Page 24 of November Reign
“I’d have done more if we weren’t being watched in the club. They know there’s division in the coven now. Our leader was out without protection. It looks bad all around.”
“Yeah.”
My phone kept buzzing. I glanced at the screen to see Toth’s message.
Toth
Angry emoji. Devil emoji
“It’s fine. They have to deal with Toth and we’ve bought ourselves a couple of days off.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
Confessions
Thyme
“Come on, let’s sitsomewhere more comfortable. Dunno about you, but I’m wired.”
Oak took off the glasses and hat from his hot cop costume, placing them on the kitchen counter. He let down his hair, then ran his fingers through the glossy dark strands. He gave a contented noise, picked up his drink and the almost full bottle, and walked away, encouraging me to follow.
Unable to resist spending more time with Oak, I trailed behind him to the comfortable seating nook in the corner of the kitchen. It was a great spot during the day because it overlooked the well-maintained gardens where I was growing most of our potion ingredients.
Soft overstuffed cushions lined benches with a low table, perfect for resting books, or a steaming cup of tea beside them. Bookshelves lined one wall, mostly filled with cookery and potion books.
In my time in the mansion, I’d snuck off to this place so many times. It was my little haven. My lips quirked.Oak had found it too. I wasn’t aware that anyone other than me spent much time in the kitchen. None of them were really into cooking. On the nights I had off from that duty, the rest of my housemates would either order in or create something simple. When they did cook, it took a few of them to clean up after.
I preferred it when they left me alone to work, rather than tripping over them. They were all so big! They took up too much space even in this generous kitchen-dining area.
“You know all the best spots in the house,” Oak said with the briefest hint of a smile as I pulled out a blanket from the box under the bench.
“Want one? There’s another, or I can put the heat on?”
“I’m fine, but I’m not wearing a sheet.”
At the reminder of my flimsy costume, I felt my face heat. I yanked off the halo and blond wig, laying them neatly down on the coffee table.
“Better,” Oak said, almost without thinking. His gaze ran over me like a touch, before wandering to the dark night outside the windows.
We each sipped at our drinks, thoughts miles away. I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d handled everything the right way. Barr didn’t deserve the blame for the others vanishing. They’d been thoughtless, doing that to him. They had to know he would shoulder the ireof the mates. Demons weren’t exactly the most logical when it came to their loved ones.
Did the demons not realize their love was suffocating the young men they were partnered with? Damon and Parker had spent much of their lives fending for themselves. Even Cody, who had some privilege from being part of the coven, had still learned to go it alone since his family had long abandoned him.
Were me and Oak any better? We’d kept them stuck in the mansion for the most part. Sure, we’d been trying to teach them how to fight witches. Damon’s magical ability was stronger than it had been, but had we smothered them instead of treating them like the warriors they were?
Damon and Parker were literally killers. They did it for money usually, and only people who deserved it, but they were no stranger to the darker side of life. Cody was half demon. He was more powerful for it, yet I kept treating him like he was the young, barely powered witch I’d first met years ago.
“Did we do the right thing?” I whispered into the quiet. The hum of the appliances was the only background noise. I liked the silence.
“I’m not even sure what the right thing is anymore. We couldn’t hide it from Mori, Gregoris, or Toth. We had to tell them.”
“Did we?”
Oak let the question hang in the air for a while. “We did. Imagine being Toth and someone hid the fact that Cody took off from somewhere he thought was safe and went to the one place they should be avoiding without proper backup. He would be livid at everyone involved in hiding it. What trust he had in us would be gone forever.”
“True.”
“You’ve also got to wonder what could have happened if Barr hadn’t come straight for us? It’s not hyperbole to say they could have died.”
