Everyone stands, and my dad walks over to me and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. “I’m proud of you,” he says.
“Me too,” I say.
He looks down at me and smiles. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
My mother walks to the other side of my dad and leans into him. “What a wholly unexpected turn of events,” she says.
“She’s your daughter.”
She looks at me then, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Yes, she is.”
She squeezes my hand as she passes by me. “Lock up when you leave,” she says, and then she and my dad are out the door, hugging each other as they go.
It’s such a casual request, something she’s said to me hundreds of times. Lock up when you leave. And it fills my chest with all the things I’ve been too afraid to hope for. There will be clashes between the covens as we figure out this new relationship, and it will unquestionably change things, but not all change is bad.
There is growth in change.
Beauty and fulfillment.
Joy.
“If you ever doubted your place in the world, Tana, I hope those voices have been quieted,” Galen says. “I’ll meet you back at the manor.”
When the door closes behind Galen, Wolfe pulls me into him and buries his face in my neck. “Now that everyone else is gone, I have a few demands of my own,” he says, his lips moving against my skin, sending a shiver down my spine.
“Tell me.”
He lifts his head and meets my eyes as a seriousness takes over his expression. “Let me love you,” he says, his voice quiet and soft, pouring over me like a hot bath on a winter’s night. “Let me love you until you’re sure it’s magic.”
And before I have time to respond, he kisses me, his lips soft and slow against my own. I pull him closer, backing into the wooden island in the center of the room. My dad’s pestle falls to the floor, but I don’t move away.
Wolfe brings his hands to my hips and lifts me onto the counter, kissing me as he does. I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, hugging him close as his lips trail down my skin and onto my chest.
My head falls back, and I whisper his name, hoping he hears that I’m already sure. Hoping he knows that to me, he is magic, a spell I will practice over and over for the rest of my life.
I am bewitched, every part of me.
And as long as he says my name and touches my skin and exists on this beautiful Earth, I always will be.
forty-three
It’s a cold winter night. The sky is clear, and stars shine brightly overhead. The full moon is tomorrow, and it will be the first time the new coven rushes their magic to us. The manor is alive with anticipation, a thrill I can almost see moving through the air.
But I know the anticipation we feel is likely a mirror of the dread the new coven feels. That my parents and Ivy feel. Giving us more power goes against everything they believe in, and it will take a lot of time to build trust between us.
Maybe one day, the new coven won’t feel the need to watch us use their magic. Maybe they will see the healing island and the calmer seas and know we’re being faithful to our word.
It’s that thought that gets me excited, a future I believe in with the entirety of my being. And I will work for it as hard as I possibly can.
I wrap my arms around my chest and watch my breath drift out in front of me before vanishing. The waves roll onto the shore, one after the other, the constant harmony to my life. The noise is still with me regardless of what side of the island I’m on or what kind of magic I practice.
A flash catches my eye, and I turn to see a small, circular light dancing at the periphery of the woods. As soon as I spot it, it dashes into the forest, and I jump up and follow it.
It’s dark under the cover of the trees, the canopy so dense the moonlight has to fight to get through. I slow my steps and walk carefully as the light darts ahead of me, casting a soft glow that cuts through the shadows.
After minutes of leading me, the light rushes into a clearing and tumbles through the air before vanishing. When I step out from the woods, a small, private beach is revealed.
Wolfe stands in the middle of the shore, and for a moment I stop breathing, still completely taken by the way he looks bathed in the moon’s light. It’s truly a wonder I get anything done, living in the same manor as him.
“Well, Mr. Hawthorne, you’ve successfully lured me here. What will you do now that you have me?”
His mouth pulls up on one side as he reaches a hand out to me. “You’ll see.”