One more, and we’re eighteen. I’m crying. She’s crying. I’m standing on the front steps of the coven hall, the last time I was here. There are no goodbyes. There’s nothing but a hurt so deep it still flays me open nearly a decade later.
Damn this place and all it’s ghosts.
Damn me for not being strong enough to stop the lump that forms in the back of my throat.
“You’re awake.” Soleil moves into the room slowly, cautiously, eyeing me up for a few moments before she grabs a stethoscope and approaches the table. “Can I?”
Reluctantly, I nod, and she spends the next couple of minutes listening to me breathe, listening to my heart, before letting out a long, exhausted breath.
“I think you’ll live.”
“Thank you, Doctor Soleil,” I mutter, and she rolls her eyes.
“You should thank me. Considering you were on death’s door when he brought you here.”
She nods toward Callum, voice tight and haughty in a way I recognize immediately. The kind of serious she only ever gets when it concerns her work. She’s a gladiator for her patients and for her craft, and though from the outside it might look like anger or irritation, I know better.
It’s fear.
“You burned the inside of your lungs,” she continues. “Where were you, and what kind of plant—”
“Unless you’re familiar with the fungi of Faerie,” I croak, still having difficulty with the wholetalkingthing. “I don’t think you’ll be able to figure this one out, Sol.”
“Faerie?” she asks, aghast. “You’re telling me you went all the way to—”
“Later,” Callum says, moving to put himself between me and my sister. “Seren needs to rest. She’s in no shape to—”
“You didn’t think it would have been good to mention you just came from Faerie when you brought her to me?” Soleil snaps at him.
Callum has stayed mostly out of the way while she’s been tending to me, and I was way too far gone to remember if they made introductions when we got here.
Seeing her square up against my supposed demon mate, hands on her hips and chin held high, like she’s about to go to battle for me, sends a sharp pang of misplaced sisterly pride through me.
Goddess, even after everything we’ve been through, she’s still ready to protect me without a second thought.
But, at the same time…
Callum has gone completely pale, eyes filled with horror as he realizes his mistake. “I… I didn’t…”
“And who the hell are you, anyway?” she demands, still looking like she’ll reach for something sharp and pointy in her supplies and stick him with it.
“Sol,” I murmur. “It’s alright. He’s… he’s with me.”
They both look at me, and I avoid their eyes by shifting to my side then sitting up on the table. Soleil clucks her annoyance, and Callum tries to get me to lie back down, but I ignore both of them.
“That doesn’t mean it’s alright for him to leave out that key bit of information. You could have died, Seren.”
If it’s possible, Callum goes even paler. He looks so damn distraught that not even my mistrustful heart is immune.
Alright. Officially over my sister’s terrible bedside manner.
Before I can think better of how it might be received, I reach over and squeeze Callum’s hand, just to let him know I don’t blame him. He squeezes back, and when I cut him a quick glance, his lips are parted on a small, surprised inhale.
“And what do you mean ‘with you?’ With you as in…” Soleil continues, before she spots my hand intertwined with his, and shocked understanding takes over her face. “Wait… really? You, too?”
“Her, too?” Callum asks. “What do you mean?”
Soleil runs a hand through her rumpled black curls. “Crescent Coven witches have been pairing up with demons left and right, going over to your realm and finding their m—”
