Page 6 of Witch's Betrayal
2
DEJA
By the time I rolled out of bed, got showered and dressed, opening time was already upon us and I still had to walk a brisk five minutes to the shop.
The guys shared a house a couple blocks down from my tea shop. I lived right above my shop but I hadn't even set foot in my own place since my coven initiation two days ago. To be honest, I barely got out of the guys' beds except to work and shower.
I smiled as I walked across the street. It felt like a dream vacation spending all day in bed with my lovers. I felt so relaxed now that I remembered everything we'd been through, over many, many lifetimes. They were no longer strangers but an essential part of me.
The shop was still slow by the time I reached it. My loyal employee Nona prepared brews behind the counter while Raum sat patiently on a stool across from her.
"I hope that smile means it was worth kicking me out of bed this morning," he said, his lips twitching with a smirk.
"What? She kickedyouout of bed?" Nona gasped as Raum and I chuckled.
I wished so badly that she was a witch. She was the only one who knew about me seeing three guys but that was as far as it went. I trusted her on the same level as my demons, and more so than any witch in my coven. But she was an ordinary human, which prohibited me from sharing anything supernatural to her.
"I know, right? Thank you, Nona! I can't believe she said no tothis," Raum agreed emphatically, although his smirk gave away that he was joking.
"Did you have a nice, er, run this morning?" I asked, leaning into him for a kiss.
"Foggy and cold like always." He kissed me with a sharp inhale and squeezed my waist, grinning as his mouth pulled away. "Don't change the subject now. How was your morning with Mr. Resting Bitch Face?"
Nona snorted with laughter at Ash's nickname.
I felt heat rising in my cheeks and cast my eyes downward shyly.
"It was really nice. We just talked for a while and the time got away from us."
"So itwasn'tworth kicking me out of bed," he teased, squeezing me again affectionately.
"No, it totally was." I stuck my tongue out at him. "My connection with him is different from you or Sal. It's more, cerebral I guess? We talked about magic and some abstract stuff and it was just so enjoyable. It feels like we could talk about paperclips or something equally boring and still have a great conversation."
Raum nodded knowingly and waited for Nona to go out of earshot before speaking again.
"That's kind of how it's always been with us. I wondered if the same dynamic would fall into place after your memories came back."
"What do you mean?"
"Whenever you and Ash are together? You're always yapping." He opened and shut his fingers to mimic talking. "You're the only one who gets him to open up like that. Even Lucifer threatens to pull the words from his throat sometimes. He's always reading and observing, so you know there's a lot going on in his head. You're just the only person he trusts to tell all of that to."
Raum leaned back in his stool, a rare serious expression on his face. "Did you know that after we lost you, he didn't say a word for years?"
"No," I looked up, surprised. "I had no idea."
He nodded. "We all grieved for you in different ways. Sal and I took our pain out on the humans. He locked it all up inside."
"He didn't tell me that. Or what actually happened for me to be lost."
"With good reason. We've all played our part in the horrors of humanity but none of us had ever seen anything so violent and shattering as what happened to you." He sipped his tea. "As for not telling you about the years of silence, it's probably just a pride thing." His grin returned. "We're not so unlike human men after all, you see."
"Sometimes I forget you all are even immortal," I mumbled.
"We often forget that you're not." He brought my fingers to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to them. "You're so powerful and your magic runs so deeply through humanity. We were created to protect you and we failed. We took you for granted and allowed your only weakness to be exploited. His eyes lowered. "We'll never let it happen again, Lilith."
"It's Deja," I corrected.
"I know." He tapped me on the nose playfully. "But Lilith is inside you, too. All of your past lives are, but she's the one who started it all. Trust her. Listen to her in there." He touched a finger to my chest. "I wish I had the chance to meet her, but I can easily see why Ash fell in love with her."
