“And that’s everything,” I finish, positioning my elbows behind me. “I wanted to ask how you control the Darkness.”
“You want to talk magick, but I’m more invested in this.” She pushes my hair aside to press into my mark, and call it silly, but I flinch away, not wanting anyone’s hands to touch what’s mine.
Mine and one other person’s.
Harlow laughs, pulling away. “Hint received. Alright, well, I don’t really have to think about the voice because it so rarely bothers me. Every time I drink blood, I’ve come to figure its satisfied.”
“I wonder if drinking blood is a form of blood magick,” I muse, thinking back to Sloane’s explanations of the different kinds of magick—Dark and Light.
“Could be. I’m a creature of Darkness, so I believe merely by existing, I appease it. You, however…perhaps it’s your shifter side?”
“I’ve taken to believing it’s because I’m home with the coven.”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Both may be true. Time certainly helps. In the beginning, you were emotional and weakened by what happened. It makes sense the black magick targeted your soul while it could.”
“I hurt him.”
Harlow doesn’t blink at the topic change. “I think you hurt him more by leaving than you did by knocking him back. If shifter connections are anything like the Bride bond, all I know is Alec would lose his ever-living shit if I tried to abandon him.”
“You did,” I point out. “And Mom brought you here. He followed.”
“Exactly. It’s worse now, though, I think, since I’m his kind too.”
And I’m Ryder’s.
She knocks into my shoulder. “We’re both hybrids. Have to say, when you started talking, I never guessed that one.”
“A bunch of crazy pasts between the two of us.”
Her musical chuckle surrounds the house that once heard screams of murdered witches—another act by Twilight Grove’s hand.
“What now?” She leans forward until view again, elbows on her knees.
“Nothing. We hide from Sloane.”
“I meant with the shifter.”
My eyes slide to her, and then the yard. “You’re looking at it. This is it for me. It’s safer for everyone involved.”
“Do you love him?”
I think so.I’d never said so aloud. Is it possible to fall for someone after a week?
“Maybe.”
“Then don’t let one witch steal the future you could have. If I did that, I wouldn’t be a vampire right now.”
That can’t be it. Sloane may be a singular witch, but she’s not exactly the average one either. Normal witches don’t plot soul-altering plans with others. If I was selfish and went back to Ryder, it might seem like Soane loses, but by winning as much as she has so far, she’s already stolen all the better futures for me.
“Mom won’t let me leave.”
“No offense, and I love Morgan, but fuck that. You’re of age and well able to do whatever you want. Guess it comes down to asking yourself what that is.” She lifts to her feet, stretching a hand and effectively ending the conversation at a point that forces me to consider her words.
A momentafter we re-enter the house, the door flies back open and a figure—recognizable only by the penetrating energy she carries—appears.
Freya, the First Witch.
Bright purple hair identical to her eyes rests in a braid over one shoulder. A zip-up jacket, leggings, and brown hiking boots complete the outfit. There’s never been a time Freya dressed her age—which is dawn of time old or something—or looked anything like a witch. She’s always extravagant and always changing her hair.
