Page 41 of Moth to a Flame

“Quite an advanced bit of spellwork.”

“Told you I was good with my hands.”

She grinned, the flowers around her blooming as she leaned forward. “That you are…”

The rustle of wings and a skirmish behind the feverfew had us both looking up, and Mugen flapped out, a mouse in his mouth.

He landed on her laptop, shutting it, then walked in a circle, giving me a very pointed look before presenting the pest to her.

She laughed again, and my wings twitched in annoyance.

“Aww, who’s my good boy?” She tossed the mouse aside and leaned in to cuddle his neck.

He glanced back at me again—smug as hell.

Oh, fuck no.

I swiped the cat off her lap and put my face in her hands instead.

What? He landed on his feet. He was fine.

I cocked an antenna at her. “Me?”

She paused for a second, then laughed for real. Not a chuckle, not a giggle. A genuine laugh that lit her up from the inside out.

I’d done that.

“Yes, you are.” She leaned down and kissed me, and the bond thrummed with light.

And I realized just how hard letting it go would be.

Maybe I didn’t want this spell broken.

She pulled back.

Had she felt that? How much I wanted to stay by her side?

Her eyes went wide. “Hawk, I⁠—”

But then Mugen hissed, and not at me.

In the distance, gravel crunched beneath tires in the driveway, and a flock of ravens flew overhead like a bad omen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Oh, Brother

Something cold slid through our bond. It wasn’t fear, but something more like the echo of cracking ice or the rattle of a door you’d nailed shut. It was so horrible my antennae stood straight up. They twitched, tasting the air, and what they found tasted more toxic than the plants around us.

Lucia went still. She watched a sleek—and very expensive—black car glide up the gravel drive. Her face was stoic, but the bond didn’t lie, and underneath that practiced silence, she was building a wall, one that had been constructed many times before.

“Lucia?” I walked up behind her as the car doors opened with clunks that sounded like money. A redheaded woman and a blonde man stepped out.

If there was one thing I knew about blonde men, it was that they were all evil.

This man certainly looked the part. A sharp black suit without a thread out of place, his hair styled to show off a handsome face. He didn’t help his elderly mother out of the car, just looked up at the house, his face twisting like he’d smelled something unpleasant.

“My mother,” she said. “And my brother.”