Crescent Legacy Nicole Taylor (top young adult novels .TXT) 📖

the ring he’d given me moments before felt heavy on my finger. Marriage, love, loyalty. Those things seemed like nothing compared to this.

“She’s forgiven you for your indiscretion, Dain,” Dub went on. “You’re fighting on the wrong side, little brother. You belong with us.”

Boone’s brother. Oh, shite! Carman’s three sons… I wanted to puke. There was another one. Three shapeshifting wolves with witch abilities. The mountain I had to climb was growing, and the odds were piling up against little old me. Boone… What was he going to do now that he knew?

I’d said it didn’t matter who he’d been all this time, but it did. It did matter. Boone was the son of the enemy.

Wiping away a big fat tear that had rolled down my cheek, I slipped back into the pub and plastered a fake smile on my face.

“Where’d Boone disappear to?” Maggie asked as I pulled off my gloves and hat.

“I think it hit him,” I replied.

“What?”

“What he just got himself into. He’s outside contemplating the rest of his life hitched to me.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad. He’s lucky to have you if you ask me. Besides, Boone is a catch and a half.”

I smiled, but the light didn’t reach my eyes. If she only knew the truth.

Sitting back down at the table, I went on like nothing had happened. I let Mary Donnelly prattle on about her plans for the wedding in one ear while Sean McKinnon grumbled in the other about taking away his best mate. If only they knew the truth, too.

My heart was dissolving the longer I sat there alone, waiting for the man I was supposedly going to marry to return. What if he didn’t? Maybe he’d already run off with his long-lost brother to join his thousand-year-old mother as a soldier in her plot to destroy the world. I didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that Boone might be right up there in the age department, either.

I was a clueless little witch, and he was—

“Are you okay?”

My heart twisted in fright as Boone sat next to me. His cheeks were flushed with the cold, and the longer I stared at him, the more my anxiety rose.

“Skye?” His forehead crease deepened.

It was then I realized he wasn’t going to tell me. He was going to keep his identity a secret. Either he was still reconciling the fact his mum was a crazy, psychopathic, power hungry bitch or he’d decided to play both sides. Or just this one. He was in a prime position being all naked in my bed five nights a week…and now he was engaged to the last witch standing in Carman’s way.

Oh, hell, what was I supposed to do?

“Yeah,” I replied. “Yeah.”

“I should ask you to marry me every day,” he said with a smile. “It’s the only time I’ve ever seen you lost for words.”

“Yeah,” I said again. Lame.

“You do want this?” he asked, his grin fading.

“Of course, I do.” With the Boone who had amnesia. “I don’t know anyone else who’d be crazy enough to marry me.” Reaching for the plum pudding, I dished a slice each into our empty bowls. “Here. No Christmas feast is over until the pudding is gone.”

“Is that an Australian thing?”

“No,” I said, putting on my best ‘everything is going to be okay’ mask. “It’s a Skye thing.”

Chapter 10

I hadn’t even looked at the ring Boone had given me at Christmas. Not really.

I wore it every day, knew it was gold and silver, but if anyone asked me about the design, I couldn’t tell them what it was. All I could see when I stared at him was Carman. He didn’t have her coloring, but his eyes could be hers. I’d only met her once in the vision she’d pulled me into—the one with the creepy doors that opened endlessly in the same room—but I would never forget her face. She was a ginger minge. Minge being slang for female pubic hair.

The point was, Boone must take after his father. Whoever that was.

Two days before New Year, I sat behind the counter at Irish Moon, the laptop in front of me, a Goth girl uploading photographs, and the tarot card that had been the bane of my existence since the ritual—the Chariot—beside me.

While Mairead chattered happily about moving back home and her trip to Belfast for New Year’s Eve, I wallowed in the pit of my own misery. She couldn’t stop talking about the alternative pub she was going to—a place called Voodoo where all the Goths, punks, and rockers hung out—with some new friends she’d made online. After giving her a stern talking to about stranger danger and who and who not to let into her hotel room, we went back to listing crystals on the Irish Moon online store.

Maybe if I meditated on the tarot card, it might be able to reveal something else to me. Something I’d obviously missed. Had there been clues? Obviously, Boone’s new wolf shape was a glaring indicator, and the fact his mind didn’t want me to break open the barrier keeping his memories locked up. Had I been that blind?

I’d believed the Chariot had been forewarning about Carman’s return but in hindsight…

The bell above the door rang, and I froze as Boone walked in. He stomped his boots on the mat before crossing the shop floor and leaning against the counter. He just stood there, all comfortable and handsome like he hadn’t just found out his secret past was the bombshell of the century. I couldn’t handle it.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, the question coming out a little more forcibly than I’d intended.

“I’ve finished up at Roy’s, and I’m free for lunch before I have to be at Molly McCreedy’s,” he said with a frown. “Do you want to go to Mary’s for somethin’ to eat?”

“I’m not hungry,” I muttered, looking at the tarot card.

I sensed Mairead’s scowl burning into the side of my face.

“Skye?”

I glanced up at Boone, my heart