Chapter 25: Bruce Winters

Silvana woke up in the late afternoon with a pounding hangover.

She rustled in the armchair she’d passed out in, batting a hand against the cold sweat at her collar. Maybe it was just too much of the good scotch, but Silvana’s sleep was plagued with nightmares about Bruce, his body writhing in agony.

For a moment and in her sleep, right before she had woken up to the fireplace beside her and with the fuzzy blanket on top of her, she had thought she heard Bruce growling her name, as if he was so close yet so far to her that she could hear his voice ever so slightly.

Then, her phone pinged with a text from Amelia: “Kurt got back from the werewolf pack meeting and Bruce wasn’t there. Is he with you?”

Silvana slogged out from her chair and stumbled around for her footing.

Last night her father mentioned Bruce attending The Meeting of Moons, and now Bruce hadn’t even been there?

She recalled the location spell that showed Bruce to be inside her house. Could that be why she heard him calling her name?

No, that would be crazy.

She took a deep breath and went to the kitchen for some much needed water. Silvana guzzled down two glasses and splashed sink water on her face. She was over-tired and stressed out, and she didn’t know what to believe anymore.

After drying her face with a paper towel, she crept around the house in search of her father.

He was nowhere to be seen.

Silvana dialed Amelia.

On the second ring, Amelia picked up and said, “Please, Sylvie, tell me Bruce is there with you and that I’m waking you up from a lovely cuddle sesh.”

“I wish,” Silvana groaned, rubbing the side of her head. “He’s not here.”

“Well Kurt didn’t see him either and when he got back to the cabin he sounded worried. I think he was betting on Bruce showing up, and now Kurt’s been made Alpha while Bruce is gone, and now I’m afraid that the Silverclaws will find out about me and Kurt—“

“Amelia, Amelia, please, slow it down,” Silvana begged. “I dipped too deep into the scotch last night while talking to my dad. What exactly are you worried about?”

“So many things! We’ve been dancing a dangerous ballad with werewolf lovers and now the pack is all riled up, and Kurt’s been put in charge! I don’t want anything bad to happen to us and I want us to get Bruce back!”

Silvana reached for a third glass of water but her shaking hands knocked the glass into the sink, shattering it.

“We want the same thing,” Silvana said, planting her elbows on the kitchen counter. “But I checked everywhere. Bruce isn’t here, and my dad isn’t either. Amelia, you sound really worried about Kurt. Is everything alright between you two?”

“I don’t know. Yes? He came home all serious, all business, all ‘we need to be very careful now.’ And it totally has me freaked! I liked sneaking around with him, you know? All the midnight rendezvousing and hotel hookups. I don’t want any responsibility at the doorstep! Just think what the pack would do to me if they discovered me and Kurt. I’m putting him at risk! How did you deal with all this?”

Amelia was expecting Silvana to really think about her response, but as natural as could be, Silvana said, “Everything you’re feeling, I felt too. But what stopped me from worrying was realizing that Bruce is the one for me, and I’ll stop at nothing to be with him.”

Silvana gulped, picked a large shard of broken glass from the sink and said, “I’ll be with him no matter what, even if it gets me killed.”

Amelia was breathing heavily over the phone.

“Is that how you feel about Kurt?” Silvana asked.

Amelia wasn’t sure. A part of her knew exactly what Silvana was talking about, and another part, maybe a slightly bigger part, wondered if Kurt was worth all this headache.

She loved him, sure, but what was her love compared to what Silvana and Bruce have?

Switching gears to avoid the topic, Amelia asked, “You looked all over for Bruce?”

“Yeah,” Silvana said. “Still nothing. No calls or texts.”

“I cast my own little spell, and it showed the same results, Sylvie. The magic says Bruce is there with you.”

And as much as she’d tried to ignore it, Silvana knew that was true. She and Bruce had a bond like no other, and although she couldn’t see or hear him, she felt him close to her in a way she didn’t know how to express.

“I feel like he’s here,” Silvana said. “But he’s not.”

Silvana started crying, and her tears dripped into the sink and pattered on the broken glass. She hated feeling so helpless and confused.

“Hey now,” Amelia said softly. “Stand tall, warrior-girl! We’re going to figure this out right now. You live in a creepy, big old house with plenty of hidden spots. We just need to figure out which one Bruce is in.”

“You’re right. I’ll go triple check all our old hiding spots from when we used to get lost in the house playing hide and seek.”

Groggily, Silvana walked throughout her home.

“If I were you,” Amelia said, “the very first place I’d check is that spooky cellar I got stuck in for a day.”

Silvana stopped dead in her tracks.

“Oh my god, Amelia! I completely forgot about the cellar.”

“I can’t blame you! We were what, like, seven? And remember how your dad scolded us for even finding it?”

“I was forbidden from ever returning down there,” Silvana mumbled.

“Amelia, I haven’t thought about that place in over a decade.”

“Well, then, get cracking sister!” Amelia laughed and trying to make the situation a little lighter said, “If a little witch girl could get magically trapped in there, then a big werewolf man could too. They’re about the same in intelligence.”

Silvana laughed and ran outside. “I love you, Amelia.”

“I love you too my spookster. Now open that cellar up!”

“I’ve got a bit of a problem with that,” Silvana said, stamping the grass where the cellar doors had been. “The cellar is gone.”

“Uh, weird much?”

“Totally.”

Silvana guided her hand across the wall of the house and felt through the blades of grass for anything out of the ordinary.

“I know it was here,” Silvana said.

And deep down in the darkness, Bruce felt her, his mate, searching for him. He was struck in the heart by their connection, and his instincts told him that she was outside, so close yet so far.

He ripped an arm out of its shackle, and with the heavy metal binds still around his wrist, he shouted, “Silvana!”

“That’s super strange,” Amelia said to Silvana.

But a pulse hit Silvana on her heart strings. It was the same kind of tug she’d felt when she first saw Bruce, tall and muscular, standing over her and lifting up her shirt to heal her.

It was faint, and it was hardly there, but Silvana heard Bruce calling for him.

Something inside her told her to raise her hand up, and even though neither of the lovers could see it, they were raising their hands out towards one another, as if to grab the other’s hand and never let go.

Silvana felt Bruce at her fingertips.

She shut her eyes and said, “Tu Fui, Ego Eris.”

The rusty cellar doors not only appeared, but they flung off their hinges and landed in the yard like knives in mud.

Down the cellar stairs was a massive stone door encased with magical sigils.

“Amelia,” Silvana gasped. “I found it.”

She hung up and tried to read the symbols on the door. They glowed a deadly red as she descended the stairs, and she knew she’d seen them before.

In her father’s journal.

“Bruce?” she called out.

Silvana put her hand to the door and crimson lightning wrapped around her fingers, stinging her hand like she’d stuck it inside a hive of angry bees.

Wincing, she clutched her hand under her arm and breathed through the pain.

“I’m here,” she heard Bruce’s tired voice say.

But the lightning on the door, all the seals, it meant the stone door was under magical lock.

“I need you,” Bruce said. “I need my mate.”

Silvana felt a surge of power.

There was not enough magic in the world to keep her locked out.