Page 54 of Hallowed Bones

Fucking insane.

But so am I, apparently.

So maybe we’re a match made in hell.

“You can’t fight them, or you don’t know how?” Ezra’s baritone smooths up my spine, weaving around me like the darkest of promises. I blink as the question penetrates the initial inertia of his sinful voice.

I glance up in time to see Cameron and Reyes exchange a look, but it’s Ezra that I turn to face. “I have never been able to do what you did,” I say. “Don’t you think I would have chased them away by now if I could?”

The memory of his arms locking around me shoves into my mind along with the call of his voice, the unnatural intonation of his words strengthened by something unseen, something … other.

The hairs on the back of my neck lift against my skin in recollection. As if my body is attuned to how very different these men are. It’s a cross between survival instincts and that feeling of rightness that’s been settling in the pit of my stomach since I first met each of them, since our hands brushed, since I walked through the gates of Ipswich College.

Ezra shakes his head. “Just because you don’t know how to use them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. It’s the same as normals not being able to see the Veil creatures.”

I arch a brow. “‘Normals’?”

“Humans,” Cameron offers.

“Then,” I slowly turn to face him. “Does that mean that you—we?—aren’t human?” Are witches a different species entirely?

“We are,” Reyes says and then grimaces as he corrects himself in the next instant. “Sort of. We’re just a different kind.”

“Different how?” I ask. “Because you have powers?”

“We, Haven,” Cameron states, pulling my attention back to him.

“What?” I frown his way.

“You keep saying ‘you’—referring to us as if you’re not part of this when you are. We have powers,” he repeats his words, correcting my initial question.

Right. Supposedly.

Lyall bumps his nose against my hand again, and I return to stroking his fur, needing the distraction. “Tell us more about your dreams,” Reyes suggests, dropping his chin on top of his steepled fingers, dark green eyes focused on me.

I shrug. “Not much to tell,” I hedge. “They’re all different. Sometimes I’d be walking through empty forests and the trees would talk to me. Other times I’d be in a cemetery and ghosts would follow me. I…”

My mouth goes dry. My fingers twitch. My eyes flick to Reyes.

Mistake.

His stare is like a damn trap—still and silent but waiting. And just like that, the memory slams into me. The first dream I had when I came here. The one I shoved into the furthest recesses of my mind, hoping to forget it. Him. Me. His mouth on mine. His hands wrapped around me as the two of us had sunk to the depths of a darkness so profound, I thought I would never rise to the surface again. But there, even drowning, I’d felt nothing but safety in his arms.

It’s not exactly the kind of dream you admit out loud. Not unless you’re asking to be ruined.

I swallow hard, trying to force my gaze away. My body doesn’t move.

Reyes raises one brow, lazy and lethal, like he knows exactly where my mind just went. Like he remembers it too. Except he wasn’t there, was he?

He lowers his hands, letting them dangle between his legs as he leans forward. “You saw me there too, didn’t you?”

My eyes widen, and I stare back at him, caught like a fly in a spider’s web. My throat closes up. Reyes’s eyes are almost glassy, the green color so deep and vast that I swear I’m falling into an ocean of moss and jade. He blinks, and the spell disperses. I gasp in a breath, hunching over Lyall’s form as my fingers tighten into his fur. In response, Lyall wiggles closer, his bigger body curling around me, tail tickling against my lower back.

My lack of response, though, must be all that Reyes needs, because he stands up from his chair and comes to kneel in front of me. I fight it, the pull I feel to him—to all of them, if I’m being honest with myself—but when he places two fingers beneath my chin and forces my gaze upward once more, I’m lost.

“There’s a lot you don’t know yet,” he murmurs. “But don’t worry, we’ll teach you everything you need to know.”

His hand brushes against my cheek, and it’s not fair—how a single touch from him feels like it brands me. Heat ripples beneath my skin, burning up from the inside out like a fuse lit too close to the edge. I can’t say anything. My mouth doesn’t work. My brain’s spinning and stuck and buzzing. He starts to pull away. Moves like he’s giving me space I didn’t ask for.