by Eva Chase
She melted into my embrace. I hadn’t realized how tense she’d been until that moment. I tucked my head close to hers and stroked my hand up and down her back, encouraging her to let go of it all.
It wasn’t right that someone so powerful should feel this scared.
“I’m going to go grab a few things to be ready if they do come back,” Damon said, his expression dark.
Jin raised an eyebrow. “Things that shoot bullets?”
Damon glowered at him. “You can have one too if you know how to use it.”
The other guy raised his hands. “I’ll stick to working with paintbrushes and clay, thanks.”
“I’ve got the general idea,” Ky said. “Can I at least take a look?”
I stared at my twin. “Where did you learn how to shoot?”
He laughed. “Where do you think? The internet can teach you anything. I’m just not sure how comfortable I’d feel using that information with a real live gun.”
“Well, c’mon,” Damon said. “Have a look, see what you think.”
“You know, I’m actually curious to see what exactly you’ve picked up,” Jin said. “I’ll tag along.”
Damon rolled his eyes but didn’t protest. The three of them headed out of the room. Rose snuggled deeper into my arms.
“I wish I could think the Assembly will finish their little talk and then leave Aunt Ginny alone, and we could just stay here somehow,” she said.
“I know. But we’ll find a place one way or another,” I said. “I’m not letting that house back home stay empty after all the work I put into it.”
She looked up at me, her mouth twisting. “It is a beautiful house. It’s perfect. Even if that one day is the only day we’ll have gotten to use it.”
The sadness in her voice wrenched at me. I bent my head to kiss her. She slid her hands behind my neck, kissing me back, and I didn’t care that Gabriel was still in the room, leaning against the doorframe while he studied the layout of the hall, or that some new text might come in at any moment telling us we had to run again. Everything was Rose, and that was enough for me.
My cock hardened as her body pressed closer against mine. She kissed me harder, my hands started to ease up under her shirt—and a splinter of pain shot up my spine.
I eased back, resting my head against hers. My breath was coming a little ragged, and not just from the heat of that moment. I’d felt pressure and prickles of discomfort before, in the many times we’d come together in the last week, but I’d been able to ignore them. That splinter had been a little too sharp.
“Maybe not the best time to get too distracted,” Rose said in a playful tone. She didn’t know why I’d pulled back. Good.
“Probably not,” I agreed.
She gave me one more quick kiss, a brush of her lips against mine. “I suppose I’d better see what Damon’s up to before all my consorts are armed and dangerous.”
I chuckled. “Left to his own devices, you never know what he’ll do.”
Rose touched Gabriel’s arm on her way past him, and he smiled and grasped her hand briefly in return. But he stayed there with me as she hurried down the hall. After a moment, he looked at me.
“You’ve been going to her a lot,” he said. “More than anyone else.”
It didn’t sound like an accusation, just an observation, but some part of me bristled anyway. I willed down the impulse to make a hasty defense.
“It’s the best thing I can do for her,” I said. “Physical comfort, helping her magic. And, I mean, we both enjoy it, so…”
Gabriel’s lips quirked up, but his gaze stayed serious. “She’s used a lot of magic since the Assembly caught us. We can all help stop her from exhausting herself. The last few days I’ve just noticed that afterward you’ve looked more exhausted than usual. A little worn down. And when you stopped just now—it wasn’t just because you’re worried about them coming back right away, was it?”
Shit. I hadn’t thought the effects had been strong enough that anyone had noticed. Maybe they’d been stronger than I’d noticed. I had been feeling sluggish in the last few days, but I’d put that down to all the stress of being on the run.
“I don’t mind,” I said. “I’ll give her as much as I can.”
“I’m just saying, you don’t need to push yourself to the point where it’s hurting you,” Gabriel said mildly. “She had three other consorts and now she has four. Does she know it’s been affecting you?”
I gave him a look. “Do you think she’d even be kissing me if I’d let on?”
“Seth…” Gabriel glanced away for a second and then met my eyes again. “I know I came into this later on than the rest of you. I’m not going to try to tell you I know better. It just seems to me that between the six of us, Rose is the expert on magic. She knows so much more than the rest of us do. So if something to do with the magic or the consorting is a problem… isn’t it better if she knows so she can decide the best way to deal with that?”
A weight sank into my stomach. “She’s already dealing with so much.”
“I know.” Gabriel rubbed a hand over his face. “Believe me, I know that debate way too well. Do you think I wanted to ask her to take the risk of doing that consort ceremony? It brought the Assembly right back here. But the risks of not telling her what was going on were worse. And I trust her to know what she can and can’t handle.”
Don’t you? He didn’t need to say the question or even hint at it. I wet my lips. “I do too. I just…”
I wanted to protect her. I wanted to be the strong one, the rock she could rely on. But I wouldn’t really be that if one day I suddenly cracked under a strain I hadn’t fully understood.
I sighed. “Okay. Point taken. Thanks.”
Gabriel shrugged, pushing himself off the doorframe. “I figure we all have to look out for each other. We’re all looking out for Rose. And we’ve got to let her look out for us—and to look out for each other. I felt that, last night, during the ceremony. The caring, the connection, doesn’t just go from us to her. It’s all of us, joined together. Or maybe it only seemed that way in the moment.” He gave me a wry smile.
I had to smile back. “No, I’ve felt that too.” I paused. “You know, I’m glad you did come back. I’m glad you’re here. We work better when it’s all six of us, don’t we?”
Gabriel’s smile softened. “Yeah,” he said. “I think we do. Should we see what the others are up to?”
I followed him out of the room, my spirits a little lighter but that weight still in my gut. I didn’t think it was going to shift until I found a way to talk to Rose. And even if I trusted her, I already knew it wasn’t going to be a fun conversation.
If I’d been smart, I’d have told her in the first place. Too late for that now.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rose
When Aunt Ginny’s family got back a couple hours later, it was just her and my cousins. “The Assembly peeps went off to do their corrupt Assembly things,” Naomi summarized for me breezily as she guided me into her room for a private talk. “And Aunt Irene went home, at least for the moment. She threatened that she’d come for dinner.”
“I’m getting the impression you don’t get along with her so well,” I said.
“Oh, well, you know… She just takes being the matriarch of the family very seriously.” Naomi wrinkled her nose. Then she motioned for me to sit down at her reading desk while she sat on the edge of her bed across from me. The comforting smell of slowly aging paper drifted from the bookshelf behind me. I tried to focus on that and not the anxiety I could sense from my cousin under her flippant tone.
“I know we have to leave,” I said. That thought had loomed large in my mind while I’d waited for the family to return. “I’ve put all of you in enough danger already. It’s not as if you could hide us away forever. If you don’t have anything we can use to make the Assembly back off, well, we’ll just have to find some other way to do it. We’ve got other strategies we can use to try to
gain some leverage.”
Naomi blinked at me. “You know, I was going to suggest the exact same thing—that you should leave and look into other strategies. But not like that. I think we should go take on this wretched faction that thinks enslaving witches is the thing to do.”
“We?” I repeated, staring at her.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “You and me and your consorts—and mine. I already talked to Greg. He agrees with me. And if things get bad, I suppose I might need him for more than just emotional support.” She let out a rough laugh. “I can mask any magic you need to use along the way. And the two of us should be able to accomplish plenty more than just one, even if you’ve got the fuel of five consorts.”
“But…” I grasped for the right thing to say. “It isn’t your fight. You hardly know me.”
“I know you well enough,” Naomi said with a swish of her chestnut ponytail. “I know you’re family. And I know what your father did, with the help of these people—they’ve hurt a lot more than just you.”
“But when they find out you’re helping me, and they almost definitely will, they could ruin your whole future.”
“Not if we ruin theirs first,” Naomi said, so fiercely that the nervous flutter in my chest started to fade. Maybe she was prepared for this kind of battle after all.
My cousin paused and leaned forward on the bed. Her brown eyes held mine. “And it’s not just the principle of the thing, Rose. The truth is… There was a while when I wasn’t sure I’d find a guy I really wanted as a consort. When I thought I’d have to choose between taking some guy I was iffy about or losing my magic.”
“Really?” I said. Snuff my spark, I knew how awful that uncertainty was. It’d been creeping up on me most of the last few years.
She shrugged. “Our family is respected, sure, and everyone knows we come into a lot of power, but we’re also seen as a little odd. My mom told me a few times, ‘Everyone wants to marry into the Levesques, but not all that many want to marry a Levesque.’” She gave me a slanted smile.
“But you found Greg.”
“I did,” she said. “And I feel very lucky about that. But, you know… We got married faster than I’d have really liked, just because I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose him. Everything’s good now, but we’ve only been together a couple of years. We’ve only been married for five months. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we grew apart after all… Don’t tell him I said that. I’d bet he’s thought about the same things too.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wondering that,” I said.
“No. Well.” She looked at her hands. “Hearing what happened to you, I know how easily that could have been me. Duped into consorting with some guy who didn’t actually have my best interests at heart. Or what if it happened to Stella? We’ve got so little time to find that first consort. No one should have to worry that the guys they’re getting to know might be trying to trap them. And if more people knew we didn’t have to pick from witching society, maybe no one would get quite that desperate anyway.”
I scooted forward on my chair so I could squeeze her hand. Those memories of all the fears and worries that had weighed on me when I’d known my time was ticking down, when I hadn’t yet found a connection with any witching guy I knew, resonated inside me. Naomi acted as if she were impervious a lot of the time, but this fight obviously meant a lot to her, enough for her to make herself vulnerable, too.
“Yeah,” I said. “I totally agree. And I’ll change that if I can. I suppose, if you want to come with me, I can’t really say no. It’d be good to have a little relief from the testosterone now and then.”
Her smile came back at those last words. “I can only imagine,” she said, winking at me. Then she leapt up. “All right. How soon do you think we should leave?”
“I thought we’d sneak out tonight,” I said. “When it’s dark, it’ll be easier to conceal ourselves if the Assembly people are watching the estate.”
She nodded. “That makes sense. I can manage that. Let me talk to Mom first so she doesn’t feel blindsided, and then I’ll get packing.”
She bounded out of the room, her ponytail swinging behind her. As the door clicked shut, a presence formed at my left, standing by the bed.
I turned my head toward Philomena. She looked even more filmy than she had the last time she’d appeared. But the pink of the ruffled dress she was wearing this time was still bright, as was her grin.
“I just wanted to say good-bye,” she said. “We’ve had a long good time of it, haven’t we, Rose?”
I jerked all the way around, my pulse hiccupping. “Good-bye?” But even as I said it, I understood. She was only part of my imagination, after all. As much as she’d come to life on her own, in the end everything she knew, I did too.
Phil tipped her head coyly. “You’ve got your guys now. You’ve got a new sidekick who can actually help you with more than just chatter. Who’s real. I know when I’ve served my purpose. But it didn’t seem fair to just disappear without one last chat.”
I swallowed hard. It would be silly to cry over an imaginary friend, wouldn’t it? I knew I was too old for this. But still…
“I’m going to miss you,” I said. “We did have a lot of good times. You were there for me when I needed you.”
“That’s what’s most important.” Phil fluttered her fan at me. “Now go enjoy those strapping young men of yours—and don’t forget to have some fun even when you’re running for your life, you hear.”
I blinked, and she was gone. An ache formed in my chest, but at the same time my heart felt even more full.
I got up from the chair to go tell my consorts that we didn’t have to set off alone.
I came downstairs some time later to an argument that had already started. Apparently Aunt Irene had returned early.
“This is ridiculous,” she was saying. “You can’t just run off with a bunch of fugitives.”
“I can, Aunt Irene,” Naomi said. “I’m not sure why you think you can decide that for me. I’m a witch with a kindled spark. My life is mine.”
“But you have to think about the rest of the family. The sanctions they could bring down on us. Don’t you care about your mother? Your future children?”
“Yes,” Naomi retorted. “Especially them. I don’t want them to end up having to fight for their freedom like Rose is.”
“Irene,” Ginny said pleadingly, just as I walked in. My older aunt spun toward me instead.
“You’ve dragged her into this,” Aunt Irene said. “Naomi was just settling in to consorting life, and now she’s going to charge across the country to take on some supposed conspiracy? What were you thinking?”
My hackles immediately went up. “I didn’t drag her. I didn’t even ask her. She came to me saying she wanted to help—I even tried to talk her out of it.”
Irene gave me a skeptical look. “Not very hard, it seems.”
“Well, she’s twenty-three. She’s consorted. She can make up her own mind, can’t she?”
“Yes,” Naomi put in. “I can. Thank you.”
“You…” Irene shook her head. “I think you’d better give us time to talk this through just within the family, Miss Hallowell.”
Even though that was the name I’d had my entire life, the way she said, the way she’d used it, stung.
“She is family,” Naomi protested, but I held up my hand.
“That’s fine,” I said, my gaze fixed on Irene. “But for next time, it’s Lady Hallowell.”
I turned on my heel. As I left the room, Naomi made a frustrated sound. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’ve already made my decision, and it’s mine to make.”
She stormed off down the hall, I assumed toward the home office where Greg had been working. I headed upstairs, unsure whether we should even bother sticking around for dinner. But we still had more logistics to work out.
Seth was waiting at the top of the stairs. He must have overheard at leas
t some of that conversation, because when I reached him, he said, “Naomi seems pretty set on coming with us.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I hope that’s a good thing. She could be a lot of help. But I wouldn’t have pushed her into it.”
“Like you said, she knows her own mind.” He paused, and his jaw worked. “There’s actually something I thought we should talk about before we leave—while we still have some privacy. Nothing bad, just…”
It was pretty normal for Seth to look serious, but now he looked even more solemn than usual. “What’s wrong?” I said.
He motioned me into one of the guest bedrooms. Then he looked at the floor for a moment as if he were trying to gather his words. His gray-green eyes were shadowed. My heart started to sink.
“It’s just…” He swallowed hard. “I want you to know that however this comes out, none of it is your fault. It was just me thinking I could handle more than maybe was really wise.”
My heart plummeted farther. “What are you talking about?”
Seth set a gentle hand on my shoulder as he raised his head to look at me. “I told you, it’s nothing bad. Not that bad, anyway. It’s just… I’ve tried to be there for you a lot in the last week. In lots of, ah, very pleasurable ways.” He managed a smile that looked genuine. “But I’m realizing that it’s taking a little more out of me than maybe is good for me. With the energy I give to your magic.”
My magic, my spark, was lit by the passion we created between us. It wasn’t really meant to take away from my consorts. But I’d read stories of witches who expended so much magic their consorts started to suffer during the replenishing. Building that power with me, releasing it to me, could take its toll.
That suffering was just the last thing I’d ever wanted to inflict on any of my consorts.
“What’s been happening?” I asked quietly. “How have you been feeling?”
Seth grimaced. “At first it was just a bit of pressure, just a tiny bit uncomfortable. But that’s grown and become more painful. I’m not sure it’d be a good idea for us to do anything… intimate for at least a few days.”
