Page 34 of Witch's Exile
"By not being a total dumbass and learning from when I say the wrong thing." I squeezed her tighter. "Or do you wrong by not saying anything at all."
She raised her now-dry eyes to me again. "Is there anything else you want to share with me?"
Before I could answer, she raised a hand to stop me. "I understand you won't tell me everything because you don't want to hurt me. I don't necessarily like it or agree but it's how you feel and I respect that. I mean it when I say I don't want us to fight about this again."
I mulled quietly over her words, thankful that she said them. After being together so long, we naturally wouldn't agree on everything and neither one of us had to be right or wrong. I simply couldn't take the risk of breaking her heart with everything I saw. To do so would risk losing her.
I also knew she wouldn't try to police what I told her or didn't. She respected me enough to let me decide if I should tell her. And while my latest vision wouldn't hurt her in the long run, it bothered me more than I was willing to admit in that moment.
I saw it while she and Sal were in the woods with the shifters. It came to me weakly, as it usually did while in bird form but there was no mistaking what I saw.
"Three people from your past will come to see you again," I said carefully. "One will end tragically, one will end happily..." I rubbed circles on her skin as I trailed off, unable to find the words for the third piece.
"And the third one?" she prompted gently.
"Depends on who you ask," I sighed.
* * *
All of our fucking and then talking soon had Deja's eyes drooping heavily. We curled up against each other and she passed out within minutes. I took the opportunity to head downstairs and catch up with Sal.
He was in the kitchen putting a bunch of spices and shit on a large slab of meat and shaking everything up in a ziplock bag.
"Made up for lost time, did ya?" he greeted when I pulled a stool up to the counter.
"You could say that."
"Didn't need to. I fucking heard it." He snickered as he pulled two beers from the fridge and tossed me one.
"So she's sleeping better?" I asked, twisting the bottle open. "Since the other night."
"Like a baby," he affirmed. The tension in his voice and jaw cut through like a knife. "Now that she has Air, she should be sleeping peacefully. There's no way for them to get in her mind."
"Speaking of baby," I grinned. "Congrats, Dad."
"Same to you, Dad." He laughed softly and sighed as his eyes rolled toward the upstairs bedroom where the mother of our child slept. "She's scared shitless, though."
"I know." My throat tightened. "It's been a long time but she'll be fine. She's done this tons of times before, all successfully."
"It's not just that." He gave me a pointed look. "Raising a child with demon fathers in a world like this? I don't blame her for worrying."
"It's no different than how it was before," I argued. "We've always been persecuted by one group or another. If anything, it's probably better now. People actually have rights now and no one will advocate for killing a child."
He growled like a feral cat, his signature noise when he knew I was right but didn't want to admit it. "It never gets easier, does it?" He scrubbed a hand down his face. "Mentally, I mean."
"No," I agreed. "How many times have we sat across from each other like this, doing nothing but worrying? I usually know what's going to happen and I still worry."
Sal nodded, rubbing the two-day old stubble on his jaw which he hadn't shaved yet. "This must be the human side of us." He took a long swig of beer. "Running around in circles over the shit we can't control."
"Being immortal doesn't make us perfect." I smirked. "Unless you're Ash."
He rolled his eyes. "Fuck all that."
We laughed together until a shift in the protective magic around the house sent pinpricks across my skin. Our laughter cut off immediately and Sal's expression grew murderous. Someone was here.
Like a single unit, we acted without words. Combining our auras to act as an extension of our senses, we scanned the whole house and the surrounding property. Our shadow magic would ensure the trespasser wouldn't detect a thing.
Upstairs, Deja still slept peacefully. A raccoon sniffed around our front porch for food before moving on. An owl looked for prey in a nearby tree. And just past the treeline behind our house, movement and behavior that definitely wasn't animal.
