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“Thanks.” I gulped the cool liquid and immediately wished I’d taken it slower. The water plummeted down into my stomach like a stone. My gut started churning. I fidgeted with the glass and set it on the glass coffeetable.
To my surprise, Damon turned up next, right on time. He gave Jin a curt nod and hesitated for a second when he saw me. I could practically see longing warring with bravado in hisexpression.
I knew which one I wanted from him. I held out my hand in offering. His stance relaxed by a fraction. He stalked over to take it, raised the other to my chin, and kissed me so soundly my knees went wobbly and my breath hitched. My spark gleamed into being with a rush ofdesire.
Damon drew back with a smirk and an affectionate squeeze of my hand. Ky let out a whistle. “Damn. I wish I’d thought ofthat.”
A giggle tumbled out of me. “Who says it’s toolate?”
“Hey,” Damon grumbled. But at the same time he stepped to the side as if to make room. Ky’s eyes widened. Jin cocked an eyebrow like he was considering coming over and joining the fun himself. Ky shifted his weight onto his feet to stand up—and another knock sounded on thedoor.
I might have reached out to Ky anyway, but my stomach clenched tighter at the thought of the conversation ahead. I pulled back from Damon, swiping my hand across my temple as if that would settle mynerves.
Damon settled into the armchair next to me, leaving his jacket on and sprawling out his legs. Seth came in with a quick but warm smile at me. His gaze took in the whole room. We were all here. “What’s going on, Rose?” hesaid.
Jin settled into the armchair opposite Damon. I motioned to Seth to sit down too. He gave me a concerned look, but he crossed the room to take a seat on the sofa next to his slimmertwin.
I hadn’t given much explanation for why I’d called this get-together. Or why I’d wanted it to be somewhere more private than the café’s back patio. At least if anyone had noticed me coming in here, they wouldn’t think any more of it than that I’d wanted to check out thegallery.
I took a breath. “I wanted to talk to all of you because I feel like, after everything you’ve done for me in the last few weeks… you deserve to know exactly what’s going on. And because I’m hoping that when the worst of this situation is over with, maybe you can become more a part of that side of mylife.”
“You don’t have to tell us anything you feel more comfortable keeping to yourself,” Sethsaid.
“I know. And I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this, of course… but I want to. I want to more than I care what anyone else would think.” My hands closed at my sides. I uncurled my fingers and clasped them in front of me. “It’s going to sound kind of bizarre, though. And I’ve never had to explain this to anyone before. So it might take me a little while to figure out a way of telling everything so it makes sense toyou.”
Kyler leaned forward, resting his elbow on the arm of the sofa. “It’s all right. I think we’ve all known for a long time that there’s something, ah, different about the Hallowells. We’ll believe whatever you have tosay.”
I laughed weakly. “We’ll see. It gets complicated. So.” I wet my lips. The glimmer of my spark was still dancing faintly from Damon’s kiss. “You’ve all seen a little ofthis.”
I raised my hand, spreading my fingers in the same motion. Summoning the energy inside me to my palm. I shaped it into a flame to match the feeling of the spark inside me, filmier but bigger, so they could all seeit.
The light inside me dwindled to feed that illusion. The guys sat silent, watching. Jin’s expression was calm but awed, Seth’s almost… proud? Kyler’s eyes had lit up with an eagerness that matched the flame. Damon had schooled his face into its usual studied nonchalance, but his jaw twitched as hestared.
“That’s magic,” I said. “It runs in my family. It runs in… all the families I’d normally be supposed to associate with. It’s what my stepmother used on you to stop you from interfering when she caught me hanging out with you by the hunting cabin all those years ago. We call ourselves ‘witches,’ and I guess the way you’d think of that word fits what we are wellenough.”
The flame petered out with the last of my briefly litspark.
“So you’re a witch,” Damon said, with a hoarse chuckle. “And your stepmom’s a witch. Your dad? What about the other people on the estate? That Cortlandguy—”
I shook my head. “The thing about the witching blood is the spark—that’s what we call the source of our power—it only lights in the women. My dad and Master Cortland are witching men, but they aren’twitches. They don’t have any magic of theirown.”
Jin raised his eyebrows. “I’m guessing they do something useful or you wouldn’t keep them around,” he said. His tone was teasing but his dark gaze was intent onme.
“That, um…” My gaze slid to Seth. I’d already pretty much told him. The corner of his mouth quirked up as he waited to see what I’d say. The rest of his expression stayedserious.
“You know the whole ‘birds and the bees’ talk parents are supposed to do for their kids?” I said. “Well, in witching society we’re taught about how a man and a woman can come together in… emotional and physical intimacy, and that lights the spark inside the woman. The more they come together, the stronger it gets.” I swallowed and looked at Damon. “I couldn’t have magicked that flame from my hand if you hadn’t kissedme.”
He blinked. His shoulders tensed. “So the othernight—”
“The other night,” I said quickly, “was mostly about being with you. The fact that it kindled my spark temporarily was just a convenient sidebenefit.”
My face heated a little, knowing I’d basically announced to the entire room just how intimate Damon and I had gotten. He seemed to chew on my answer for a moment. Then, to my relief, he shot me a crooked grin. “If you needed that kiss right now, what we did before mustn’t have lasted you all that long. How much do you witches have to be hooking up to keep that firegoing?”
My cheeks burned hotter. “Notthatmuch,” I said. “I mean, we do need to keep a good relationship with our partners… The witching men aren’t at a total disadvantage. If one feels he’s being mistreated, he can simply refuse that intimacy. The way it works…” I took another breath. “We take a consort. There’s an official ceremony. What I get from being with any of you, the way things are now, that spark fades fast. With an actual consort, it’d flare brighter, and it wouldn’t dwindle unless I used themagic.”
“Your fiancé,” Kyler said. “He was going to be your consort too. That’s why you felt you had to marryhim?”
“That’s part of where it gets complicated,” I said. “The way the spark works—they say it’s to ensure the line isn’t passed on if something about a witch is such a problem no one is willing to take her… If I haven’t taken a consort by my twenty-fifth birthday, my spark will never kindle again. Foranyone.”
