Chapter 20

K nowing that no one can see us makes something shift between Silas and me. It’s almost like we truly erased the last fourteen years and are those two stupid kids who would have nightly rendezvous in a tree.

We walk, we talk about nonsensical bullshit. Neither of us tries to talk about this morning, what we’re going to do, or what happened in the time that separated us.

We’re just a man and a woman leisurely enjoying what this fine city has to offer.

“I think the tour guide could sense we were there, but assumed it was a spirit,” I say with a laugh as we leave the cemetery and walk down the stunning streets full of art, architecture, and history.

I only remove the illusion once on our excursion, only so we can eat broiled oysters. The amount Silas eats is honestly astonishing, but as soon as we’re done eating, I illusion us again.

The sun is setting as we sit on a fountain lip, listening to the bustle of this part of town quietly and the water trickles behind us. There’s too much light pollution here, you can’t see the stars like you can back home, but it’s still serene in its own way.

When I look over at Silas, it hits me like a ton of bricks.

He’s not as bad as I thought he was. He’s not so far removed from that sweet boy who would lasso the moon for me. Even if he looks like this big badass Alpha shifter, there’s still a softness there.

He didn’t need to tell me about his mother, or spend the day with me trying to forget my—our—problems. But he did, with no complaints. Well, no real complaints.

“I never meant to leave you,” I tell him, like the honesty is being ripped out of my throat.

“I know,” he whispers, resting his elbows on his knees and glancing back at me.

Still the same brown eyes, even prettier now with their golden glow that I now realize is Thorin.

“Do you ever think about what would have happened if my grand-mère didn’t find me?” I ask, the vulnerability leaking out of me. Maybe it’s because he shared some of himself with me earlier, maybe it’s because we’re pretending and tomorrow everything will go back to normal. But I find myself wanting to be honest with Silas.

“I thought about it for fourteen years,” he says, his gaze not leaving mine.

“What do you think it would have been like?”

His throat bobs. “A lot like today. I think it would feel a lot like today has.”

Witches don’t cry, I already did enough of that today. His honesty won’t make me do it again. But the vulnerability of his answer is hard to swallow.

How can two things be true at once? How can I love my coven so deeply but also crave this alternate reality that Silas is suggesting?

“I think, maybe, we would have been happy.”

“I know we would have,” Silas says, his eyes boring into mine. I can tell he believes it fully with his heart. “I wouldn’t have needed a pack.”

“Witches can’t go nomad.”

“Says who?” he responds.

My brow furrows and I just let the fountain break the silence for a moment before speaking. “I’ve never heard of any. You pull your magic through the strength of a coven. I wouldn’t be me without my coven.”

“Right,” he says.

“You really think you could live without ever having a pack? Especially now that you have one?”

He looks down at the cement before glancing back at me. “Now that I have one, no,” he says truthfully.

It all comes back to that. He has his pack; I have my coven. They hate each other. There is no brokerage for true peace. Silas might be trying, and maybe he has the upper hand right now with buying most of Main Street. Even if we come to an agreement, there’s no world where the Alpha of the Moon Walker Pack and the future High Priestess of the Celestial Coven are anything more than the leaders of their people.

Hell, witches don’t even get married. Most of our fathers are unknown to us, or at the very least, unimportant.

“But… if we had run away at eighteen, I wouldn’t have needed one. I would have had you,” Silas says, and it feels like my heart is shattering into a million pieces of what if’s and childhood dreams.

“We’re not the same as we were then.”

“Maybe. You’re still a bit of a know-it-all.”

“Am not,” I complain too quickly, and he smiles. “Well, you’re still enormous and bossy.”

He grins at me, and I can’t help but smile back. It’s like the world around us has paused to let us have just this moment.

Too bad it’s ruined by the shifter from last night, with four guys flanking his sides. The Alpha, the man I danced with, has his nose to the air as he inhales.

“He’s fucking close,” he says and Silas’ eyes go wide, the gold shine almost as bright as last night.

I tap my nose, and Silas nods and looks around. He brings a finger to his lips as he stands and dips a foot into the water. I give him wide eyes and he grabs my wrist, ushering me into the water that’s too cold even for an autumn night in New Orleans.

He places his massive hand over my mouth as he takes a deep breath and dips us into the water. What feels like an aggressive baptism ends as he slowly brings us back up to the shallow surface.

We both watch as the men’s eyebrows furrow as they look around. They know they scented Silas for sure, and suddenly they lost the trail.

“Must be that fucking witch he’s with.”

My face must read irritation as Silas smiles, even though he looks like a drowned wolf.

“He needs to be taught a lesson,” the Alpha from last night growls.

“Felix, it’s not worth it. Plus, if he’s with a witch, we don’t want to piss off Prudence.”

“She isn’t her coven. She wouldn’t care,” one of the other pack members says.

Silas’ hand is still covering my mouth and the urge to lick his palm is getting almost too much to bear. So I do it.

He doesn’t look pissed or move his hand. He just stares at me, and I stare right back as we wait for this pathetic gaggle of shifters to figure out what they’re going to do.

They finally give up, jogging in another direction, but Silas doesn’t move his hand right away.

Instead, his hand slides from my mouth, over to my cheek, his thumb trailing my cheekbone as he looks at me with awe.

“We would’ve been something,” he says, stroking my skin.

“Yeah, something,” I reply, leaning into his touch.

His palm is so cozy and warm compared to the cool water that’s currently drenching both of us. The fountain and street lamps glow against his sun-kissed skin and I wonder what it would be like to really kiss him.

Not that peck at the courthouse, the one that was done out of obligation and met with complete disgust.

Silas shakes his head and drops his hand.

“You look like a drowned rat,” he says and I gasp.

Cupping my hands with water, I collect as much as I can and splash it in his face. He looks at me with complete disbelief. I go to run away in the fountain and he grips me by my wet t-shirt, tugging me against his chest.

“One little piece of advice, wife?” he says, his warm body heat pressed against me. “Don’t run from me.”

“Why?” I say breathlessly, my shirt clinging to my front.

He leans in, his nose gliding up the side of my throat.

“Just shut up and listen to me,” he says, a common phrase between us that’s slowly turning into a term of endearment in my mind.

“I’m not a very good listener,” I reply and he squeezes my shirt harder, sending water dripping down my back.

“If you have to do one thing I say, this is it. If you run from me, my instinct will be to chase and claim.”

I swallow, looking around at the few passersby who can’t see us, but it somehow feels like what we’re doing is wrong. I mean, obviously being in a public fountain is wrong, but this doesn’t feel as innocent as it started out.

“Chased a lot of damsels over the last decade, Alpha Silas?” I say, knowing I’m pushing his buttons.

I just don’t care.

“No, and don’t tempt me, witch,” he replies, and the way he says witch doesn’t have the same bite as I would suspect. It almost comes out as a caress.

His nose touches my neck again and I swear a deep rumble pours out of him, before he suddenly lets go of my shirt, making me off kilter and I go flying forward. I splash against the water and sputter before turning around and gaping at him.

I swear gold flashes before Silas pushes his wolf down.

“Time to go back to reality, Violet,” he says.

It’s worse than the slap of water I was literally just hit with. Instead, I just nod. Because this was all pretend.

We both have people who need us home. We have a mystery to solve, a hex to unburden us with, and a secret to keep under wraps.

“Today was a mistake,” I say and Silas nods in agreement.

“It was. Can you do something about our wet clothes?” he asks.

“I can do something about mine,” I reply, climbing out of the fountain and drying myself completely, while Silas stands there dripping wet.

His shirt clings to his skin along with his pants and I smirk. “You look like a drowned wolf,” I snap before heading in the direction of my car.

The large man follows me, his shoes squishing with water the whole walk to the car.

He changes on the street as I sit in the passenger’s seat, feeling like I lost so much more than I gained from this stupid fucking trip.

I’m no closer to solving our little marriage issue. I have more questions about my lineage than ever. But worst of all, this trip showed me that maybe Silas isn’t the sworn enemy I thought he was.

Or maybe the magic between us is confusing me more than I realized.