“Are you kidding?” She laughed, but her voice was softer now. “It was wild. And weird. But also weirdly sweet? Like…who says that kind of shit and actually means it?”
“Me, apparently,” I muttered.
She smiled wider. “Yeah. You. And maybe I liked hearing it more than I should.”
I took her hand, kissed the inside of her wrist, then looked down at her. “You still want it?”
Her gaze went soft, thoughtful. “I don’t know what I want,” she said. “But I know I don’t want to walk away from you.”
She slid her hands around my waist, nestled into my chest…demanded to be held. I wrapped my arms around her, tucking her head under my chin.
“It’s gonna keep getting weirder,” I said against her hair. “This town, this family, us.”
“Good,” she murmured. “I’m tired of pretending I’m not weird, too.”
We stood like that for a while—just holding on. The moon was high overhead now, filtering through the branches above the Witch Tree like it was blessing us. Or maybe watching. Or maybe just being.
And I didn’t want to scare her—not after telling her she was safe out here in the woods—but as I held her in the aftermath, shuddering and warm…I could have sworn I saw a pair of glowing blue eyes watching us from the shadows.
CHAPTER 13
Noelle
I was stillin that floaty, post-orgasmic euphoria when we said goodbye to Beau's family for the night and climbed into his truck to go back to his place. I'd had more sex in the past twenty-four hours than the previous year, and I was very eager to get back to his bed.
Until, of course, I got distracted by the main event of the Gloaming Festival as we drove down Main Street.
Since this afternoon, the town had transformed. Paper lanterns bobbed from the trees like will-o’-the-wisps, strung between streetlamps and signposts. Storefronts glowed with flickering candles and painted sigils—symmetrical flowers and corn dollies and arcane spirals.
“What the hell,” I muttered, craning my neck out the window. “Is this…normal?”
Beau slowed the truck, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “More or less. This is the last night of the festival. Everything gets real witchy.”
“Real witchy?” I echoed, eyes locking on a guy juggling flaming torches next to the pharmacy.
“Don’t worry,” Beau said, reaching over to squeeze mythigh. “Nobody’s gonna try to baptize you in moonlight or sacrifice a goat or anything.”
“Great,” I said. “Because I left my goat-sacrificing knife in Austin.”
Beau laughed, but I didn’t. Because just then, we turned the corner past the hardware store—and the city park came into full view.
And Jesus Christ.
The whole place was lit up like some kind of low-budget renaissance fair mated with a traveling circus and gave birth to a pagan fever dream. String lights crisscrossed the lawn, pulsing soft gold. Someone had rigged aerial silks between two of the big oak trees, and a girl in a leotard and glitter paint was spinning slowly, upside down, like a spider on a thread. Fire spinners worked the open space in front of the bandstand, arcs of flame lighting up the night in dizzying patterns. Drums pounded low and hypnotic, and people danced barefoot in the grass—some of them in flowing costumes, others in jeans and flannel, like this was just another Saturday night.
It was beautiful.
And completely unhinged.
“There’s a fire pit in the shape of a pentagram,” I said flatly, staring through the windshield.
“Yeah…welcome to Willow Grove.”
“Can we stop?”
Beau glanced over at me, then scanned the street for parking space. It was completely packed. “Yeah, but…let’s go back to my place and grab Milo; we can walk.”
“He’ll be okay?”
