Page 43 of Our Covenant

“Whoa there, big fella.” Luckily, I’m not choking and struggling to breathe because Asher doesn’t look at all concerned with whether his CPR skills are up-to-date. “I just meant that she is more stubborn than he is.”

“Impossible.” I wheeze, getting up to fill a glass from the tap.

“If you say so, but with the way they were going at it last night, and now she’s refusing to eat? I don’t know.” He holds his burritos up in a mock surrender before taking another colossal bite.

Too many questions and accusations flood my thoughts as I gulp down my lukewarm liquid. Has she thought this deeply about how to get under our skin? Has her intrusive investigation of us all gleaned her the exact method of breaking us down in turn?

Refusing Fox’s food. Ghosting me. Enchanting Maddox into paranoia. Stealthily evading Asher’s wandering eye.

Were these tactics she’s cooked up over the weeks?

Or have we played right into her hands, equipping her with our own weaknesses?

I shake my head before I start questioning whether or not she’s actually human and not an evil deity sent to dismantle us from the inside out as a test.

“Are you ready to rebuff your mother once she hears you have the flu?” I hold up air quotes around my last few words.

“I’ve been practicing my wheeze.” He fingers a loose edge of tortilla.

I watch him for a moment, and it’s clear that he’s uncomfortable, but for once, keeping a secret from the matriarchs of our coven is the right thing to do. His bottom lip twitches and his gaze is miles away.

“Fox will make you a special batch of his famous cure-all soup.” My metaphorical hands reach out to him and bring him back to our reality. “It’ll put hair on your balls and chest.”

“I have enough of that.” He sits back and pans a burrito-filled fist down his torso to show off the dusting of brown hair that trails down into his trunks.

“Are you going for a swim?”

“Yeah, I need to work off some energy before I study.”

I nod. He’s been more serious this semester, but capstones are all hell. Soon, he’ll have more freedom. At least until the coven council starts demanding the four of us choose wives.

Fox comes back downstairs with the discarded tray from last night, and I realize whom I haven’t seen this morning. “Where’s Mads?”

“Running in the orchard,” Asher says around the butt-end of his burrito. He hikes a thumb out toward the haunting apple trees standing in the morning mist.

“He said he’d be back by the time you were ready to head into town.” Fox rounds me and opens up one of the bottom cabinets to scrape the remains of Elsbeth’s dinner into the garbage before depositing the plate into the dishwasher.

“Think I could bribe him into not showering? The office would hate him, but it would be worth it to see Edmund’s reaction.” I jab Fox’s ribs with my elbow.

“Only if you want to be hosed down with him in the backyard.” Asher laughs and the knot in my chest loosens. “I’d come along to see that, but I don’t want to risk freezing to death on my mother’s fifty-thousand-dollar-landscaped patio.”

“Speaking of.” I turn to Fox to ask, “Did you take Elsbeth’s clothes? She’s wearing my shirt.”

Why does that bring heat to my face?

“I didn’t take anything,” Fox answers, but it’s not the whole truth. “I washed them.”

“I’ll make sure she gets them back. We know that’s your favorite,” Asher mocks.

It’s an old shirt I got from our academy swim team. Back when our lives weren’t dominated by school, work, and the coven. The shirt sat at the back of my closet for years between my graduation gown and the suit I wore to my bachelor’s graduation ceremony. A keepsake that had very little value until now.

A shadow in my peripheral gets my attention. It’s Maddox jogging up the path from the orchard just beyond the kitchen doors. He isn’t huffing or panting. If it weren’t for the mud caking his shins, I would question whether he’d really been out running amongst the trees.

“Whatever.” I sigh. “I’m going to get some work done in the study. Tell Mads to come get me when he’s ready to go.”

“Will do,” Fox and Asher call after me in unison.

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