Read Clarity for Free Online

would be like without the curse, if we would still fall head over heels whenever we kissed. Deep down, I really hoped so.
    We snuck one last kiss before they went on the hunt, and it left my skin burning with a longing I had never felt before. Getting lost in that drunken desire was the closest thing to bliss I would ever get. And it was oh, so easy to lose myself. Despite everything else, a kiss between us made everything heat up, made me forget it all, no matter how I had been feeling previously. And the wrongness of that always left a little bit of dread in the pit of my stomach later.
    After they left, Amelia pretended to eat while we watched soaps on television. She did her I need to talk fidget until I threw a cushion at her.
    “I hate when you do that,” I said. “Spit it out already.”
    After another ten minutes of nibbling on her fingernails, she got on with it. “This is going to sound stupid.”
    I stared at her. I was pretty sure whatever it was, it couldn’t sound any worse than anything that had already happened.
    She winced. “I’ve been having these dreams.”
    I sat up straight, suddenly interested. “Soul mate?” All of the wolves in her family had dreamt of their soul mates, and Amelia was reaching that special age, so it was potentially a big deal.
    “No. Well. Not mine, anyway. It’s as if I’m in somebody else’s body, as if I’m living their life, and it feels so real, but then I wake up, and I’m me again.”
    “Oh.” I sank back into the chair. “It’s only a dream then.”
    “It’s not, though. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s more than a dream. When I wake up, I feel... different. Stronger. Except… sometimes it’s like I don’t even recognise my room for a minute. That’s weird, right?”
    I thought about it. “Is it a recurring dream?”
    “No, but it’s the same people, like in a story. It’s old. Everything is old-fashioned. Last night, I was walking down a trail, wearing this really long skirt. I remember because I was really careful about it not touching this boy. Oh!”
    “What?”
    “Someone helped. I like him. I mean, she likes him. This is confusing. He was... a farmer. I’m... I’m like a gypsy or something. He’s nice to me, but he’s married, and I’m supposed to keep away from the gaje .”
    “The what?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know. I told you it was confusing. I keep forgetting stuff.”
    “Maybe you’ve been thinking about the curse a lot,” I suggested.
    “Why?”
    “Gypsies?”
    She frowned, and I could see a connection hadn’t occurred to her. But then, she leaned forward, her eyes shining with excitement. “Maybe this has to do with breaking the curse.”
    All I could do was shrug. It was possible, but probably not likely. Nothing had turned out to be that easy, especially the things we all wanted the most. But the part of me that wanted the curse to end seemed to wither a little every day. And I had no idea if it was what I wanted… or what the curse demanded of me.
     

Chapter Four
     
    Nathan
     
    We took Cú on the hunt with us. He was going stir crazy staying indoors all of the time at Perdita’s house. I felt bad for him, but I knew he was the best protection for her, apart from me. I didn’t trust anyone else to protect her as well. I didn’t trust anyone else to care at all. Keeping Perdita and Amelia safe was about the only thing constantly in my head. My family hadn’t exactly proved themselves to be good at that.
    It was frustrating to be a creature that could hurt and maim, yet be incapable of protecting the people I cared about because of the stupid rules made up by the adults in our lives. Ever since the fight between my family and those wilder werewolves, I’d felt different, as though I could handle myself. When I had seen the wolf go for Perdita , something clicked in my head, made me realise I would do anything, anything at all, to stop her from being harmed.
    Byron seemed as edgy as I was once we