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There’s the scraping of chairs as the three other men round the table and come up to us, boxing me between their bodies. My vision is temporarily hindered as Fielder tugs the sweatshirt back over my head, and I slip my hands through the arms. Four sets of hands smooth the fabric down.
“We were trying to protect you,” Ezra murmurs, running a gentle finger down my cheek. I scoff and shake my head, ready to deny how that is any form of protection.
“Shut up and listen, Sweeney.” There isn’t any bite to Fielder’s tone, though. Not now. No, now he sounds exhausted.
Ezra glances up at them, and then returns his focus to me. “Yes, protecting our identities helps protect the coven, but it also protects you. If they saw us, if they put the puzzle pieces together and realized that we are witches and the heirs to a powerful coven, if they realized we came for you because of what you mean to us, that would put a target on your back.”
“You already have one there because of us, love.” Hardin’s fingers curl around mine. “We didn’t want to give you another.”
I let out a breath through my teeth. “I already had one. They knew I was a witch. Nothing I said was going to convince them otherwise.”
“The size of the target would change, sweetheart. If they knew they could get to four of the heirs of Septem Stellae through you, they would stop at nothing to capture you again. To use you against us.” Gideon’s hand smooths down my arm.
“Having the team go in for us was the best thing we could think to do. The hunters know our procedures well enough to know that we send in soldiers. Not heirs.” Fielder’s lips press into my still damp hair. “It was torture not going in to save you. Believe me. We hated it. So fucking much, Sweeney.” The way he says Sweeney now feels like a caress, not at all angry like he’d spit it out earlier.
Hardin tugs on my fingers to get my attention. “And since we never fucking ever want to be in that situation again, we want you to teach us how to do illusions. If we can alter our appearance-”
“Then you won’t have to hang back to protect your coven,” I finish for him.
“Exactly,” Gideon says.
I frown. There are still holes in their explanation. Like, why couldn’t they have just worn masks? Something else to protect their identities? Why wouldn’t the hunters assume they were soldiers and not heirs? Unless there are some hunters out there who already know they are as powerful as they are. In which case, them showing their faces would give away how much I mean to them.
It still doesn’t sit totally right, but I at least understand their reasoning better. And I made it out with minimal injuries thanks to Cohen being such a fucking badass. What kind of girlfriend am I if I get pissed at my boyfriends for not running directlyintodanger? I mean, I never would have forgiven myself if they had come and they’d been hurt. Never. So really, they had done the best thing by trying to send in strangers to get me. I nod resolutely to myself. Sure, it hurt like hell, but I’m here. I’m alive. “Are you going to be nicer to Cohen now? He saved me.”
“We would have saved you,” Ezra stresses. But they wouldn’t have. Their team of witchy operatives would have.
“He put you at unnecessary risk when he went in like that.”
I frown, shaking my head. “They didn’t even know he was there until he had me out of the chair and his ex-girlfriend popped in to give me some water.”
“What?” Fielder’s voice is back to being cold.
I lift a shoulder, like it’s not a big deal, because it isn’t. “Cohen dated one of the hunters, a few years ago. He didn’t know she was a witch killer, obviously. She didn’t know he was a witch. It ended when they discovered each other’s secrets.”
“Son of a bitch.” Gideon growls. “I’m going to kill him. I can kill him now, right?”
“What?” I squawk. “No, you can’t kill him! Jesus. He made a mistake years ago, long before he knew me or you or anyone. You’ve made mistakes. Can I kill you?”
Gideon’s lips twitch into an almost smile. “You would miss me too much.”
I hum, like that’s not true, even though it is. “It’s really not a big deal.”
“It’s exactly what we were trying to avoid.” Fielder points out, one of his hands smoothing over my shoulder. “If she knows you are important to Cohen, she might focus her attention on you, on using you to bring him down.”
Ezra looks around, worried. “Maybe we should leave. His house might not be safe.”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe that for a minute. If this house isn’t protected and she was focused on finding Cohen, then she would have already come here before today.” My brows lower. “And I don’t think a lovers’ quarrel is the most important thing for us to focus on right now.”
“No?” Ezra asks, tugging me out of the circle of men and over to my chair at the table, where he carefully pushes me down to sit.
I shake my head. “No. Since you’re so concerned about keeping your identities a secret, I feel like I should tell you I’m not sure exactly what I told them once they made me drink that potion. I thought it wasn’t working, and I definitely wasn’t trying to monitor my thoughts, because I didn’t know I was just spouting every damn thing that occurred to me.”
Ezra sits next to me and nudges my plate closer to me, urging me to eat. When I just stare at the taco, he sighs. “We wouldn’t blame you if you told them our names.”
I sink my teeth into my lower lip. “I don’t typically think of you with your first and last names, so if I gave them a name, it would be just your first. They wouldn’t be able to do much with that… But I might have… I might have thought about Septem Stellae? They wanted to know what coven I belonged to. And I can’t remember if I thought the name or not.”
Hardin takes the seat on my other side and drapes his arm over the back of my chair, his fingers toy with the too wide neck of my sweatshirt, occasionally brushing skin. “We trust you did your best to protect us.”
