Chapter 19

Kate

I steal the keys from Marlowe's pocket and leap into the driver's side before he can do it. That earns me a chuckle from Tanner, more silence from Brooks, and a narrow-eyed reprimand from Marlowe.

I start the truck and pretend like he doesn't exist. There are so many other things to worry about than his surly attitude.

The tree being usable outside of a moonless night ... that's a disaster.

I saw a detective—one who's working on my case—get swallowed by the Witchwoods.

And I know this spell is going to require a lot of sex ... and I'm looking forward to that. The last thing I'd ever do was admit that, so I'm quiet as we drive back to my place. Before we do anything else, we have to take care of this spell to keep people away from the Witch's Tree.

"We should wait until dark," Brooks begins, taking his role as leader seriously. I realize with a small start that I'm glad it isn't my job to manage the emotional workload of this crap. He's the boss; he can do it. I'm sorry, Detective Gilley. God, I hope he doesn't have little kids at home or something.

I shiver all over when I remember the Hag screaming her victims' last words into my face.

We swing through a drive-through on the way back to grab coffee. Brooks is clearly weirded-out by the idea of me both ordering and paying for the coffee on my phone; he declined to choose a drink. Tanner gets hit on by the barista. Shocking. Marlowe is a grumbly gargoyle with a shadow to match.

"This coffee is shit," Tanner tells me as we're driving back to the house. "Can't people make good coffee anymore?"

"It's not coffee," I tell him, sipping another iced latte. I told you: I have a problem with caffeine. "It's espresso."

There's a bit of silence in the back seat, and I glance at the rearview mirror to see Tanner studying his cup with a quirked lip.

"No wonder it tastes like shit then," he amends as I dig around for the cord to my phone. With this old of a truck, I have to use a lighter plug-in that connects my music to the vehicle via the radio. I match my car to that radio station, and it's almost like having Bluetooth.

"Why did we stop at a drive-through when we have important shit that needs to be done?" Marlowe asks, because he's an ass.

"We can't go back until dark," I remind him, as if he's dumb. He hates that. His jaw clenches. "Brooks is right. If we're going to flash our nipples and drink blood while dancing around a bonfire in a California forest during dry season, then we're going to need the cover of darkness."

"You have no idea what this spell entails, do you?" Lo continues, clearly trying to egg me on. "If you did, you wouldn't have stopped for coffee. You would've run from us in the woods and forced Tanner to chase you down." He pauses, as if he's thinking this over. "Or maybe you would've driven us straight back to the house and torn off all your clothes? I can't decide which."

I ignore him, but he isn't done. He leans back against the door on the passenger side and crosses his arms.

"We'll have to come inside of you." Marlowe's voice is even, almost bored. "Then, one of us will need to eat you out, clean you up, and spit that back into your—"

I almost crash the car into a stop sign, slamming on the brakes and panting as I clench the wheel at ten and two.

"Shut your fucking mouth," I tell him, reversing the truck with my cheeks blazing. "I don't want to deal with you right now."

"Guess I'll do it then, go down on that freshly fucked pussy and suck you off. You'll love it when I tilt your head back with my thumb on your chin, lean down, and put that load into your mouth with my tongue."

I stop the truck again, grateful that there's nobody behind me.

I turn to look at him, but he's managed to say all of this without even smiling.

I don't believe him, but I'm also ... I do believe him. I turn to look at Tanner over my shoulder, but he's just staring back at me with a sorry, kitten smile on his face. My attention moves over to Brooks.

"We'll prepare as much as we can at the house, but most of the work will be done in the forest."

He sounds like a textbook. It's driving me crazy.

"You guys want to have sex ... in the forest?" I don't even know why I ask; I don't need clarification. They're serious, absolutely serious. I seem to be the only one who's embarrassed. "You guys might not fully understand the implications of—"

"We'll use another spell to drive away any possible onlookers. Nobody will see that pretty pink pussy of yours, North. I'll make sure of that." Brooks crosses his arms and looks out the window, as if the conversation is over.

I'm grateful for the latte in my shaking hand as I drive us home and park, unclipping Flick from the truck leash. He hops out of the bed to the grass and disappears into the bushes to pee.

"Are these spell ingredients going to be difficult to find?" I ask as the men follow me up the front steps. My mind is on dead snakes and corpse pumpkins when I pose the question.

I unlock the front door with the pin pad, and I can't help but sneak a look at the guys again. I love how disturbed both Brooks and Tanner are by the idea of an electronic door lock.

"Not unless you count what Marlowe said as difficult ," Brooks adds, and I turn away, heading quickly into the house and wondering how I'm going to go through with this. It seemed easier in the Witchwoods, to just give in to these urges. There was magic in the air. Things were heady.

It feels ... awkward now, but I'm sure that's mostly me. None of these men are shy in the bedroom, I can tell. Stix glares at me from the kitchen doorway, immune to my bullshit as always.

"Then what preparations do we need to make?" I clarify, and the looks I get in response to that ... oh shit.

Brooks, expression like a sharp spank. Tanner, eyes like a wolf in heat. Marlowe ... blank-faced dickhead. They sweep around me, too close. My palms are sweating.

My borrowed phone rings, and I yank it from my pocket one-handed, desperate for something else to focus on.

"Hey Georgia," I say, and I hear her sigh on the other end of the line.

"You left breakfast before we could talk about anything serious," she says, and I decide that's an interesting way for her to fill in her missing memory. No dead were-rabbits or awkward conversations with massive stalker witch men that she's never seen before. "Please, can you come over? Everyone wants to see. My parents, my sisters." Cue dramatic pause. " Nathan. "

I look over at Marlowe and decide that even he isn't going to deal well with an ex-boyfriend.

"We're sort of busy—" I begin, but the phone switches hands.

It's Georgia's mom.

"Kate, honey, I'm so glad you're okay," she says, and I feel that squishy heart of mine mush and shift. It betrays me as I hear her teary voice over the phone. "You're coming over, right? The owner of the Pink Lady is here, and she'd love to meet you to talk about the project."

Shit. My weakness. My business. My livelihood.

"We'll be right over," I tell her, and still, it takes five more minutes for me to get her off the phone.

The men never move, tucked in a circle of tattoos and testosterone around me.

"We'll be right over?" Brooks echoes, raising a brow. "No, I don't think so. We've got a spell to do."

"Not until dark," I correct, and I shiver all over.

A reprieve ... and anticipation.

The house looks just as beautiful now as it did when I finished painting it, heading home for that fateful birthday evening and a not-so-pleasant introduction to the Witchwoods.

"Having you guys here is making this really weird," I tell them as they follow me from the truck and up the front walk, up the porch stairs, and straight to the front door. Flick is happy though. He keeps wagging his tail at ... Tanner. Traitor.

"You were halfway to tears when we left you earlier. If I were you, I would stop with that shit. The only person you're embarrassing is yourself." The sound of Marlowe's voice is like spiders crawling into my ears. I want to slap him, but I settle for knocking instead.

"You know that you can just come in, right?" Georgia says as she opens the door, and then pauses. Her gaze sweeps across the men, and the smile on her lips dies where it sits. She's still making the shape of a smile, but all of the joy there is gone. "I'd like you three to wait outside. Do you understand?"

Brooks puts his palm on the door and when Georgia tries to move it, the damn thing won't budge. I give him a dark look.

"Don't you dare threaten my friend," I warn him, but he just shakes his head and gives me a look.

"I'm not threatening anyone, North. I'm letting her know what my boundaries are. You don't leave my sight, period. That's it. There's no such thing as a negotiation."

"I don't leave your sight unless you're hunting were-rabbits?" I clarify, and his gaze fires up in challenge. He loves it when I talk back like that. At least that makes one of us. I wish he would shut the fuck up. He's hot as hell when he isn't talking, and I'm trying to psyche myself up for later.

What did Marlowe mean about cleaning me up and spitting ... he couldn't possibly have meant that he'd come in me, eat his own come out, and then ... Fuck.

"Werewolves?" Georgia says, like she won't let herself hear someone use a made-up word like were-rabbits in a serious sentence. Not sure why werewolves is better, but that's what she goes with. "Kate, this isn't normal behavior. Have you talked to Detective Gilley? I'm sure he'd love to meet your new friends."

I don't tell her that the detective is missing, obviously. But it won't be long until that news gets out. I'm sure that won't help dampen the spreading excitement over the Witchwoods. It was bad before I got stuck there. Now that I'm back, and all of this weird shit is going on, it'll get worse.

That damn influencer. These fucking thirst trap men. Gah.

This spell is critical.

Viral video plus magic tree divided by person-eating owl equals complete disaster.

"Why don't we all go into the backyard?" I suggest as a compromise.

Georgia is furious, but she leads us around the house and through the gate for a quick meeting with the owner of the Pink Lady—Robin Madsen. Perfunctory. Professional. She's kind enough not to mention our weird hats.

The men keep their pretty mouths shut for a change and let me talk.

Georgia's mother comes out after Robin leaves and showers me with hugs and kisses that I didn't realize I warranted.

That makes me feel good.

Georgia's lemonade-hawking sisters, Blythe and Bea, give me big hugs. Her dad pats me on the shoulder and eyes the witch men like they're threats. Tanner tries to introduce himself, and Brooks shakes hands when offered, but Marlowe is a black cloud.

Yeah. One day of this shit is one day too much.

"We're going to see Miriam," I tell him during a lull in the conversation. He looks at me like I've spit on him which is fitting since ... I am so glad that I spit into his pancakes last night. Not only did he deserve it, but if he's going to try and—

He opens his mouth to say something, but he never gets there.

My ex-boyfriend Nathan appears on the back porch in a maroon sweatshirt that says Harvard across the front in gold letters. His eyes widen when he sees me, and he takes the steps two at a time, moving forward like he plans on throwing his arms around me.

"No, I don't think so," Brooks says, holding out a hand. "That's close enough." Brooks looks Nathan over, and the differences between them are stark. Nathan is six inches shorter, many pounds of muscle lighter, and boyish.

Nothing about Brooks McDowell is boyish.

"Kate?" Nathan asks, blinking at me in confusion. "What the hell is going on? Georgia told me you were found, but ..." He looks at the new tattoos on my arms, studies my hair and my eyes, turns to Marlowe and blinks in surprise. "... she didn't fill me in on the circumstances."

"I'm home and I'm safe, that's about all that I can tell you," I admit as Nathan moves his attention from Marlowe to Tanner. I'm glad that Georgia and her family seem to have gone inside to give me some privacy with Nathan.

It'd be nice if my coven could do the same.

"I was sorry to hear that you were missing," Nathan tells me, and there's just something so cold and impersonal about those words that I shiver. He smiles gently and crosses his arms over his intellectually superior sweatshirt.

There's nothing about him that I miss, just the idea of him, I guess. One more person that I could call if my car broke down. If I needed an extra set of hands on a job. Someone to watch a movie with. We dated for four years, all through high school.

Abandoned by my high school sweetheart. Just like Marlowe.

"Thank you for helping with the searches," I add, because I feel so damn guilty about that. People out there, donating their time to me when I was having sex and brewing potions. I almost smile, but I'm afraid Nathan might take it the wrong way.

"No problem at all," he says, as if he did me a favor and is happy that I'm mature enough to acknowledge that. "I was in town for the summer anyway, so I took my girlfriend and—"

"Shut the fuck up," Marlowe says, walking up to the guy like he wants to stab him a couple of times. I notice right away that he has a knife in his right hand. The dick knife? Yeah. Shit. "You're annoying and you pretend to be nice, but you're so fucking condescending. She doesn't want to see you, so can you leave? Her friend called you here for some weird reason."

Marlowe slips past a stunned Nathan and uses his knife to cut a plum from the tree. Should I tell him that if you have to cut it off, it's not ripe yet? But then I wonder if maybe he was just pretending to have a reason for the knife in his hand.

I look back at Nathan because nothing that was just said is a lie.

"Why did you come here?" I ask, wrinkling my brow. "You've known Georgia as long as I have. If she called you here, it's because she was trying to set us up. Don't act like you didn't know that."

"I came because I was afraid you wouldn't have anyone to welcome you home," Nathan admits, throwing his arms up. We might have broken up, but we've known each other our entire lives.

We played in the redwood trees in our shared kindergarten class. Attended Cutten Elementary school together and pretended to be dogs during recess. Spent a horrible two years at junior high pretending to hate each other. Came back together as a couple for four years.

This hurts me.

Nathan didn't care if I lived or died. If I'd never come back, he would've moved on, forgotten about me, and nothing would change for him. I meant nothing to him.

Nobody is moving or talking, but I can sense that Tanner wants to. Brooks, too.

They leave it to Marlowe again. This time, when he appears in front of Nathan, it's with that same knife to the man's throat.

"Leave. Now." I can see that he's absolutely seething, that's he's dead serious about the threat he's leveling. I'm certain none of that righteous rage is for me. Marlowe sees himself in my situation, coming home and finding your world upturned.

He's threatening to stab Nathan because there's no one else to take that unrestrained anger out on.

"He's leaving. Right, Nathan?" I cross my arms and lean to one side, peering around Marlowe's back with the most casual expression I have, the one that says this is no big deal so don't make a thing out of it.

"This is the path you want to go down?" Nathan asks softly, but then he's backing away and shaking his head. "Good luck, Kate. Just remember that you brought this lifestyle on yourself." He gives Marlowe a wide berth and never dares to put his back to him. "I'm glad you're back."

Nathan disappears inside, and the saddest part is that I know he believes he's the righteous victim in this exchange. I am the bad guy.

And maybe ... I sort of like that.

"Having magic is having power ," I whisper, realizing that I'm not afraid of Nathan because I have a whole new way to deal with problems.

"Having a coven is having power," Brooks corrects, nodding his chin in the direction of the gate. "Are we done with these sorts of meetings? Your life would be a lot more fun if you didn't force yourself into situations you don't like."

"I still need to see my dad," I say with weary resignation, "but not today." Not this week either.

"What is Nathan's fucking problem?" Georgia asks, scowling with bright red lips as she comes down the porch stairs and looks over her shoulder. "He's such a pretentious asshole. I can't stand him." She turns back to me and cringes in apology. "I had no idea he had a girlfriend until he told me just now. If I had, I wouldn't have asked him to come."

"So having a girlfriend makes him a no-go, but him being a pretentious asshole is okay?" I'm only teasing, but Georgia pats my arm like she's sorry. Her gaze goes to Marlowe, sitting on a bench without the knife visible on his person. He just crosses his arms and leans his head back, gaze fixed on the sky.

I wonder how long it's been since he's seen the moon? It's a moonless night every night in the Witchwoods. How depressing.

"I ... just wanted to get you away from them," Georgia says, gesturing with one, long sweater sleeve in Tanner's direction. She's got cringe-face on right now, too. "Sorry, but I don't feel like you're the right type of ... friends for Kate."

Tanner laughs.

"I'm not her friend," he says, and I can't tell if he's trying to throw innuendo into the conversation or if there's a yet attached to the end of that sentence. "And she isn't single, so don't bother setting her up. Maybe help your other friend instead? I didn't like Jared."

"Jared was pretty awesome," I admit, giving Tanner a look that he returns with a much sharper one. He takes a half-step toward me, but that's it. No closer. "He listened to his headphones and let the grown-ups talk."

I'm surprised that Georgia remembers that the guys met Jared. She certainly doesn't remember the were-rabbit or else we'd still be having words on the front porch.

"Jared looks like the type of man who drifts obviously through life while someone like me fucks his wife behind his back." Tanner turns to Georgia and snaps his fingers. She blinks a few times, and then just stands there, like he never said something as stupid as that. "A little leftover magic from earlier," he tells me, and I kick him in the shin.

Doesn't do anything because of those insane boots the boys are wearing.

We really need to get to the store tomorrow for clothes. Stuff for work would be nice, too.

My heart skips a beat at the idea of adding more workers to my growing business.

I'm nervous to tell the men that I'm going to be their boss, and that they'll have to paint houses with me. They're all rude, aggressive, and combative. I don't want to fight about it, but I can't feed and clothe them on my income alone. We'll be lucky if we can find any clothes at the secondhand place that fit them. If not, we'll have to get something special and that's money I do not have.

"Georgia." I shake my hand at her, and she comes to like she's waking from a trance.

"Are you sure you've even met Jared?" she asks Tanner finally, but he only shrugs and tucks one hand in the pocket of his sweatpants. His borrowed hoodie rides up, showing off far too much of his stomach for my liking.

"Mm. Maybe not?" he teases, running his pretty fingers through his hair. The symbols on the backs of his hand remind me of the ones on my own. Because of everything we've been through, I've barely had time to examine my own tattoos.

An activity for later.

I force my gaze back to Georgia. Brooks is this close to hustling us out of here.

"We have to get going," I tell her, which is a weird feeling. Usually, I'm heading home to an empty house. Well, I've got Flick and Stix, but sometimes a human wants another human around. "I may not get to see you this week with the new project starting, but I'll be at breakfast next Saturday, like always."

"I'm not leaving you unsupervised with these ... people until next week. I'll stop by in a few days to check on you, okay?" Her lip curls as she engages in an alpha-versus-alpha staredown with Brooks. They are not well-suited.

"I'd like that." I smile at her and then lead all three men (and Flick) into the front yard. When I move, they follow. It should be annoying, but when I turn to look at them, I think that maybe it's not so bad.

It's been like three days. I want to throw myself off a cliff into the ocean.

I am not going to let these guys into my life unless they prove themselves.

"Time to spit cum in your mouth?" Marlowe asks, and he's somehow got my keys and is climbing behind the wheel. How ... when? What the fuck? "Let's go."

Flick goes in the truck bed on his lead. I sit in the back with Brooks again while Tanner rides in the front.

"You'll do just fine, North," Brooks says, quiet enough that only I can hear. Tanner is fiddling with the radio, and finding very few stations left on the air. I wonder what that feels like? Probably not very good. "You were good at it before."

There's a tease in his voice, but I ignore it.

"We both know that Nathan didn't teach you to fuck like that." Brooks laughs to himself, but I shift in my seat and turn even further toward the window. Was that ... a compliment? Oh yeah.

He basically told me that I'm skilled in the bedroom—or on the forest floor. Bent over an armchair. Whatever.

When I see my reflection in the glass, there's a bright red blush to my face.

And my eyes ... they're glowing.