Wild is the Witch (50)

“Are you okay?” he asks again, his voice gentle and concerned.

“Yes,” I say. “I want to see you without your glasses. Really see you.”

Pike takes my hands and guides them to his face. I slowly take off his glasses and set them aside, never once looking away. He blinks but keeps his eyes on mine, and I’m struck by how vulnerable he looks, how unprotected he is in this moment. No arrogance or ego or witty remarks, no perfectly fitted T-shirt or unfairly cool glasses.

Just Pike, honest and raw and perfect.

He takes my breath away, and I gently trace the corners of his eyes before pressing my mouth to his once more. His hands come to either side of my face, and he kisses me with urgency and need, turning off the lantern and laying me back, his mouth moving from my lips to my jaw to my neck.

Goose bumps rise all over my body when his fingers trace the skin above my pants. I want to pull them off, to get closer to Pike than I’ve ever been to anyone else, but that foolish hope in the back of my mind tells me to wait, says that maybe Pike will choose me, magic and all. Maybe he’ll still want me in the same way once he knows.

I slide his hands up to my ribs and arch into him, deepening the kiss, trying so hard to forget the things that are waiting for me come dawn. Trying so hard to hope that whatever this is can survive in the daylight.

I think I hear the owl in the distance, so close to where we are, but it could just be a trick of the wind. A trick of my mind.

I pull the sleeping bag above our heads, Pike’s arm around my waist and lips against my mouth, shrinking our world to the tiniest of points in this impossibly vast universe.

And for just a moment, I do. I forget.





Nineteen


When I wake up, Pike is gone. Birds are singing from all directions, and just enough light is pouring into the tent for me to see. The dawn is here, and with it, all the heaviness of the day. The fear. The enormous ramifications if I don’t get this right.

But also, hope. So much hope.

I hear Pike out in the campsite, and disappointment stirs in my gut, wishing I could have seen him as he woke up, tired and groggy and without his glasses. The thought makes my breath catch, and I immediately reach for the owl, needing to feel his heartbeat and the curse and know that everything is as it was last night.

And it is. He is in the same place, waiting, just like he promised.

I crawl out of the tent and brighten considerably when I see Pike warming two bagels over the fire, spreading them with butter. He really is good at this.

He looks up and smiles when he sees me, a soft, happy smile that lodges right in my chest. “Morning,” he says.

“Morning.”

I walk over to the fire, unsure of how to act, but he pulls me toward him and kisses me softly. “How’d you sleep?”

“The best I’ve slept since we left the refuge,” I admit.

“Me too.”

He hands me a bagel, and I gratefully take it, eager to get on with the day. I sit down on the blanket and realize how clean the campsite is.

“Did you pack up this morning?”

“A little. I know you wanted to get an early start, so I figured I’d help out. I hope that’s okay.”

“That’s great, thank you.”

“Is the owl in the same spot?” Pike asks.

I nod, the hope in my chest getting bigger.

“Good; he’s not too far away then, but with the rough terrain, it’ll probably take us a couple hours.”

Pike finishes his bagel, then sets his napkin aside and pulls up his legs so he’s sitting in a V shape. He rests his arms on his knees, and his hair is perfectly disheveled with sleep. He’s wearing joggers and a sweatshirt, and I don’t know how else to describe how he looks in this moment other than lived in.

Lived in, like my favorite pair of jeans or the blanket my grandmother knit for me.

I almost tell him, right now, the words that I’ve refused to say for over two years.

I’m a witch.

I almost say it as if it’s nothing, as if I’m commenting on the weather or the birds singing in the trees. Almost. But I don’t know how I’d handle it if his expression slipped into something unrecognizable, and I have to save all my energy for finding the owl and unbinding the curse. Those are the only things that matter right now.

We finish our breakfast and get cleaned up, then ready our day packs for our hike. I run through my list in my head and make sure Pike has the supplies for our makeshift trap. Once we’re ready, I slip my pack over my shoulders and put on my cap.

It’s overcast and cool, the earth damp with rain, and I inhale slowly, knowing this will all be fixed today, knowing Cassandra is coming. Maybe Pike would be one of the lucky ones who would survive being turned into a mage, and maybe I would be strong enough to get him through it. Maybe the effects on the region wouldn’t be as bad as I fear and things would be okay, even if the curse was unleashed.

I’m not willing to find out, though. Amy’s magic was strong for her age, a Stellar whose effect on those around her was profound. And she couldn’t stop what happened to Alex. I used to think that falling in love was her catastrophic mistake, the failure point that led to that night on the beach.

But it wasn’t. Her mistake was her arrogance, believing that death wasn’t a risk because she’d be strong enough to stop it.