Page 98 of Strike It Witch

I nodded.

“When the demon pushed your head through that opening … I thought…” He exhaled, closed his eyes. “Never mind.”

“Hey, I’m fine.” I felt out of my depth. I’d expected rage and gotten whatever this was instead. Tenderness?

His hand fell away from my face. “I’m glad.”

Because I didn’t know what to say, I went over the salt with the rake again. A few feet away, Joon blew out the candle,dumped out the water, and stacked the bowls containing the elements in his arms.

“Who’s that?” Ronan asked.

“Baek Ye-Joon. He’s the mage I met through my flyer on Beau’s bulletin board.”

“Is he here to take over the park?”

“It’s why he showed up. I don’t know that he’ll stay, which sucks, because he’s a perfect fit. He belongs here.”

“When are you going to realize thatyoubelong here?”

I stared down at the soil and willed it to respond, even a little. Joon’s soil glimmered on my arms, but the soil at my feet did nothing. “I don’t believe I do.”

“Ah, Betty.” He sighed.

“Ronan.” Alpha Floyd growled. “Get your ass over here.”

“Yes, Alpha.” He started toward his father, the fur on his body retracting.

“Ronan?” I whispered.

“Yeah?” He immediately came back to me. The alpha’s angry growl followed him.

“If there is a reason, and it doesn’t have to be tonight, but if there is a reason, will you tell me why youreallystay in the pack?”

His eyes shone like sunlight on a spinning gold coin. One side of his mouth quirked, but he said nothing. There was a nakedness in him that went beyond being unclothed, an emotional exposure I felt down to my bones.

He had a reason. And it was very, very important to him.

Another growl brought us back to the present. Ronan turned away from me and crunched over the gravel to the black SUV. Alpha Floyd shrieked obscenities at him, and he stood there, naked and alone, and took it. Every abusive word his Alpha sneered and spat and screeched. He held himself like an AncientGreek statue—chin up, shoulders squared—and just … took the abuse.

Fury filled me like hellfire pain. I fanned the dying embers of my own magic and pulled some from Joon’s soil.

“Your permission to remain here is rescinded, Fernando Pallás and Mason Hartman,” I whispered. “Get off my property.”

Alpha Floyd choked on his next words. Someone yipped, and the engine roared to life. The passenger door slammed shut and the SUV tore out of the lot like the devil was on its tail, leaving Ronan standing there scratching his head.

The coven and wolves were finally gone.

Good riddance.

Ronan looked at me over his shoulder, the muscles of his naked, powerfully built body flexing in the moonlight. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t seem angry, either. He strode to his truck, wrenched open the door, and took a pair of gray sweats from the back seat. He stepped into them, maintaining eye contact as he dressed.

There was vulnerability in the way he looked at me. A pained something that made me want to shove his repulsive father’s head through a hell portal and boot the rest of his body in after it.

I wanted to call Ronan over, ask if he was all right like he’d done for me, and I opened my mouth to do so, but he broke eye contact before I could. He threw himself behind the wheel of his truck, cranked the engine, and drove away.

Ida strolled up. “Nice one, Betty. Good timing on revoking their right to be here. A second more of that whining from Alpha Floyd, and I might’ve yanked the soul out of his body and stomped it into the gravel.”

“Maybe I should’ve waited a second longer then.” I stumbled and nearly dropped the rake. That last burst of magic had stolen away what little energy I had left.

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