Page 55 of Hallowed Bones

I reach out and grab his shirt. Fistful of black cotton. My knuckles go white. I don’t even think about it—I just need to stop him. To hold him there for one more second. His body freezes, and then those dark eyes drop down to mine. He blinks once, slow and heavy, like he’s surprised. Like he didn’t expect me to touch him. My fingers tighten without permission.

“Why did I see you in my dreams, Reyes?” I demand.

A moment passes, and no one moves, no one says a word. I don’t let go. I wait.

Finally, Reyes reaches down and takes my wrist into his hand, forcing me to release his shirt, but he doesn’t immediately release me. Instead, he surprises me by flipping it and twining my fingers with his own, bringing my hand up so that he can press a chaste kiss on the back of my knuckles.

“Because it wasn’t your dream, Haven,” he says. “It was mine, and you were dreamwalking.”

CHAPTER 20HAVEN

I thought she couldn’t be mine. She was a girl. She was … innocent. But as Haven’s eighteenth birthday approaches, I can deny it no longer. My sweet girl. My Haven. She isn’t just the daughter of my heart but of my blood too. The first female born to a Salem bloodline in nearly three hundred years. Is it because I have forsaken my brothers?

I can feel her power stirring. She will be strong. Jenn suspects nothing, but I can’t hide the truth forever. The coven must be told. We need to go back to the place I swore I’d never return to.

It’s time to go home to Salem.

—EXCERPT FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER WARDWELL

Dreamwalking. The word alone should explain itself. But after Reyes drops that little bombshell—just casually tossing it into the room like it’s not life-altering—he doesn’t say anything else. No follow-up. No explanation. Just … silence. It’s like he dropped the match and walked away while everything caught fire.

“You’re tired,” Ezra says, stepping into my periphery like he’s always been there. Watching. “We can table the rest of this for tomorrow. You’ve taken in a lot today, and we’re not trying to break you.”

Too late. I’ve been toeing the edge of breaking since the first moment I laid eyes on these men—and their secrets. Their shadows.

Reyes shifts beside me, and his hand in mine—warm, calloused fingers sliding against my own like they’ve done it before—feels almost too familiar, like we were always meant to be here. “I’ll take you back to your dorm,” he offers.

“No.” Ezra’s voice slices through the room, cold and cutting. The kind of word that ends conversations and starts something else entirely.

Everyone stops. Even Lyall—still in his wolf form, halfway upright—freezes with ears pinned back.

“She stays here tonight.” He looks at Cameron. “Show her to a room for the night.” His tone leaves no room for debate, but he doesn’t wait for an agreement either. He turns and stalks from the room without so much as a glance back.

As a group, we stare after him. “What the hell crawled up his ass and died?” I blurt.

Reyes chuckles. “Don’t worry about him,” he says. “He’s still getting used to the idea that there’s a female witch. We all are.”

I release Reyes’s hand before I can think better of it, wrapping my arms around myself instead as I frown. “Why does that matter?”

Both Reyes and Cameron grimace in the same instant. Oh, there’s definitely a story there. But instead of answering me, Cameron steps forward. “Let’s take it a little bit at a time,” he says. “There’s a lot of information, and it would be inconsiderate to try to tell you everything all in one night. Why don’t I show you to your room? One of us will take you back to campus in the morning.”

One of us.

The words linger in the air like something sticky and electric. Reyes still stands close enough to feel. Cameron’s energy radiates heat like the flame he hides behind charm and silk. Lyall gives a low whine, his wolf eyes locked on me like I’ve become a chew toy he’s not allowed to bite.

And suddenly, I’m very aware of where I am. Who I’m surrounded by. How I can still feel Ezra’s absence like a hand at my throat. My heart kicks. Hard. I’m in a house of witches, and they’ve got that look—like I’m the answer to a question none of them want to ask out loud.

And fuck me … I don’t know if I’m ready for any of this.

Not yet.

Cold fingers stroking my cheek wake me. My lashes lift, and I stare up, half expecting to see one of the guys hovering over me, letting me know that it’s time to get up. When I do open my eyes, however, it’s to see … nothing.

Blinking, I turn my head and realize that I’m alone. There’s no one else in the room, but the icy sensation of someone’s hand lingers behind as if embedded into my skin—as much a warning as it is a reminder. I reach up and touch my cheek. The skin there aches—a single spot colder than the rest. A shiver moves over my shoulders as I take in the dull gray of morning peering in through the window, slithering across the hardwood floors with dust motes dancing everywhere that the light touches.

The only sign that I’m not the first one awake—or so I assume—is the fact that the clothes I’d worn last night have been washed, folded, and left just inside the door to the room. I release a sigh and contemplate the events of the night before as I rise from the bed and get dressed.

My insides are a twisted, congealed mess of emotions as I make my way down to the first floor of Bishop Manor, pausing as I scan the portraits that line the walls. Faces fill the corridor and descend along the staircase, and the farther I walk, the more modern they become. Still framed in a beautiful matching bronze, canvas paintings become photographs—first in black and white and a bit blurry and then clearer and more full of color with each one. The women of the first portraits, however, disappear. Older men are replaced by new, youthful ones, but there are no more women in the following images.