Page 42 of Witchy Chick

He shifted me so my head was propped between his shoulder and his neck. He smelled so good. Why did he smell so good? I licked him. Mm. Delicious.

“I’m not edible.”

“Of course you are. We’re all made out of meat. Do you want to make out with me?”

“Yes. I want to make out with my wife when she’s not drunk.”

“But your wife can’t make out with you when she’s not drunk, because then she’d be busy hating you for lying to her for fifteen years. You should make out with me now while I’m too drunk to be angry. You smell so good.” I licked his neck again while he carried me stiffly to my SUV. He put me in the back seat, covered me with the denim and fleece throw I’d made that one time for a service project for the local hospital and then got in the front seat and started driving.

“You could just rip a hole in the sky,” I said, staring at the sunroof, his head dimly lit by the reflected lights from the control panel.

“I could. I’m so tired, Marigold.”

“You should go to sleep.”

“How can I sleep when my wife hates me?”

“Does she hate you? That’s so sad. You could find another wife. Lots of women want you.”

“Because of the magic, the power, but that’s not who I am.”

“What do you love about your wife? That’s my question.” I lay there, tucked up in my good works blanket while the world spun pleasantly around me.

“Everything. She’s perfect,” he said in a low growl that managed to cut through the alcohol enough to give me goosebumps.

“Explicate,” I ordered, bossily.

“Touching you is addictive. Life-changing. I was hunting a monster who was targeting you in college. I didn’t talk to you, but you were there, sitting in the coffee shop with your vile decaf green tea, completely oblivious to the monsters around you. The monsters you attracted. The dark strain didn’t awaken until recently, until you took off the ring, most likely. It would protect you from threats external and internal. And the next thing you know, you’re attracting possessed houses and raising a cemetery of bones.”

“So many words. You liked that other monsters liked me?”

“It felt good to touch you. A relief. And then two weeks later, I was back in your town, hunting down someone else who was targeting you. You were like catnip to evil.”

“I’m allergic to cats.”

“I know. I love that. A witch allergic to cats. It’s adorable.”

“I don’t love it. Sneezing and runny, itchy eyes are the worst.”

“I love your touch, your taste, your sweetness, and your spine of cold hard iron. Except that unbending steel means that you’ll never be able to forgive me for lying to you.”

“Never is a long time.”

He was quiet for, leaving just the steady hum of the engine and the sound of tires rolling over pavement. “Never is a long time. Do you think you’ll be able to forgive me eventually?”

I reached up and touched the glass sunroof, brushing his reflection, but it was cold under my fingers. Cold and unbending as iron.

I let my hand flop back down, my eyes drifting closed while the road hummed beneath my cheek.

thirteen

. . .

I woke up to screaming. I flailed around in my black bed in the stark white room, confused until I remembered that I slept there. But I hadn’t gone to sleep here. The car. I had flashes of being carried by the ridiculously muscled man. Peregrine? Teeth? Across the front yard, into the house, up the stairs.

He’d talked to the house a lot, threatening to take me with him if Hoar House didn’t let him inside. Apparently, no one had ever told him it was crazy to talk to a house.

Another shriek had me rolling out of bed, pulling on the nearest piece of clothing, which was an oversized sweatshirt that smelled like Clark, and then I ran out of the room, pounding down the stairs, following the trail of screams into the kitchen where the kids were sitting around the table, smiles wide, eyes huge, plates floating around above them in an elaborate dance of china and cutlery that made me dizzy.