“How could you?” Maeve’s eyes flare with her anger.
“You admit it,” Eloise shouts. “The candle was spelled to keep him a prisoner forever!”
The table rattles as Maeve’s power rises in the room. “He murdered a witch, Eloise! My ancestor. He deserved what he got.”
A growl tears from my throat and I position myself between them, my shadows crawling the walls and pointing dark and razor sharp in Maeve’s direction. “Mind your power, Gowdie.”
The table settles, but the witch’s hands remain balled into fists.
Eloise points at me, her ears growing red with her anger. “Only because your family conjured him from his home. He’s served the Gowdies for multiple lifetimes. Any debt he owed you is paid.”
Maeve slashes a hand through the air. “How did you break the spell?”
“I tossed the candle into the fire.”
She scoffs. “That shouldn’t have worked. The wax is enchanted never to fully melt. It’s laced with his own blood.”
“It didn’t melt,” Eloise says through her teeth. “It exploded into a shower of sparks.”
Maeve grips the back of a chair until her knuckles turn white. “Goddess, El. Don’t you see what that means? It’s like I told you, your tattoodoesmean something. The vibes I get in this house… the fact the Wi-Fi never works… there’s something magical here. Something magical in you. You may not be a witch like me, but you have power.”
What Maeve says is true. I’ve sensed it for a while now. But hearing her say it sends a frisson of fear through me. If I wasn’t such a fool, I’d run from Eloise immediately, because whatever this power is, it’s sinking its teeth into my soul. I don’t move and I realize maybe it already has.
Eloise runs a hand down her face. “I think I’d know if I had any power. But that’s not what’s important here. What’s important is that Damien is finally free, and I want you to promise me you’ll let him go.”
I dart a glance between the two women. Do the Gowdies still have my blood? If they’ve preserved a vial, they could attempt to recapture me, but I would not come easily. Once again Eloise has surprised me. To leverage her friendship with Maeve to secure my freedom is a gift I do not take for granted.
“I can’t do that. It’s not my decision to make. This won’t go over well with my family. It will weaken our position.”
Eloise grips the collar of her robe, her jaw clenching. “Promise me, Maeve. As your best friend.”
Maeve groans, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling before she tosses up her hands. “You don’t understand.”
“I do. I’m asking you, if you ever truly were my friend, to promise me you’ll do everything you can to keep Damien free.”
“You’d end our friendship over him? Over this monster!”
“He’s not a monster!” Eloise bellows. “And I love him.”
“Goddess help me.” Maeve stares at the floor, gripping the chair and shaking her head. “Fine! I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you.”
Maeve scowls. “Don’t thank me. I’m doing this for you, for the sake of a friendship that used to be precious to me.”
“Used to be?”
“This isn’t okay, El. Freeing him without my permission, isn’t okay.” For a moment, the two women just stare at each other, the room thick with shadows and charged with barely contained magic.
Eloise sighs. “I think you should go.”
A strangled sound comes from Maeve’s throat. “No. We need to talk. If you have power, you and Damien have to be careful. If you’re a witch, it could explain why he’s enchanted by you. Don’t you see? That’s why he’s here. You’re binding him, and if you continue, he’ll claim you as his mate. There’s no candle to stop him now.”
I growl low and deep, baring my fangs. A small part of me acknowledges the possibility that what she says could be true. Eloise hasn’t forced me to take her blood, and she doesn’t command me now. I am here because I desperately want to be, and I can leave anytime I choose. But I don’t want to leave. Not now. Not ever. And that is frighteningly close to the enchantment she describes.
A tense silence spreads across the kitchen, punctuated by the way Eloise is looking at me, almost as if shewantsme to confirm she is my mate. The urge to possessher twitches along my spine and pulses in my fangs. “We should both leave,” I say to Maeve. “Eloise needs rest and a chance to mourn in private. This conversation can be had another day.”
I’m a coward not to address the mating instinct I’m battling head-on, but if I don’t leave Eloise’s presence now, I will take her and I will claim her as mine. Already everything in me feels it. She is mine.
