Page 29 of Witch's Exile
"Yeah," I agreed. "Can't wait until Ash meets them."
A few more moments of comfortable silence passed, both us of deep in our thoughts of the last several hours we spent.
"Do you trust them?" Sal asked when the kitchen light from our house was a faint glow in the distance.
"Yes," I answered without hesitation. "I do."
"Even after everything that happened with your so-called friends back in San Francisco?"
I chewed my lip as I thought on it.
"Yes, even then. I never felt like I really knew my grandmother or Juno, you know? Even though we're all witches. They always seemed to be holding something back. With Astrid, it felt like she held nothing back. She put it all out there and I felt at ease with her from the very beginning."
"I know what you mean." Sal quietly laced his fingers through mine. "I feel good about them. All of them. It's nice to be around people who don't instantly hate you for what you are."
I squeezed his hand. "Just promise me one thing."
"Yeah?"
"Never, ever shift while we're in the middle of fucking." I gave him a stern look. "I mean it."
He grimaced, the shadows from my floating firelight exaggerating his features.
"Ugh. Yeah, don't ever worry about that, beautiful. Whether that theory is true or not, some lines should never be crossed. Sick shit."
I voiced my agreement as we came to the edge of the treeline, our front door and the warm glow from inside the cabin welcoming us home. Sudden movement to my right made us both tense up as we stepped onto the front porch.
A tall, imposing figure approached us. He came closer slowly, almost cautiously as if afraid. When the glow of my fireball revealed his features, my heart felt cleaved in two.
His hair looked longer. His dark eyes were full of longing and misery, like he may have missed me even more than I missed him.
My lips parted to choke out his name.
"Raum..."
