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I feel him pull away almost as abruptly as he’d entered. Huh, well, okay then. I toy with the idea of asking him where he’s been, why he’s not here with me. But the answer is obvious. In order to keep his father from spending too much time with me, he’s stayed away. Protecting me in the only way he can for the moment.
My second alarm goes off and all four of us groan. “Why did they have to make the graduation ceremony so damn early?” I ask the ceiling.
“Ten isn’t really that early, love,” Hardin feels the need to point out. But I notice he doesn’t make any move to get out of our bed.
“Its early when we were up until the wee hours packing and waiting for a man that never showed,” I mumble.
Gideon kisses my shoulder while Ezra uses a finger on my chin to turn my face toward him. He kisses me, soft and sweet, and I don’t even worry about having morning breath. That’s a lie. I do worry about morning breath.
He smiles softly at me when he pulls back. “Good morning, Rosalind.” His voice is all gruff and husky from sleep and it makes my toes curl. But in the next moment, he’s rolling over and climbing out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Not that I mind the view. He’s shirtless and wearing just a pair of tight boxer briefs that are doing nothing to hide his morning wood.
He runs a hand through his already disheveled hair and chuckles. “To make you coffee, my love. I think you’re going to need it today.”
Hardin tsks on the other side of Gideon. “Don’t go stealing my endearment for our girl, Carmichael.”
Ezra scoffs. “She’s not justyourlove, Yorke. You don’t get to claim that.”
They bicker back and forth as Ezra finds a pair of grey sweatpants to pull on, but I don’t pay them too much mind, because my mind is stuck on Ezra’s statement.She’s not just your love.
Does that- No… No, that’s not what he means. He doesn’t mean that he loves me, that Hardin loves me. Love is just a word that Hardin uses to refer to me by. I’ve seen enough movies based in England to know it doesn’t actually mean anything. And Ezra, he’s just… I flick my eyes at his back as he leaves the room. He’s just beingEzra.
I snort. I don’t even know what that means.
The feeling of Gideon’s gaze on me draws my attention. His gray eyes are focused on my face, my expressions. A slow smirk crawls over his full lips, like he knows the minor freak out I’m having.
“Shut up,” I mutter at him, while trying to roll away from him. If I have to face Mr. Harris in the next few hours, I need as long as possible to prepare. I need to be impeccable, unimpeachable. Gideon growls and tightens his arm on me, drawing me back to his chest, where he gives me a raspberry right on the curve where my neck meets my shoulder.
I shriek and flail to get away from him when he tries to do it again, but I don’t go anywhere. He’s too big and I’m not trying all that hard. “Gideon! I have to get ready to face the firing squad. Let me up!”
All play stops. He looks down at me with a furrow between his brows. “That’s not what you think this is, is it, Ro?”
I blink up at him. “How can you not think that is what this is? Robert Harris has tried to hurt me repeatedly. He holds my life in his hands. If he doesn’t find me worthy of being in the coven, what happens, Gideon?”
His jaw goes tight, and he looks away from me. He can’t deny the truth of my words, even if he wants to. If they don’t agree to this, the open season that has been in effect the entire quarter will remain. But worse than that, I’ll be facing the seven most powerful witches in their coven.
They can probably snap their fingers and watch me die.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I wiggle out from under him and head to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind me.
I could just use an illusion to make myself look my best, but I don’t want him to say that I’m lacking in any way. No. I need a combination of reality and illusion. Enough of both that he might be impressed by my abilities as a witch, but also that I can hold myself with poise all on my own.
That said, I spend far longer in the bathroom than normal. I wash and condition my hair. Shave everything. Exfoliate. Wash. When I’m out of the shower, I trim my nails, lotion up and blow dry my hair, before using a curling wand to put soft curls in it. For my makeup, I choose to do a more natural look, enhancing my features rather than something like a smokey eye.
The graduation is in the morning, and not at a nightclub, so some restraint is called for.
I’m standing in my closet, staring at the clothes still hanging when a broad, warm hand slides over my stomach, pulling me back into a fabric covered chest that smells like sea air and lavender. I sigh as I sink into Fielder, letting him support some of my weight.
“What are you doing, Sweeney?”
“Trying to figure out what one wears to an inquisition.”
He chuckles against the skin of my neck, his fingers stroking over the small swell of my belly.
“I think what you have on would suit nicely.” I look down at my lacy pale pink bra and boy shorts, humming.
Frustration bubbles. It’s like none of them actually understands what this means, what could happen if I’m found wanting by Mr. Harris and the other elders. They don’t seem to grasp that I’ve nearly died multiple times in the last few months, and members of their coven perpetrated those attempts on my life.
