We stop under a particularly large tree, and West gazes up into the branches, heavy with ripe fruit. Soon, they’ll fall, and the frost will come, and then the snows, encasing my beloved trees in ice.
I hope we’re all still here to see it.
“The demon and fae thing,” she says. “It sounds crazy, but I get it. Together, they’d be a pretty unstoppable force. But the shadow mage thing is still a mystery. And Eloise? Total wildcard. Other than social status, I can’t figure out her motives at all.” She laughs, but it’s as cold as the autumn breeze. “Then again, social status can be a powerful motivator. Take it from someone who never had any.”
“You might not have had status, but you also didn’t resort to scheming against innocents, paying to have a young girl bullied into submission, or aligning with dark organizations.”
“I can’t say for sure that I wouldn’t have, though. Right? If the opportunity fell into my lap?”
“No. No way. You’re too good a person for that. You—”
“We can tell ourselves how good we are all day long, Augs. But all that really means is we’ve made certain choices up to this point. Anything could change that. Anything.” She meets my gaze again and shrugs. “I guess that’s why I’m still struggling with the idea of cutting all ties with Brian. I’m still looking for the good in him, especially now that I know what my mother did to him. Some part of me still wants to believe he actually cared about me, just like she said. Is that completely stupid?”
“To want love and respect from the man who raised you as your father? No. It’s not stupid to want it. But chasing after it and basing your sense of self-worth around its lack can be a dangerous path.”
“I just… I still don’t want to accept that he sold me out. That he betrayed me, even though I wouldn’t blame him at this point. My mother betrayedhim. I’m a living, breathing representation of that. It probably still hurts him to this day. Don’t you think?”
She’s looking up at me with those big, turquoise eyes like she wants me to say something comforting. Some platitude about time healing all wounds and forgiveness being a balm for the heart.
But I can’t lie to her.
Yeah, sometimes, old woundsdofade. Old betrayals are forgiven or forgotten, or both.
But most of the time, the pain is always lingering just beneath the surface, waiting for you to let your guard down. To hear a few bars of an old song or smell an ingredient from a dish you haven’t cooked in a century, and suddenly you’re reliving the worst moments of your life in all their blade-sharp glory after you’d been insisting for decades you’d made your peace.
Grief and betrayal, loss and death… They grip us. They mark us. They whisper their stories in our hearts for eternity.
And they never let us truly forget.
“I think,” I say instead, scooping her up and holding her tight, “I’d much rather kiss you than talk about betrayals and pain.”
A smile breaks across her face, and she leans in close, teasing me with a feather-light kiss before pulling away.
“Oh, I don’t think so, witchling.” I set her on her feet and back her up against the tree, caging her in with my arms, then claiming her mouth in a bruising kiss. She parts her lips for me, moaning into my mouth, her fingers twining through my hair.
“Hungry,” she pants, breaking our kiss. “You make me so… hungry.”
A soft chuckle rumbles through me. “You know I’m happy to cook you anything you’d—”
“Not for food, Augs.” She reaches for the zipper on her sweatshirt, giving me a look that leaves no room for misinterpretation.
Her sweatshirt falls away, leaving her topless in the moonlight, her bare skin glowing. Not with magic. Not with runes. Just her. Just my witchling.
I lean in close again, dragging my nose up the slope of her neck, kissing a path to her ear.
“I swear I didn’t come out here for this, witchling,” I whisper. “But youarehalf naked, and Iamhard, and, well…” I kiss her again, skimming my hands up her ribs, brushing my knuckles across her nipples. She arches into my touch with a gasp, and I drop to my knees before her, my mouth closing around one of her dark peaks.
“That’s… perfect,” she breathes. “Goddess, you feel so good, Auggie.”
“All part of my master plan to keep you begging for more.” I kiss my way to her other breast, grazing her nipple with my fangs before sucking it between my lips.
“It’s working,” she says. “Pleasegive it to me. More. All of it.”
The scent of her desire mingles with the scent of the apples, of the night sky, of the damp leaves and the cold earth and everything I love about this place, my home, my heart. Overwhelmed with a feeling I can’t even describe, I sweep her off her feet and lay her down in the leaves, descending on her once more in a flurry of hot, ravenous kisses before flipping us so she’s straddling me, grinding against my cock, her sweet little moans driving me fucking wild, and—
The snap of a twig and movement behind another apple tree snags my attention, the barest hint of a wing outlined in the shadows.
“I think we’ve got a visitor, witchling,” I whisper, nodding toward the tree.
