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All I can think about is how my mate is seeing me in another man’s clothes, and how unreasonably soft and understanding his eyes look. I expected anger, annoyance, frustration. I have no idea how to deal with kindness. “Daemon and I, we aren’t… what Samantha said… it isn’t like that.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation, Ann. We met yesterday. I didn’t come here to scold you; I came here to check on you and make sure you didn’t have to deal with those vultures alone.”

My heart aches from how nice he’s being. Besides Daemon, no one is ever nice to me. “My mom is going to flip out when she sees me in this.”

I don’t know why Daemon let me leave in it, though I’m not sure returning in my short sparkly dress would have been any better.

Christopher takes me by the hand, and butterflies spread in my stomach. Mate. I can feel the bond tugging, pulling us together, filling me with this warm kind of sensation that makes all the tension in my body unwind.

“I’ll sneak you into your room so you can change,” Christopher says. “You should wait until the spell is finished to come back out. Everyone will have left by then.”

But I can’t do that.

If they cast that spell, what will happen to Daemon?

I open my mouth to protest, but Christopher’s words silence me. He chants low beneath his breath, and with his free hand traces an invisible glyph into the air. The first thing to disappear is my hand that he’s holding, followed by my forearm, then bicep. Perhaps disappear isn’t the right word. I can still feel my body, I just can’t see it. I shudder as Christopher’s spell vibrates through my bones, spreading through my chest and outward until all of me is invisible.

“Don’t let go of my hand,” he warns, “or else the spell will break. While you’re like this, nobody will be able to hear you, including me, so if you speak and I don’t answer, it’s not that I’m ignoring you.”

He puts our hands behind his back—probably so it’s less obvious that he’s holding onto me—and guides us through the yard. The mud squishes beneath my bare feet, and I hiss when a twig crunches under my heel. True to his word, Christopher doesn’t hear me, though he catches me stumbling and slows down a bit.

“I’ll try to fill you in on everything that’s happened,” he says, staring at the grass to presumably hide that he’s talking to me, though I’m sure it makes him look like a crazy person whispering to himself. “After Martha was murdered, the baptism was canceled. They haven’t—we haven’t—rescheduled it yet.”

We. That’s why Christopher is dressed in an all-white suit. The elders promoted him. It’s a shame his white loafers are getting ruined by all the mud.

“Your mother was elected coven elder, which I’m sure you’ve realized, and she promoted me too,” Christopher says, confirming my suspicions. “That was hotly contested, given I’m barely one-hundred years old and mated to you, but I won the vote. Barely.”

One-hundred. Like all the light witches, he looks no older than I am, and though the news shouldn’t come as a shock, it does. Glancing at his back, I try to imagine him at my age, walking through this property after his own baptism in the early twentieth century. It’s strange to think he knows my childhood home better than I do. Stranger still to think we’ve never met before, although after the Daemon incident, my mom kept me cloistered during coven events.

As we reach the porch, a dozen or so witches come into view, moving back and forth inside the house. He waves at them and they wave back—all smiles—before he opens the back door. Christopher is popular, I realize. They like him. And then it dawns on me, that in being his mate, they may eventually like me too, or at the very least learn to respect me.

I could belong here one day. Maybe soon.

More witches greet him, and they exchange pleasantries as we head up the stairs to my bedroom. Christopher doesn’t need help navigating the house. Then again, he must have visited it at least eighty times before. Although the building is old, it’s in excellent condition—polished mahogany floors, dark stone walls, high arched ceilings with old-fashioned candle-lit chandeliers. It’s as creepy as it is beautiful, with dim gas-lamp sconces lighting the staircase in a soft yellow glow.

Despite the house’s upkeep, wooden boards still creak beneath our feet, and the more witches pass us, the tighter I clamp onto Christopher’s hand, worried that one of them will notice the extra noise. No one does. They don’t knock into me either. My mate has this strong commanding presence, and even though the witches smile and chatter with him, they give him a wide berth.

Within minutes, we’re up the first staircase, then the second. And no witches ever venture to the third floor anymore—it’s strictly a living space for my family.

Once we’re safely away from the others, nearly to my bedroom, Christopher speaks again. “Your mother should have warned you about the baptism,” he says, voice soft. “I don’t know why she didn’t. I’ve never seen anyone go into it blind before.”

He opens my squeaky bedroom door for me, somehow already knowing where it’s at, and pulls me inside. When it’s closed, he releases my hand and cups my cheek, turning me visible again. The warmth of his palm makes me sigh, and I lean into it automatically, the feeling so natural, so easy, it’s like breathing air.

Stroking my cheek, Christopher says, “When we reschedule the baptism, you’ll be given another chance to complete it. I really hope you do.”

Not, “You have to, Annalise.” Not, “If you don’t go through with it, I’ll hate you forever.”

It’s suspiciously understanding.

“I have to go now. They’ll need me to cast the spell,” Christopher says.

“Daemon didn’t do it.”

He doesn’t argue with me. Instead, he kisses my forehead. “They want blood, Ann. And Daemon looks guilty. Unless you can prove he’s innocent, there’s nothing I can do. If I refuse to help the elders, I’ll lose my position, and they’ll appoint someone else to cast it. I’m sorry.”

And for what it’s worth, he does look sorry. They say the stronger a mating bond is, the more a mate can sense their partner’s emotions. I wonder if Christopher can sense mine now—my desperation to save the incubus who owns my soul. And I wonder if he mistakes those emotions for something more. Again, I feel the need to clarify.

“I’m not sleeping with him,” I say.