“Be right back,” he says. “Stay put.”
I frown.
“Stay put. I’ll make a call. Ask about your sister.” He leans over and kisses me hard, with tongue, leaving me dizzy as he walks away.
I lie there recovering for a moment or two before he’s back, a phone to his ear, a big smile spreading across his face.
Oh… shit. He’s probably smiling like the cat that’s about to get the cream because I’m lying here naked with the towel wide open. I cover up, shooting him a dirty look.
“All right. Thanks, Rye,” he talks into his phone, “I’ll find out whatever else there is with the witchcraft, but thinkin’ she told me everything she knows. Naw, frankly couldn’t care less… Yeah, exactly. Worth it and hopefully Tyson’ll agree. Okay, bye. Thanks, brother. Me too.” He smiles wider and chuckles, then sets his phone down on the bedside table, eyes still on me.
“Your sister is with her mate,” he says. “They’re working things out after a…uh…” he seems like he weighs his words, then finishes with, “a spat.”
A spat?
“Spat? She was crying. Crying! She was a wreck like I’d never seen her. She clearly isn’t happy. Something happened, and it’s obvious he dragged her off somewhere against her wishes.”
“Okay, so spat might not be the right word, but they’re working things out. You said three guys came. Well, I was on the phone just now with one of them. Tyson drove to find her with two council members after she took off and brought her home. He’s workin’ on… makin’ up.”
“You know this Tyson guy well?” I ask.
“Not exactly.”
I frown. “You don’t know him well or you don’t know him?”
“It’s complicated,” he says. “But don’t worry about it right now. Need you to walk me through this witchcraft thing. Did you leave anything out?”
I huff and then mutter half under my breath, “Don’t worry about it, he says. Of course he says that. Men…”
“Amelia? Talk to me.” There’s authority in his voice.
I sigh. “I don’t know anything about the witchcraft; I already told you what I know.”
“Tell me again.”
“I know my aunt believed in all things magical and told me crazy stories all my life. Her letter said she didn’t have more to leave us for an inheritance because she bought something money usually can’t buy. True happiness. She secured magical happy endings for us.”
“That it?”
“Basically.”
“So you were already aware of my kind. That’s why you don’t have questions?”
I shake my head. “I mean, it was still a shock seeing you go from person to wolf, but yeah, I came here suspecting something magic-related was at play. I’d heard about shapeshifters from her when I was a kid and … I haven’t thought about Aunt Nelle’s stories in years, she sort of stopped talking about them when I hit my teens until her deathbed a year ago, but when I saw it happen, I was…” I get lost in thought, picturing it again.
He waits patiently, eyes on me, so I shake it off and continue.
“Anyway… I don’t know much. I had some ideas about what it might be when I came to find my sister, but it still knocked me on my ass to see it. Like… literally.”
“And what is it you know about us?”
“Not much. My mom and aunt grew up near here and my aunt told me the area had lots of magic. Sightings, close encounters she and people she knew experienced. And last night, my mom talked about stuff she heard, some things she saw when she was a teen. We lived in Drowsy Hollow too when we were small, but I’ve never seen any of it with my own eyes until today.”
“Told you stuff she heard? Like?”
“Reports of people seeing shapeshifters, people who can cast spells, said there are people who don’t age. Auntie Nelle thinks they were vampires, but said they can go in the sun and eat garlic. She paid off Mom’s house and said that though there wasn’t much other money left, it’d be okay, better than okay because she managed to buy what money didn’t typically give you. She put money away to pay my brother’s student loans for him. She paid to secure me and Ivy a happily ever after filled with beautiful magic and eluded to big and positive changes coming for my mom, too. And it was the anniversary of her death the other Friday and the letter said that’s when things would start to happen, so –”
“Friday?” he checks, “Last Friday?”
“The Friday before. Ivy was in this area for a weekend getaway. And things have been screwy since then for Ivy and now obviously… me. Whatever you’re thinking is between us, it’s just a little hocus pocus making us think there’s this insane chemistry. It’s not real.”
“It’s real,” he immediately states with such surety, such authority that it feels like a gut punch.