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She needed Aiden.
She felt like half of her was missing. She’d always scoffed at anyone who said that their mate completed them. It seemed like an insult to both of them to imply that they couldn’t live without each other, but she understood now.
It wasn’t that she was half a person. It was that together they made more than a person. She and Aiden together were a super person, able to tackle far more than they could alone. It didn’t matter how they’d met.
He was throwing away the best thing to happen to either one of them out of some misplaced sense of—what—chivalry? Duty?
When the scent of burning popcorn filled the air, she cursed and slammed open the microwave. She threw the smoking bag in the sink and cracked her one exterior window.
Vent the smoke, so mote it be,she wrote with no time to make it rhyme.
Air whooshed out the window in a maelstrom. Something whacked her on the back of the head, and she ducked with a curse. A book of matches hurled itself toward the window. When a candle levitated and spun her way, she shouted, “Stop it! I did not mean anything remotely capable of making smoke, you damn?—”
She took a deep breath. She was screaming at magic.
She tossed the bag of popcorn out the window. Technically, her landlord could fine her for littering, but she couldn’t be bothered to care.
She shut the window in case her curling iron flew south for the winter and sat on her bed. Automatically, her mind cycled through all the places she could pick up a guy on a Tuesday night at—she checked the clock on the microwave—eleven.
There was a bar two towns over that didn’t do Last Call until two. There was a hostel on Main where a ton of hikers stayed. There were usually a few late arrivals. That was about it.
She didn’t want a man. She had a terrible feeling she would never be satisfied with casual sex again. Why settle for scratching an itch when she could have Aiden? And if they lived together, she would never have to worry about getting dressed up for a bar at eleven on a Tuesday. He would just be there, hers, always.
“I take back everything I said about monogamy,” she told her apartment. All those boring married people could dive into bed whenever they wanted.
“They aren’t doing that though,” she told the candle when it rumbled on the ground.
The candle bounced.
“Don’t even think about it.” She dropped her face into her hands. “Great. I am talking to the furniture.”
She and Aiden would never have to leave the bed. She had a high sex drive, and he was a shifter with endless stamina. Why did the idiot think she was better off alone? How could he believe he was bad for her or too dangerous? What could be worse than this?
She heard a car pull up outside and hope surged. Her window faced the backyard, so she couldn’t see who it was. She dashed down the stairs, through the workshop, to the side door, and wrenched it open. A Subaru sat parked under the streetlamp. She frowned, readying a protective spell. It couldn’t be Aiden; the little car would never survive his roads, but she didn’t know who it could be.
Her sister Becca levered herself out of the driver’s seat and stood facing her across the hood of the car. She was heavily pregnant. Goldie had seen that yesterday when she’d desperately called on her sister’s healing skills, but they hadn’t really talked.
“New car?” she asked. What else had she missed? Who else was married, pregnant, or dead?
“The old Toyota finally kicked the bucket.” Becca patted it. The vast majority of the Abbotts were tall like Goldie with long, straight hair. Becca was six inches shorter with a mass of curly hair.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Goldie asked when the silence stretched.
Becca shook her head. “I never got a look at you.”
Goldie sighed. Becca was training to be a nurse, an extension of her natural healing magic. “I’m fine. You took care of my head.”
Becca crossed her arms, which looked ridiculous over the huge bump of her belly. “Howmany times did they knock you unconscious?”
“You just healed me yesterday. I’m not going to get another concussion so you have something to do.”
Becca’s arms dropped. “You’re right. I couldn’t sleep. I was worried about you.”
Goldie knocked her fist into the side of her head. “Totally better.”
Becca shook her head. “I’m not talking about your brain. How’s your heart?” She stepped around the car and came to her. “Although heartbreak is also in the brain. Your heart is just a muscle…”
Goldie laughed and folded her older sister into a hug. “I love you.”
