Chapter 26

“ Y ou want me to stay?” Silas repeats and I tuck the quilted blanket around myself.

He’s shirtless, which I’ve seen before, but somehow it never gets old. It’s like his body was made out of bronze and carved with the female gaze in mind. His sweatpants are tight around his waist, and I try not to stare at what is definitely an impressive bulge.

I scoot over and he joins me in the bed, both of us feeling stiff and uncomfortable for a moment.

“Am I…”

“Half-wolf shifter, undoubtedly. There’s no magic that I have ever heard of like that. I don’t know if you can only shift with the necklace, but it clearly unlocked her. Do you hear her in your head?” Silas asks, his amber eyes looking at me with caution.

I breathe in and out and try to get in tune with my inner wolf. It’s weird, foreign, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

“You will not take me from Thorin,” a soft voice whispers in my head and my eyes go wide.

“She just told me I won’t take her away from Thorin. What does she look like? What’s her name?” I ask, wishing I could remember a single moment when I shifted.

All I remember is pain and lethargy.

“The more you shift and become one with your wolf, the more you will be able to be present when you’re shifted. However, it’s nice to just let them run wild from time to time. She said her name was Azure, and she was beautiful.”

“She was?” I ask, grabbing the necklace so hard it feels like my palm may bleed.

“She was. Thorin was very smitten.”

I snort. “I bet he was.”

With a heavy sigh, I turn on my back and look at the ceiling. “Everything is a lie,” I whisper, and I truly cry, letting tears roll off the side of my face.

Deep down, I didn’t buy what my grandmother was saying. It felt like a half-truth. I’ve put so much of my identity into being a witch, into what I can give my coven, my grandmother. Yet, it’s all been a fucking lie.

“I don’t know who I am,” I whisper, nearly forgetting that Silas is next to me.

“Hey,” he says in a deep gravelly tone and I turn to face him. His massive hand cups my face and he wipes my tears away. “This changes a lot, but it doesn’t change who you are.”

“How can it not? I’m a witch, it’s who I am, it’s what I’ve held onto for the last decade and a half.”

“You’re still a witch.”

“They…if they find out,” I gasp and sink further into the sheets.

Will they cast me out of the coven? Will I end up like my mother—that I’m now certain never wanted to be forgotten and magicless. A life without Iris and Ember sounds meaningless.

My whole identity is wrapped up in my coven. Who am I if not a fully pure witch?

All the excitement from the transformation slowly is turning into pure panic and Silas can see it in my eyes as he grips both sides of my face, forcing me to stare into his eyes.

He looks like he wants to say something, but stops himself, licking his full lips. I find myself tracing the motion, fascinated.

“You’re still kind, loyal, and brave. You have and will always be that girl who met me in a treehouse to tutor me. Still the girl who I trusted my secrets with, who remembered my birthday, and always gave me her leftovers.”

I laugh at the last bit, trying to calm down.

“You really see me that way?”

“Even when I don’t want to. You’re even more beautiful to me now,” he says, his thumb still stroking my cheekbone.

I’m not sure why I do it, maybe because I need to feel something other than this bubbling panic, or because of his pretty words.

I lean in and kiss him.

It’s not a peck like in the treehouse or at the courthouse. This is a real kiss, and it automatically soothes me. Those same butterflies I felt fourteen years ago—that I’ve never been close to recreating—are back in full force.

He kisses me back eagerly, hungrily. A near mirror reaction to this cosmic feeling flowing between us.

I’ve never kissed anyone with a beard before, but I find that I enjoy it. I like the way the soft hairs brush against my face as our lips meet and he holds my face close to his.

A masculine noise seeps between his lips and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sexier sound in my life as I tangle my fingers in his soft hair and hold the back of his head against mine.

No kiss has ever felt like this.

Nothing has ever felt like this.

The taste and feel of his mouth against mine is addictive, and my heart is thundering in my chest. My breathing hitches as his one hand slides from my face, cradling the side of my neck. He isn’t grabbing me or holding my throat, just tenderly caressing the flesh of my collarbone and neck.

As his thumb runs lower on my throat, I realize that I’m completely naked. I should feel scandalized, not only because I’ve never been naked in a bed with a man before, but I don’t, because it’s Silas.

His tongue swipes in my mouth and I moan at the sensation, gripping his hair harder. Silas is warm, large, and perfect.

“Violet,” he whispers my name like a prayer as he rests his forehead against mine. “I can’t.”

“What?” I say, pulling back and blinking at him.

The best kiss of my life—even if I don’t have many to compare it to—and he’s telling me he can’t?

“I want to, believe me. I want to rip that blanket off you and do so many things. But I can’t do this…not if you’re not sure. Not if this is all because of the heightened emotions of what just happened, or because of some fucking spell pushing us together. You can’t kiss me and walk away again,” he says, and my hand slips out of his hair and I clutch the blanket closer to my chest. “I’m not scolding you. I’m not bringing up the past. I just can’t have you giving me any more pieces of you if you’re going to take them away again.”

It’s not a scolding, but it feels like one, and I scoot just a little further away from him.

“You think I kissed you because of the spell?” I ask, immediately feeling defensive. “How do I know you’re not here because of the fucking spell, too?”

He takes a deep breath and flips onto his back, so I do the same.

“It’s not the spell,” he says.

“If it’s not the spell for you, then why wouldn’t it be the spell for me?”

“You just learned you're a hybrid, the only one I’ve ever fucking heard of. Your life just got flipped upside down and I’m the only one here.”

“Get out,” I say, turning on my side.

I feel like I’m going to cry for the second time tonight and I’m doing my best to shut it down, though I think the catharsis would be good.

“Vi, I didn’t mean?—”

“Get out, please,” I repeat, staring at my nightstand, of the photos of me and my coven.

What the fuck am I doing?

“You can sleep in the guest room down the hall instead of the couch. Just please, get out.”

“Violet,” he says again, trying to touch my shoulder and I shift away.

He makes a noise of protest, but I eventually feel him shift off the mattress. He doesn’t shut the door right away, which is odd, but then eventually I hear the click of the knob.

A soft weight jumps on the bed, and I immediately know it’s Walter. He isn’t always cuddly, but he immediately walks over my body, his paws feeling like a million pounds each, until he’s cuddled against my chest.

“It appears I’ll have to get used to the stench of dog,” he says, and I let out a small laugh before the tears start falling. “Oh, this is terrible. Please stop,” he says, putting a paw on my chin and pushing away.

Now I have two creatures talking directly in my mind. At least Walter can’t hear my thoughts. Well, I’m not even sure if Azure can, either.

She stays silent and Walter bats at my necklace.

“I’d remove this, unless you’d like to accidentally go mongrel on us again,” he says.

I sigh in agreement and place it in my nightstand drawer.

“Shall I piss in his boot again?” Walter says, rubbing his forehead against me.

“No, that’s okay. “

“It’s really no hardship. I could also chew on his phone charger, or scratch his satchel to shreds.”

“I appreciate it, Walter, but we have bigger issues here.”

I scratch his fur, and a low purr takes over his chest as he relaxes against me.

“If it’s just the necklace, you can hide it away. We can destroy it and never look back. No one except the stinky man down the hall will ever know. Plus, we could still kill him, toss him in the swamp and let the alligators eat him. Then there will be no witnesses.”

“I don’t know if that’s what I want. I definitely don’t want Silas to be alligator food.”

The cat sighs, wiggling out of my grip and going to sit on his pillow. Apparently, that’s as much affection as I’ll be getting tonight.

“You’re still a witch, my witch above all else. The universe sent me here as your companion. I’ll be by your side no matter what, even if you smell horrible.”

“Thanks, Walter. I love you, too.”

“Don’t get all soft on me now, witch,” he says. “Get some rest.”

I try to sleep, but all that plagues me is nightmares.

Nightmares that feel a hell of a lot like visions. A black and white wolf convulsing alone in a forest.

It feels like an omen, and I’m not sure that necklace was made to protect me, after all.

Digging into the past may just ruin or deny me my future forever.