Page 7 of Thistle Thorns

Warm hazel eyes greeted mine.

Flushing furiously, I pulled away, hugging my hands to my chest. The Celtic pendant he’d given me was impossibly warm against the back of one hand. I found it, rubbing the metal between thumb and forefinger, desperate for anything to take my mind off Arthur Greenwood and everything his presence promised to provide. We’d agreed earlier this morning, before our worlds had been turned upside down, that we’d talk before any more ties were forged between us. And with my family here, and my brother taken hostage, I wasn’t sure when or if we’d ever get another chance.

“I-I don’t know where to begin,” I admitted softly, staring at the trampled grass between our feet, mine in woolen socks, his bare. Thistle thorns, I should’ve put boots on before leaving the house. I shook the errant thought away. “I owe you so much. Arthur, I-I…”

“I’ll go first,” he said softly, cupping a hand to my cheek and lifting my gaze. His thumb smoothed over my cheekbone, and I gave him a grateful smile at his generosity, his vulnerability. “My name is Arthur Frederick Greenwood, and I’m a Coalition enforcer from Washington state. I’m here in Redbud fulfilling an oath my family made to Cody Beecham years ago. What you’ve seen is the whole of our relationship—him a cantankerous carpenter and me his browbeaten apprentice, with a little familial affection sprinkled in.”

He smiled, and we both laughed softly at the image his words had conjured. The twiggy old man was full of vim and vinegar, a stark contrast against his mild-mannered gentleman of a best friend, Emmett Trinket.

His amusement faded when his hazel eyes drifted to the Celtic shield I thumbed, and he sucked in a breath between his teeth. “That pendant isn’t just coded to me, Meadow. There’s a piece of you embedded in its magic too,” he admitted.

My fingers stopped worrying the iron pendant. “M-me?”

He nodded, his hand slipping from my cheek. Like he was closing in on himself.

I caught his hand before it could fall to his side, holding it in mine. Squeezing it gently, I silently pleaded for him to explain himself. I’d once relished secrets and all hidden things, but here, right now, I couldn’t stand it.

“It’s a protection amulet, Meadow. To shield my heart… from you.”

CHAPTER THREE

It felt like I’d been slapped in the face. My fingers became numb, cold, and his grip tightened when mine faltered.

“You didn’t want me,” Arthur explained quickly. “You rejected me, many times, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I also couldn’t allow myself to get distracted by unrequited—” He swallowed thickly. “I went to a metalworker who specializes in this kind of talisman—a fire witch in Minnesota named Madge. In order for it to be effective, for you not to affect me anymore, I needed something of yours. A hair.”

All the times we’d spent together over the last four months raced across my mind’s eye, memory searching for the one time where his motives might not have been pure. Had he snooped into my downstairs bathroom while he’d been at the farmhouse installing my shelves? Or had he plucked a hair from my head when he’d caught me when I’d collapsed from anaphylactic shock induced by a coconut-tainted latte? I certainly wouldn’t have noticed that with my throat closing up. Then it came to me.

“The corn maze at the Carnival Cauchemar,” I realized. “You were chasing after me. I turned and found your hand reaching after me, after my ponytail.”

Arthur began shaking his head.

Hurt burned in my chest. Was I really so horrible? Had I really played with his emotions that much that he’d had to go to such lengths just to protect himself from me?

I tried to pull away, to hide myself from him and the shame and the betrayal—however unwarranted—but his grip was iron.

“Meadow, no,” he said, pleading. “I found one of your hairs on my shirt when I tossed it on your picnic blanket that time I was here chopping wood. That’s the one I used. That time in the corn maze, when I slipped my fingers through your hair, that was me succumbing to my desire. To touch you. To… fulfill a fantasy.”

We stood there, silent, Otter’s flute muted. Our hands were still linked but I wanted nothing more than to tug free of him. Not because I was repulsed by what he’d done, but because he’d been right to do it. How many times had I spurned him for the sake of my mission, heedless of his feelings? He’d had every right to protect himself. His heart. And yet taking a piece of me to do it, even if it was just a hair… It felt dirty. Like voodoo.

“But you broke the enchantment last night, when you touched me,” he continued earnestly, squeezing my hand, willing me to look at him. “That blue spark? That was the spell breaking. Impossible magic, which could only mean one thing.”

“What?” I whispered, searching his face.

“The bond you must surely feel between us?” he hedged. “The invisible tether. Though now it feels like a chain, in the best possible way, of course.”

“Yes?” I prompted, encouraging him to go on. It was incredible that he felt that connection in the same way I did, but what did it mean? Did he know why its intensity had increased the moment the curse was lifted from the grimoire?

Arthur studied me, withholding his response as if he was waiting for me to realize it on my own. But the pregnant pause stretched between us with no end in sight. “That my heart was never meant to be shielded from yours,” he answered.

Somehow I didn’t think that was the whole of what he wanted to say, but he was already continuing.

“And I meant what I said, of me being able to feel what you feel through it. I want you to keep wearing it, if that’s alright with you. It comforts me to know that you’re safe and happy. Or not. If, of course… if you can forgive me.”

“If you can forgive me too, for the heartache.” I winced. “I never meant to hurt you like that, Arthur. Denying myself, and what I felt for you, seemed the only way to not get distracted. Though, I wasn’t very good at it. You were my fantasy too, b-but I had to save my family.”

He pulled me forward a step to wipe away the tear that had slipped down my cheek. He was rewarded with a watery smile, then I sniffled and slipped the pendant beside the amazonite beneath my dress collar. The tension eased in our joined hands, the hurt we’d caused each other forgotten.

“And I know you’ve heard the term Coalition now, more than once, and not in the best light,” he said with a resigned sigh, returning to the previous subject. “It’s an alliance of shifters, all from the most powerful bloodlines, and enforcers are their pinch hitters. We deliver when others cannot. Though”—he rubbed his chest where Grandmother had struck him—“you Hawthornes pack quite the punch. With supes being the minority and spread out all over the country, they can easily become prey. We protect them, Meadow, nothing more, nothing less.”

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