“What aboutmyapproval?” I stammered, face flushing with heat. “What about whatIwant?”
My attention darted to the banister and then his hand was on mine, interlacing with my fingers and keeping me against the glass. My stomach tightened at the contact, Desire flooding my veins, seekingmore. He turned me to face him, and I sucked in a breath, his aqua pools drowning me in their depths. “Why don’t you quit pushing me away and tell me what you want, Oakley?”
I shot some Desire through his arm, hitting him like a brick. He moaned, bending in half—all the distraction I needed to untangle myself from his web. I hurried toward the staircase, jolting when bars swung across the wall.
“Is this a baby gate?” I asked, glaring at him as I gripped the bars and pulled on them.
Atlas shrugged. “Looks like babyproofing the house came with a few extra perks.”
They were locked in place, so in terms of keeping our son from the stairs, it was amazing. But right now, I wanted to rip them from the walls and get the hell out of here. My resolve to keep him at arm’s length was disappearing with each passing second.
“I just want the truth.” His hands were clenched by his sides, lips flat. “Just give me that and you can go to the party. Tothem.”
The truth. The one I’d been dancing around. Was it fair to hold Atlas’s fate lodged in the back of my throat? How could I even say the words? Everything I’d done to try to change things had seemed to only bite me in the ass and make it worse between us.
“I saw you die.” The confession blew out of me, taking all the air from my lungs with it, my voice merely a rasp.
His gaze narrowed into slits, and I wished Lynx was here to tell me what was brewing beneath the surface of this witch that held so much captivating power over me.
“Well, technically Hazel did and shared her premonition with me.” I stepped away from the gate, leaning against the half wall that lined the staircase, continuing on before he stopped me from getting out what I needed to say. “I don’t care if you don’t believe in what she saw. I couldn’t live with myself if being together meant your death. That’s why I came here. That’s why I left Salem. I’m trying to build a life for Aspen and keep his father safe.”
“Why didn’t you just talk to me?” He slowly walked toward me, taking the spot next to me on the wall. His tone was soft. Sad. But there was no telling me the premonition was wrong, or that I shouldn’t have listened to Hazel. No anger.
What the hell?
“Why aren’t you shocked?” I asked, glaring at him. “I just said I saw a vision where if we stay together you die.”
He remained silent, a hollowness haunting his eyes.
An icy tingle streaked down my spine, goosebumps prickling along my skin. “Did you know about the vision? Did she tell you already?”
Had she gone behind my back and shared his fate with him after everything I’d done—how hard I’d worked to keep it from him?
“I didn’t know about Hazel’s vision.” The lines on his face hardened. “But I did know about the hex on my family.”
“Hex? What?” I croaked. “Why have you never told me about it before?”
Sure, there were hexes and curses out there, but I’d only heard of them being outlawed. I’d never met someone who had actually been the victim of one. Most of the time they could be reversed with the proper sort of magic.
“If people knew my grandfather and every male in his line had been hexed by the Moon Goddess herself, do you think we would have been able to lead the supernatural community since its inception?”
By the Moon Goddess herself? What did his grandfather do to piss her off? We’d always been told she was a benevolent goddess, watching over us. Helping.
Not there to harm or hex.
“But you couldn’t tell me?”
He’d wanted to marry me. We had a witchling together. This would have affected me no matter what. But instead, he’d kept it a secret all these years.
Tears stung my eyes, building in their rims. I grabbed my corset, running the spiderwebs beneath the pads of my fingers, needing to tether myself to something.
“I wanted to, Oakley. You have no idea how much I did. But how do you tell someone you love that you’re destined to die just as your life’s meant to begin?” He spun himself to stand in front of me, clasping my hands in his. Thumbs grazing the edge of my palms. “There was never a good time to share that, and I didn’t want to lose you.”
If the hex had passed from his grandfather to his father and then to him…
“Aspen…” My hands shook within his. “What’s going to happen to our son, Atlas?”
“Nothing.” He squeezed my hands, steadying them. Taking a deep breath, he rested his forehead against mine. “That’s why I never told you. The hex dies with the family member that willingly accepts their fate. My grandfather, my father, they used every trick in the book to thwart theirs. I’m not.”
