Page 30 of Our Dark Winter Wish

He lands another kiss on the top of my head and sighs. His entire body relaxes, hearing my teasing.

‘I love you, ya crazy fucking hairball.’

Shaw returns to his feet and hoists me up, too, before collecting the wood he dropped.

I swallow a sob and swiftly dry my eyes.

That’s the second time that’s happened. Both times, it’s when I’ve found myself alone. An empty room is not my friend. Solitude brings horrors from a past I long to forget.

Sinthia isn’t here. She is not a spirit.

That’s what I choose to tell myself. That’s what we all choose. Pix saw countless spirits when she was a blood witch. Hernecromancy made them visible to her. Those damaged slithers of a soul lingering in the world of the living. Gripping onto their pain and suffering, making it impossible for that part of them to find peace. The spirits she saw were not whole but the broken parts of a person, left behind so the rest of them could find their rest.

Or, in the case of blood witches, eternal damnation in the sea of blood in hell.

But that’s all gone now. No Hel. No sea of blood. No blood witch bitches.

And I have never felt more terror than I do now that they have gone. Because I have nothing left to fear except losing the peace I have finally won. I have never feared losing something as much as I have feared losing her. Of losing them all. And when I’m alone, that’s all I can think about. Rationality abandons me, and it becomes a physical reaction. My body is not my own. It belongs to panic.

I understand why Pix used to hide under the bed. If she felt like that, I don’t blame her for seeking out the warm and the dark. For seeking out a place to hide.

Shaw glances at me as I straighten my clothes and pick up the guts from the floor.

And then I hear a wonderful sound.

Looking out of the window, Pix comes running towards the cottage. She has a blinding smile and giggles almost maniacally as she glances back.

Dorian lands with an eerie silence, his wings tucking in and his black shadowy form swirling all around him as his eyes glow from beneath his hood. All he needs is a scythe, and he would make the Grim Reaper look like a puppy dog.

If it were anyone else running from the shadow master in his true form, they would be screaming for their fucking life or falling dead in fright.

Not her, though. She’s so excited and joyful that she can barely run straight as he readies a snowball to throw at her.

Hel’s personal pet is having a snowball fight with a witch.

It's not something you see every day.

Shaw stops beside me, curious to see what I’m laughing at.

Pix ducks, and the snowball flies through the open window and slams straight into my face. Freezing cold and surprisingly hard. It slips down, and I open my eyes. Pix has her lips sealed together, trying hard not to laugh as I shake my hair off and scowl at Dorian.

‘Perfect aim!’ Dorian chuckles.

‘Oh. I’ll show you perfect aim.’ I scoop up a load of snow from the sill and toss it hard.

He moves an inch to the left, and it glides past him.

I’m out the window in a flash, Shaw hot on my heels, and we’re all tossing snowballs at one another. Pix leaps on my back and shoves a handful of snow down my neck, making me scream in an embarrassingly high squeal.

Shaw defends me and returns the favour, shoving a handful down the front of her dress.

A series of fierce expletives come from her pretty little mouth. The names she calls us have me almost speechless.

What a filthy and perfect little mouth. I still can’t believe she was raised in an earth coven. Not with a foul mouth like that!

The three of us laugh as she dances and shuffles, trying to shimmy the snow from her dress. And when she stops and slowly turns, we all fall silent at the devious look in her eye.

There’s a groan. We all look up. And the trees dump all their snow on top of our heads, burying us up to our necks.

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