by Eva Chase
Dad had never talked about my mother very much. By the time I’d been old enough to form solid memories, he must have gotten over most of his grief at her death. But he’d gone years before he’d looked for a new wife. The occasions he had talked about his first wife, it had been with a tenderness I usually only saw directed at me.
Theirs had been a love match, I knew that much. My mother had been the only daughter of a prominent witching family in Massachusetts, but she’d left the inheritance of their family home and name to her younger brother in order to marry my father and become part of the Hallowell legacy. Her family had never really forgiven my father for that transgression, according to him. At least, that was how he’d always explained why we didn’t see or speak to them.
I dragged in a breath, my heart suddenly heavy. All the factors the Assembly talked about, all the elements Meredith had told me a good match needed, I had them not with Derek but with my unsparked men. If the guys had been from witching families… If I wouldn’t have felt I needed to choose between them…
Maybe Dad would understand, if I tried to talk to him about this once Celestine and Derek were dealt with. He knew what it was like to love someone you weren’t supposed to.
A knock rattled the door. I startled in my chair. “Rose?” Derek said. “Are you ready to come down? I’ve been told dinner isn’t far off.”
Had I been mooning around in here that long already? My chest constricted. I still didn’t feel quite ready to see my unknowingly-former fiancé. “I, ah—” I started, and an alert lit up the screen of my prepaid phone.
I grabbed it, tapping through to read the full message. Margo Elands had come through. I can see why you’re keeping your name secret when you’re asking questions like that. Let me see if I can help you. Accounts of consorting ceremonies more than a couple hundred years back are few and far between. I’ve had to dig very deep for what I have come across. The most intriguing scraps I’ve found—nothing official, you have to understand, only fragments of texts I’m obliged to tell you may be fictional—have mentioned—
“Rose?” Derek repeated.
Damn. “I’ll be there in a minute, I promise,” I said. Anything to get him away so I had a moment to read this.
—wilder ceremonies than we see today, on untamed grounds, with a symbolic structure nearby at times to ground the proceedings. I’ve come across one mention of a witch consorting with a completely inhuman being, although that may very well be fancy. Also a couple of vague mentions that seem to indicate the taking of unsparked men as partners, in one case to extend the witching blood. As I’m happily consorted already myself, I haven’t had occasion to try that one out.
My breath caught in my throat. So it might be true. Not just because I wanted it to be—someone, somewhere had made note of it.
My hands trembled as I typed out a quick response. I’ve seen pictures depicting witches with multiple consorts. Is that something you’ve encountered in your research at all?
Her reply was quick and clearly amused. Oh, an ambitious one, are you? The only time I’ve ever tried to raise that matter in a remotely public way, I lost my job, so you might want to tread carefully there. But yes, I’ve seen the sort of pictures you’ve described. Few and far between, maybe because they have a habit of getting themselves destroyed as soon as anyone takes note. But I make no claims that they’re anything other than symbolic. Just to be clear.
Covering her ass in case I passed her reply on to anyone else? Well, I’d be deleting her messages in a moment anyway. I’d be in so much more trouble than her if anyone saw what I’d been asking.
My heart was outright thumping now. So what if she couldn’t guarantee anything? What she’d given me was still so much more confirmation than I’d had an hour ago. Maybe following my heart wasn’t quite as hopeless a risk as I’d feared.
Of course, that was just my end of the equation. I still had no idea what any of the guys would think if I laid out the full truth of my situation and what I hoped would happen.
It was about time I found out how they’d respond, wasn’t it? With a shaky inhale, I brought my thumbs to the phone and started writing a new message to the four of them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rose
Jin’s apartment looked like a replica of the gallery below if the artwork had bled from the frames. Nothing hung on his walls, and the unmarked sections were the same pure white as those downstairs, but he’d obviously gotten into the habit of doodling on them whenever inspiration struck.
A marker sketch of a sunset beyond a tall, spiky building rose from behind the plush sofa. A dappling of flowers followed a vine around the window frame. Smears of red and gold paint ran together across the open space beside his bedroom door. They formed no object I could decipher but left me feeling oddly stirred all the same.
The smell of fresh paint hung in the air. His actual working studio was up here, maybe behind that other closed door.
I rocked on my feet on the soft shag rug, which was a deep orange that somehow worked perfectly with the lime green of the sofa. Jin had suggested I sit down when I’d gotten here, but I felt too restless. Too much like I might need to work what I had to say out of my mouth through movement.
Kyler had already been in the apartment, sitting at one end of the sofa with a just-opened beer, when I’d gotten here. “How did you put off questions about where you were going this time?” he asked with a devious gleam in his eyes.
“I said I was looking through some more archives in the town museum,” I said. That excuse had covered a couple of daytime trips already. The little building near the town hall did have a file on the Hallowell estate, so it wasn’t totally unbelievable. “And I actually stopped there, in case anyone checks. I mentioned I might grab lunch. That’ll give me enough time.”
Jin came over with the glass of water he’d poured me. “For the lady,” he said with a grin.
“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 coffee table.
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 his expression.
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 of desire.
Damon drew back with a smirk and an affectionate squeeze of my hand. Ky let out a whistle. “Damn. I wish I’d thought of that.”
A giggle tumbled out of me. “Who says it’s too late?”
“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 the door.
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 my nerves.
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?” he said.
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 slimmer twin.
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 the gallery.
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 my life.”
“You don’t have to tell us anything you feel more comfortable keeping to yourself,” Seth said.
“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 to you.”
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 to say.”
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 of this.”
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 see it.
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 he stared.
“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 well enough.”
The flame petered out with the last of my briefly lit spark.
“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 Cortland guy—”
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’t witches. They don’t have any magic of their own.”
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 on me.
“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 stayed serious.
“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 kissed me.”
He blinked. His shoulders tensed. “So the other night—”
“The other night,” I said quickly, “was mostly about being with you. The fact that it kindled my spark temporarily was just a convenient side benefit.”
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 fire going?”
My cheeks burned hotter. “Not that much,” 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 the magic.”
“Your fiancé,” Kyler said. “He was going to be your consort too. That’s why you felt you had to marry him?”
“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. For anyone.”
Silence settled over the room. Jin broke it. “Your birthday is in July, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I’ve got about two months left. It’s my own—my own fault. I took so long deciding. None of the witching men I met were quite who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. In the end I just picked the guy who seemed like the best of my options.”
“And he turned around and made some deal with your stepmother,” Seth filled in, his voice dark.
“I have full proof of that now.” My fingers brushed over my pocket with the folded contract. I’d slept with it in my pillowcase under my head last night. “When my father is back tomorrow, I’ll go to him. My stepmother—I don’t even know what she’d do to me if she realized I knew, to stop me from telling—but if I can bring it to him, and as her consort, he’s the one person she can’t use her magic to harm. The question is what happens then.”
“You’re obviously not marrying that asshole,” Damon muttered.
“No,” I agreed.
“So then you need someone else as your consort,” Kyler said. “Back to the same problem you had before. And only two months left to find someone who’ll commit to you like that…” He frowned, looking at his hands as if he might find a way to grab hold of the problem and piece it together with them.
Looking as if he wasn’t totally sure he’d want to.
“That’s why I asked to meet all of you today,” I said.
The ripple of tension that had been running through the room between the guys abruptly stilled. I could feel, almost like a hum in the air, their attention focusing on me with a shift toward anticipation.
“What do you mean, Rose?” Seth said.
My hands twisted in front of me. “Well, obviously I’ve found out it isn’t true that only a witching man can affect my spark at all. I don’t know for sure if a full consorting will work with someone who’s not of that blood, but from what I’ve felt, from what I’ve been able to find out, I think trying would be worth the risk.”
Damon laughed sharply. “You’re asking if one of us would take that spot.”
I ducked my head. “No, actually. I was thinking… I’ve seen evidence that maybe this wasn’t even uncommon sometime in our past…” Why was this part harder to come out with than all the taboo information I’d already shared? I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin again.
“The group of us, we’ve always felt like a family to me,” I said. “Like a complete unit, meant to be together, to play off each other’s strengths. I know that’s kind of fallen apart since I’ve been gone, but we’ve come together again, haven’t we?” All of us except Gabriel. But we’d found a new equilibrium of sorts even without him.
“I want us to stay together,” I went on. “There’s no one in the world who means as much to me as you all do. I couldn’t pick one of you. I guess it’s selfish of me, but if I can have you, I want all of you.”
“Rose,” Kyler said, his eyes wide. “You mean— How would that work? In the long run, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “There’s a lot I haven’t figured out yet. I don’t even know how hard it’s goi
ng to be to work around my father’s approval and the pressures from the rest of the witching community—but I don’t need their blessing. I’m my own witch. There’s no law against this. And I think I do need you.”
I stumbled onward before any of them could speak. “I’m not asking for an answer right now. I know you have your own lives, and committing to me in some kind of permanent relationship could upend everything. I just wanted to talk to you, now that I know that’s what I want, so you have as much time as possible to think about what you want. And to let you know how much you mean to me. The logistics, I can work on once I don’t have my stepmother to worry about.”
As the last words spilled out, I felt suddenly drained. What more was there to say? I’d put my heart out there. It was up to them what they did with it.
Kyler pushed himself off the sofa. He walked straight to me and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to him. As I leaned into his thin but solid body, Jin joined our embrace, and then Seth, and then Damon, until I was surrounded on all sides by their overlapping warmth.
“I do need to think about it,” Kyler said. “It’s a lot to take in. But you have no idea how much I want to just say yes right now even if that means diving in blind. It’s the most incredible fucking honor of my life that you asked at all, Rose. You have to know that.”
“Same here,” Seth said roughly.
“No argument,” Jin put in.
“You know how I feel about you, angel,” Damon said, his voice low.
I exhaled in a shudder that was almost a sob, but more one of relief than anything else. “Okay. I want you to be sure, whatever you decide. We have two months. There’ll be a lot of details to work out. I just needed to start somewhere.”
The guys left one by one. I watched from Jin’s front window, keeping to the side of the curtain, to see if anyone seemed to be paying attention to the comings and goings from the gallery. A few people passed by in the early afternoon sun, but no one lingered. My guys vanished in their varying directions.
