Andre tried to scramble onto his knees, but didn’t argue when I pressed him back down into the pile of pillows.
Even if he was feeling better, it didn’t mean he should be doing most of the work. And I wasn’t going to let him hurt himself doing it. He could prove himself right where he was.
“Bloody hell, Poppy,” he groaned against my throat. The heave of his breath felt like a warm breeze stirring my hair. The smell of him so close was beyond intoxicating. “You’re so beautiful.”
His lips mapped my throat, leaving tingles in their wake. I was sure he’d swallow my pulse in his mouth when he began to nibble my neck. The layers of clothing between us seemed like an unbearable inconvenience, but I could barely get my fingers to stop shaking long enough to undo the buttons of his shirt. Everywhere we touched, I flushed with the warmth of his love as delicious tingles erupted any and everywhere he touched me.
“You’re glowing, Poppy,” Andre said.
“You don’t look so bad yourself.”
He laughed. “No, I mean the tips of your hair are glowing.”
I wanted to believe he was pulling my leg, but when I looked down, I found my hair throwing a golden glow not only over me, but the glow was shifting, washing the heavy beams and plush furnishings in a honeyed light. Andre leaned back against the pillows, the quilt pooling around him.
“Oh… well, that’s new,” I started, shaking my head. “And I have no idea why my hair is doing it.”
But soon it wasn’t just my hair. It was my entire body that was radiating a strange, golden glow. I had no idea why, but it wasn’t a painful experience so I tried to just shove it to the back of my mind.
“You are so damn silly. And beautiful,” he sighed happily.
Slowly, gently, he reached for my face, tilting it toward his. His touch was warm, grounding, and I leaned into it instinctively, the tension in my chest easing just enough to let me breathe. Our lips met, soft at first, a tentative press.
As to what in the world was going on with my hair and this glow? I didn’t know. But at the moment, I also didn’t care. All that mattered was this man in front of me. My hands sank into his hair, pulling him closer, while Andre’s arms circled my waist. The room seemed to shrink around us, until only the pile of fabric, pillows, and the man in my arms seemed to matter.
When we finally parted, just enough to catch our breath, I kept my forehead against his. “You’re really okay? I’m not hurting you?”
“No, you aren’t hurting me. I’m more than okay. I’m happy.”
Power suddenly seemed to be thrumming through me, sparking anywhere our skin touched. It was like a static electricity that actually made me jump as I looked around the room for a culprit. But it was just us. Then I realized the golden embers dancing over my fingers didn’t just belong to me. They belongedto us.
Because I could suddenly feel another presence in the room with me. Inside of me, even. Part of me. It was an inner light that had only just flickered to life inside my chest. It didn’t hurt. On the contrary, it felt warm.Powerful.And I was fairly sure it was the reason for the glow that was emanating from me—my whole body now.
“What is that?” Andre asked, voice low. So I wasn’t the only one sensing it. Good.
“I think... I think it might be...” I trembled under the realization. “I think it’s the Goddess.”
Which was all kinds of wrong, right? I mean, it should have been. I was a gypsy. An outsider. I wasn’t a witch. I never had been one. And, yes, I was part of the coven, but I’d been broughtin ceremonially by a group of friends. And yet, this didn’t feel like a promise between friends. This felt… sacred.
“You’re a funny child,”the goddess murmured. I could hear her voice in my mind. It was familiar and alien at once.Like it was new, and yet it had been there for all eternity.
“I’m not a child,” I replied in thought, cheeks burning. “I’m in my forties.”
The goddess laughed, soft and deep, like water lapping against stones. “You are but an infant. I am as ancient as the bedrock beneath the Hollow, and as young as the first seedling breaking through the soil.”
“You’re the Goddess,”I thought, mostly to make sure.
I felt her nod even though I couldn’t see her.“I am life. Motherhood. Renewal. Death. Everything that turns in cycles and circles. And I am in you now.”
Visions flickered behind my eyes. Shadows, faint at first, then more defined: the Hollow under siege, twisted figures whispering in corners, the Masked Lords moving with purpose. One shape coalesced into Knox—familiar, yet alien, as though the essence of Knox had fused with something dark inside the goddess herself. I saw it: parasitic, feeding, choking, a malignancy within nature itself.
“You see it,”the goddess whispered.“The cancer in the organism.”
“Knox?”I asked.
She nodded.“Knox is part of me, yet he is not. He is vicious. He seeks to strangle what I have nurtured. There will come a time, Poppy, when you will need every soldier you can gather to fight this evil.”
I shivered as my heart hammered behind my ribs. She was talking about a war, and I was fairly sure she was talking about a war with the Masked Lords. Then that had to mean they were eventually going to attack us?
