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I stood up and held my hand out to her. She stared at my hand like it was a snake about to bite her. That was okay. I’d wait for her for as long as she needed me to.
“You’re not mad about the plants?” she bit her lower lip and looked so scared.
I shook my head. “No, babe. I actually think what you did was incredible. We all do. But you’re probably tired and hungry now because that had to have taken a lot of energy and it needs to be replaced. Come on, let’s get you inside.”
She hesitantly reached out and took ahold of my hand. I pulled her up to her feet and wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into my side. She snuggled into me and rested her head on my shoulder.
She was so small and she fit against me perfectly. We really needed to work on putting some weight on her though and getting her to a healthy place because she was so thin she seemed almost fragile like and I didn’t think there was much that was fragile about her outside of her size.
And it made me sick to my stomach because I was reminded of the bodies in the woods. All of those people had been extremely underweight as well. They’d all clearly been on the verge of starvation. And Autumn was no different.
My stomach bottomed out just thinking about all that senseless death and we still had to tell her that all of her people were dead.
“Did you find a woman named Plume?” she whispered. Almost as if she knew what I had been thinking about.
My body tensed and I felt the energy shift in my coven members. Gone was the relief over finding her and we were all transported back into the woods watching that old woman stumble out of that burning tent.
“Who is this woman to you?” I asked her. “Is she your mother?”
She had looked old enough to be her grandmother, but what the hell did I know.
“No. I don’t know who my mother is. None of us do. She’s my friend and she’s the only one who’s ever been nice to me at all. I hope she’s okay.”
“Fuck,” Raven whispered harshly and Autumn stumbled beside me.
I pulled her in closer to my side in an attempt to shield her. “Don’t worry about him. We’ll talk about what we found at your camp when we get you safely inside the house.”
“Something happened to them,” she whispered brokenly. “Something bad. I can feel it in my gut.”
I wondered about her magic and just how strong she was because something told me she absorbed emotions or had some type of psychic abilities.
She was incredibly special, that’s for sure.
Gunner ran ahead and opened the door for us. He cursed under his breath as we walked inside.
Shit was right.
I thought our guests would have moved their little party up to their bedrooms by now but everyone beside Ariel was still on the couch huddled together.
Autumn stopped dead in her tracks and her body began to shake.
“Finn?” she called out right before she collapsed.
I caught her in my arms and lifted her up off of her feet as the room exploded into loud, angry voices.
Shit.
This never ending night was about to get even longer.
15
Autumn
I groaned as I sat up and clutched at my aching head.
I wasn’t used to using my magic in such a great big burst and I probably shouldn’t have been sleeping in the woods hiding and I should have come inside and eaten something right away to replenish my energy. Instead I hid like a coward because I didn’t want to face the consequences of my actions.
They’d been kind to me anyways, like I should have known from their previous actions that they would be.
