Page 74 of The Witch and His Crow

Heat flooded my cheeks as we both looked towards Romy. She poked her head up and out, hair sticking up around her,sleep dust around her eyes. Her smile was suggestive, her narrowed gaze telling me that she’d been listening for a while.

‘Yes,’ Arwyn said, standing from the seat, disappointment evident in his tone.

It came to no surprise that Romy was a morning person. She had barely woken up and she had sprung from bed, stretching and yawning, looking like she’d downed three energy drinks.

‘What Arwyn meant to say is there’s nothing to third wheel,’ I chimed in. ‘Because that would imply it’s a date, and it’s not.’

‘You’rethe one who called it a date, Hector,’ Romy accused, and she wasn’t wrong.

I pulled a face. ‘Figure of speech.’

Arwyn chuckled softly, which was followed by Romy’s light-hearted giggle. I couldn’t help but smile either, because there was something to easy about their joint presence. Although for two very different reasons.

Arwyn placed a gentle hand on the small of my back. ‘Lead the way.’

There was something about having a man offer me the control that sent my nerves haywire. Regardless if I admitted it or not, if I’d met Arwyn outside of the Witch Trials, I would’ve bedded him multiple times by now. And from the look he gave me, the feeling was undoubtedly mutual.

It really was a shame that one of us would have to kill the other eventually.

Unless…

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

By early afternoon, the mist had let up to reveal a beautiful blue sky. It wasn’t summer heat by any means, but a soft winter blush of sun that wore at my skin and made sweat trickle down my spine.

We were north of the castle, in some old forgotten cemetery. Tombstones and graves were left to sink deep into the earth, some barely legible as moss overgrew across the names etched into the stone. Romy was currently sat at the base of a crumbling angel, who had one wing remaining and a face half-rotten from time and weather. I imagined this place was once beautiful, in its own right. Before Hekate claimed the land as hers and turned it into a bloody battlefield.

‘If I liked men, I’d be fighting you for him,’ Romy said as I ambled over to her. My boots were completely sodden with mud and my legs aching from the hours of walking circles around the castle. I leaned against a slanting stone cross, silently apologising to the corpse it belonged to.

‘It wouldn’t be much of a fight,’ I said, catching Arwyn in the distance as he continued his surveying of the area. He hadn’t let up all day. Anyone would think we were looking for somethinghe had lost, an item of great importance, not some hunch I had about magical boundary stones.

‘Are we lying to each other now, or are you just stupid?’

I pulled a face, pretending I didn’t know what she was getting at, when really I did. ‘How could you possibly think I’m capable of stupidity?’ I mocked horror, plastering my hand over my heart.

‘Oh, shut up. Hector, you barely look anywhere but in his direction.’

I shot the man in question a side-eyed look. ‘Nowwho’s the one lying.’

‘Hector, you’re looking at him right now.’

Shit. ‘No, I was just… I mean…’Double shit.I sighed. ‘I was, wasn’t I.’

Romy rolled her eyes, huffing a heavy breath. ‘Please, for the sake of my sanity, just kiss each other.’

The thought, although pleasant, made my skin crawl. ‘No can do. I’m saving my first kiss for someone special.’

Romy kicked her legs, not bothering to hide how humourous she’d found me. ‘As if you’ve never kissed anyone.’

‘Fucked, yes. Kissed, no.’ How did I explain that the last person that kissed me was my mother? I already hardly remembered her voice, her scent, her personality—holding onto my kiss-virginity was sacred to me.

But admitting aloud that I was twenty-six and a mouth-virgin? Hell, I was tragic.

‘Well, suit yourself. Fuck Arwyn, you both practically do it anyway. With your eyes, that is. A little bit of excitement. I mean what is more romantic than getting some action whilst we’re all stuck here for the month?’

‘Romy, are you unwell?’

‘No, but he is.’ Romy cocked her head in Arwyn’s direction. I spun around to find his eyes on me. Arwyn didn’t bother to hidethat he was watching me. Damn him for proving Romy right. ‘He wants it,bad.’

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