“You’re the ones who pushed me into it,” Roman said, pulling his arm from his brother’s shoulder.
“Don’t blame me for Father’s decisions. Besides, I very much doubt that, when he instructed you to study the dark arts of our ancestors, he thought it would lead you into the laps of the city’s least common denominator.” Adam smiled. “Though I don’t suppose the magic is entirely to blame for that.”
“Watch yourself, big brother,” Roman said, tightening his fist and his jaw. He might have loved his brother more than himself, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t blacken his eye if he even hinted at bringing her up.
Adam turned to Roman. “I was going to say the same thing to you. Something’s happened. I heard it through the grapevine, as they say.” His face took on a very serious tint. “I didn’t want you to hear it from somebody else.”
“What is it?” Roman asked, a pit forming in his stomach. “Is it April? Did something happen?”
“Our sister is fine,” he assured. “She’s troublesome. Not nearly as troublesome as you, but she’s fine. It’s the other woman in your life. She whose name shan’t be spoken.”
Roman’s body tensed. “She’s not in my life anymore,” he answered as flatly as he could manage.
“You might want to rethink that, big brother,” Adam answered. “Before you going making promises about yourself that we both know you can’t keep, you should know that Julia Fairweather is back.”
Roman pretended it didn’t matter. When Adam said her name, when he mentioned she was back in town, Roman shrugged it off and acted as if he didn’t give a damn.
That was what men were supposed to do. They were supposed to crawl under the next woman who would let them and convince themselves that the one they lost never mattered in the first place.
Roman had managed the first half of that on more than one occasion in the six hundred and three days since Julia had breathed the same air as him. The second half, though—that always caused him trouble.
He pulled my car to a stop on the hill—the one looking out over the city—and crawled out onto the hood.
Stretching himself across it, he looked up at the stars. She loved the constellations so much. She had laid with him on this hill, on this hood, so many nights, pointing out these damn stars.
“That one’s Orion’s Belt,” he said, mimicking what she used to tell him. “And that’s Ursa Major.”
“The other one is Ursa Major,” a voice called out to him. “That’s Ursa Minor.”
He leaned up and looked at her. Breath didn’t run his body anymore. Air was useless now that she was here.
Julia Fairweather stood before him, her hair in the wind, her eyes in the moonlight.
The sight of her was like a dream. It had been a dream, in fact. On more than one occasion, Roman’s sleeping mind had played tricks on him. It told him she was back, that she’d never left. It told him she still loved him and that she would never spend another night outside of his company. And then he would wake and realize that she just did.
But he wasn’t sleeping now. Roman was staring right at her, right at the girl who stole his heart and broke it without ever giving it back.
He wanted to say so much, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t let her know how she affected him, how broken he’d become since she left.
He was a man. He was a Blackwood. He couldn’t be that person.
“Hey,” was all Roman could manage.
“Hey,” she answered, seemingly unaffected by his aloofness.
“You’re back,” he said, finding himself sliding off the hood and standing in front of her. She’d always been a magnet to him, and now was no different. He was close to her before he knew what was happening. Close enough to touch.
“I’m back,” she confirmed needlessly.
“Why?” He kept my voice as steady and distant as he had to.
She blinked hard. “I…because I have business to deal with. She swallowed. “Family business.”
“Of course. Family is important.” He stuffed his hands into my pockets. “I’m glad to see you’re doing better.”
Her cheeks reddened, giving them that blush that haunted his dreams. “I didn’t…the last time I was here, that wasn’t me. I wasn’t myself.” She looked down at the ground and then back up at him. “I wanted to apologize about what happened. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s fine.”
“Is your eye—” She reached for it, but he grabbed her hand.
“It’s fine,” he repeated, but his hand was on her now. His skin was touching her skin. And both of us knew it. “We shouldn’t live in the past.”
Roman breathed heavy, his gaze burning deep into hers. He was helpless against her. Always had been. This must have been what the kid at the docks felt like—hopelessly outmatched.
Neither of us stood a chance.
“I don’t plan to,” Julia said. “I’m not back,” she added quickly.
“What does that mean?”
“For good, I mean. I’m not back here for good.”
“Oh,” he said, not letting my disappointment show in his voice or face.
“Does that surprise you?”
“Honestly?” he asked. “I thought maybe you had missed this place… Or certain things about it.”
“Roman,” she said, biting her lip. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything.” He might have even believed that, but it wasn’t true. Even now, he was pulling her closer, her lips closer to his. Her honey-suckle aroma that reminded him of the taste of her sugar sweet lips and milky skin.
“Roman,” she repeated. “We can’t. It doesn’t work.”
“We did, though,” he said, still pulling her so close he could feel the hardening of her nipples against his chest. “And, if I remember, it worked pretty well.”
With her body pressed to his, his cock throbbed with desire, with delicious memories. He could remember what it felt like to squeeze inside of her, the feel of her nipples against his tongue, the was her soft moans vibrated through his whole body. He needed that again. After years of darkness, he needed her light.
He pressed my lips against hers, and it was right. There were no other words. It was just right.
Except she didn’t seem to feel the same way. A shock sparked in his chest, and he stumbled back.
“Did you spell me?” he asked, breathlessly. “Was that a darting?”
“I told you no!” She shook her head, the blush still in her face. Her breathing had shifted, which told Roman that was a ‘No, I can’t handle this,’ and not a ‘No, I don’t want this.’ “I told you no, Roman, and I mean it!” She blinked back what had to be tears. “I can’t do this to myself again. I only came to make sure you were okay. That’s all. But you need to stay away from me, okay?” She took several steps back. “Just please stay away.”
Then she turned away and left him standing, staring hopelessly after her, stealing away all the progress he had made to build a wall around his heart.
3
Julia
She should have known better than to go out there. Seeing Roman was the last thing she needed right now, especially with the coven meeting minutes away. She needed to keep her head clear, to keep her thought concise and firm. That was the reason she went out to the cliffs in the first place.
If she’d known he would be there, she would’ve avoided it like the plague. But why would that possibility have even crossed her mind? As far as she knew, Roman never wanted to see her again. She was the loose cannon who flipped out on him and cost him half of his eyesight.
Was she wrong about that? Maybe she had been wrong about everything.
Pulling into the manor, she shook her head. Get it together. She stepped out of the car and stalked toward the house.
Once again, the door opened for her, but she didn’t have Cassandra to hold her hand or give her strength this time. She was on my own. At least until she made it to the inner sanctum.
As
she pushed through the door, the voices of her ancestors whispered through walls, as ever, too quiet to make out what they were saying.
Mother used to say that being able to hear them made Julia special, but “special” was not the word Julia would use to describe hearing voices. Crazy was more like it, and after the events of last summer, Julia’s description was certainly more fitting.
“Not now,” Julia muttered to the ancestors, though anyone watching would probably think she was talking to herself. Things had been quiet back in Iowa, with the cows and the hay. Which made the low rumbling of all the witches that had served her family’s coven before her an unwelcome nuisance she still hadn’t readjusted to.
Running her hands through her dark hair, she closed my eyes, trying to free her mind of the useless noise. “Please just stop.”
They didn’t listen. They never listened. All she could do was steel herself and try her best to quiet her mind. Hopefully, that would be enough.
“Ms. Julia,” Jenkins said, nodding as she neared the inner sanctum. “Seeing you does my old eyes good.”
“You, too, Jenkins,” she said, genuinely smiling at him. Of all the things about this place that she had been happy to leave behind, Jenkins was not among them.
A human, Jenkins had been her family’s familiar since her grandfather was a kid in high school. If he took part in any of the politics that seemed to run this place, he never let it show. He was above all of that and, more over, a smiling face when she needed one.
“Back to the salt mine?” he asked, grinning at her.
“I think I already miss the farm,” Julia answered.
“And the farm, if it’s anything like this old house, misses you too I’m sure.” He nodded at her. “Good luck in there, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat.
“Thank you, Jenkins. Something tells me I’m going to need it.”
He pulled the door open and motioned for her to enter.
She looked in at that black abyss, the only thing that could be seen from outside of the sanctum, and thought about the past.
The world had been black for her for too long before she left here. And just coming back here made her think it was coming back again.
Still, she had a job to do. Whether she left it or not, she was part of this family. Part of this coven. And that didn’t leave her much of a choice.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward in the whoosh of magic and wind that always came with breaching the sanctum.
A bright flash accompanied the whoosh, and as her eyes refocused, she remembered all of the things she had left behind.
The inner sanctum of the Fairweather coven—the Moon Coven, as they had been known to the natives of the new world when they landed here—was a spacious stone circle that turned with the lunar cycle.
Though it was indoors, it held to no specific scenery. Aside from the shape and stone nature, the sanctum could, and often did, change its appearance at a whim.
The one constant: it was always night.
Tonight, Julia stepped into a moonlit garden that smelled of roses every bit as strongly as Cassandra ever had. Her entire family—the surviving ones, anyway—sat around an ancient wooden table. They looked to her as I appeared before them, and she knew why.
The transfer could prove disorienting for those who weren’t accustomed to it. And, given that she hadn’t done it in well over a year, it was having a sickening effect.
Cassandra stood from behind the table. “Are you okay, Julia?”
“I’m fine.” She waved her off and somehow managed to keep down the cucumber sandwich she’d had for lunch. “I’m just not used to it yet.”
Strange how she needed to readjust to something she had been doing since she was a child. It was almost as if her body was trying to keep her from this place. Unfortunately, she couldn’t afford to heed that feeling.
Grandfather nodded from the head of the table. “You’ll adjust soon enough. Now take a seat.”
The table, like the rest of the room, turned with the moon. So, as she approached it, she had to aim for where she knew her chair would be. Luckily, she had been doing that since she was a kid.
“I’m so glad you decided to wash your hair,” Mother said from beside her, looking Julia over with that judging eye of hers. “Not that I was going to mention it, but it looked sort of ratty in the cab.”
“I had been on a plane for six hours.”
“And Moses was in the desert for forty years. That’s no reason to let your rough end drag,” she answered, shooting Julia a wink. “Remember what your mother always says. Act like someone’s always watching, because that’s the only way they ever will.”
Julia sighed audibly. She had almost forgotten how exhausting her mother was.
Uncle Jasper clasped his hands in front of him, resting his forearms on the table. “Father, if there are no more prodigal children to wait on, I for one would like to know what was important enough to get the entire coven together at a moment’s notice.”
Julia almost asked where Cass’s mom was, but then she remembered. Even though Aunt Darien had been married to Jasper since well before Julia was born, she wasn’t blood. And no one without the blood was allowed inside the sanctum, even if they did happen to be family.
Grandfather gave Jasper a withering look, betraying every bit of authority he held as the head of the Moon Coven.
“I’ll speak when I’m damn well ready, son. Just as I always have. And I can promise you that I would not have been ready without that one.” He pointed to Julia. “Prodigal or not.”
That should have filled her with pride. Instead, it only sent dread thrumming through her veins. Whatever was going on here, it was no doubt a big deal. And if they wanted Julia here, it could only mean they wanted something from her. Unfortunately, she just didn’t have it to give. Whatever it was.
She was going to have to be polite to her grandfather about it though. He deserved at least that much.
“Grandfather,” Julia said, her eyes almost watering at the sight of him. “You know I adore you, and that I would do and give anything for you and for this family. But I made it clear that I wasn’t back here for good. I’m here because you asked me to come, and I owe you that much.” She bit her lip. “I’m afraid that, beyond that, I’m not sure how much more use I can be to you.”
Jasper rolled his eyes. “Surprise, surprise.”
“Shut your fool mouth, Jasper,” Mother said, pursing her lips. “No one expects you to do more than you can. We all know you’re just here out of a sense of ceremony. Well, that and the open bar.”
“Enough!” Grandfather said, standing and striking the wooden table in mid spin.
As had been the case since Julia was a very young girl, when Grandfather spoke, everyone listened.
Seconds after the room fell into silence, Grandfather looked at her. “I understand things have been difficult for you, and that perhaps you felt more at home in those barnyards or whatever hole in the Midwest you ran off to. But the truth is, that was not your home. This is.”
Jasper chucked. “To be fair, Father, given that Celeste here married a cornfed roughnecker, that farm is her home. At least partly.”
“Son—” Grandfather leaned in. “—unless you’re vying on spending the rest of this meeting without the use of your tongue, I suggest you keep it still.”
Jasper leaned back, pressing his lips together.
“As I was saying,” Grandfather continued. “This is your home, Julia. This coven is in your blood. And it’s good blood, Julia. It’s Fairweather blood. That isn’t the sort of thing you turn your back on, especially in times like these.”
“Times like what, exactly?” Cassandra asked, her eyes darting from Julia to him.
His expression darkened, and Julia knew what he was about to say would be grim. She never imagined it would be so ominous, though. “I went to one of the oracles last week.”
“An oracle?” Mother asked. “What one earth would possess yo
u to visit one of those filthy gypsies?”
“Because those filthy gypsies are the only beings in the world gifted with the Sight.” He closed his eyes a moment and sighed. “And they are never wrong,” he added, reopening his eyes. “Regardless of how much we wish they might be.”
“You don’t need the Sight, Grandfather,” Cassandra said. “We make our own future, regardless of the whims of fate. We always have.”
“Have I failed all of you so completely?” Grandfather asked, shaking his head.
“What is it?” Julia asked. She knew better than to question either Grandfather or fate. Both could bite back. “What did she tell you?”
“Many things,” he answered. “But the only thing of any weight—the reason I’ve gathered everyone tonight—is that I won’t live to see the New Year.”
Julia’s heart might as well have dropped clear out of her chest, leaving her a hollow husk of a thing.
“No,” she said. “That’s not…” She swallowed hard. “She lies.”
“My dear, you know better than that,” Grandfather said.
“This cannot stand,” Jasper said, despite Grandfather’s earlier warning. “We have to fight this.”
“Have I really raised such a foolish boy? Would you fight death, Son? It is not evil. It does no wrong. What is happening to me is natural, and we cannot change the natural law.”
Silence fell over the rom again, this time for an entirely different and much darker reason.
“There is, of course, the matter of succession,” Grandfather continued. “As you know, the feud with the Blackwoods still rages. I had hoped to extinguish them in my lifetime, but that seems unlikely now. We need to look to the future of the coven, to ensure our survival.”
“Our survival?” Julia asked, narrowing her eyes. Certainly he didn’t mean to imply that the Blackwoods could wipe out the Fairweathers. Moon Coven was too powerful for that. Besides, Roman was a Blackwood. And any line that could produce someone like him couldn’t be all bad.
“The oracle spoke of dark times, of this feud ending and two lines becoming but one,” he said. “I won’t be alive to see it, but this feud ends with the extinction of one of us. I need to make sure that that isn’t us.”
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