Page 14 of Little Witch

Then she'd kissed me. I'd kissed her. Who knew. One of us had started it. After a drink, and a talk and...

And I knew that if I stayed I would hate myself every waking minute.

So I'd left. Packed a bag before the wake had even finished and driven until the Hollow's pull couldn't reach me anymore, because staying would have meant watching them find each other while some invisible thread in my chest screamed at me the entire time that she was mine. I couldn't do that to him. Couldn't do it to her, either, not while she was drowning in grief and needed something steady, not a brother who'd take one look at her and want things a good man wasn't supposed to want from his own stepsister.

Running had felt like the only decent thing left to do.

I'd told myself it would fade with distance. It hadn't. If anything, three years away had only sharpened it, until standing across from her in this clearing felt less like reunion and more like drowning.

I'd not touched another person. Not once. Never even thought about it.

All I thought about was Amber.

The wind howled through the trees, the oak's branches creaking under gusts that shouldn't have existed on a still morning. The shadows had stretched impossibly long, the fading light barely making it through the canopy despite the hour. The forest was stirring, restless, and I felt its unease settle low in my stomach like I'd swallowed a hive whole and it hadn't finished stinging its way out.

I turned back toward the path where Amber had disappeared, her footsteps long gone, some traitorous part of me still straining to follow. I hadn't told her the truth. Couldn't, not yet, not with everything else this town had waiting to collapse on top of both of us. But I'd felt it again in that clearing, sharper than ever — the bond the forest itself seemed to recognize even before I let myself say the word out loud.

Mate.

Humans didn't have mates. Not here, not anywhere. Which meant Amber wasn't as human as everyone in this town had spent her whole life assuming.

Her mother had been human. What I didn't understand was her father. He'd vanished the same night Cian had, disappeared before I'd ever gotten more than a fleeting look at him, but that look had been enough. Whatever he was, it hadn't been human. I was certain of that now in a way I hadn't let myself be certain of as a kid.

Certain in a way that meant Orias clearly knew something I didn't because of that stupid nickname he'd given Amber not so long ago.

Which meant Amber was tied to this town's magic far deeper than anyone had bothered to tell her. That made her both a target and a threat, whether she understood it yet or not, and I had a sick, sinking feeling her father's blood was exactly why.

And he'd gone into those woods. He'd vanished.

I refused to let her go too.

I turned back to the oak, jaw tight as I scanned the clearing. Pine and damp earth hung thick in the air, but underneath it sat something darker — the same wrongness that had been crawling through my skull every night since I'd come back, refusing to let me sleep more than an hour at a stretch.

I stepped forward, boots crunching through dead leaves, until I stood beneath the oak's reaching branches. This was the heart of the forest. The place where the magic ran thickest, where the veil between worlds wore thinnest. If there were answers anywhere in these woods, they were here.

I raised my hand, feeling the pulse of magic stir beneath my skin, a low hum building in my blood. The air crackled with tension, the world seeming to fold at the edges as I reached toward the boundary between the Hollow and wherever the dark on the other side of it actually lived.

Before I could push through, agony tore across my chest.

It wasn't a warning shot. It felt like a blade dragged the full width of me, and I staggered back with a strangled sound that barely qualified as breathing, one hand slapping over the wound on instinct. Blood welled hot and fast beneath my shirt, soaking through the fabric in a widening line, dripping between my fingers and onto the leaves at my feet in a way that told me this was no shallow scratch. I could feel muscle underneath, torn deep enough to burn white behind my eyes, and for one dizzy second the clearing tilted sideways around me.

The forest didn't want me here. The magic didn't want me digging.

I forced myself upright through the pain, blood running warm down my stomach, teeth locked against the urge to scream. The wind screamed instead, howling around the clearing, whispers rising louder, sharper, more insistent than they'd been in weeks. Something knew exactly what I was trying to do and had decided, quite clearly, to make sure I regretted it.

I wasn't going to stop. Not now. Not when there was more at stake than my family's legacy and a town full of people who'd never once thanked the Thornes for keeping them alive.

My mate. The one person built to fit the exact shape of the hole three years of running hadn't managed to fill. I'd taken myself out of the running for her once already, for good reason, and I still didn't regret it — but that didn't mean I was willing to let this forest take her the way it had taken Cian. The way it might already be trying to take her father.

I pressed my palm harder against the wound and forced my legs to move, retreating from the oak with the whispers chasing every step, the shadows pressing in tighter on all sides. The air felt heavier now, charged and dark, clinging to my skin like something with intent.

Whatever was happening in Autumn's Hollow, it had only just started.

And Amber Halloway sat dead center of all of it.

I would do anything to keep her safe.

Even if keeping her safe meant standing back and watching my brother be the one who got to hold her while I did it.