Page 31 of The Witch They Fear

Then it's gone. Sealed over. The smirk slides back into place, but the edges of it are different now. Tighter. More deliberate.

He takes his hand off my shoulder. Steps back. The loss of contact makes my magic lurch sideways in his direction.

"Nice swing, Hex."

His voice is low. Just for me. The word lands like a brand—Hex. A curse. Bad luck.

The thing that ruins everything it touches.

"Don't call me that," I snap. But my voice comes out wrong. Too breathless. Too aware. The sparks are still flickering at my fingertips and I curl my hands into fists to smother them.

"Too late." He turns. Walks away. Starts collecting staves like nothing happened, like he didn't just put his hand on the most dangerous witch on campus and watch her light up like a live wire.

"Hey." Emric's voice, right beside me. He's stepped forward, positioning himself between me and Kage's retreating back in a way that looks casual but isn't. His dark eyes track Kage across the field, and the easy warmth that's been in his expression all morning has cooled to something more careful. "You okay?"

"Fine." My fists are still clenched. My pulse is still doing something reckless. "What was that about?"

"That was Kage being Kage." He says it evenly, but there's a weight underneath. "Listen—I'm not going to tell you what to do. But be careful around him. He's not..." He searches for the word. Discards several. "He's not like the rest of us. And the people who get close to him tend to end up in everyone's crosshairs right alongside him."

I look at Emric. Then at Kage, halfway across the field, moving through the fog with an armful of staves. Then back at Emric—kind eyes, genuine concern, the sort of warning that comes from caring, not controlling.

"Noted," I say.

He holds my gaze for a beat. Nods. Then the warmth slides back into his expression, easy as breathing. "Thursday?"

"Thursday."

He heads off the training field. I stand at the edge with my fists clenched and a warmth in my chest that has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the fact that Kage saw. He saw the sparks and he didn't flinch. Didn't step back. Didn't reach for a weapon or calculate the distance to the nearest exit.

I don’t think Emric saw, but Kage definitely did and now the sparks are getting hotter and I’m putting all my energy into extinguishing whatever is wrong with me right now.

He looked at my magic like he recognized it.

That shouldn't get under my skin the way it does. But here I am. Skin: fully gotten under.

A rush of air hits the back of my neck.

One second I'm alone at the edge of the field. The next second there's a body beside me—close, still, radiating that cold, sharp vampire frequency—and I nearly jump out of my skin.

"Jesus—" I stumble sideways, hand flying to my chest. My magic flares on instinct, heat spiking behind my sternum again before I do my best to clamp it down. "What the hell—"

Aamon is standing three feet away. Hands at his sides. Hazel eyes on me with that steady, patient attention, like he didn't just materialize out of thin air fast enough to displace the fog around us.

"Your private session," he says. Level. Unbothered. As though arriving next to someone at roughly the speed of sound is a perfectly normal thing to do on a Tuesday morning.

"Are you all that fast? Fuck!" My pulse is still hammering. "Or is that a you thing?"

"Most vampires have some degree of enhanced speed."

"Great. Wonderful. Don't sneak up on me." I press my hand harder against my chest, willing my magic back down. "I nearly set you on fire. Which—honestly, might have been an improvement to your personality, but I'm trying to not destroy things this week."

His jaw does the centimeter shift. The micro-tell. I'm starting to think that's as close as he gets to laughing.

"Noted," he says.

We walk toward the edge of the field where Zeva is stationed, her silhouette sharp against the tree line. The fog is almost completely burnt off and the morning light turns everything amber. I can feel Aamon beside me—not touching, not close enough to touch, but present in a way that takes up more space than his body accounts for.

I glance sideways at him. That face gives me nothing, as always. But the timing nags at me. He appeared seconds after Kage and Emric walked away—seconds after my fingertips lit up like sparklers in the middle of a crowded training field. Convenient timing for a man who can move faster than I can blink.