Malcolm rested his cheek on the top of her head, closing his eyes.
“Turns out what Zelda said about us isn’t the first prophecy about me.” He held her tight, as if keeping hold of her could anchor him here. “I don’t care anymore. I don’t want anything to do with that life. I’m tired of prophecies dictating my life. It’s my life.”
He would stay right here with her and damn the rest of the world.
Reginald appeared inside his study back home in Boston. For a long moment he didn’t move. The weight of the blood vow pounded in his blood. He didn’t have much more time before the consequences would catch up with him. He opened the door to the hall and stumbled straight into his wife.
“Reggie!” She gasped. “Did you find him? Is he all right?”
“I did,” he leaned back against the closed door. “He’s shacking up with some hedge witch. He’s fine.”
Sarah put her hands on his shoulders, and her eyes grew wide. “He’s what? A witch? Oh, how wonderful! Did you meet her? Is she nice?”
Only Sarah would treat such an announcement like their son was dating someone seriously. Malcolm never took any woman seriously. He always chose smart, beautiful, lovely women to date, but it was clear his son had no intention of ever settling down. And he had claimed he loved this one. Ridiculous.
“She’s a hedge witch, dear,” Reginald said. “Completely unsuitable for this family.”
Sarah dropped her arms from his shoulders and frowned. “Unsuitable to you, perhaps, but not to me.”
“That’s because you don’t understand the difference?—”
“Oh, but I do.” Sarah eyed him reproachfully. “The only real difference is the source of your magic. Only blood witches and warlocks want to make it seem like you’re special somehow. But the truth is, you’re all the same. You all use magic.” She declared this with such dismissiveness it would have irked him if he wasn’t so damned tired.
Reginald wanted to argue that the source made all the difference, but he’d be sleeping on the couch if he dared to explain. He pushed away from the door and came into the light of the wall sconces more clearly. The annoyance in her face vanished, replaced by concern.
“Honey, you’re very pale. You look ill.”
“I might need to rest a bit,” he admitted. He couldn’t tell her about the blood promise. If she found out, it could destroy his family.
“Go sit in the living room. I’ll make you some hot tea.” She stood up and kissed his cheek, then left him to go sit on the couch.
He only had a few months at most to get Malcolm to accept his place in the Salem Witch Council before the consequences caught up with him. If Malcolm didn’t come home soon, he’d have to tell Sarah what he’d done. And he might lose everything…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next morning, Calli woke with a strange feeling. With Malcolm’s warm, hard body in her bed beside her, she felt the loneliness she carried for years start to slip away from her. She cuddled closer to him, basking in the comfort of the heat of his bare skin.
After his father’s visit last night, she and Malcolm had stayed up until two in the morning talking about their pasts, about everything they’d been through over the years, and Calli felt like she finally knew Malcolm.
He had expressed shame and frustration at feeling like a failure when it came to magic. He had shared how he’d felt when he’d set up his software company, how he had loved feeling he’d finally taken charge of his life and loved what he did. She could understand that so well. She loved running her grandmother’s bookstore. She loved having a chance to connect people with the kind of stories that would change their lives.
Malcolm was no longer a stranger to her. He was a friend…a lover…and the possibility of so much more hovered around them. The witch-lock.
When Sage had first pointed it out, the idea had scared Calli. A witch-lock was forever, and Malcolm had been an albeit handsome stranger who had wrecked her pumpkins and torn up her lawn. What if witch-locking to him was more a matter of their magic matching and not about them falling in love? She knew her parents had a deep love for each other, but she’d always wondered if that was true for every witch-locked couple. It would be just her luck if she and Malcolm didn’t suit and were trapped together forever. But that fear…was really no longer a fear, now that she felt like she truly knew him.
Even at the start, she couldn’t deny the connection she shared, but he had been a stranger and the idea of being chained to someone she didn’t know was terrifying. Especially when she’d lost her whole family. Being witch-locked hadn’t protected her parents. Part of her feared that type of connection, that bond of her lifetime to another person’s.
But then her own potential life partner had dropped into her life with malfunctioning magic in her magical town, and she didn’t know what to think.
Helping him with his magic, letting him into her home, into her life, and listening as he shared his feelings about magic, his family, his responsibilities—the idea of being witch-locked with him didn’t hold the same fear, and she found herself trusting him more and more. And that had led to this moment.
Malcolm yawned and stretched with her still lying half on top of him. He chuckled, the sound low and rough as he opened his eyes. His lips twitched into a smile, as if her being there was a pleasant surprise.
She rested her chin on his chest, staring up at him. “What?”
“You.”
“Me?”
