Page 25 of Magic's Dawn

Realizing how my words may have come across, I hurry to add, “Not that Ros isn’t also the best. He’s just the best in a different way. He taught me how to shoot a gun and didn’t get angry when I shoved him in my car trunk to bring him home with me.”

She stares at me. “You did what?”

I wave my hands in the air. “It’s nothing. Just a little kidnapping between mates, but he’s not a prisoner. I just wanted you to know I love your brother and don’t consider him less than Tris.”

“You don’t have to defend your feelings. I can’t even imagine having four mates.” Sadness flickers across her face. “I remember how wonderful it was to find my spark.”

Bryant’s voice fills my mind, whispering about how Delilah had fallen for a wolf shifter, and that her father ordered his death before locking her up.

“Do you…want to talk about it?” I ask tentatively, feeling like it’s unfair to her that I know more about her history than she’s told me herself.

She shakes her head and offers me another smile, though this one can’t vanish her ghosts. “I’d rather hear about my brother. How are things going with him? Is he happy here in Hartford Cove?”

I hesitate over how to answer that question.

Ambros and I haven’t been together long, and he spent much of that time away, trying to stop his father from destroying Hartford Cove. While we share an undeniable connection, I wonder sometimes if he misses the fast-paced life of hunting rogue supernaturals.

“We’re still getting to know each other.” I play with a curl of my long, dark-red hair. “But I hope he’s happy. He seems content. I think having other vampires here helps, as well as finding you. I think a large part of his life was about finding you, and now that we have, it’s allowed him to think more about what he wants in life.”

Delilah nods, her gaze fixed on the herb garden as if drawing strength from the earthy scents and vibrant colors. “He always had a way with people, even when he was younger, but he used to resist joining our father’s organization.”

I turn to her in surprise. “He did?”

A distant look enters her eyes. “Oh, yes. He was quite the rebel when he was young. He talked about becoming a chef, of all things. Our father was not pleased.”

I can’t help but chuckle at the image of Ambros with his long hair tied up and wearing a chef’s hat. “I can see that. He makes delicious waffles. I heard I have you to thank for that.”

“He used to annoy me so much, constantly being underfoot in the kitchen, wanting to help.” Delilah shakes her head. “But I suppose he embraced our father’s world after I disappeared. He felt the responsibility, the need, to protect. Locking me up solved two problems for our father.”

Anger rises through me at how the two Shultz siblings had been mistreated. “Well, now he’s getting a taste of his own medicine in jail.”

“So he is.” Delilah clears her throat. “We should probably look for wand ingredients before the sun sets.”

I may be bad at picking up on social cues, but I hear that one loud and clear and bounce to my feet. “Should I get you a basket? If I’d known they were going to send us on a scavenger hunt, I would have bought more buckets. How many of these smelly weeds are calling out to you?”

“Something to store them in would be nice.” She rises slowly from her seat, her limbs shaking. “And perhaps a pair of gardening shears.”

“Aye aye, captain!” I salute her. “Be right back!”

I turn and sprint out of the garden, follow the path around to the front of the house, and pound up the porch stairs. “Rosebud!”

“No need to shout, my love.” Ros’s voice drifts from the formal sitting room tucked next to the kitchen. “I’m right here.”

I veer toward him and swing into the archway to find him sitting in my grandma’s old chair, a book propped on his folded knee.

The sunlight coming through the bay window catches in his curly, shoulder-length auburn hair and paints his classical features in golden light. The sight makes me want to stand there admiring him for hours, while at the same time, my fingers twitch with the urge to touch those soft curls.

Crinkles form at the corners of his blue-green eyes. “Were you just doing a roll call? Or did you need something?”

I snap myself out of the trance my mate’s beauty cast over me. “I need my bucket!”

One brow arches. “Which one?”

I widen my eyes. “There’s only one bucket.”

His other brow arches. “So that’s not a hoard of buckets growing in the attic?”

My hands move to my hips. “What have you been doing in my attic?”

---