Page 60 of De-Witched

If there’d been a brown bag around, Leah might have hyperventilated. Shit. Her friend was way too observant. “What would have happened?” Her voice went up an octave.

“I don’t know.” Emma’s brows knit, confused. “He’s always dated legacies. I’ve never seen him stoop to a commoner before.”

“Gee, thanks.” Leah rolled the word around. “Legacies?”

“Strong magical families, like Bastian and Tia. Each parent sacrifices a small part of their magic to fuel their child. They’re coveted.” Emma flicked that off as if she hadn’t just confirmed Gabriel had been considered an object all his life. No wonder he didn’t trust anybody.

“That doesn’t matter right now,” her friend continued, scowling. “You’ve got secret eyes. Something’s happened and you’re going to tell me what.”

Leah grazed her bottom lip with her teeth, debating. “Okay,” she said, taking a breath to ease the chokehold nerves had on her throat. “Something almost happened.”

Emma’s face froze.

“Almost.” Leah reached out, poked Emma’s knee. “Stop overreacting.”

It took five seconds for her friend to rearrange her face into something that resembled neutral. “Okay. Tell me. I’m here to listen.”

Amusement bullied in, helped pave the way. Still, she had to take another breath. At least she was getting a lot of oxygen. “A few nights ago,” Leah began, “I was at his apartment to talk about all this.” She gestured at the folders. “We started talking about other stuff, and we were standing by the window, close, and maybe it was the fireplace or the low light or just how green his eyes are—seriously, how unfairly gorgeous are his eyes? But whatever, we were close and we—”

“You kissed?” Emma shrieked, sounding like her teenage sister.

Her shriek brought forth the hounds, claws skittering over the kitchen floor.

Leah shook her head vigorously as the dogs bolted in. “No. But...” He knows I know about magic, she finished internally. He had to know, he’d seen that she’d seen. And nothing. No witches, no punishment, no High Family. He’d kept it to himself.

Why?

For her? Or because it was practical, because he needed to finish his time at the shelter without disruption?

She couldn’t ask her friend that, though. Emma would lose her shit.

So, she ended with another truth. “I think I wanted to.”

“Okay.” Emma ignored Louie as he clambered onto her knee, Rosie’s nose as she pressed against her. “Okay. Okay. Okay,” she repeated one final time. “So, you and Gabriel Goodnight almost kissed.” She did fine until the end, when the words emerged as a squeak. Then gave up. “You want to kiss Gabriel Goodnight?”

“It can’t be that unbelievable.”

“I don’t think you realize. He’s never approved of bringing humans into our world. He blames them for his parents’ deaths.”

Something dark flared in the pit of Leah’s stomach, a taste surging up her throat. “What?”

Emma laid a hand on Louie’s soft fur. “I don’t know all the details, but there was some kind of tragedy overseas. His parents were always gone, trialing new medicines and the like. I think I saw them twice my whole childhood.”

That’s what Leah had picked up from Mrs. Q. She asked the question she hadn’t been able to ask with Gabriel sitting next to her. “Did Gabriel and his sister travel with them?”

“No. They used to leave Gabriel with their housekeeper in England, and then when Amelia, his sister, came along, his uncle stepped in to help Gabriel look after her. He’d have been around seventeen, eighteen, I think?” She shook her head, dismissing that.

Leah didn’t want to dismiss it. They hadn’t taken him with them. He’d been left alone. Always alone.

“Anyway, something happened when they were traveling, and they died. Some kind of raid, or attack? And because they couldn’t use magic in front of humans, they got killed. I remember everyone in society was in shock for weeks. Witches aren’t immortal, but we’re damn well long-lived. That his parents died so young freaked out a lot of people.”

“So, humans killed his parents?” Leah struggled with dismay.

“Yes. And he’s always held it as a barrier against integrating with humans. Irrational, but that’s Gabriel Goodnight.”

She didn’t know what to say, what to think. Yeah, it was irrational, but emotions were. She wanted to talk to him, to understand. To see if he still felt that way.

Emma was staring at her expectantly, as if Leah would suddenly acknowledge how weird it all was and make the cross sign against him.

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