Page 10 of Bonded to The Boo Hag

“You weren’t panicking.” I smiled, sending a text to my housekeeper that we would be home in the next thirty minutes.

“How could you…?” Gatlin paled.

“I don’t have mind-reading powers,” I murmured, wishing I could give his arm a comforting squeeze. Now that would cause some heart palpitations, I am sure. “Your pulse wasn’t hammering in your chest.”

He pivoted away from the window. “What… would I have seen?”

“A closed road, and a few feet after that, a sinkhole that looks like it could swallow the surrounding forest. It’s also spelled to make humans and wildlife feel uncomfortable, urging them to turn back. We have had trouble with folks like you, one drop of magic in their veins, but generally, they aren’t a problem for long.” I sigh at the thought of the trouble these humans cause.

“Why not?” he tentatively asked.

“If they are lucky, they trip the wards and our magical rangers find them first. If they aren’t… there won’t be much left to find. Sometimes it is hard to fight your base nature, and when the perfect opportunity arrives, confused and alone–– Even the creatures with human or near human intelligence have a hard time leaving the human alone. There are other things that are nothing more than wild beasts—red caps and the like—that would happily strip a human of their flesh and suck the marrow from their bones.”

Gatlin shuddered in the seat next to me.

“Promise me, Gatlin, you will never go out alone and unprotected.” I reached for his hand, gripping it tightly, locking eyes with him.

Jaw clenched, he nodded, answering with an unwavering “Yes.”

4

Gatlin

I’m overwhelmed.

At least I could admit it. If there was one thing that I’d learned from the hospital-provided hospice therapist, it was to acknowledge my emotional state and not avoid it. I was out of my depth. I no longer thought Gemmy was going to die. Today's visit gave me so much hope that I finally let go of all that edgy uncertainty I had been swimming in the last few years. I’d found dry, stable land, and yet I didn’t trust where I had landed.

I stared at the honest-to-God hedge maze behind my Boo Hag bride’s Georgian-style estate. Not a Georgian revival but a house built in the eighteen hundreds by her parents. Where she grew up. Duvall House was huge. Three stories, an entrance hall, six bedrooms including the attic rooms, a master suite, four bathrooms, a drawing room, parlor, kitchen, study, library, formal dining room, living room, and music room. That was just inside the red brick masterpiece. Besides the hedge maze out back, there was a heated pool, a separate building housing a personal gym, and a sunroom she thought I might like.

She bought me paint.

I still couldn’t believe that she had converted a bedroom into an art studio for my use and filled it with potential—paper, pans of paints, mediums I could crush and muddle into my own colors, and canvases from the size of my palm to almost as tall as me.

“I own a gallery,” she said as I slowly turned in my new space, “I want you to have a show there when you are ready, even if it’s after our year together. I hope this time will help you create.”

I didn’t understand. Why did she care?

I had everything I couldn’t live without brought to her estate. I know that included my art supplies. I watched the probably supernatural movers load them into the moving van. She didn’t have to buy me––

I understood the clothes; I couldn’t afford to dress the way she would need me to for social events, her club. I got that.

My art mattered to me, but it didn’t do anything for her. One of my paintings couldn’t impress the people she had to work with; an art show by an unknown artist wouldn’t bring in any impressive income. Being bonded to a human might be a novelty, sure.

When was the last time I bought paint? Sketched? Was she trying to make me happy?

I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. It circled in my mind like it was stuck in that hedge maze out there, and I couldn’t understand how the kindest thing to happen to me in the last five years was at the hands of a monster who was quite literally doing me all the favors––for my company.

This feeling… was a self-worth problem. When did that start?

A knock at my door brought me out of my thoughts, and I turned from the window to the earth-toned bedroom I’d been given. The suite was a mixture of warm and cool tones, mahogany furniture, brass fixtures, and an impressive fireplace that had been converted to gas. It was like someone had typed in a search engine “male, bedroom, traditional,” and this room populated. It was okay, but I would be unpacking my personal stuff sooner than later.

“Coming!” I called to whoever was on the other side of the door.

Turning the cool glass knob, I opened my door to the hallway.

“Hello there, Gatlin, ready for dinner?” the haint Prudence asked.

“I am,” I replied, still unnerved that I could see the white and basil-green toile wallpaper through her body.

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