GRAY
Willow froze, gazing down at the man kneeling before her in horror. A growl rumbled in my throat, watching him nuzzle my
wife’s hand like she hung the moon in the sky.
“My consort,” I clarified from my position behind her. The bastard didn’t so much as glance away from Willow, unable to tear that eerie gaze away from her. When Charlotte had imprisoned the Cursed within the woods, I hadn’t thought it possible to undo. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, seeing as all magic had a price.
I just had to wonder what the cost would be to Willow; what she would do with the newfound knowledge that she could free those who remained in the woods.
I pressed myself tighter into her spine, making my presence known when she seemed inclined to forget me altogether.
She released a deep breath, sagging into my body as if it was suddenly too much for her to support herself. My arm squeezed around her waist, claiming her for myself even as the Cursed vaulted to his feet to assist her.
Willow accepted the help, her uncertainty about the male in front of her driving her to lean on the only support she had. If I had it my way, I wouldn’t need to wait for the day when I was all she had left. When everyone she came to know and cared for was gone, that was the day that I knew Willow would be mine and mine alone.
“Your name,” Willow said. The words weren’t a question, more a breathy demand. The creature’s eyes pulsed with light, the violet shining as he rose to his feet and seemed completely unbothered by his own nudity.
“Jonathan,” he said, his gaze shifting to one of confusion as if he had to focus to try to locate the memory of who he had been all those centuries prior. “Jonathan Hatt.”
Willow righted her legs beneath her, pushing to her feet until she stood tall beneath the Cursed male. She reached up with a single hand as she shrugged off my touch, cupping Johnathan’s cheek. I moved to the side ever so slightly, just far enough to observe what she did. Even though it physically pained me to allow her to touch another, the look on her face had nothing to do with carnal desires and everything to do with her recognizing her own capabilities.
“Your debt is not yet paid, Jonathan Hatt,” she said, the words spoken gently. Even though they were barely more than a whisper in her exhaustion, there was no mistaking the power that thrummed in each note. Her violet eye glowed as she said the words.
“A debt like mine can never be paid in full, Consort,” Jonathan said, the reverence in his voice making me clench my fist at my side.
Inky dark tendrils spread from Willow’s fingertips, sinking into Jonathan’s cheek. He didn’t flinch back in spite of the way they bit into his skin, sinking deep. The hum of magic filled the clearing, making my blood echo the symphony of my wife.
Fur spread along his skin as she touched him, his back bowing and bones cracking as he dropped to all fours. It was far shorter than it had been in the form of his Cursed creature, a more smooth texture as his very being shrunk.
He grew smaller and smaller, his screams muffled as he fought to withhold them. They trailed off with time, the shrill sound fading into a distinctly feline yowl.
The small black cat twirled around Willow’s feet, nuzzling her ankles and tilting to stare up at her with admiration. His eyes remained violet, and his yowl turned into a purr when Willow bent to pick up the useless creature.
She scratched the back of his neck, causing him to arch his neck to get closer to her. Her other hand lingered in front of his face, her thumb and forefinger spreading to give the cat access to the webbing between them.
He licked the surface of her skin before biting her, sinking his fangs into her skin and taking what did not belong to him. I stretched across the distance, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and yanking his head back.
His face elongated into the ghost of a snout, a reminder of the Curse that still lingered within him, notwithstanding the new form Willow had provided as he growled at me.
“What were you thinking?” I asked, snarling at my wife when she released the cat. I tossed him to the ground, glaring as he landed on his feet in a way that felt all too natural for someone who hadn’t been feline only a moment before.
She’d taken a Cursed and created a fucking familiar out of him, although I would never forget what he really was beneath his fur.
A fucking man who was too close to my wife.
“Blood is power,” Willow said, swaying on her feet as her knees buckled. Her skin hummed with energy when I caught her, vibrating against every spot that connected the two of us. The necromancy within her had gotten a taste of connection, of being set loose after lying dormant for decades. The bones around her neck rattled even as her body slumped beneath the weight of that power, needing time to build up to the level of use she was capable of.
That the magic demanded from her.
“Then why give it to someone who doesn’t deserve it?” I asked, lifting her into my arms. She didn’t fight, nestling her head against my chest in her exhaustion. Willow might have fought our connection with everything she had when she was strong, but in her moments of vulnerability, she revealed exactly who she was beneath all the bravado.
A young girl who was terrified of the fact that she was facing the world alone.
She didn’t think anyone would see it if she could only pretend to be unaffected, focusing on the shallow friendships she’d formed without ever allowing those who could care about her to sink themselves deeper within her soul.
To love was to lose. To love was to hurt. Whether it was a father who put his own needs before ours or the siblings we would be forced to leave, love was pain for beings like us.
“Because I take care of what is mine,” she said, her eyes closing as a growl rumbled in my chest. I had no doubt she could feel it, that the ire simmering in my blood as I stepped past the fucking cat that walked beside me and refused to leave her side was potent in the air.
She didn’t sleep—though she didn’t open her eyes to look at my rage— choosing to hide away from it instead. I let it slide, understanding it was due to the fact that she didn’t know what was going on any better than I did.
Taking a familiar was usually relegated to actual animals, though from the way Jonathan had stared up at her and insisted on remaining with her, I couldn’t think of any alternative answer.
It was a complication I didn’t need or want in our lives, a being that would constantly try to demand attention that she didn’t have the time to give.
For her time belonged to me.
“I suppose you would be angry with me if I got rid of him, then?” I asked, injecting humor into my voice regardless of it being no joking matter.
“Furious,” she mumbled, still not opening her eyes. Her exhaustion leaked into me, spreading through the bond between us. I turned, pressing my lips to her forehead as I made my way back to the school that would become our home for a time.
Eventually, we would move into the village of Crystal Hollow, becoming a fully integrated part of the community. I’d meant it when I told her we could build a home here, a place where witches and Vessels could learn to coexist in peaceful harmony.
It was the way it had been once, before Susannah and George had enacted The Choice to prevent me from obtaining the woman who would open the seal to allow my physical form on Earth for the first time since I’d been banished to Hell. They’d driven a wedge between us in a desperate bid for power, and I’d suddenly had to bide my time to achieve what should have been mine centuries prior.
Staring down at Willow’s face as she finally succumbed to sleep, her breathing evening out to a steady rhythm that felt like home, I wouldn’t have changed it for anything.
No one else would have felt the way she did in my arms. No one else would have tempted me to go to the lengths I did to keep her alive.
No one else would have mattered to me at all; simply a means to an end to achieve what I wanted. Only Willow didn’t just matter.
She was fucking everything.
I ambled out of the woods, gazing up at the school as I made my way to the front doors. Leviathan stood guard outside, though a single glance from
me and he nodded before taking up pace behind me. He followed us to the bedroom where I would allow Willow to sleep, leaving him to keep an eye on her from my office while I attempted to deal with some of the chaos that had ensued after my hostile takeover of the Coven.
She wouldn’t attempt to run from me again, knowing it was futile. I would feel her anywhere now that our bond had been completed, linking us irrevocably.
I would find her no matter where she tried to hide, and I would slaughter anyone who tried to help her.
Her conscience wouldn’t allow that.
