I smile slowly, my hand cupping her soft cheek in my palm. I stroke my thumb against her face and lean in to claim her lips.
Our lips meet and it’s as if we’re sealing the promise of our future together—bright lights flash behind my eyes and the air teems with an electric current almost like…
I break the kiss and quickly tug Trissa into my side, pulling the blankets up around her shoulders. She looks up at me, shocked. I glare down at the foot of the bed, where Seth is now draped, hand on hip and cheeky smile on his face.
“Really?” My eyebrow quirks and I hear Trissa’s gasp as she realizes we’re not alone. “Again?”
“I can’t help it that you two are like the peanut butter and chocolate.” He shrugs with one shoulder. “Besides, I would have stopped you before the main event…probably.”
I glance at Trissa, who looks amused and is fighting a smile, and relax. I know by now that Seth is harmless, and if Trissa isn’t uncomfortable I’m not going to bother trying to change something that probably runs personality deep.
“Wait—I thought you said it was peanut butter and bananas?”
He sighs dramatically and scrunches up his nose in mock disgust, “That’s a platonic friendship sandwich, man. Keep up. Everyone knows that peanut butter andchocolateis the combo for a sex and big feelings sandwich.”
Trissa’s boisterous laugh fills the room and I grin, partially because Seth is utterly ridiculous, but mostly because her laugh feels like home. That’s the best way to describe it. Her happiness is infectious.
A lopsided smile stretches across Seth’s dark mouth as he sits up and slides to the edge of the bed. “Get dressed and meet me downstairs in five?”
I nod and Trissa groans at having to get up but says, “We’ll be right there.”
I wait until Seth closes the bedroom door behind him, curious as to why someone who can teleport would choose to walk down the stairs.
“You think he found something we may not know?” Trissa is worrying her bottom lip again.
I lick my lips and lift my hand to her mouth, running my thumb along her abused lower lip. She immediately frees it, opening her mouth slightly. Her eyes dilate as I lean forward and plant a light kiss to the reddened area, before leaning back and slowly running my thumb over it again.
“I suppose we should get dressed and go find out.”
“Oh, no fair!” She huffs then pouts pathetically and I laugh out loud, her antics leaving a lightness in my chest so profound it feels as if I may float away.
“Well, fuck.” Seth is re-reading Leona’s letter while perched atop the coffee table across from Trissa and I.
I’m nervous to ask, but we need to know if we’re really planning on completing the ritual tomorrow. “Does it seem to check out with what you learned from the witch?”
He dips his chin in the affirmative, “I didn’t really understand at the time—but yeah. She said that Trissa’s family is now and always has been under the protection of the coven, to the best of their ability. She was adamant that there was no coven in Kismet Falls that would do anything violent toward a fellow witch, blood magic or not.”
I nod and feel a fissure of tension ease from my tightly wound frame. We told him what we have planned for tomorrow before handing him the letter to read for himself.
Seth looks up, his eyes ping-pong from me to Trissa. His mouth twists into a slight frown, “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I think it’s a mistake not to take the elixir when you do the ritual.”
Trissa’s eyes shine with conflict as she crosses her arms over her chest. Her brows knit together as words haltingly spill forth “I know that I want to be with Cian forever… but drinking that elixir would be like drinking their blood.” She swallows and her lashes lower as her eyes lock onto the letter, “plus… Gran didn’t say exactly what it does…”
My heart beats in a happy cadence hearing her say that she wants me forever, but I have to agree—it’s too risky. “I thought maybe we could take it to the coven to see if they can be more help with what it may do.”
“Not a bad idea. But call them and have them come here. I’m not going on another date with that witch,” Seth grumbles and hands the letter back to Trissa.
“Oh come on, it can’t have been as bad as the necromancer… you called that one the worst in history.”
He glares at me and I laugh as he responds, “that wasn’t really a date—she needed a… favor. Although, there have been some major developments with her recently…reallygood ones. But either way, this…THIS!Ugh!” He shivers, I mean, whole body quaking type of shiver and I feel my eyebrows shoot to my hairline. “She was so… she laughed at all of my jokes!”
Trissa looks at me out of the corner of her eye, an amused glint shinning in their blue depths. I can’t keep the amusement from my voice as I ask, “And that’s a bad thing?”
He shakes his head and stands up abruptly, pacing around the room, “No—no, not normally. Not when you guys do it. But she took like a full minute to process every joke. I’m not exaggerating… by the time she laughed we were already talking about something else.”
“That hardly seems like it’s enough to be worse than theworstdate ever…” If that was his standard, my dating history would be considered abysmal by comparison. Trissa is the only romantic partner I’ve ever had any ease of conversation with.
“Well, that’s because you didn’thearit. Her laugh, I mean. It was like…” he shakes his head and waves an arm in front of him in a rolling motion, “like a hyena on helium.” He grimaces and shakes his head, as if to rid himself of the memory.
