Page 13 of Little Witch

"Because neither of us can stop watching you long enough not to notice something as simple as your pulse." He said it simply, like a fact of nature rather than a confession, and I had no idea what to do with the way my whole chest went warm and stupid in response.

Or with the fact I also kind of wanted to kiss him.

Then kick him in the shins and run away.

Before I could find an answer, the wind picked up again, harder this time, tearing through the trees hard enough to send leaves whipping into the air around us. Rowan's eyes flickered, and he turned sharply toward the edge of the clearing, every trace of softness gone from his face in an instant.

"Go home," he said, urgent now. "Whatever you think you're looking for, you won't find it here. Ignore the whispers from now on."

"I—"

"Now, Amber. Trust me."

The force behind it startled me enough that I turned and hurried back down the path without arguing, heart pounding, not stopping until the trees and shadows of the Whispering Pines had faded behind me.

Even running, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.

Couldn't shake the deeper feeling underneath it — that there was more to Rowan's return than I understood yet, because I already knew why he'd left in the first place. I'd known it since the night of the funeral, watching him disappear before the wake had even ended, because it was exactly what I would have done too, if my mother's memory hadn't still needed me here.

Cian had vanished the same night my dad had.

Neither of them had ever been found.

And for some reason... I had the strangest feeling that I was next.

Chapter Seven

I shouldn’t have let her go.

The moment Amber stepped into that clearing, I'd known. Not just recognized — known, in the deep, cellular way that had nothing to do with memory and everything to do with the bond that had gone taut the second she crossed into my line of sight.

I'd known who she was even before her name found its way to my tongue, known it the way you know your own hand in the dark. There was something different about her now, something that tugged at the edge of every sense I had, like a scent I'd have known blindfolded from a mile off.

The Hollow had been restless for weeks, its magic slowly coming unraveled at the seams. But this — this was something else entirely.

Amber Halloway was something else entirely.

I hadn't expected her in the Pines. Hadn't expected her at all. I'd come back to this town with one purpose — find the source of the disturbance, figure out why the veil between worlds was thinning before it tore open completely. And then I'd looked up and found her standing in front of the oak, wide hazel eyes fixed on it like it might answer a question she hadn't asked yet, and every careful plan I'd made unraveled right along with the magic.

She wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't part of any version of this I'd prepared for.

I should have turned her away the instant I saw her. Should have told her to run and meant it. Instead I'd stood there, drinking her in like a man who hadn't eaten in three years, because in every way that mattered, I hadn't.

I'd known what she was to me since my mother's funeral.

Three years ago, standing in the rain in a suit that didn't fit right, watching Amber cry into Orias's shoulder while our mothers' coffins went into the ground together, I'd felt it lock into place — that pull, sudden and absolute, a thread drawn tight between my chest and hers with no slack left in it at all.

I'd done a project on mate bonds once, years before, some tedious school assignment on demon lore nobody else had taken seriously. I remembered thinking it sounded like fiction dressed up as fact. Elevated senses around one specific person. A pull like gravity, refusing to loosen no matter the distance. The compulsion to protect, sharp and immediate, even before love had the chance to catch up to it.

I'd recognized every symptom the second it hit me, standing at my own mother's grave.

And I'd known, in the very same breath, that I couldn't have her.

Orias loved her. Had loved her since we were twelve years old and sharing a desk between us, long before our mothers ever fell for each other and turned us into something like siblings. And she loved him back — I'd watched it happen in real time over the months our families blurred into one, watched the way she softened whenever he walked into a room, the way her whole face changed for him and only him.

My mate was in love with my twin brother.

I wasn't about to stand at my mother's funeral, freshly bonded to the girl my twin had loved for half his life, and let that be the thing that broke what was left of my family.