Page 66 of Magic in the Woods
I was no different from the Dafni that he met weeks ago, before he knew I had two powers. I hadn’t suddenly grown a second head or a fifth limb. I was still Dafni,kitten.It was him that was different. Intimidated.
“I intimidate you, don’t I?” I narrowed my eyes at his cowered form on the floor. “You can’t handle me.”
Gideon looked down at the fingers he’d just licked clean.
“Don’t!” I shouted. “You’ll never get to taste that again. You’re nothing but a scared, sheltered boy who can’t handle a witch that might be more powerful than you are.”
I turned around, putting my back to his groveling form on the floor. I was Dafni Sarracenia. Let them grovel. They’d all be groveling soon. Matilda wasn’t coming back.
Men are vile.
The only ones I’d met, besides Everett and Luke, had been disgusting, self-serving, and just overall horrible. How Matilda let one between her legs to conceive me was unfathomable.
Maybe it wasn’t unfathomable. I’d been so close to letting Gideon go further, begging him to. That was my mistake. I shouldn’t have let him get that close to me again. He’d pulled me in, hypnotized me. I’d begun to trust him—I’d let him touch the most intimate parts of me, including my heart. A major blunder on my part. Once he’d found out who I was…or who my mother was, he’d flinched. That tiny flinch brought my walls back up. Any trust built between us was broken.
“Ouch!” Brooke stood in the bed, hitting her head on the top bunk just as I was opening the door. She grabbed the blanket off the bed, pulling it up to cover her lower half. “You scared me, Dafni! I wasn’t expecting anyone. Aren’t you staying with Gideon? What happened?”
“I’m back. Men are vile.”
“What?” Brooke squeaked. “But I thought you two were…”
“Yeah, it’s not going to work out. We’re…incompatible.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Not really—I don’t need any sort of distraction.” I turned around so Brooke couldn’t read the lie written all over my face. Gideon couldn’t handle the real me. The one that was a Sarracenia, the future leader of the Coven.
“Is that why you’re in here so late? Or now I should say, so early?” Brooke asked. “Tomorrow’s your task. Actually, now it’s today.”
I pulled off Gideon’s shirt, throwing it into the corner of the room. I needed the scent of him off me as soon as possible. Thepressed nightgown I replaced it with felt scratchy and foreign against my skin—nothing like the soft fabric of his shirt.
“We’re done,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s kind of rash, don’t you think?” Brooke walked over to where I stood, bending her head down so her eyes met mine as they tried to stare at the floor. “Not all men are bad.”
I watched her, keeping quiet, knowing she’d continue talking to fill the silence.
“Luke came back to check on you earlier. He hung out for a little while. He had his tool belt with him and fixed our wobbly top bunk.” Brooke raised her eyebrows, trying to read my thoughts. “Not all night or anything like that.” She giggled, tossing her brown hair behind her shoulder.
I smiled. Was that what I’d been like when I’d first met Gideon? Had I been smiling and giggling? It had been good between us—fun. We’d been building that trust. I’d been so close to letting him in all the way.
“Have you been up all night?” Brooke asked, interrupting my inner wallowing. “You must be exhausted.”
“I’m fine,” I said. Amazing what getting dumped and plotting a Coven takeover would do to your adrenaline.
Except there was no plot.
All this time at the Academy, and I still didn’t know what I was doing or how I was going to take over. I had my last name, lineage, and two powers. And I knew the changes I wanted to make to better the Coven. It had to be enough. I’d have to adapt to whatever happened at the task. This was my time to prove to the witches in the Academy that not only was I powerful, I would use that power to lead.
“You should sleep.” Brooke yawned, walking back to the bed. “I don’t know where Petunia’s been staying, but she hasn’t been back in days. You can take her bed.”
I looked up at the top bunk. A hair tie hit my chest beforefalling to the floor by my feet. “You’d better braid your hair or something before you sleep. I don’t know what went on with Gideon, but your hair seems to have taken the brunt of it.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, my nails getting snagged on every tangled curl.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Gideon
