Page 49 of Thistle Thorns

A frantic ache coursed through me, through him, and our hands tugged at clothes and tangled in hair as our lips and teeth threatened to consume each other. The mallaithe venom had almost claimed my life and I was desperate to feel alive with him. From the way his hands yanked my waist, both of our hips crashing against the wall that separated us, I knew he craved a deeper connection too.

The jars rattled on the shelves in the hearth room, and the glass trembled in the window frames. A thread-thin crack appeared in the drywall.

“I would break down this wall for you,” he whispered against the skin of my healed shoulder. Nuzzling up my neck, his mouth found the sensitive flesh just under my jaw and sucked hard.

Gasping, I rose on tiptoe at the love bite, moaning his name so sensuously his hips bucked against the siding once more. Another crack in the drywall joined the first.

“Meadow,” he growled, pulling me half through the window and into his arms. The farmhouse’s new wards shuddered in warning.

“Wait,” I mumbled against his lips, my body aching from the odd position. If he’d give me a second, I’d climb out the window, or at least go to the back door and unlock it, Grandmother’s spells be damned.

The word startled him. A ripple coursed down his body as his self-control tightened into place, and he pulled away, panting. Head down, he kept me at arms’ length, hands clamped on my upper arms. They were trembling.

I gulped down a swallow, chest heaving. “Arthur?”

Slowly, he pulled me close and softly kissed my forehead, all heat of his passion gone. Suppressed. “I… I meant what I said last night. And I know you don’t mean to,” he rumbled, “but you’re teasing me.”

Tempting you, you mean. “I-I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. There’s no blame here.” He tilted my chin up, running his thumb over my kiss-swollen lips. “You’re just irresistible and I couldn’t help myself after today.” He flushed, embarrassed at his own lack of discipline.

“How do you know?” I asked. “I mean, that I haven’t claimed the bond yet? And that this isn’t, um, an outward display of that affection?”

That lopsided smile of his appeared as he passed a hand over my hair, letting my ponytail trail through his fingers. “First off, because you used the word ‘affection’ just now, and the emotions tied to a claimed bond are much stronger than that. And secondly”—his hazel eyes turned a little sad—“my heart hasn’t burst with joy. Yet.”

For a moment, I thought he’d leave, drag himself away from me, but he hiked up one leg and crammed himself onto the windowsill. The wards Grandmother had placed prevented him from entering the house, but he was technically in that in-between place of the wall.

“Get that blanket, sweetheart,” he told me.

I retrieved it from the floor, wrapping it over my shoulders. Pulling me forward, Arthur settled me against him with my arms around his waist and my head against his chest. And oh my Green Mother, how his heart hammered against his ribs. That burning desire for him roused once more within me, knowing I had that effect on him, but I forced it down. I would not be selfish with him. At least, not deliberately.

Though my cheek against his chest wasn’t nearly as good as kissing him, I’d definitely take it. We stayed that way for a long moment, snuggled under the blanket, the heat of the hearth fires drawn to the open window and warming us until the cold night air whisked it all away.

“Was that you in the woods?” I asked eventually, my words muffling against his shirt. I breathed in the scent of him, old-growth forest and pine and sunlight and more than a little sweat.

“I felt you through the pendant,” he answered lowly. “Lewellyn noticed something too—he was with me at the meeting. We were more or less finished when I bolted. He diverted to check on your friends at my command, just to make sure. When I reached you… Oh, Meadow, I thought I was going to lose you.”

His fingers slid into my hair, squeezing me even closer to him. I heard the wildness of his heartbeat then as he relived his fear. Arthur pressed a hard kiss on top of my head, his arms so tight around me I thought my ribs would crack. Soon, through our touching and the reassurance it provided, his heartbeat leveled it out.

“You’re scrappy, little cider witch. That mallaithe was already dead when I tore it apart. I just had to make sure.” He was quiet for a long moment before he resumed his story. “There was something preventing your blood from clotting. I had your shoulder bound up as tight as I could, but it wasn’t stopping. Your family found us pretty soon after I got it cinched, and in true Iris Hawthorne fashion, she told me to get away from you.”

I released a humorless chuckle and nuzzled closer to him, relishing the feel of him. She wasn’t here to tell us the same thing, and I wasn’t going to let him go anytime soon. “Aunt Hyacinth told me the mallaithe was mutated, that it had venom in its roots. It also had faelight in its eyes.”

Arthur released a low growl that sounded like hurricane-whipped waves crashing against a shore to my ear pressed his chest. Calming down, he continued, “Your dad asked me to join the hunt while you were brought back to the house. There was nothing more I could do for you with an unclaimed bond, so I joined him. We found no trace of other mallaithe seeds or trees either, not that there should have been any in this realm to begin with. That magic hunter is nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Antler Tattoo. I didn’t know the nature of those bluish-green fae markings on the backs of his hands, and if we ever caught him, maybe Mom could decipher them. Maybe even learn who had given them to him. Or from whom he’d stolen his magic.

“Arthur,” I said, lifting my head from his chest. “That was an ambush in the woods. Grandmother said it was for me specifically, but that could just be her paranoia talking. Witches as powerful as us are a prime target for these sorts of people.”

He nodded. “Your father told me of the standoff in front of the Barn Market. It would make sense that they somehow followed you all to Cedar Haven the same day, or they were just hedging their bets.”

“There are other things they could’ve seen in the woods when they were preparing this attack.”

“The moonflowers are safe,” he assured me, stroking my hair. “The Alder boys and their families have taken up daily patrols. Though, they’re going to have to expand their radius. The magic hunters’ point of entry and exit was on their land.”

That was a relief, but I still had reason to be nervous. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“The elm tree. Yeah, that’s been an interesting new development. I believe I noticed it after you went foraging there the first time.”

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