“That is theoppositeof what I said I wanted!“ she bellowed, silencing him at last.
Ladybug sucked in a ragged breath, reaching out to grip the counter, the urge to smash the offending coffee pot bubbling within her.Calm down. This isn’t you. This is beneath you.Another slow breath. Maybe the voice in her head was wrong, she considered for the first time. Maybe this wasn’t some latent effect of having Holt nearby at all. Maybe thiswasher true personality, like a slow-blooming corpse flower, taking more than thirty years for a vein of anger to tap her root, finally forcing her petals to open.Good. Maybe my stink will knock out half the town.
“I am,” she began in a calmer voice, “sotired of being told what I should do and how I should feel. You know I never experienced that much growing up. I was never told my feelings were wrong. My mother and my aunts never told me I shouldn’t be timid or that I was silly for being afraid of speaking in front of crowds or that I wasridiculousfor being anxious at trying new things. But now I’m surrounded by men and suddenly everyone knows what’s best for me.”
Before her, Anzan looked stricken. The expression on his handsome face—narrowed eyes and scrunched forehead, his lips pulled down in a frown—was one he’d worn for the better part of the last month or so, she realized. She considered, watching his long, talon-tipped fingers twist, a nervous gesture not dissimilar to what she herself often did, that certain communication breakdowns that should probably be expected, considering she was an introvert possessing no conversation skill to speak of who spent the last several years with only herself for company, and Anzan, who had lived isolated and alone his entire adulthood and was silent the majority of the time.He’s been just as worried, just as affected by all this. He’s told you a dozen times before he knows people are talking, and you’ve dismissed him. You’re not any better at this than he is.
Almost immediately, the fight leaked out of her. She closed the distance between them, relieved when his arms quickly opened for her, sagging against him like a deflated balloon. Her eyes fluttered closed at the familiar shiver of his talon-tipped nails slowly raking through her hair.We’re going to be fine. We need to actually talk once in a while, but we’re going to be fine. No one is making us go anywhere.
“I heard what the Tongues-of-grass woman said this morning,” he murmured above her. “To the cat man. The concern of your neighbors is not something you should overlook. I do not wish to bring dishonor to your home, little bug.”
The heaviness of his voice made her heart clench. She hated Millie Tonguegrass for making him sound so sad.Millie and Kestra and everyone at City Hall.
“There is something you should know,” he went on, sounding wretched. “I did not mean to keep this from you, Ladybug, but I did not want to distract you when you were so busy with your work. The government of your town, here . . . they have a plan to ensure my kind will no longer be a danger to their streets.”
The ordinance.Ladybug pulled back sharply, blinking as she looked up to him. Ironic that the secret weighing heavily on him was the same that had occupied her thoughts for the past two weeks. She had decided not to tell him about her visit to Jack’s office. There was nothing they could do, and she’d decided the werewolf was right — let him handle it. Anzan didn’t need to be made to worry.But hehasbeen worrying. He’s told you so. You live in the same house, you both work from home. How is it possible that you communicate so poorly?“How do you know about that?”
“That does not make a difference,” he said cagily, somehow managing to avoid her eyes, despite him having a preponderance of his own. “It is the truth. I am certain if you were to ask your werewolf friend, he would be able to tell you.”
“I don’t need to ask him,” she admitted. They were both ridiculous. “I already did. He knows all about it. And-and so do I. I didn’t want to worry you . . .”
Two hands landed at her shoulders, pulling her back, while a third gripped her chin, raising her face. “It is not myself I worry over, little bug. My presence is a blight on your reputation, at a time when you are trying to expand your business, and you do not need me to hold you back. I have known this truth for some time and have not been brave enough to act on it, but we have reached the point no return, I fear. This is your home, my Ladybug. I will not have you bear reprisals for me. It would be best for me to leave.”
“Are you my partner, or are you not?” she asked after a moment, wanting to reach up and smooth his furrowed brow. “You call me your mate, but-but I don’t know what that means. You say it’s your job to take care of me, to make me happy, to fight for me . . . but what about us?”
Arms came around her, and she let him lift her to the countertop, bringing them slightly closer to being eye-to-eye.
“Little bug, I do not—“
“Are you willing to fight for us?” she went on. “Or only for me? Because I don’t need a protector. I don’t need someone to fight for me. But I want a partner to fight forus. Why do you think I make you take walks with me in the evening? I want you to be able to come with me to the spring festival and walk down Main Street and hold my hand and not care what anyone else is saying. I don’t care about the neighbors. Do you know,“ she went on, feeling the simmer coming back to her blood, “that I’ve been a scandal in this town since I was born?”
Anzan made a rumbling noise of disagreement, but Ladybug nodded vigorously.
“No, it’s true.” She had been thinking about Jack’s story off and on for the last two weeks, thinking of her mother and her aunt, and how things must have once been. “That’s what it was when my mother came here to have me. A scandal. The neighbors all talked. They couldn’t understand how my great-aunt was simply okay with taking in an unwed pregnant college student that wasn’t even her own child.”
She had no doubt that Aunt Authricia had always been a force to be reckoned with, but Ladybug wondered now, how much of Authricia’s bark had been developed to protect the family? To keep the witches behind their doors safe and secure? Her mother had never suffered fools either. Ladybug knew she was more like soft-spoken Willow, but even Willow had been strong in her way. She was sweet and kind and patient, but she stood up for what was right, and protected her awkward niece from the harsher personalities in the coven.
“But she came here to have me because this is where we belong. It didn’t matter if this isn’t the house she grew up in, or if my grandmother was still alive. It didn’t matter because we are Brackenbridge witches andthisis our home. When Willow got sick, of course this is where she came. When my mother died, I had a home to come to, becauseIam a Brackenbridge witch. We don’t care what people say about us,“ she continued in a steadier voice, “and they have always said things about us. But this is our home. This is where we belong. I will not be made to feel unwelcome or unwanted in the place that is my home. And now it’s your home as well, so you shouldn’t care either.”
His face was stricken, eyes blinking in a wave. “Little bug —“
“I’m sorry that you never had that,” she pushed on. “I’m so sorry that was taken from you, that you never had that security. I think I’m always going to be angry over what my coven did to me, but I amfuriousover what happened to you, and I will be forever. I hate that you went through that at all, and I especially hate that you went through it alone.”
He had a hand at her hip, a hand around her shoulders, and as she finished speaking, another came up to cup her face, long claw carefully tracing the apple of her cheek. Ladybug closed her eyes, turning her face until she was able to press a kiss to the center of his palm.
“I’m not alone anymore, my little witch.”
Alone together. She hadn’t felt truly alone since the day she’d opened the door to find him on the other side, the most fortuitous day of her life. Ladybug wriggled out of his many-handed grasp, pressing herself to his front until she could wrap her arms around his neck. Shehadchanged this past year. She was still herself, still as awkward and terrible with people as she’d ever been, but she was happy with the thread the Fates had dealt her for this new chapter of her life. What was she, if she was not a witch? What was she, if she was not a spider’s mate?
“You’re not,” she agreed. “So fight for uswithme. I know you think I’m the brave one, but I can’t do this without you. I want you to bring your goddess damned coffee machine downstairs, and I wantyouto come down sixteen times a day to get your caffeine fix like you always did. Understand? Tonight we’re going for our walk, and I don’teverwant you to assume that I don’t want you around again. You’re not going anywhere.”
Holt was sitting on the edge of the counter when they returned to the kitchen, his eyebrows raised expectantly.
She had long wondered what her family would’ve thought of him. What they would have said, how they would have greeted him. She could imagine Willow bustling about, making tea, and her mother talking with him in her friendly, professional voice, the same one she’d used at the hospital, to set him at ease. Authricia was blunt and forthright and would have asked him pointed questions about his intentions and his plans for longevity in her niece’s life. She had imagined and envisioned those would-be introductions over and over in her head, but somehow, she had never imagined this.
Ladybug cleared her throat. The day she had opened the garden door for Holt, Anzan had stood behind her until she and Holt had made their agreement, and the black cat left the kitchen shortly after with his tail held high. Anzan had made himself scarce since.This is overdue. For this you don’t have anyone to blame but yourself.
“Anzan . . . this is Holt. He-he’s been a part of my family since I was a little girl.” Her neck flushed and her eyes burned, met by the green fire in Holt’s but she refused to cry. “He was my Aunt Willow’s familiar, and he’s been very helpful getting me ready for the Makers’ Mart.”
