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I push his hands off me and step farther into my closet to get some space between our bodies. “I wish you would take this seriously. This isn’t just the girl you’re dating meeting your family, Fielder. If I fail this test, this introduction, mylifeis at stake.”
I can feel him staring at me, waiting for me to look at him. But I can’t do it. I’m too upset right now, too nervous. I yank a dress off its hanger willy nilly and shrug it on. It’s white with a sweetheart neckline, slightly puffed sleeves that reach my elbows and fabric covered buttons that run up the entire front of it. It seems appropriately sacrificial.
“You think I don’t know that, Sweeney? You think I’m not fully aware that I am leading you into a den of vipers? That if this goes badly, we could all end up in a grave.All of us, not just you.”
I glance up at him before turning my back and selecting a pair of brown wedges. He sighs, and approaches me again, stopping me as I bend to slip my shoe on. Instead, he takes it from me and kneels at my feet, looking up to meet my gaze. “It’s better this way, Rosalind. Better to have them meet you surrounded by people, where my father can’t lash out at you. He won’t try to hurt you here, and that will give us a chance to get you acquainted with the other members of the elders.” He slips the shoe onto my foot and does the clasp around the ankle.
“Believe me,” he says as he does the same with the other shoe. “If there was a way to avoid this, we would.”
I open my mouth to say that there is a way to avoid this. I could just not join the coven, I could find another one, or I could start my own with Cohen. One where we make the rules and the rules could be that I don’t have to stay away from other covens, that I could still be with Fielder. With Ezra. With Gideon and Hardin.
But then Fielder slides his hands up my calves until he’s cupping the backs of my thighs under my skirt. “I promise you, Ro. We will not let anything happen to you. Not today. Not ever.”
I lace my fingers into his curly blond hair and tug him up off his knees until I can kiss him. I want to say he shouldn’t make promises he can’t keep. That there isn’t a way for him to keep me safe forever.
But I think we both need the comfort of the words, so I leave them where they are, a vow spoken between us, and I put aside my frustration and fear. Those emotions have no place today. I need to be confident and secure. I need to project a persona that I don’t feel at the moment.
But I have a lot of experience in creating a false persona. So that is what I do now, slipping it on as I kiss Fielder, while I accept his promise for what it is.
A prayer.
The quad is full of people. More full than I’ve ever seen it. Even when we had the harvest festival back in October, there weren’t this many people on campus.
It’s weird, if I’m honest. Considering that only a quarter of the student population is graduating, and most of the students have already left the campus, headed back to the mainland and away for the summer.
It feels like the number of occupants at the school has tripled, and as I take in the happy smiling families, snapping pictures with beaming graduates, I realize that maybe that is the case. If everyone has families that care enough to come, we’re talking siblings, grandparents, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles. All of those could be here, multiple people for just one student.
The ceremony is over. I sat with Hardin near the back. Gideon and Ezra had to sit with their families, and while we could have joined them, Hardin thought it best to give me a small reprieve from the pressure of meeting everyone’s family all at once.
It is really just putting off the inevitable.
“Deep breath, love,” is all the warning I get, before Hardin is striding forward a few steps, tugging me along behind him, toward Fielder and his father. They’re flanked by a handful of older people, members of the coven I would guess, but I hardly take notice of them, because panic is clawing up my throat and trying to choke me. No, not trying,actuallychoking me. I can’t get a breath and I’m sure that my face is turning a lovely shade of red.
Before we come to a stop in front of Fielder, I shoot a quick illusion to my cheeks, evening out my flushed skin and hopefully making me look like I’m not on the verge of an anxiety attack.
Fielder strides right up to me, pushes his fingers into my hair, and kisses me. The action takes me by surprise and I don’t do anything for a moment. But Fielder is patient, his mouth clinging to mine, until I kiss him back, until I return his affection.
Hardin’s thumb sweeps over my knuckles and I realize that I’m standing in front of many, if not all, of the elders of their coven, kissing one man while holding hands with another.Excellent first impression, Rosalind Juliet. Really stellar.
I try nonchalantly to tug my hand from Hardin’s, but his grip tightens as Fielder pulls back, smiling down at me, keeping my focus on his face, giving me just one second longer before I have to face the music.
“Congratulations,” I murmur, my free hand smoothing over the shoulder of his robe.
“Thank you, Sweeney.” His green eyes bore into mine, checking that I’m ready. I give a slight nod and he kisses me one more time, before dropping his hands from my face, and turning to face the crowd of adults eyeing the three of us.
Fielder slips his arm around my waist and tugs me into his body while Hardin continues to hold my hand. His fierce blue eyes glare at the group, like he’s daring them to say anything, but not one of them does, or at least not about how it appears I’m dating two men at once.
No, instead, Robert Harris steps forward, his calculating gaze running over me, like I’m a problem he can’t quite solve. It’s eerily similar to how his son looked at me nine months ago when I first arrived here.
“Miss Sweeney,” he says, his tone neutral. “Lovely to see you again.”
I force a smile to my lips that doesn’t quite reach my eyes. It’s my filming smile. The one I wear when I feel like crap, but know I still need to shoot something or risk disappointing my fans. “Nice to see you too, Mr. Harris.”
His jaw tenses, and I get the impression that he wants to yell for Fielder to get the hell away from me, but he keeps himself in check. Huh, maybe Fielder was right about this being the best way for this introduction to happen.
Fabric brushes against my back and I glance over my shoulder to find that Gideon and Ezra have joined us, and Gideon is standing close enough to me that I can feel him.
“Interesting,” a low voice murmurs, drawing my attention to a woman with stark white hair cut short, so her soft curls bounce around her head. A pair of dark brown eyes the same color as her skin are regarding me with a fair amount of curiosity. “You are the Rosalind Sweeney I’ve heard so much about?”
