Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,90
went, just heading forward, needing to run from him, needing to escape memories of my father making Jana watch the races, of him using her picks. Sometimes, she’d get it wrong, and he’d slap her for it. He started using her like she was a lucky rabbit’s foot, until it came as no surprise to me when escaping the vicious circle had become a priority to her.
Her death might have been classed as an accident, but I’d always thought it was suicide.
I gnawed on my lip as I thought of the time when she’d predicted our grandmother would die in a fire, and the time when she’d told our mother she’d be free of our father when he lost his wits.
Hadn’t Nanny died when her gas tank had exploded after she’d been T-boned? Hadn’t our father come down with Alzheimer’s?
My heart was in my throat as bushes scraped at me, the leaves and branches scratching my skin as I dove into the wilderness beyond the road. I could hear him crashing after me, but I needed to move, needed to roam. I needed to get away from him.
I wasn’t the Moon Child. Whatever the hell that was.
That couldn’t be me.
None of this was happening. None of it.
Like he heard me, he called out, “Seth is an embodiment of the Father. The child his mother carries, she’s an embodiment of the Mother. A Choi has been waiting on this information for centuries. It’s a catalyst,” he rasped, the words closer than I’d like…
It was then it hit me.
He was letting me run.
Giving me freedom.
Fuck.
I didn’t need him to ‘let’ me do anything. I was free. I lived that way by choice.
I twisted around to glare at him, jerking when I saw he was barely two feet away.
Around us, there was nothing but trees and brush for as far as the eye could see, and underfoot, my toes gripped onto root systems that spanned the forest floor.
“You’re the Moon Child,” he told me. “And I can prove it to you.”
“How?” I snapped at him, discarding his statement for the lie it had to be.
“You watched Nae Yeojachinguneun Gumiho,” he said, “I saw it too. In My Girlfriend is a Kumiho…you have to know about the yeowoo guseul.”
I gaped at him. “You have to be kidding me. The fox marble is a real thing?”
He nodded. “It is.”
Because I loved everything K-Drama, I’d researched the kumiho, just because I thought they were fascinating. The yeowoo guseul was a marble that consisted of knowledge. A ball of pure energy that was a gift to those who were given it. A curse to those who stole it. And in the dramas, it was almost always stolen.
“You don’t have to steal it,” he rasped, like he knew what I was thinking. “I freely offer it to you.”
My throat grew tight. “Because I’m your mate?”
“Because you’re my mate.”
“If I accept it, it’s your kind’s version of claiming me, isn’t it?” I rasped, suddenly understanding more than I wanted to.
“Yes, but I already told you. I won’t force you. And I didn’t force you in the truck. I just wanted to remain connected with you, to make you understand. The second you accused me—I backed off, didn’t I? You can trust me.”
“I can trust no one,” I screamed, my hands flying up to cover my face. “Only myself.” And I wasn’t one-hundred per cent trustworthy.
He surged forward, his own hands coming to my shoulders, and he hauled me into his arms. I thought he’d kiss me, thought he’d force the situation like he’d said he wouldn’t, but he didn’t. He hugged me. Tightly. Hugged me like I’d never been hugged before, making me feel so safe, so secure, that I burst into tears as everything in my life, all the unbalances, every single one of them, seemed to find its level.
His calm seeped into me, even though I knew he was more agitated than ever because of our conversation.
It bled into my pores, stole into my soul, making me feel, for the first time in my life, like I had an equilibrium.
I sobbed against his chest, dousing his shirt with tears, and he soothed me, muttering things in Korean that I had no way of understanding, hushing me, and stroking my hair. But as much as he calmed me down, the sound of a howl nearby had us both jerking in surprise.
We’d been so contained in our own drama, that we’d forgotten the outside world existed.