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He grunted and waved me off before jogging back to his car. How he planned to get the body here wasn’t my primary concern. All that mattered was that he succeeded. The rest of this was on me.
There was only one potential hiccup I could see.
I’d never done the ritual I was planning to perform.
Not even once.
And the only time I’d ever seen it done, I had been the one in the witness position.
So a great deal was riding on the things Memere had taught me and the skills I’d learned honing my craft day after day in the swamp.
Wilder handed me a helmet. “Where to?”
I climbed onto the bike behind him, hugging my arms tightly around his waist and burrowing my face against the back of his neck. Time was of the essence, but that didn’t mean I could resist placing one kiss on the bare bit of skin between his jacket and his hair.
If time were more plentiful, I’d have said we should go back to my place, but now wasn’t the best opportunity for a midmorning shag.
We’d have our chance again soon, I hoped.
Now that we’d crossed the line between confusing flirtation and actual sex, I wasn’t about to uncross it. Last night I’d told him I was his, and I’d meant it. It was hard to put into words the way he made me feel, because I’d never experienced anything quite like it in my life. It was dynamic and challenging, asking more from me than any other emotion I’d known before.
For the first time in my life I understood that caring about someone demanded giving up part of yourself to make room for the person. Whether I’d meant to or not, I hadn’t done that with Cash. I’d kept him just out of reach, and though I’d loved him, I’d done it with my internal doors on lockdown.
I’d known Wilder for mere months, but in that time he had managed to open me up in ways I’d never dreamed possible.
If I knew how to tell him all of that, I would. But there was no easy way to make it make sense to another person. I wish I could show him how being with him felt to me, because if he saw the way I saw him, he would never doubt for a second that Santiago could mean anything to me.
Saying I love you might have been the easiest way to do it, but it felt wrong somehow. Did I love him? I thought I must. I loved him because of the way he undid all the tethers that kept me moored to my repetitive life. I loved him for being the thing that excited me, when everything else tried to drag me down and tear away the small, hopeful pieces that remained.
I loved him for a thousand stupid things and a thousand not-stupid things, and all of them were beyond my ability to put into words.
So I kissed the back of his neck a second time and hugged him hard. There would come a time I might be able to explain it, but until then I’d make him understand in any other way I knew.
“I need to get a few things. Things…um…well, magic things.”
“You can do magic with a stern look and some dry oregano, Princess. I’m guessing what you’re trying to say is you need some weird black-magic shit you don’t keep in your pantry back at the house.” There was an edge of laughter in his voice, and I was glad he was putting the tension from my earlier phone call with Santiago behind us for the time being.
Would it get easier, me interacting with the other witch?
I had said I wanted nothing to do with him once the demon possession had been dealt with, but now I wondered if he might be a valuable ally. He knew a lot. And if he’d considered training under Memere, that meant he had real skill. Natural skill, not just the stuff you got from reading books and whispering incantations.
Born witches were so rare I’d never heard of a male one existing before.
I craved that connection. I wanted to know everything about his training, wanted to learn what tricks and spells he’d picked up. He had at least a decade more experience than I did, and in terms of spellcraft, that might as well be a whole extra lifetime.
Maybe. Maybe if I could convince Wilder there was no threat there, I might be able to learn from the other witch.
Then I remembered the way Santiago had taken my finger in his mouth and realized how badly I was kidding myself.
Was any magic worth that level of drama and discomfort to Wilder?
Memere would have said yes.
My common sense was saying there was no way in hell it would ever work.
Damn you, common sense.
“Take me to Ezekiel’s.” We’d been to the little magic shop together a few times, so I didn’t need to give him directions. We both put on our helmets and drove off. All the while I was thinking how funny it was that magic could solve so many problems and yet create so many new ones.
