heat to spread across my skin. His hands wrap around my waist, and he pulls me easily from my seat, drawing me into his lap. He kisses away my tears before tracing my lips with one finger. When I tremble, his other hand comes around to the back of my neck and his mouth touches mine again, his lips slowly parting mine. I stop breathing, and he pulls back, his eyes a deep, darkening emerald color. He whispers my name and my thoughts begin to spin.

***

The murmur of familiar voices causes me to sit up. Rubbing my eyes, I look around and see Mr. Hannigan’s antique desk. My backpack is sitting on top of my chair like I just got home from school. There’s a ray of sunlight cutting across the room and slicing my bed in half. I look for the clock, which reads a little after four, which means it must be afternoon … definitely not morning.

“She’s been asleep all day, but her fever has finally broken, and I think she might be ready for school tomorrow. I’m sure she’d love to see you, Ever—and it was very nice of your sister Audra to come by with Wren’s assignments. Hold on, let me check to see if she’s up.”

The door to my room swings open a second later, and I hold my breath as my mom’s face comes into view. She smiles wryly as she walks toward me, her blue eyes twinkling.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, sweetie! Are you ready for a visit—”

I’ve already thrown back the covers and jumped out of bed. My legs feel like jelly as I rush toward her, flinging both arms around her as soon as I’m close enough. I hug her for several seconds until she pulls back and examines me like she thinks I might have gone crazy. She puts a cool hand to my forehead the way she used to when I was a little kid, and that’s when I realize that I’m crying. I don’t even care.

“Mom, I love you.”

“Oh, Wren,” she laughs. “I know, honey. Are you okay?”

I smile and swipe at my cheeks.

“I’m great.”

She smiles again, but the lines in her forehead don’t completely disappear.

“Good. Then I’ve got a surprise for you.”

She reaches back and swings open the door. My heart thuds at the sight of Ever’s face. He smiles and nods at my mom as he passes her, but by the time he reaches me, his eyes are serious again.

“How are you feeling?” he asks after my mom leaves.

“I don’t remember getting here,” I whisper.

“You needed sleep.”

“Haven’t I been sleeping for almost three days now?”

Ever guides me back toward the bed, and I sit down.

“Not sleeping,” he says in a low voice. “He suppressed your memory and was moving you around constantly, making it difficult for me to find you. It was a strain on your body. The only reason he let you go was that it likely would have killed you to shift again.”

“
Shift
?”

I frown as I remember Ever saying something similar just after he appeared in the garden.