Page 46 of Waltzing With Witches

She rubs at her forehead, her expression a mixture of confusion and resignation. “What else don’t I know about you?” she huffs, crossing her arms.

I stalk across the small distance between us, folding my wings tight to my back. “I’ll admit, there’s a lot, Morgan. But you have questions, and you deserve answers.”

And once you have them all, you’ll run from me.

As you should.

I reach for her again, waiting for her to take my hand, to take that first step to knowing everything there is to know about me and why I’ve pushed her away so hard.

Delicate fingers lift, trembling slightly as her eyes take in my wings curling above my shoulders. When she sets her hand tentatively in mine, I nearly growl at the pleasure that fills me.

But it’s overshadowed by grief. Because I have more of my story to share. And none of it’s good.

With a slow tug, I pull her into the cocoon of my arms. Leaning down, I press my mouth to her ear. “Hang on to me, Morgan.”

She reaches up and slings both arms around my neck as I hunch down and grab the backs of her thighs, dragging her up and draping them around my torso. Storm-cloud eyes come to mine with a curious look I can’t read.

My eyes drop to her mouth, then flick back up. “Are you alright?”

She gives me a curt nod, her expression returning to neutral.

I hunch down and then push off the ground in one swift move, bulleting up into the sky. Air whooshes around us, buffeting us from every side as I slip a hand up her back to rest between her shoulder blades. Morgan claws at my back, her thighs tightening around my body as she buries her face in my neck with a shocked-sounding screech.

“Easy, witch,” I murmur in her ear, trying to keep my voice a steady, smooth rumble. “I would never allow you to fall.”

“Easy for you to say,” she shouts, not looking up from my neck.

I’ve let her fall so many times, figuratively. I won’t drop her physical body from this height, but I’ve got a final secret that’ll spell the end of us for good.

Flapping my wings, I even us out and tap between her shoulder blades. We’re far above the castle at this point. “Open your eyes, Morgan.”

“No!”

“I want you to see Ever from here. I have two favorite times of day—early morning when I drive through on my bike, and late at night when I can enjoy Ever like this.”

She clasps my neck more tightly but turns her face, glancing over her shoulder. A terrified half scream escapes her, and she buries her face in my neck again, her lips soft against my skin. She can’t possibly know the riot of emotions this produces in me. I struggle to tamp it down because it feels so natural to invite.

My hand slides further up her back, my fingers tracing a path up her neck. I curl them around it, squeezing tight so I can pull her face from my neck. Gray eyes sear me as my mouth hovers just above hers. We’re paused in place, my giant shadowy wings beating the air around us as we bounce softly in the sky.

“Hear me on this,” I say with a growl. “I would never drop you or allow you to come to harm. Can you trust me for a little while, Morgan?”

Asking her to trust me is a loaded question.

She can’t.

She shouldn’t.

But in this, at least, she should.

“No,” she admits. “I’m terrified.”

The discord her “no” produces in my mind sends me into an immediate spiral. Hate and fury well up and spill over as I rage internally at the forces that exist between us. Angling to the side, I swoop down through a cloud and drop out of the sky like a stone.

I don’t want her terror. I want her happiness. But I can’t give it to her. So I say nothing as I even out, flying until we soar over the skyball stadium, Morgan’s body eventually relaxing in my arms. She clutches my neck like a lifeline, still glancing to one side over her shoulder. I swoop down toward the ground, rolling us in playful circles before pushing hard back up into the sky. She screams, but it’s less terrified, her body pressing harder to mine.

And it is glorious, the way she fits me, her frame perfectly cocooned within my arms. Emotions too numerous to name batter me from every angle. I could hold Morgan at arm’s length before she became my houseguest. But now? Without the dulling potion and with her being so close, I’m lost.

Gone.

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