Page 138 of A Time of Witches

“Now, that’s a promise I’ll take.”

He reached for her, cradling her face in his hands, his gaze dipping to her lips. And this time, when she closed her eyes and tilted her chin up, she was rewarded with the warmth of his mouth on hers.

That night, as Lilith faded to sleep, the perfume of honeysuckle guided her into her dreams.

Sunset gilded the sky in an array of golds and reds and oranges. Three figures strode together. A tall man, his frame lanky but strong, with a woman on either side of him. One was shorter with long red-gold hair and a bird soaring after her, the other with close-cropped dark hair; a horse loped alongside the trio.

A quiet hum filled the air with a sense of peace. Of love. Of belonging.

The woman with short hair turned around, hazel eyes meeting Lilith’s across the field, across time and space. Her lips moved and the wind carried her words to Lilith like a whispered blessing.

Thank you.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

So Mote It Be

August 12, 1647

Manningtree, England

Matthew Hopkins sputtered on a choked gasp that wrenched him from his sleep. A cough wracked through him, his body convulsing.

He swallowed to soothe the ache in his throat and lay back upon a pile of feather pillows, a veritable cloud of luxury.

While he hated being relegated to his home in Manningtree, he was grateful for his own bed in his state of illness. He did miss the travel though, the way those provincial towns welcomed him like a king.

An old bitterness resurfaced.

No one needed witch hunters anymore, deeming the task not only unnecessary, but barbaric. The injustice of how readily he’d been discarded eroded his soul like a canker.

They’d even accused him of witchcraft!

The accusation was preposterous.

No one wanted to hire a witch hunter suspected of being a witch.

He’d almost been made to perform the swimming test. The fools.

After such defamation, he was run out of any town he approached. Wrongly persecuted.

Horrendously unfair.

At least, even if he could no longer hunt down witches, others might do so in his stead. His publication of A Discovery of Witches had been successful and would spread word of the existence of their evil.

The income from the book had been a much-needed reprieve after the coin coming in from witch hunting had gone dry. Oh, and it had been lucrative.

A tickle stirred in the back of his pharynx.

Yes, quite lucrative indeed.

He cleared his throat.

Imagine what he might have made if he’d been allowed to continue.

A cough seized him, sending him into a violent fit that left him bent in half. Shaking, he leaned back on his pillows and wiped the sweat from his brow.

The breath wheezed and rattled in his lungs.