Yes.
A million times yes.
I just needed to say the word, but it wouldn’t come. Stuck in my throat, caught there by the huge fucking secret I kept locked down tight. This wasn’t me. I didn’t do uncertainty. Hadn’t been a fan of lying either until I came here and had to for my own sanity.
Okay, maybe not an outright lie, but lying by omission wasn’t much better.
I didn’t owe Dathal the truth. He wasn’t part of my coven, but he’d shown me his magic without hesitation. Shared a piece of him that was as personal and private as you could get. Magic flowed through his body like blood through his veins, and he’d let me see a side of him I suspected he didn’t show all that often.
Closing my eyes for a second, I gathered the courage to tell Dathal what I’d not told another soul outside my coven.
Apart from Zane. And I really didn’t want to be thinking about him right now.
I took another shaky breath in, Dathal’s scent filling my lungs, fresh like a spring morning. The tang of my magic chased it, a cruel tease, and when I finally met his gaze again, his expression had softened. The heat remained, banked like a fire, waiting for me to give him the go ahead.
“I need to tell you something.”
He shook his head. “You don’t.” His hand found my cuff again, and if I had any doubts before, that move alone chased them away.
He knew.
And he didn’t care.
I unclipped the leather and let it fall to the floor. Dathal said nothing, but his thumb traced the mark on my inner wrist. “I was sent up here by my family, my original coven, because my magic was out of control.Iwas out of control.”
“What did you do?”
“I—” Even now, six years later, it was hard to believe I’d been so fucking reckless. “I’m a level two witch, but a strong one.” I sighed, and Dathal’s grip on me tightened. He tilted my chin until I looked at him again.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to.”
His eyes flashed, and I had a second to register what was about to happen, and then his mouth covered mine in a kiss that took my breath away.
I felt iteverywhere.
From his warm soft lips to the roughness of his hand on my jaw, and the all-consuming pull that swept through my body. My wrist throbbed, my heart raced, and I felt the faintest stirrings of magic deep within me that I hadn’t experienced in so long I almost didn’t recognise it.
I clung to him, one hand curling around his hip, the other sneaking under his shirt, searching for bare skin. Moaning into his kiss when I found it.
Goddess, help me. If this is how it felt to kiss Dathal, then sex with him was going to fucking destroy me.
And I am so here for that.
If we were going to do this, I had to tell him. Couldn’t have his magic soothing my frayed edges without explaining why mine wouldn’t react, wouldn’t answer in the way he was expecting.
The way I was desperate for it to.
I deepened the kiss, chasing his tongue and pressing against him for as long as I could last without needing to break for air. When I pulled back and met his gaze, my resolve hardened in the openness I found there.
“I was arrogant and stupid. Refused to listen to the advice of those with a wealth of experience I didn’t possess. Thought I was invincible, that I didn’t need to follow the rules and do the training like the others with less power than me.
“I was wrong. Spectacularly so, and I attempted magic I wasn’t prepared for. Almost burnt my house to the ground with those I loved inside.” I stepped back and scrubbed my hands over my face, unable to look at him any longer.
Dathal was a member of the fae guard. Respected so much by the high court that they’d sent him as their representative. I was at the opposite end of that spectrum.
“If it hadn’t been for my mother rushing in and containing the huge fucking mess I’d made, I’d have been in paranormal prison right now.”
