Page 60 of His Whispered Witch

“No, I know.”

She was doing this to help him. She wanted him to be better. Hell, he’d asked her to help. She was doing what he specifically asked her to do. That he didn’t like her solution wasn’t on her.

“Okay.”

The lizard twitched, and he got out of the truck bed rather than eat it.

He stopped. He couldn’t go charging through the undergrowth. His wolf was going to get ideas.

He took in the smell of cow manure on top of baking dirt and running water. The wind shifted, and he also smelled the donkeys.

How did people live out here? Almost nothing grew, and the sun cooked everything every day until it was bleached dry.

She held up the battered, priceless heirloom. “I can throw this in the creek right now. You’re right, this is dangerous.”

His last suspicion bled away. Shewastrying to help. Even if there was nothing between them, all she’d ever done was help.

What would it be like to be free of the venom? To never experience that pain again? He glanced down at his wrists and the beginning of the scars that climbed his arms. What would that possibly be like?

“Don’t destroy it,” he said, squeezing the words out of somewhere.

She nodded once and put the book in the glove compartment. She didn’t look triumphant or satisfied, just worried as she made her way over to him.

“I will never hurt you,” she whispered and put her arms around his waist slowly, giving him plenty of time to pull away. He didn’t want to pull away; he roped his arms around her and held on.

“I feel like we skipped a step,” she said after a long minute.

“What step?”

“You went from client to lover to whatever we are now.”

He looked down into her eyes and, unable to resist any longer, ran his hand over her head, reveling in how she shivered.

He wanted to offer her the world and forever but remembered how that went over between Malcolm and his love when he made far too serious declarations far too soon, however true they were.

“There’s plenty of room on the land. You can stay wherever you like. There’s not really a place for a shopfront, but Harpers Ferry is close.” There was another coven there, but they were all friends now, right? A few years ago, they’d nearly reignited the shifter wars, but that was in the past, right? She didn’t need to know that.

“So what, you want me to move to Harper’s Ferry? And how close as close?”

“As the crow flies? Thirty minutes. By road? An hour.”

“An hour. You want me to be an hour away?”

Was he going to be so polite that he’d lose her? “I want you next to me.” He wanted to add forever but bit his tongue.

“Are we insane?” she asked and stepped closer. “Because I feel like we’re insane. Nobody does this. Drops everything in their life and goes to war with the family who took them in.”

She stepped out of his arms, and he was so glad he hadn’t said it as she stomped toward the creek and then back again.

“Seriously? Nobody does this!”

“Nobody does this,” he said slowly, “because they don’t wanna take a risk. Because they believe the propaganda that we are bad for each other. Because they don’t trust.”

“Nobody can trust in a week. Nobody can know in a week!”

He knew. He knew in a moment. “Okay, but they know it’s wrong in a week, right?”

“What?”

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