spellbound | book #1 | completed

X X I X

[edited: 05/09/2017]

"Annika?" Maksim questioned, frowning in bewilderment. "What on earth are you doing here? It is the middle of the night, and I thought that you left hours ago."

Annika hesitated for only a second before she straightened up and smoothed her dress down with her usual smile plastered on her face. "I was worried, so I came back. I heard Remy screaming and was just about to wake her up. She was having a nightmare."

"No." Remy was clutching her necklace to her chest protectively, her eyes wide and her face damp from sweat and tears. She looked more terrified than Maksim had ever seen her before, and her eyes seemed to be pleading with Maksim to believe her. He wanted to go to her then, to comfort her and find a way to rid her of the worried and tired lines that had been drawn on her face, but his feet would not move. "She's lying. She was trying to get the key."

"Of course I wasn't." Annika shot Remy a puzzled look. She seemed to be just as confused as Maksim. "Why would I want the key?"

"Perhaps your father asked you to get it." Remy shuffled into a more comfortable sitting position, her bare legs tangling with the bed sheets. She was still wearing the dress that Maksim had put her in, and she still looked breath-taking in it now, even when she was dishevelled and disconcerted. "I know what I saw. You wanted my key."

"Your key?" Annika's golden eyes glittered with something that Maksim had never seen in them before, though he could not work out what it really was; only that it did not seem to belong on her child-like face. It was more like something he would expect from his brother—greed, perhaps, or something wicked.

"Speaking of keys, how did you get in here without one? Do I need to increase security measures so as to avoid such unexpected run-ins again? Must there be locking spells on bedroom doors?" Maksim was irritated, and did not hide it in the way that he spoke to the witch. If he could not avoid Annika in his own home in the dead of night, when could he?

"Your mother gave me the key a couple of weeks ago. She thought I might need it in case of emergencies, what with all that is happening."

"In case of emergencies sounds rather different to wandering about people's bedrooms uninvited simply because you felt like it, does it not?"

"I was merely trying to help," she responded, not unkindly, though that was not much of a surprise; Annika was always kind. "I am sorry if I upset you: both of you."

"I think that you should leave, Annika," Maskim said tiredly and held the door open so that she had plenty of room to pass through it. "You cannot just turn up in my house in the middle of the night. Does your father know that you are here?"

"No." She bowed her head so that her brown curls fell in front of her face like a child being scolded. "You are right. I am sorry."

"Very well." He waited for her to leave expectantly, and when she did not, he motioned with his head to the door. "Goodbye, now. Have a pleasant walk home."

She sighed and glanced at Remy warily before leaving the bedroom. Maksim might have seen her out if he was not so tired. He had not even had the chance to change into his nightclothes yet, never mind rest, and he was beginning to lose his patience with this day altogether.

As soon as she left, Remy's eyes fell on Maksim. "Max, I'm telling the truth. She was after the key. Her hand was right above it."

"I heard you screaming," he sighed and sat down on the edge of her bed, wishing that there was something he could do that might reassure her, but how could he? He could not tell her that everything would be alright; it would not. She would be in danger as long as she had that key. "Perhaps you were paranoid because of the nightmare. Perhaps you misunderstood her intentions."

"Or perhaps you did." Instead of angry, she sounded reasonable, something that Maksim had not expected. "I've told you I don't trust her. She's hiding something. You can't tell me that wandering around your house in the middle of the night is normal."

"Annika has never been one for normal. Her feelings for me sometimes make her irrational. It would not be the first time that she has turned up somewhere unexpectedly."

Remy exhaled shakily and put her head in her hands as though she couldn't bear another waking moment. Her fingers were trembling against her cheeks. "Maybe you're right. It all happened so fast, and I barely had time to breathe before I woke up and saw her stood over me."

"It was worse this time, wasn't it?"

She nodded. Goosebumps rose on her arms so that he could see her golden hairs standing on end where the light hit them. "It felt a lot realer...not the image, but the feeling of it."

"You are safe now." But for how long? He thought without really wanting to. "Try to get some more rest. You need it if we are to find your mortal girl."

She obeyed, pulling the duvet back over herself and lying on her side, one hand propped under her head. Her eyes didn't close. Instead, they stared straight ahead into a world that Maksim could not see, and as always, he wondered what was there.

He knew that he should have gotten up then, but he couldn't. He didn't want to leave her in the state that she was in, with tear-stained cheeks and a lower lip that wobbled until she had to bite down on it to stop it. "I will not let him hurt you," he whispered quietly, gaining her attention. "Not if I can help it."

He lent closer to her until he could lace his fingers together with hers. They were warm against his skin. Touching her even that little bit felt like finding something that he thought he had lost forever. 

She looked down at their hands, her eyelashes fluttering with tiredness, and didn't make any attempt to pull away. Maksim thought that might have been progress after their earlier conversation, and he was glad. He did not want to feel cold and empty from loss of contact—not yet.

He thought that he heard her whisper, "Stay," so quietly that he wouldn't have heard at all if he did not see the way her lips shaped the word, but it might have been wishful thinking or it might have been her taking a breath. He did not ask. He did as he thought he had been asked, for even if he had imagined it, it was enough for him.

He stayed until her breathing slowed and her eyes fell shut, and long after that, too, until he could no longer fight his desire for sleep and forced himself to make the long trudge back to his room.