Chapter 7

Kate

There’s a cold chill creeping through these woods.

Something that doesn’t belong here.

Something reaching.

I’m naked from the waist up but for the bone necklace. Cased in leather from the waist down, dressed in the pants that Brooks first tailored for me in the cottage and the too-big boots I was given.

Tanner walks in front, his bow on his broad, naked back. We seem to be immune to our own fear spell, but there’s a coldness and a stillness to the forest that feels unnatural. Fog drifts in wet clumps, smelling like salt and earth.

The closer we get to the Witch’s Tree, the more creatures we come across.

Large stags with racks of antlers that drip in jewels, that sport thick wax candles with flames dancing on their wicks. Beautiful girls with no eyes. Forest spirits, clinging to the trees with their leaf-like bodies and twig-like limbs.

“ Oh, no. It’s ripping. It’s tearing. She’s eviscerating the vale!” they cry.

Everything is as insubstantial as the fog, visitors that haven’t yet arrived.

I look back to see the corpse, dragged through the leaves by shadow hands gripping its shoulders, wrapping its waist, tugging on its hair. Eight insubstantial hands supporting a corpse. I play with mine, snagging the body’s ankles and trying to make it look like it’s a shuffling zombie.

The effect is ghastly. I turn away and vow not to do that again.

Marlowe walks behind the corpse, holding his bow in his hands and watching the trees. I didn’t know until today that Tanner was the one who taught him to shoot. I should’ve guessed. I suppose it just seemed impossible, the idea of them working together at anything.

Nice to know that there’s hope in that department.

Brooks is in the back, so I let myself fall behind to walk beside him. We have our metal masks hanging from their chains, but it’s okay to talk here. The masks are … just in case.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Brooks tells me, looking over and trying to keep his attention away from breasts. He did a better job in the beginning, when we first met. It’s an effort for him now, to only look at my face. “This probably won’t work, but it’s worth the time to try.”

“I understand,” I tell him, my voice as soft and reverent as the trees around us.

Brooks is doing the spell the way he’s doing it because of me. Because he’s trying to be accommodating of my wants. If he had his way, he’d have sent a live person through the gate. Instead, we’re using a zombie.

We hit the clearing and then stop walking.

There it is, the sigil of fear on the ground beside the base of the tree. It pulses in the heavy dark, the only lightsource. Brooks strikes two stones together, illuminating the space for us.

“Let’s send him through,” he says, voice clear and strong and sure. It’s comforting. He sounds like he knows what he’s doing.

We step around the tree, using our shadows to lift the zombie’s hand, to place it inside the hole.

The Witch’s Tree groans and then swallows, but the zombie doesn’t do much more than stumble forward. We’re still the ones holding him up.

“Push him in,” Brooks commands, and then we’re doing just that.

Four sets of shadows shove and push, long dark limbs and reaching claws. We stuff the zombie into the tree, and it eats him up. Tanner’s dad disappears through the hole in the trunk, our shadow limbs extended after him.

I’m standing in the human world, but my shadow is touching the Witchwoods.

I can feel that place like a noose of branches around my neck, squeezing, small sticks cutting and making me bleed. Holding me in place. Trapping me.

Brooks snaps his fingers and sets a fire in the south, directly in front of the Witch’s Tree. I can see his shadow bent backwards and stuck through the hole in the trunk. It’s all tangled up with my shadow, with Tanner’s, with Marlowe’s.

The four of us squat down around the tree in our respective directions.

“Start with the northern sigil,” Brooks murmurs, and all four of us drop our fingers to the dirt. We’ll each be drawing the same sigil, over and over and over again, until the corpse we’ve just thrown through the gate does the same.

It doesn’t have great motor skills, but if all four of us put in the effort to move its finger, we can do it.

I start at the bottom, drawing a diagonal line to the top of my imaginary canvas in the dirt. Then again, beginning from the same spot but traveling in the opposite direction. I connect the two lines, and complete the upside-down triangle.

One more horizontal slash through the tip and it’s done.

I can feel the corpse in my shadow hands, swaying, struggling.

“Again,” Brooks says, and we all wipe the dirt in front of us clean. The glowing shapes disappear, and the taste of earth is strong in my mouth. North. Earth. Some immutable thing in my blood that’s always been there, but never manifested.

That’s all the Witchwoods does is bring something we already have inside of us to the surface.

We draw the sigil together on our knees, four witches in big hats and leather pants, bent over the dirt and breathing in the smoke from the small fire.

“Again.”

We scrub the soil, start anew. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can feel the shape that we’re drawing, can sense when it isn’t right. I let go of all that the way I do with the dancing, focusing on mimicking Brooks and forgetting about everything else.

“Again.”

Erase. Draw. Wait.

“Again. Again. Again.”

We draw the sigil for north fourteen times before it sticks on the other side, a glowing sigil that fills with ferns and cements itself into the ground on the north side of the tree. Only, it’s the north side in the Witchwoods and not here.

“Move the zombie,” Brooks says, and I’m pleased that he’s calling it a zombie now, too.

We walk the corpse to the south and start all over again.

This sigil is a plain ol’ triangle, but it glows with fire as we draw it. Erase it. Draw it again.

Our breath is coming in heavy pants, concentration furrowing all four of our brows. Sweat drips from my lower lip to the forest floor. Marlowe shifts and lets out a low groan as the pressure of casting such a huge spell weighs on us.

It’s like exercising in a way. There’s some time during the warm up where it feels fine, easy. Then the routine keeps going, and you sweat, you stumble, you wonder if you can continue to stand up. That’s what this is, only with magic.

Our fingers run through the dirt in unison, sharp and precise and timed so perfectly that it feels like we’re dancing all over again. Line. Line. Line. Erase. Restart. Over and over and over.

Brooks is murmuring words under his breath, and we’re all doing the same, whispering and whispering and whispering. He wrote the words down for us beforehand, but they don’t sound anything like they’re supposed to. We’re speaking too fast, too softly.

“ We beg you, Northwoods. We implore you, South. We beg help from the East, and we prostrate to the West. We beg you, Northwoods. We implore you, South. We beg help from the East, and we prostrate to the West.”

Just these same lines on repeat.

I hear the beat of heavy wings, and then the thump of something big landing beside us. I don’t look. With my braid hanging over my shoulder and pooling in the dirt, I draw. I cast. I keep my focus on the men and our tenuous connection to the zombie on the other side of the tree.

The Hag Wytch is right there beside us in the dark, insubstantial but impressive. Watching. Her big blue eyes with the too-human lashes blink. Her human mouth remains flat and expressionless, but her beak opens in a shriek that makes my ears bleed.

Don’t look at her, Kate. Don’t look at her. Don’t give her the satisfaction.

We manage the rest of the sigils, even with the Hag watching over us.

The zombie stands from the final shape, leaving four glowing marks in the earth around the tree. One for North, filled in with plants and glowing green. One for South, written up in fire and burning red. One for East, marked by angry clouds and small flashes of lightning. That one glows silver while the final sigil, the one for West, is a bright blue. Marlowe’s water magic flows through the shape.

Our shadow-controlled corpse collapses to the ground, and the four of us stand up to dance.

We add debris to the bonfire and move in circles through the darkness, conjuring power through hand movements and complicated footwork. With our shadows returned to us, we cast strange, long shapes up the trunks of the trees. The fire throws luminous orange light into the woods as we spin and spin and spin.

At the peak of the dance, Brooks draws the athame. We scar our wrists and make ourselves bleed on the roots of the tree.

We shed our clothes and writhe together, naked in the blood.

I’m on my back with Tanner above me first, his hand hot and possessive on the curve of my hip. His breath stirs my hair as he mounts me like an animal in rut. That gold and black hair is magnificent in the firelight, reflecting the flames from one side and absorbing shadows with the other.

Something shifts in the dirt to my right, reminding me that we’re not alone.

“Don’t look at her, baby,” Tanner murmurs when I startle at the sight of the Hag, peering down at us. I close my eyes and hold onto him instead, using his warmth to blot out her presence.

Normally, I like doing these rituals. I love doing these rituals. Tonight is a bit different.

You’re getting locked up, Wytch, I think as I squeeze Tanner between my thighs, a satisfied sigh escaping me when he comes hard, hips shoving my bare ass into the bloody dirt.

Marlowe is next, coming in with a tender touch. There’s a gentleness to him that wasn’t there before. I can feel his growing affection in the shape of his hand on my face, in the way he kisses me softly before he enters me.

Nothing at all like the first night we met.

He eases into me, and if we were in front of the fire at home instead of here, it’s possible that he’d be giving Brooks a run for his money. Maybe. Then again, he’s still bitchy gargoyle Marlowe.

“Stupid ass fucking owl,” he growls against my ear, and I crack my lids to see that his eyes are shut tight, trying his best to ignore the bloodthirsty god on his left. He opens his right eye to find me looking up at him, and crafts this cocky smile that I don’t buy.

He’s unsettled.

I encourage Lo to let go, kissing him back so he doesn’t have the space to worry. She isn’t here. She doesn’t matter. She isn’t real. His eye closes again, and he gathers me against him, spilling himself into me after a few quick thrusts.

“Such a good boy,” I tell him, ruffling his hair, and the look he gives me is a mixed bag of tricks.

“Am I? If we weren’t being watched, I’d have spit in your mouth already.” I kick him as he draws away, but Brooks is having none of it.

He snatches my ankle in his hand and drops to his knees between my legs, dirt puffing out around him. Our eyes lock as he opens me wide, settling himself between my legs and then fisting my hair.

“Let’s finish this, Kate. Let’s end it and start something new.” Brooks drives into me balls-deep on the first thrust, covering my body and marking that space with our magic. He pumps into my snug channel, the mixed cum of our coven dripping down my ass to mingle with the blood and damp soil underneath us.

He’s precise in the way he fits us together, rubbing my clit with each thrust and taking me all the way to a climax before he empties his sack into my pulsing heat. As he comes, Brooks slams his hand into the base of the tree above my head, leaving a bloody handprint—and ending the spell.

It’s over.

It’s all over.

Afterwards, we lay in a line of four, breathing hard and sweating and covered in blood and dirt and seed.

There’s a glowing vulture huddled on a tree branch above us.

There’s still an uncomfortable breeze.

“It didn’t work, did it?” I ask, the first person to speak up and state the obvious.

“We could test someone, shove their hand into the tree.” That’s Marlowe. But he knows that we don’t need to test anything.

The gate is still open.

If it weren’t, then the Hag Wytch wouldn’t be standing at the edge of the clearing, watching us.

Brooks sits up and stares back at her, lips pressed into a tight frown as the forest spirits cry.

“ Death and life are uncanny reflections!” they sing, like they’re pleading with us. It always, always, always sounds like they’re trying to get us to understand something. Or maybe that they want something from us? I’m not sure.

“ Why is there so much blood?” the Hag moans in a woman’s voice, and then she spreads her wings and takes off. Those powerful flaps don’t stir a single leaf, and they pass right through the foliage as she disappears into the damp, foggy dark above our heads.

“Didn’t look like she was running to me,” Tanner remarks, climbing to his feet and then helping me up as he watches her ascend. His hat has raised its hackles, all that gray wolf fur sticking straight up. “She left because she saw what she needed to see—us fucking up. That’s not good.”

“No.” Brooks sounds exhausted. The slit in the pupil of his hat’s largest eye is a weird slit. The others are closed, the entire hat sitting cock-eyed. “It certainly isn’t.” He sighs and drags his fingers through his red and black hair, knocking the hat into his lap. “Come on boys, let’s get Kate home.”

Marlowe collects my pants and boots, handing them over without making eye contact with me, and Tanner puts out the fire. I dress myself while the men do the same, and then let out a surprised sound when Brooks swings my half-naked body into his arms.

We walked over here. Didn’t bother with the truck. I really wish we’d taken the truck now. Between the foreboding spell on our house, and the fear spell on the woods, there’s nobody around, but I’m fucking done with this day. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

“You can put me down,” I whisper to a panting Brooks. He’s tired. I’m tired. We’re all tired. That was not an easy spell to cast—and it didn’t work.

It didn’t fucking work.

The gate is still open.

“I can, but I don’t want to.” Brooks’ reply is so smooth and easy that I don’t even protest. Wow. Okay.

“Just this once then.” I relax and let him do what he wants, trying not to let the panic settle in.

“The fear spell is holding?” I ask, and Brooks nods, expression faraway but resolute. He knows he messed up, and he’s already trying to fix it. Yeah, I one-hundred-percent do not ever want to be the leader of this coven.

When we first came through the tree, I thought that Brooks was apathetic, that learning to live in a brand-new world was easy for him because he didn’t care. None of that is true. Brooks isn’t calm because he’s blase about things, he’s calm because he’s strong.

It’s a very attractive quality.

“Can I walk now?” I ask again, and he sighs, setting me down so that my dirty boots hit the pavement. Ebon caws above us, circling the street and keeping her eyes out for trouble. I wonder if Tanner can see through her or something? Or maybe I’m just making things up again.

Marlowe and Tanner are even quieter than Brooks. The latter looks over at me, pausing to snatch a jacket off the end of a tree branch. It’s the Olympics one he stole from the secondhand shop. I don’t remember him bringing it with us. Tanner either took great care to hide it from me or I wasn’t paying enough attention.

Too worried about the spell—and for good reason.

He offers the jacket to me and I reach for it, frowning as he lifts it briefly out of my reach.

“I’m not sure if I should give you this. I bet you’d like me better if I bound your arms with this jacket and fucked you hard in the middle of the street.” Tanner jiggles the jacket enticingly, and I narrow my eyes to slits. “You prefer assholes over gentlemen. I know that.”

“Why? Because you are one, and I love you?” I reply, and his face softens. He tosses the jacket to me and watches as I slip it on, zipping it up to cover my naked breasts.

My eyes catch on Marlowe’s, and there’s this longing in him that reminds me of the feeling inside my own chest. Like I want Tanner to love me back, Lo wants me to love him back.

I … shit. I really need to talk to him. Brooks and I did better than talk the other night, but we could use another conversation as well. Hell, maybe we should make it a group thing, and I can just confess that I’m as big a stalker as they are and be done with it.

This is like an arranged marriage where it just so happens that the parties involved are into each other. I’m into them. All three of them. It’s bad. I’ve got it bad.

“What do you guys think?” I begin, hoping to prompt them into conversation. All of this quiet is terrifying to me. It’s better when they’re picking on each other or … even if they’re picking on me. That’s fine. Being silent and worried is not. We walk in dejected silence, the weight of our failure as heavy as the pall of night. “What are the next steps for this spell?”

“If someone needs to die to keep us safe, I’ll let them die. I’ll even kill them.” Tanner turns to our leader, ignoring Marlowe’s scoff and the way he murmurs obviously under his breath. “Brooks.”

“Yes?” All of the eyes on Brooks’ hat are closed tight, and the left corner of his lip is curled up in frustration. Not with Tanner though. The only person he’s angry with is himself. But my God, can the man cut himself some slack? Creating a spell to close an interdimensional portal between two worlds from scratch isn’t the easiest task in the world.

I adjust the jacket that Tanner gave me. Considerate for a cocky jerk. My lips twitch. Damn, it’s cold out tonight.

“That being said, I don’t think we’re going to be able to retry this spell with a living proxy. Not strong enough. You felt it right? I mean, you felt nothing. We didn’t even nudge that gate closed. It went nowhere.” Tanner sighs as Marlowe groans.

Our West takes his hat off and runs his hand over his dark hair. Autumn leaves drift from the cone, bright red ones that look like they could be from a maple tree.

“What are you trying to say? You want us to go back there? Again?” Marlowe is incredulous, and I don’t blame him. We barely survived the last trip. I don’t fancy testing our luck a third time.

“Want and need are two different things. You know that perfectly well.” It’s not Tanner that answers him: it’s Brooks. Marlowe twists his hat in his hands, making bone charms and tiny glass jars clink together.

“I just want this to be over so that I never have to think about the Witchwoods ever again. Talk about an enduring curse. It’s fucking relentless. ” Marlowe stalks across the front lawn, half-naked and dirty, tossing his hat back on his head where it then blooms with brightly-colored apples. It’s a bit top-heavy now, dragging down over one eye with an apple spinning on the end of a delicate branch.

Marlowe pauses at the bottom of the steps and then goes stiff all over, like he missed something that he should’ve noticed before.

Something terrible. Like a gore-bear. Like the Hag Wytch.

Or an old flame.

“Your ex-boyfriend is here,” Marlowe announces, and I remember him pulling a knife on Nathan before. Not even a spell. A knife. Like he wanted to stab my childhood friend or something.

I get between them quickly, pounding up the porch steps and pausing in front of Nathan. He’s perched in a chair beside my front door, elbow on the armrest, head in his hand.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask, wondering if the foreboding spell is down or something. But no, there’s a mark above the front door, a glowing sigil that enhances the beauty of the stained-glass behind it. I look at Nathan again. “Seriously. It’s five o’clock in the morning.”

“You’re bloody, and wearing a necklace made out of bones,” Nathan whispers, lifting his head slowly from his hand. His pale blue eyes are wide, the flames of my porch lights glinting orange against his irises. We have natural gas lamps on the porch, ones that’ve been around since the house was first built. “Kate, what the fuck happened to you?”

“We could take him to the beach, feed him to the ocean,” Marlowe suggests, coming up the steps to stand beside me. He looks meaner than he is. Maybe. I remember how terrifying it was to encounter him in the woods. “I’ll use my magic to make sure the tide takes him. There won’t be a body around to find.”

“God,” Nathan murmurs, voice trembling with fear. He’s genuinely scared, and I’m worried that he might have a right to be.

I reach out and take his hands, and Tanner makes this sound under his breath that says he isn’t happy with me touching Nathan. Just for a second. I just need him to focus and answer this question honestly.

“Did you post our sex tape?” I ask him, and his eyes go wide, darting from Marlowe to Tanner, flicking to Brooks when he joins us. He doesn’t stop beside me like the other two men; he walks around them and gets very close to Nathan.

There’s a charm in his hand, and it looks like a blackberry that’s been dipped in sugar.

“Eat this.” Brooks gestures with his outstretched hand. “Go on. Don’t make me shove it down your throat.”

Nathan snatches the berry up, gaze shifting toward the yard. He looks like he’s considering throwing the berry and making a run for it. In the end, he must decide that complying with Brooks’ orders is the quickest way out of this.

Nathan’s lips begin to glow as soon as he’s swallowed the berry, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“My dick isn’t working. After I ran into you guys in the parking lot, it just … stopped. I don’t know what you did, if you poisoned my food or something, but there’s nothing I can do to get hard. If you’ll just fix it for me, I’ll never bother Katelynn again. I promise. I don’t love her. I never did.”

The words come pouring out of Nathan in a wave, and he seems shocked at his own sudden confession. He blinks rapidly and reaches up to adjust his glasses, sliding his attention to me.

“I’m so sorry, Kate. I don’t know why I said that out loud. I’m afraid of these men, but I don’t know if I want to live if I don’t have a cock. That’s why I’m here.” Nathan frowns again, putting his hand up and covering his mouth with it.

“Truth spell,” Brooks says, shrugging. “But it doesn’t make him carry on like that. The verbal diarrhea is a Nathan problem.” Brooks turns away and unlocks the door, disappearing inside. “He has five minutes to leave this property. If he does, then we don’t have a problem.”

“So, you didn’t upload the sex tapes?” I clarify, relieved by that. Maybe Nathan never loved me, but he didn’t betray me like that either. Could’ve been Nathan’s girlfriend. Or the barista. Or literally anyone else in that cafe.

“No, not at all. I didn’t even watch them. All I care about right now is fixing my dick. Please, just tell me what you did, so that I can undo it.” He stands up, but then his attention slides to Marlowe. “I won’t hurt her. I don’t even want her.”

“Say that last part again, and I will fucking kill you.” Marlowe sighs and slumps onto the half-wall that makes up the porch railing. He crosses his arms and waits, looking annoyed. Tanner has taken up a position next to the open front door, back to the wall, one boot kicked up to rest on it.

He’s tossing Flick’s ball into the yard, but he’s very much paying attention to Nathan.

“My dick, please, ” Nathan grinds out, but Tanner answers for me.

“Your dick will work again, so don’t stress out. The spell we cast only lasts a year.”

“A year?! ” Nathan chokes out, eyes wide. He looks between me and Tanner, like he thinks we’re making a joke here. “Did you put chemicals in my drink? My girlfriend will leave me if I don’t fix this. I didn’t do anything but try to help you, Kate. I was standing up for you in the parking lot.” He looks at Tanner then, and the size difference between them is disturbing.

“Please don’t hurt him,” I say, and Marlowe scoffs, like my request is pissing him off. Tanner sighs.

“He’s small and soft, and beating him up wouldn’t bring me pleasure anyway.” Tanner looks back at Nathan. “One year. Non-negotiable. Like I said, you’re an easy target which is boring as hell, but I will kick your ass if you don’t leave. It’s been four and a half minutes.”

“The witch stuff, it’s complete nonsense, isn’t it?” Nathan can’t seem to resist asking that. I don’t know if it’s the truth spell or what, but it slips out. He’s staring at our hats, at our clothes, probably wondering about the viral videos.

“Alright, I’m done. This is taking too long.” Marlowe grabs Nathan by the collar of his shirt, dragging him to the edge of the porch steps. My ex has chosen a blue button-up to wear under his sweatshirt this morning. He was never fashionable.

Lo literally puts a boot to Nathan’s ass and kicks him down the stairs and into the grass.

Nathan lands in a sprawl, struggling up to his hands and knees. He glances over his shoulder like he’s about to have a fit, but he takes off without another word.

That’s an act of self preservation if I’ve ever seen one.

“He’s mouthy for such a spineless little creep,” Tanner remarks, watching as Nathan stalks off down the street, hands stuffed into the pockets of his Harvard hoodie.

“He’s not a creep. Just … unremarkable.” I stop talking at a look from Marlowe.

“He’s not a creep? Stop defending him, Kate. He doesn’t deserve it.” Lo chucks my chin as he passes by, slipping inside the house.

I follow him, grateful that we aren’t cleaning Nathan’s blood up off the front porch. I take my hat and toss it onto a hook on the hall tree. It’s an antique wooden thing with a sturdy base. If it weren’t an impressive antique, it’d probably topple right over. These hats are heavy—especially with the extra plant growth and the teeth.

I take a seat at the table. Tanner and Marlowe join me while Brooks makes tea for everyone. He uses this beautiful old clay teapot and some loose leaf tea that he brought with him from the woods.

I walked into him standing in the kitchen the other day, popping the cork off the jar and lifting it to his nose. Brooks closed his eyes as he inhaled, letting the sunshine fall across his face. And then he smiled. He smiled in a way that tells me he’s enjoying life in a way he hasn’t allowed himself to do for a long time.

“ Coming back here after so many years, this world might’ve just been a different sort of hell. The deciding factor, the difference between misery and happiness, was you.”

That’s what Brooks told me. That I gave him a home. It feels like home right now, the four of us and hot tea with honey, funky earthenware mugs from the farmer’s market.

I exhale, and all of the tension flees my body.

“We’re not going to talk about the spell,” Brooks tells us, putting the teapot on one of my grandmother’s pot warmers to protect the table. He takes a seat in his chair. We each have one that matches our cardinal direction. I’m always across from Brooks with Tanner on my left and Marlowe on my right. It feels good to sit like that. “We can’t do anything until we rest, so let’s do that.”

I’m a little suspicious, like maybe Brooks is being too nice. I’m about to protest when he picks up the teapot and pours me a generous cup. It smells so good when I bring the cup to my nose, inhaling the steam.

It’s herbal, but sweet. Similar to chamomile maybe? I blow on it, and then take a sip while it’s still nice and hot. The temperature is perfect.

“You’re welcome,” Marlowe murmurs, and I laugh which, in turn, makes him smile. This is a huge change. We’re getting along so well now. I can barely even believe it.

“Thank you for fixing the temperature of my tea, and thank you to Brooks for making it.” I don’t look at Tanner, but I can feel him staring at me.

“Do you know what you’re going to thank me for later?” he asks, but I still don’t look at him, staring across the table at Brooks instead. It’s Tanner that I’m most focused on right now, but I don’t want him to know that. “An orgasm.”

“Just one?” I retort, and he runs his tongue across his teeth. It’s a very deliberate, very pretty picture. My body breaks out in goose bumps.

“Want to play a game? I make you come as many times as I want. Even if you beg me to stop, I keep going. No safe words.”

I roll my eyes, but Tanner is serious, putting his hand on the table and leaning in.

Marlowe … he can’t take his eyes off the pair of us. It pains him to see me enjoying Tanner’s company. And I don’t blame him for feeling that way. Not at all.

“Did you see how focused Nathan was on his dick? Sex is an all-over experience. He didn’t fuck you properly even once, Katelynn Poppy. I’m going to fix that.” Tanner slides his hand over to his mug and picks it up, taking a long drink while he watches me.

I look over at Marlowe, and our eyes meet.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?” I just ask him directly. I’ve already tried the avoidance route with these guys, and it didn’t work very well for me. They’re not indirect people, none of them.

“Remember that I hate Tanner. Makes this harder for me. Brooks is somehow easier to deal with, prick that he is.” Marlowe snorts and glances away, sliding a hand down his face again. “But I’m your aggressor, I get it. If this is a penance I can pay, then I’ll do it.”

“It’s not a penance, it’s a gift,” I tell him, finishing off my tea. Not only was it delicious, but it’s making me feel light and soft and cozy. I want to go upstairs and slip into our massive bed with three witch men, one cat, a crow, and a mutt. This is nice. This is really nice. “Can you guys try to give each other a chance, too? Just like you’ve done with me. I’m not asking you to have gay orgies—unless you want to—but could you be friends? We’re a coven.”

Now I’m the one saying it.

How times have changed.

“I’ll try my best, but I’m not making any promises.” Marlowe takes a sip of his tea and then closes his eyes, an all-over shudder coursing through his body. He slipped on a hoodie when he walked in, leaving the bone necklace behind along with his hat.

In the witch gear, the men seem timeless. Ageless. Like this? Wearing my oversized Eureka High School hoodie from four years ago, Marlowe looks painfully human and so fucking young.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Tanner asks, like he can sense we need a change of subject.

“Well, we have to go to work, don’t we?” Brooks asks, like he’s somehow looking forward to it. “I need some time to think.”

Tanner signs something to him, and Brooks signs back. Marlowe takes another sip of his tea, watching me from the corner of his eye.

The urge to crawl into his lap and cuddle him hits me so hard.

Wait.

Cuddle Marlowe? I want to cuddle fucking Marlowe? He’s like a prickly pear cactus. His gorgeous tattooed skin is covered in sharp needles, and he scowls more often than he smiles. Doesn’t matter. I can’t stop flicking my eyes over to see if he’s still staring at me.

He is.

You’ve only known the guy for three weeks. True.

But you’re part of a coven. Also true.

Don’t rush this relationship, Kate. Take it slow. Good advice.

It’s not like they’re going anywhere; they’re here to stay. Hell, they wouldn’t leave if I begged them to. I can’t decide if this is pro or con for the cuddling

I bite my lip, and I’m not a lip biter.

“What is going on over there?” Marlowe asks, leaning in toward me.

I spring on him in a way that I didn’t intend. It just sort of happens. One minute, I’m trapped in my thoughts, and then next, I’m pushing his chair away from the table. One hand on the back of it, one palm gripping the edge of the table.

“What the fuck are you—” he starts, but he doesn’t get to finish the sentence.

I climb into his lap and put my arms around him. As expected, Marlowe goes completely stiff, like he has no idea how to react to any of this. I’m breathing hard. I’m nervous as hell. I’m starting to wonder if this was a really, really bad idea.

And then, unexpectedly, his arms come around me. He exhales and his breath tickles my hair. Marlowe gathers me up and presses my soft body to his hard one, holding me like he’s more than just a member of a coven he never wanted to participate in.

He holds me like a friend.

He holds me like … I don’t let myself finish the thought.

Brooks and Tanner have stopped signing to one another and are now staring at us.

“Well, damn.” Tanner exhales, but I can’t see what he’s doing because my head is smooshed into Marlowe’s hoodie. His heartbeat is loud, and he smells amazing. Dirt from the woods. Herbs because of the tea. Underneath it all, sex. Me and him. Us. Our scent.

“Don’t,” Marlowe growls—again, literally. I doubt he ever did that before his trip to the Witchwoods. “Just let me enjoy this.”

His mouth is near my hair, and he kisses me in a way he hasn’t kissed me yet. Very soft. Affectionate. Oh.

We just sit there together with the smell of tea, and the sound of Flick’s nails on the floor as he retrieves whatever toy that Tanner is tossing for him. Ebon caws softly from the top of the fridge. Stix knocks the lid off the butter dish and starts to lick what’s left of the yellow bar. Nobody stops her. Nobody cares. We’ll throw the butter out and start fresh tomorrow.

Marlowe’s arms are strong and tight around me, and his breathing is rapid at first but slowing with each breath. Relaxing. He’s relaxing for me.

I’m relaxing for him, too, apparently.

I blink, and then suddenly I’m in the bed and he’s crawling in beside me. We’re both naked, and I can hardly believe that I slept through him carrying me upstairs and stripping my clothes off.

“It’s okay, Kate,” Marlowe whispers against the side of my head, his arm sliding around me so that he can tuck me close and spoon me from behind. “I’ve got you.”

The spell failed, but I fall asleep with a smile on my face anyway.