Page 70 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
Fallon and Caden approach as Fern tucks her head under Wanda’s hand. Wanda blinks a few more times, then draws in a big, deep breath, drawing her thick green sweater tighter around her. “I wanted to know just what manner of Fey the One who took Willa was.”
“And?” Fallon asks. “Besides the hot kind, what was he?”
Alice snickers. Caden and I both roll our eyes, but they’re not wrong. He was gorgeous in a deadly, horrific kind of way.Not my type, I think as the moonlight catches Alice’s hair.Not anymore.
Looking at Alice in the Samhain moonlight, I am positive that I will not have a type that isn’t Alice Blythe for the rest of my life.
“Unseelie Court,” Wanda murmurs. “But more than that. Wherever the Hunt’s living these days, They’re living in proximity to something weird. Somethingbad.”
Fallon and I exchange a glance. Fallon puts a hand on Wanda’s arm. “Do we need to go after Willa?”
Wanda shakes her head. “No, she’d been having dreams. Portents.” Her eyes avert from my sister’s. “There’s stories about faery brides…”
Alice and Cade both shake their heads at the same time. He gestures to her, as though to say,Ladies first. Alice nods, and something deep in me warms. The two of them are already so in sync, they’re operating like family. “But faery brides are One of Them that marries a human man.”
Wanda smiles gently, clearly appreciating Alice’s body of knowledge, while having plenty of her own. The older woman’s eyes are soft as she answers. “Yes, of course. It’s different whenthe woman is a witch, though. It goes the other way… They come for her in the night, speak words to her that only she can understand…”
It sounds like the lines of an old tale. One I don’t recall, but that Wanda apparently knows well. I think she might say more, but she simply shrugs. “She went of her own accord. Whatever he said to her, she went knowing what she was getting into. And she saved that child. Gods only know what They do with the little ones.”
Wanda’s voice goes quiet at that last sentence, sounding small and afraid. Like hedgeriders, witches have the Sight. We can all see exactly what They are more easily than humans can. It’s the Fey blood running through us, however distant. It lets us see more than we could otherwise. I wonder a little at how easy it was for Alice. Typically, it takes those not of the bloodlines more than one try to see Them clearly.
Fallon slings an arm around Wanda’s waist. The older woman leans her head against my sister’s shoulder. Fallon might not think it, but she does have friends.
Wanda hugs Fallon back, then smiles. “I need a drink. Will you walk me to Lucky’s?”
Fallon grins back at her. “Now that’s a plan.”
Wanda looks at me. “We need some ice, I think. Can you get some on the way back from your patrol?”
“Sure,” I agree, then glance at my brother, who looks like he might gnaw his own arm off. “We have food?”
Wanda shrugs. “They made pizza at the kids’ event with Janey. And someone was going to go pick up s’mores…”
Alice smiles. “We can do both.”
Caden wrinkles his nose, looking for all the world like he’s ten years old again. My heartstrings pull a little. “They wanna go make out.”
My heartstrings snap like a wet towel to the ass, and I roll my eyes. Little brothers are always gonna little brother, apparently.
Wanda chuckles, slipping out of Fallon’s grip to loop her arm through my brother’s. “Then we should let them. You and your sister can help me gather some wood. We can have a little fire.”
As Fallon heads toward Lucky’s with Caden and Wanda, she turns and makes eye contact with me. “Me and Cade’ll do the north end of town. Keep your wits about you.”
Fallon whistles for Fern, who looks up at me. I nod to her, giving her permission to go with her auntie, but she doesn’t move. She whines at Alice, and my heart clenches. Alice crouches down, and my dog, who hasn’t ever truly loved anyone who wasn’t a Hayes, shoves her head so hard against Alice’s chest that she almost knocks her over. But Alice leans into my big girl, steadying herself as her arms wrap around Fern’s neck.
She sprinkles kisses all over Fern’s face, telling her she’s a good girl, calling her “my sweet baby-puppy.” And then she whispers, “Go with Auntie.”
And Fern does it.
My heart jumps into my throat. I feel like I’m gonna sob, scream, or make sweet love to Alice Blythe right here on the street. I don’t know what to do with the emotions welling up inside me. This is the kind of thing I’ve pushed down for so long, wishing for it but knowing if it ever came my way, it’d be the one true thing I was scared of.
But I can’t push it away anymore. Alice is the one for me. She has been from that first moment at the Stardust, and if I have my way, she will be ’til the day I die. I love Alice Blythe, and there’s no going back to whoever I was before she got here.
My girl has her rifle strapped to her back like a pro, and I take her hand in mine. I’ll tell her everything tonight, when we’re alone at home. My house—our house, if she wants it to be. “Let’sgo on a little monster hunt, and rustle up some grub, whaddya say?”
“I go wherever you go, sweet boy,” she murmurs, her kaleidoscope eyes soft.
Her fingers close around mine as mist creeps down from the hills. We walk forward together, Alice Blythe and I, swallowed by the darkness, bathed in the warmth of this new, fragile love between us.
