Page 8 of Thistle Thorns

“From what?”

“From anything that would harm them.” He shook his head as my eyebrows rose in mute question. “Not your average human. At least, not for centuries. In this more enlightened age, they’ve never posed so much of a threat that the Coalition has had to interfere. No, against others more powerful. Those that would subjugate them.”

“Magic hunters.”

His nod was slight. Incomplete.

“And this master I’ve heard about.”

“He is not our master,” Arthur said vehemently, “regardless of what poisonous ideology your grandmother would have you believing.”

A note slipped on the flute, and Otter’s voice said from the other side of the tree trunk, “Watch it, bear.”

“Who is it?” My hands tightened on Arthur’s, demanding a response.

Arthur glanced over his shoulder; the flute hadn’t resumed its music.

“Out of respect for your family, who clearly loves you, however misguided they are about my kind, I think they should be the ones to tell you, especially since they’ve been protecting you from him all this time. But,” he added quickly, cutting off my heated protest, “if they fail to do so in a timely manner, say, before you get your brother back, I will tell you everything. Catch that, witch?” he flung to my cousin hidden behind the tree. “You have three days to come clean.”

“Your words are as loud as your mouth-breathing, bear,” came Otter’s tart reply. “Heard.”

The flute returned to its melody once more.

“Don’t be angry with me, Meadow,” Arthur told me quietly, correctly interpreting the furrowed set of my brow. “You deserve to hear the truth—from your family. They will have all the answers you seek, not me. And… this is a way I can show my respect for them. As token of my devotion to you.”

I nodded reluctantly, acknowledging the wisdom of his decision. It would be best to hear it from Grandmother, to finally receive the explanation I’d had no idea I craved to hear. Perhaps it would explain so much—why I hadn’t been inducted into the Circle of Nine, why there seemed to be gaps in my education, why all deep forests were forbidden. Maybe, even, what was happening to my magic.

Witches grew stronger over time as they aged, but incrementally, the bulk of their potency being revealed at puberty. Yet I had only gotten exponentially stronger since coming to Redbud—I could break powerful spells that had been cast on me and see through glamours now. On the outcropping in the Tussock woods, I’d forged a spell with my friends that should’ve required the strength of an entire coven twice our age. I’d conjured air magic then too, apparently, and green flames against the fiáin. One could be explained away by a previously dormant bloodline ability, the other as a hearth witch, but one thing was for certain: I was maturing into magic I knew nothing about.

Giving myself a mental shake, I shoved those thoughts aside to examine later. First things first, and second things second, after all. Marten was the priority, which meant I needed to finish my conversation with Arthur.

Squaring my shoulders, I said, “My name is Meadow Lavender Hawthorne. And from what I gathered in the moonflower grove, you’ve heard of my family.”

Arthur nodded.

“A few months ago, I discovered a parasite attached to the grimoire. A curse. One that apparently my grandmother had cast herself. I didn’t know that at the time. What I did know was that it was feeding off my family, stealing away their magic. I—” I paused, stomach churning, hating the truth of the following words. “I assumed it was a rival coven that had cursed us, for whatever nefarious purpose, and I stole the grimoire.”

I released Arthur’s hand to trace the fine scarring on my left forearm. “Killed its hellhound guardian, apparently, though at the time it was glamoured to resemble an Irish wolfhound. And I thought I’d only wounded it. I didn’t stick around to determine its fate; I was too worried about just getting out of there.

“My family’d kill a witch for tampering with their grimoire, you know, and since there were those spells that compelled them to feed the curse and then forget all about it, I couldn’t trust them to believe me if I told them what I’d seen. I couldn’t risk them patting me on the head and ignoring me and placing heavier wards on it just in case I decided to act on my ‘crazy ideas.’

“I had to starve the curse, or at least hide the spell book and me away so I could figure out how to free my family. That’s all I wanted to do. So I took a false name and tried to keep my head down. Redbud, the Crafting Circle ladies, Emmett, Cody, Sawyer, you… I never meant to set down roots here.”

Arthur was quiet a moment, and he wet his lips more than once in preparation to speak without following through. Then: “And is it still your goal to return with them after you retrieve your brother?” Are you running away from me again, Meadow Hawthorne, were the words he didn’t say.

In truth, I had no idea what my future held in that regard. It had always been my plan to go back to the manor, to rejoin my freed family and prepare for a strike against the coven that had cursed us. Except there was no coven to blame except my own. And then there was Arthur and Sawyer, not to mention my friends. Despite my best efforts, I had forged ties here, ties I wasn’t willing to abandon. Especially if they were reciprocated.

“What of you?” I asked, not confrontationally. “It seems you’re on loan here with Cody, but your real home is in Washington.” Are you returning to the opposite side of the country when all this is done?

He nodded to himself, weighing my words. Between us stretched a silence that was punctuated only by Otter’s flute. A tune he’d called “The Skipping Stone,” its melody light and easy. When Arthur finally answered, his voice was low and intense, and there was a flash of amber in his eyes. “You are mine, Meadow. I go where you go.”

You are mine, Meadow. Those words hit me on a primal level, strumming a chord in me that sent a thunderous pulse down every nerve. They were possessive, but not dominating. They promised shelter, respect, and… love.

Arthur lunged for me the same moment I reached for him.

His mouth crashed down on mine, as possessive as his words. His kisses roved from my lips, my neck, my shoulder, his beard dragging a delicious trail of friction after his mouth and banishing the chill of the November air. It was much too cold to be out here in nothing else but knitted socks and a sundress, but I felt like I was on fire.

Moaning as his teeth nipped my skin, I knotted my hand into his thick hair and dragged his lips back to mine. It was impossible to get enough of this man, my bear who’d fought for me in the woods. My mouth opened for his as my body melded against him, desperate to feel every inch of his powerful frame. A sensuous growl rumbled against my lips as he slung my other arm around his neck and pivoted, trapping me against the maple tree.

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