Page 5 of Truly Madly Magically

I’m protecting myself and our baby, that’s all.

Because protection is the name of the game. If I hadn’t learned that when my father’s disastrous double life came to light, causing my mother to accidentally curse me, I certainly learned it when Zander decided that our senior year Beltane prom was the time to break up with me when we had promised each other we were going to be together. Forever.

“I don’t understand.” Zander sounds grim, but also confused, and I know he’s working through all the same things I did when I finally understood what my weird symptoms meant. Having cycled through all other options first. Twice. “All those years we...?”

I know he doesn’t mean the years in high school we were so hot and heavy that it’s a wonder we didn’t burn the whole town down. He means that secret we keep from everyone, and have for a decade.

Zander and I don’t spend time alone. Because we don’t get along—to put it mildly. We don’t like to breathe the same air, and no one who knows us has any doubts on this score. We make sure of it.

This is true every day of the year—except on Beltane.

Because those first few weeks after Beltane prom our senior year, our breakup was terrible, but we still couldn’t seem to keep our hands off each other. All wildfire and terrible storms day in and day out until we were both half-sick with it. Screaming at each other in high school hallways, parking lots, the middle of Main Street. Sobbing on the floor. Punching fists through walls. Nothing worked. Nothing settled us down. We could hate each other, and we often did, and still want our hands all over each other.

No matter what damage it did to both of us.

Hate is its own protection.

But it exacts its own price.

Back then, we made a compromise. Total abstinence from our destructive, all-consuming hunger throughout the year, with one cheat day. One very, very long cheat night. On Beltane we eat each other alive and don’t talk about it when the sun comes up. On the days I can’t think for wanting to punch him and fuck him, well, I know I can hold off until Beltane, when I can do both.

And do.

Back in the beginning, I figured it’d work so well we’d only need one Beltane, maybe two, to be cured. I was sure there had to be someone else out there who knew their way around an orgasm so I could move on at last.

These days I suspect we’ll never be cured.

But he’s right that we’ve had ten years of secret Beltane nights with no consequences. Until this one. The great thing about being a witch, even just half a witch, is the ability to use magic as birth control. Go figure, mine finally let me down.

“I don’t know how or why I’m pregnant. I just know that I am.”

He holds up a hand, and his gaze changes. Darkens, somehow. “May to June. To July. August. September.” He ticks off the months with his fingers. “Four months. You haven’t told me for four months.” He squints at me, still not entirely sober because he hasn’t taken even a sip of my cure for him. But that sudden, intense focus I see on his face is definitely him trying to break through my glamour. Also I can feel it.

His magic has a flavor a lot like his scent. Woodsmoke, whiskey, and the pull of the rivers all around us.

I know he’d probably break right through the glamour if he was full-on sober, but I don’t want that. So I do what it takes to protect myself. Not with magic, but with my other tools.

“You try breaking that news to someone, Zander. Oh wait, you’re a man, so of course you’ll never have to. You could have children littered all over witchdom for all you know.”

He has the nerve to roll his eyes. “Why tell me now, then?”

That gives me pause, which is less fun than poking at him. I’m all for hurting Zander in the ways I can hurt him, but I don’t want to use Zelda as a weapon. That feels like stooping too low, even for us.

But I can’t lie. And the evasions I can use to twist around my curse don’t work on him. Or anyone who knows me well enough to know what my pointed evasions mean.

“Why now?” he repeats, with that same focus, more sober by the second.

I don’t know if he suspects something or if he just knows I’m hesitating because it’s going to hurt. The problem is that we know each other too well. We know where all the wounds and scars are, because we’re the ones who hurt each other first and worst. Like too many things in my life, it’s as much a blessing as it is a curse, and right now it sucks.

“Who else knows?” he asks, changing tactics.

I brace myself against that voice, serious and dark and low. “No one drawing breath on Hecate’s madly spinning earth.” Not a lie. Spirits can’t breathe. “I was always going to tell you first.” I said it so it has to be true, but I know I have to tell him about Zelda. Because it’s the right thing to do. And I like to be salty, I won’t deny it, but not about this. “Your mother came to see me tonight.”

Zander sucks in a breath, like I’ve reached out and stabbed him with my athame instead of staying right by the closed front door with an entire room between us.

“Nice.” His gruff voice hurts to hear. His storm cloud gaze hurts to hold. “She say hi?”

He doesn’t wait for my answer. He goes for his cabinet, where we both know he stocks the alcohol he actually bothers to put away. To throw more oblivion on the problem like he’s been doing all summer.

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