Payback's a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove #1)(36)
“So in the end he just looked kind of gooey for a while,” she finished, grinning fondly at the memory. “Glisteny, but in a really terrible way, like week-old pierogies. Don’t rat us out, by the way. Somehow I doubt Igraine would buy into a statute of limitations in this particular case.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” I assured her, snickering into my wine. “Gooey. Wow, that sounds foul.”
“Oh, it was most foul,” Talia said, her smile widening. “Then Addie started a rumor that it was actually some kind of rare and highly contagious skin STD. So she got hers in the end, the clever kid.”
“So I was right to think of you as chaotic neutral, back in high school,” I said, taking a sip of wine. “And I get that sense from Issa and your mother, too. Very ‘I am woman, hear me scare the living fucking daylights out of you.’?”
“I do make it my life’s work to be a nasty woman.” She chuckled again, her pewter irises reflecting the fire’s flicker. “Though Issa and Addie, and honestly even Micah, are way more like our mother than I am. At least in some respects.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, you can’t accuse Elena of being anything but freewheeling, in pretty much every way you can think of. We all have different dads, you know. She’s never let anyone stick around for long enough to threaten becoming a real partner, much less a co-parent. More power to her, for the whole self-partnered thing. But I can’t say I understand it.”
“So that’s not what you want?” I said carefully, unsure what it was I even wanted to hear. It wasn’t like I had any intention of staying here beyond the month, of starting something serious with anyone who made their home in Thistle Grove. The crackle of attraction, the spark blooming between us . . . that was just temporary and unexpected fun, a delightful reprieve from all the bullshit and baggage that came with being back here. And Talia must know that, too, given how upfront I’d been about my feelings on this town.
So why did it matter to me now, to know what she might be looking for?
“No,” Talia said, angling her head to catch my eyes. My breath snagged at the directness of her tone, the conviction in it. The utter lack of ambivalence. “Not anymore. Being that self-sufficient . . . that’s how you drive away the people that matter. The people that you want to stay.”
“Is that what happened before Gareth?” I asked softly. When her face shuttered like a portcullis slamming closed, I backtracked in such a hurry I nearly tripped over myself. “I’m sorry, I—I didn’t mean to overstep. You said at the Cauldron that you got your heart broken, I just wondered if . . .”
“It’s okay, Harlow. It was a fair question.” She rubbed her lips together, scraping wine stain from them with her teeth. “But I don’t want to talk about Jess tonight. I’m not saying never, just, not tonight. Not when we’re supposed to be celebrating.”
“No, I get it, really,” I assured her, relieved I hadn’t irretrievably spoiled the mood. “Speaking of celebrations, what’s the deal with having one in these creeper woods? I assume it hasn’t escaped you that they’re kind of a raging horror show.”
“Oh, they’re not so bad.” She gazed out toward the awful trees, her eyes softening with something like affection, like she had a soft spot for them. “More misunderstood than anything.”
At my quizzical look, she stood, in a clean flourish of a movement like a single stroke of calligraphy dashed confidently onto canvas.
“Let me show you,” she said, holding out a hand. “It’ll be easier to understand if you’re with me.”
“I’m not sure how much more I need to understand about the Witch Woods, really,” I said, balking at the notion. “I feel like I got a plenty good sense of them on the way over here.”
“Just trust me, Harlow,” she insisted, in a satiny timbre I’d have been hard-pressed not to follow into one of the more moderately blistering circles of hell, much less just an eerie forest. “It’s worth it, I promise. And have I led you astray thus far?”
“Let’s be real, you haven’t had that many opportunities.”
She just watched me steadily, dark eyebrows raised. I hesitated for a moment longer, before deciding that, hey, at least I’d be plunging back into the woods more or less with one of the creatures that went bump in the night. Shit, that had to count for something.
When I laid my hand over hers, Talia tugged me up easily, leaving her fingers threaded through mine as we started toward the tree line. She paused by one of the tables to snag a hurricane lantern, with a freestanding flame that had been bespelled to glow an unearthly celadon green. Her skin was smooth and improbably warm against my own chilled palm, and the heat of it seemed to seep into my bloodstream. It made me think of what the rest of her might feel like, pressed hot against the rest of me, with nothing between us except the gossamer brush of peeled-back sheets.
When we stepped from the clearing’s light and back into the woods, any further sexy thoughts died a swift death. There was a new tension to the predatory hush; an attention larger and more ponderous, as if the forest’s own regard had fallen over us like an all-seeing shadow, or some yellowed Eye of Sauron strobing in our direction like a searchlight. As if to confirm my instincts, the rolling mist seemed to inch our way, and Talia’s garnet began to shed a warning glow.