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“Autumn,” he said as he reached across the table and took hold of my hand. “We would all like to formally ask you if you would honor us by joining our coven. I know you just agreed to joking the Council and that’s already a big deal, so if you need some time to think about it we’ll all completely understand and respect that. It’s a big responsibility for you. So is joining a coven. It’s a lifelong commitment and something you need to be certain of before you say yes. I want you to be sure that joining us is what’s right for you.”
“It’s right,” Liam whispered as he squeezed my thigh again. “You belong with us. There’s a connection. We all feel it to some degree. There’s no telling where that connection will lead for the relationships between all of us but there’s no denying that it exists. It’s up to us what we make of it though. And it’s not something that we should ignore because a true connection is something that’s rare and beautiful to find.”
“But you need to be sure,” Raven stressed. “Female witches have choices now and it’ll always be your choice.”
“Raven’s grandmother never got a choice and she ended up going into hiding with her baby and one of her men,” Scout told me conspiratorially, as if Raven wasn’t sitting at the table listening to every word being said. “That’s why he feels so strongly about this. Because he’s seen first hand what the damage can be done when the choice is wrong or there was no choice to begin with.”
“Thank you for sharing that,” Raven growled angrily.
Scout shrugged unapologetically. “If she’s going to be one of us then I see no point in keeping her in the dark on anything.”
“We tried with another female before,” Gunner shared and my heart immediately sank somewhere down near my butthole. “We never offered her a place amongst our coven but she did come here and stay with us to see if we’d be a good fit for her. It obviously didn’t work out or you wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
“She wasn’t like you at all,” Liam whispered for just me. “She was selfish and evil. We didn’t have enough money at the time to satisfy her needs. She totally snubbed us and moved onto Ariel’s coven. That was before Ariel, of course.”
“Quinton, the head of Ariel’s coven,” Mason chimed in, picking up where Liam left off. “Isn’t a man you fuck with. She tried to ruin them and tear their coven apart. She ended up finding herself being the one who got ruined instead. She left them completely scarred up on most of her face.”
“Eventually she ended up with the Council where she met her end after they used her all up,” Liam continued to whisper his side of the story. “That was right before Ariel destroyed all of them.”
Whoa.
I sat back in my chair and looked around at all of them with wide eyes.
It was only Liam who seemed to get some sort of pleasure out of that part of the story.
“She was evil,” Raven muttered under his breath as he poured himself another drink.
If he was going to drink then I should get to too. I picked up my glass of Champagne and drained it. It went straight to my head and I almost giggled.
It also gave me the courage to say what I had to say next.
“I don’t know what all that’s about but you’re going to have time to explain it to me because I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here and if you’re asking me to join your coven the answer is yes, I’d love to.”
Liam laughed happily as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into his side. “That’s the very best thing you could have ever said. Yes! Welcome to the family, sweetheart. You belong here with us. We were meant to find you in the woods that night. It was divine intervention.”
I completely understood and agreed with him. They found me for a reason and I was meant to be here with him.
They were my people and I had finally found where I belonged in the world.
It might not make sense to anyone looking in from the outside but it made perfect sense to me.
Raven refilled my glass and handed it back to me. “I was trying to make this a special night for you. One you could look back on and remember with fondness because we asked you to join our coven in a way you’d want to remember forever. You guys are ridiculous and totally ruined the moment.”
I placed my hand on his arm, stopping him from retreating any further from me. “Nothing has been ruined here, Raven. I promise you that. This is a special night to me that I’m going to remember always. Perfect is overrated and likely non existent. This is us, the start of us, and it’s whatever we make it to be. I’m more than happy with that.”
“Hear hear,” Gunner, Mason, and Scout cheered.
Liam just laughed again. I had never seen this side of him but thought it was cute, if a little crazy.
“Let’s fuckin’ eat,” Scout groused. “I’m starving and I’ve been too nervous to eat anything all day.”
Aww. Was he saying he’d been so nervous about my answer that he hadn’t been able to eat all day? It was kind of sweet because I had felt very much the same way. I had been a nervous wreck until I’d talked to Rain actually. He’d been the one to calm my nerves.
I shouldn’t really have been so surprised by that because I think Rain had only stayed this long to make sure I was okay and settled in with my new coven. I didn’t think he’d actually planned for me to leave here with them at all. He was a very wise man, that’s for sure.
Liam leaned into me again and this time he got so close that his lips kissed my ear. “If you want, to celebrate, we can eat you for desert.”
I almost choked on my champagne.
