Hekla took his hand. “I promise you. I will never side against you. Never.”
Titus had the decency to look ashamed. “All right. I don’t have much choice but to believe you anyway.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “No, sir, you don’t. That monster will end you. Kaippa only nibbled.”
Titus squeezed his eyes shut. “Coren.”
“Sorry.” I hugged him. “But it’s totally true, man.”
With one more promise from me that we would remain loyal to the humans’ side, Titus followed me as I led him and his group toward the casting chamber.
Hekla walked beside me, whispering about the vials of blood she’d given up. “It’s weird. I would’ve thought I’d feel like dog shit after, but I feel fine.” She patted her teensy bicep. “And check out my freaking muscles, yo. I’m like jacked now.”
“Totally.”
She hauled her fist back and punched my arm.
“Damn it, Hekla! That actually hurt.”
“See? I’m legit scary.”
“I didn’t realize being frightening was your life goal.”
“Bakery. Volvo. Danger as my middle name.”
“Seriously, though, what is the deal with you and Kaippa?” I asked, keeping my voice down as the group behind us held five different conversations about everything from ghosts to curses to superstitions they now believed were actually necessary to survival.
Hekla picked at her nails and stared ahead down the corridor. The sconces flickered as we passed, and the scent of oil and pines lingered in the breeze. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Good. Because I hate to be a dick, but you cannot go there.”
“I know.”
“Keep it that way. Titus was acting pretty worked up about the possibility of you and Kaippa. I wonder if he has a thing for you.”
“Titus? No way. He’s loved you for ages.”
I stopped, feeling like I’d hit a brick wall, and several people bumped into the back of me. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Oh, yeah. Titus loved you, then realized you, hetero as you are, barely registered he was male, then mourned the thing because it was never going to happen.”
“I had no idea.”
“This is so weird!”
The woman who always ran the ticket stand at the corn maze in Gentry’s Farm poked me in the side. “I’m sorry, but you reveal magic to the town and you think a man having a crush on your sweet ass is weird?”
I blinked. And blinked again.
Then Lucus was there, like a shadow brought to life. “Please refrain from calling my mate sweet ass.”
The woman giggled like a teenager. “Whatever you say, hot stuff.”
Hekla and I mouthed, “Hot stuff?”
“Okay, we need to focus, people.” We arrived at the casting chamber, and I began shoving people through the doorway. “Time to get witchy. Lucus, you should probably go. Your presence is making everyone…” I faced the group to see them half drooling, men and women both. “Lusty.”
Lucus bowed. “Apologies.”
I shook off the remnants of his lure and got down to the business of magic.
25 Coren
“This is wrong,” someone’s grandma said as we left the casting chamber.
I put an arm around her. “It’s bloody spell casting or death, love. You gotta make your choices in life.”
She laughed nervously and hugged me back.
I left the group to see if Lucus was in his room while Hekla took the lead on helping the visitors find their way out of the castle’s labyrinth passageways.
Lucus’s chamber door was open and the scent of summer—flowers and warm green leaves—floated from the room. Shirtless, he stood by the hearth’s flickering fire, and hints of his lure sifted away from him to weaken my knees. I didn’t think he was aware he was doing it.
“You have a fever or something?” I took the Yew Bow off and set it beside his bed. “Because there’s no way that fire is necessary in here.” I picked at my shirt and fluffed it to move the air around my chest, trying really hard to ignore my peaked nipples and the feel of his magic sliding across my skin like the tips of a hundred feathers.
The flames ate the edges of an emerald-colored book.
“Burning the evidence?”
Lucus inhaled and turned to face me, looking like he’d just now realized I was here. “It is a journal I kept in my youth.”
“Why destroy it?” He’d been distant, and I’d reasoned it was because of losing his brothers. But maybe there was more to his struggle.
“I have to let go of my first life. The specifics of that day-to-day existence. I will keep my memories, but…” His brilliant green gaze lighted on my cheeks, then my chest, and finally my eyes. “I want to be fully committed to my second life. My life with you.” He lifted my hand, flipped my wrist up, then pressed his warm lips against the sensitive skin there. “My family is gone.”
I touched his head, then slid my hand down to cup the edge of his sharp jaw. “I miss Aurelio.” I wouldn’t lie to him about Baccio.
Corliss’s face passed through my mind, and I realized I missed her as well. Maybe not her exactly, but the potential of a friendship we had held. And of course, Sebastian… Poor Oliver.
Kissing Lucus’s cheek and his pointed ear, I treasured the feel of his skin under my mouth. His hair tickled my face, and his horn cast a subtle shadow over us. A brush between our flesh was more than simply a touch; when our bodies met, a unique magic satisfied me and at the same time left me wanting more.
Pulling away a fraction, Lucus set his intense gaze on me. “I will continue to mourn. But, Coren, I have waited so very long to live. Hundreds of years. Seasons upon seasons lost as I watched the world pass me by. I may be of a world long ago, but I am very much alive, and I wish to enjoy this unexpected blessing of our union.”
He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him as he lay me on the floor. The fire crackled, and
