Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

It felt like I'd been slapped in the face. My fingers became numb, cold, and his grip tightened when mine faltered.

"You didn't want me," Arthur explained quickly. "You rejected me, many times, but I couldn't stop thinking about you. I also couldn't allow myself to get distracted by unrequited—" He swallowed thickly. "I went to a metalworker who specializes in this kind of talisman—a fire witch in Minnesota named Madge. In order for it to be effective, for you not to affect me anymore, I needed something of yours. A hair."

All the times we'd spent together over the last four months raced across my mind's eye, memory searching for the one time where his motives might not have been pure. Had he snooped into my downstairs bathroom while he'd been at the farmhouse installing my shelves? Or had he plucked a hair from my head when he'd caught me when I'd collapsed from anaphylactic shock induced by a coconut-tainted latte? I certainly wouldn't have noticed that with my throat closing up. Then it came to me.

"The corn maze at the Carnival Cauchemar," I realized. "You were chasing after me. I turned and found your hand reaching after me, after my ponytail."

Arthur began shaking his head.

Hurt burned in my chest. Was I really so horrible? Had I really played with his emotions that much that he'd had to go to such lengths just to protect himself from me?

I tried to pull away, to hide myself from him and the shame and the betrayal—however unwarranted—but his grip was iron.

"Meadow, no," he said, pleading. "I found one of your hairs on my shirt when I tossed it on your picnic blanket that time I was here chopping wood. That's the one I used. That time in the corn maze, when I slipped my fingers through your hair, that was me succumbing to my desire. To touch you. To… fulfill a fantasy."

We stood there, silent, Otter's flute muted. Our hands were still linked but I wanted nothing more than to tug free of him. Not because I was repulsed by what he'd done, but because he'd been right to do it. How many times had I spurned him for the sake of my mission, heedless of his feelings? He'd had every right to protect himself. His heart. And yet taking a piece of me to do it, even if it was just a hair… It felt dirty. Like voodoo.

"But you broke the enchantment last night, when you touched me," he continued earnestly, squeezing my hand, willing me to look at him. "That blue spark? That was the spell breaking. Impossible magic, which could only mean one thing."

"What?" I whispered, searching his face.

"The bond you must surely feel between us?" he hedged. "The invisible tether. Though now it feels like a chain, in the best possible way, of course."

"Yes?" I prompted, encouraging him to go on. It was incredible that he felt that connection in the same way I did, but what did it mean ? Did he know why its intensity had increased the moment the curse was lifted from the grimoire?

Arthur studied me, withholding his response as if he was waiting for me to realize it on my own. But the pregnant pause stretched between us with no end in sight. "That my heart was never meant to be shielded from yours," he answered.

Somehow I didn't think that was the whole of what he wanted to say, but he was already continuing.

"And I meant what I said, of me being able to feel what you feel through it. I want you to keep wearing it, if that's alright with you. It comforts me to know that you're safe and happy. Or not. If, of course… if you can forgive me."

"If you can forgive me too, for the heartache." I winced. "I never meant to hurt you like that, Arthur. Denying myself, and what I felt for you, seemed the only way to not get distracted. Though, I wasn't very good at it. You were my fantasy too, b-but I had to save my family."

He pulled me forward a step to wipe away the tear that had slipped down my cheek. He was rewarded with a watery smile, then I sniffled and slipped the pendant beside the amazonite beneath my dress collar. The tension eased in our joined hands, the hurt we'd caused each other forgotten.

"And I know you've heard the term Coalition now, more than once, and not in the best light," he said with a resigned sigh, returning to the previous subject. "It's an alliance of shifters, all from the most powerful bloodlines, and enforcers are their pinch hitters. We deliver when others cannot. Though"—he rubbed his chest where Grandmother had struck him—"you Hawthornes pack quite the punch. With supes being the minority and spread out all over the country, they can easily become prey. We protect them, Meadow, nothing more, nothing less."

"From what?"

"From anything that would harm them." He shook his head as my eyebrows rose in mute question. "Not your average human. At least, not for centuries. In this more enlightened age, they've never posed so much of a threat that the Coalition has had to interfere. No, against others more powerful. Those that would subjugate them."

"Magic hunters."

His nod was slight. Incomplete.

"And this master I've heard about."

"He is not our master," Arthur said vehemently, "regardless of what poisonous ideology your grandmother would have you believing."

A note slipped on the flute, and Otter's voice said from the other side of the tree trunk, "Watch it, bear."

" Who is it?" My hands tightened on Arthur's, demanding a response.

Arthur glanced over his shoulder; the flute hadn't resumed its music.

"Out of respect for your family, who clearly loves you, however misguided they are about my kind, I think they should be the ones to tell you, especially since they've been protecting you from him all this time. But ," he added quickly, cutting off my heated protest, "if they fail to do so in a timely manner, say, before you get your brother back, I will tell you everything. Catch that, witch?" he flung to my cousin hidden behind the tree. "You have three days to come clean."

"Your words are as loud as your mouth-breathing, bear," came Otter's tart reply. " Heard ."

The flute returned to its melody once more.

"Don't be angry with me, Meadow," Arthur told me quietly, correctly interpreting the furrowed set of my brow. "You deserve to hear the truth—from your family. They will have all the answers you seek, not me. And… this is a way I can show my respect for them. As token of my devotion to you."

I nodded reluctantly, acknowledging the wisdom of his decision. It would be best to hear it from Grandmother, to finally receive the explanation I'd had no idea I craved to hear. Perhaps it would explain so much—why I hadn't been inducted into the Circle of Nine, why there seemed to be gaps in my education, why all deep forests were forbidden. Maybe, even, what was happening to my magic.

Witches grew stronger over time as they aged, but incrementally, the bulk of their potency being revealed at puberty. Yet I had only gotten exponentially stronger since coming to Redbud—I could break powerful spells that had been cast on me and see through glamours now. On the outcropping in the Tussock woods, I'd forged a spell with my friends that should've required the strength of an entire coven twice our age. I'd conjured air magic then too, apparently, and green flames against the fiáin. One could be explained away by a previously dormant bloodline ability, the other as a hearth witch, but one thing was for certain: I was maturing into magic I knew nothing about.

Giving myself a mental shake, I shoved those thoughts aside to examine later. First things first, and second things second, after all. Marten was the priority, which meant I needed to finish my conversation with Arthur.

Squaring my shoulders, I said, "My name is Meadow Lavender Hawthorne. And from what I gathered in the moonflower grove, you've heard of my family."

Arthur nodded.

"A few months ago, I discovered a parasite attached to the grimoire. A curse. One that apparently my grandmother had cast herself. I didn't know that at the time. What I did know was that it was feeding off my family, stealing away their magic. I—" I paused, stomach churning, hating the truth of the following words. "I assumed it was a rival coven that had cursed us, for whatever nefarious purpose, and I stole the grimoire."

I released Arthur's hand to trace the fine scarring on my left forearm. "Killed its hellhound guardian, apparently, though at the time it was glamoured to resemble an Irish wolfhound. And I thought I'd only wounded it. I didn't stick around to determine its fate; I was too worried about just getting out of there.

"My family'd kill a witch for tampering with their grimoire, you know, and since there were those spells that compelled them to feed the curse and then forget all about it, I couldn't trust them to believe me if I told them what I'd seen. I couldn't risk them patting me on the head and ignoring me and placing heavier wards on it just in case I decided to act on my ‘crazy ideas.'

"I had to starve the curse, or at least hide the spell book and me away so I could figure out how to free my family. That's all I wanted to do. So I took a false name and tried to keep my head down. Redbud, the Crafting Circle ladies, Emmett, Cody, Sawyer, you… I never meant to set down roots here."

Arthur was quiet a moment, and he wet his lips more than once in preparation to speak without following through. Then: "And is it still your goal to return with them after you retrieve your brother?" Are you running away from me again, Meadow Hawthorne , were the words he didn't say.

In truth, I had no idea what my future held in that regard. It had always been my plan to go back to the manor, to rejoin my freed family and prepare for a strike against the coven that had cursed us. Except there was no coven to blame except my own. And then there was Arthur and Sawyer, not to mention my friends. Despite my best efforts, I had forged ties here, ties I wasn't willing to abandon. Especially if they were reciprocated.

"What of you?" I asked, not confrontationally. "It seems you're on loan here with Cody, but your real home is in Washington." Are you returning to the opposite side of the country when all this is done?

He nodded to himself, weighing my words. Between us stretched a silence that was punctuated only by Otter's flute. A tune he'd called "The Skipping Stone," its melody light and easy. When Arthur finally answered, his voice was low and intense, and there was a flash of amber in his eyes. "You are mine, Meadow. I go where you go."

You are mine, Meadow . Those words hit me on a primal level, strumming a chord in me that sent a thunderous pulse down every nerve. They were possessive, but not dominating. They promised shelter, respect, and… love.

Arthur lunged for me the same moment I reached for him.

His mouth crashed down on mine, as possessive as his words. His kisses roved from my lips, my neck, my shoulder, his beard dragging a delicious trail of friction after his mouth and banishing the chill of the November air. It was much too cold to be out here in nothing else but knitted socks and a sundress, but I felt like I was on fire.

Moaning as his teeth nipped my skin, I knotted my hand into his thick hair and dragged his lips back to mine. It was impossible to get enough of this man, my bear who'd fought for me in the woods. My mouth opened for his as my body melded against him, desperate to feel every inch of his powerful frame. A sensuous growl rumbled against my lips as he slung my other arm around his neck and pivoted, trapping me against the maple tree.

I kissed him like I was guzzling water after a week of thirst, hands groping his arms, his chest, fingernails grazing against the bear-paw tattoo, all the way down his taut stomach to his hips and the black cloth knotted there. Arthur growled again when I seized that knot and gave it a firm tug, urging him to fully close the distance between us, and he shoved his muscled thigh up between my legs.

My back arched with the sudden pleasure of his bare skin rasping against my silk-covered flesh, and I wiggled into a better straddling position, drawing a low groan from his throat. Arthur leaned over me, fusing his mouth against mine. He was all fire, his kisses branding, his hands hot as they caressed down my ribs to grip my hips. Then his thigh began to move in the most wondrously thorough and unhurried rhythm, stoking the heat between us with each long stroke.

"Arthur," I whispered frantically, bracing my hands against his corded forearms to keep me from melting straight off his thigh. His breath blasted hot against my cheek, its ragged pace matching mine. Gasping, I—

The flute blasted a note that exploded in the air like a firework.

"Oh my Green Mother," I croaked, absolutely mortified and shucking myself from Arthur's leg. I'd completely forgotten Otter was just on the other side of the tree, presumably minding his own business, but how could he not hear the frenzied panting going on less than six feet away? And where were my senses? I'd almost given myself over to this primal lust in front of the entire orchard!

The lumberjack shifter remained where he was, forearm braced against the tree and his forehead leaning against it, chest heaving. When I squirmed to untangle myself, his free arm caught me around the middle. Arthur straightened, pulling me into his embrace. Then he tucked the wisps of brown hair behind my ear and crooked his finger under my chin, lifting my heated face.

"I am not ashamed of kissing a witch," he told me. "Are you ashamed of kissing a shifter?"

"I think we were doing a little more than just kissing," I mumbled.

His mouth quirked, but his eyes remained serious. He cocked an eyebrow, awaiting my response.

I shook my head, chin rubbing against his sternum. "No. I'm not ashamed of you, Arthur Greenwood." A smile lifted my lips. "Bear claw."

Leaning down, he kissed me once more as if to remind me—thoroughly—of what I'd just said. "Good."

I didn't let him go, content to steal another moment pressed against him. "Does the Coalition allow this?" I ventured. "I-I mean, relationships between witches and shifters?"

Arthur gave me a quizzical look. "Of course. Though, shifters tend to remain with their kind, to further the bloodline, but partnering outside of it is not as forbidden as your grandmother would have you believe. It is not a common occurrence, true, but it happens. And no one would think to contest a bond like ours. And it's because of that that I'll help you however I can to get your brother back."

Releasing me, he spun me around to face the farmhouse and gave my backside a playful swat. "Now go on back to your family, little cider witch. I need to check on Cody. I'll be back for you tonight."

I'll be back for you tonight. He knew who my family was and wasn't afraid of them. Would endure their ire and prejudice for another chance to see me. To maybe even kiss me again. Despite the stress of Marten's abduction, of the threats we'd yet to fully address, I gushed a smile at him. His answering grin crinkled the corners of his eyes and made my heart melt like butter on a stack of fresh waffles.

The lumberjack shifter lingered until I was past the floral wards and back in the fenced-in yard before turning for the eastern woods. Otter was waiting for me, leaning against the maple tree and spending an inordinate amount of time on polishing a spotless section of his flute with the hem of his robes. When he looked up, he feigned surprise. "Oh! You're back."

"Uh-huh," I said lightly, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

He pushed himself off the trunk and tucked the flute away in his robes. Then he linked arms with me, his longer legs pulling us across the lawn and towards the farmhouse at a faster pace.

"I'm actually surprised you left us alone," I admitted. "Well, sort of."

My easy-going cousin gave a light shrug. "He saved you from the portal. A bunch of us, actually. If that didn't earn him a semi-private conversation with you, I don't know what will."

Then he gave me an accusing look from the corner of one brown eye. "We never gave Lilac any flak about that shifter she snogged by the garden gate only because she was using him like she did all the others. He was nothing more than an adrenaline rush and a hit of dopamine. But you are not her, Meadow. You're serious about this bear. I personally don't care, you're in charge of your own happiness "—he gave my shoulder a light bump—"but there's a reason why Grandmother outlawed shifters. Particularly shagging them. So… you're welcome."

My gaze remained fixed straight ahead even as my cheeks stained. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Otter flashed me a knowing smile and opened the back door for me, releasing the cacophony of voices brewing inside, and ushered me forward. "Neither do I, Meadow, neither do I."