Page 89 of The Most Wanted Witch

It would be the last time. I’d meet him and tell him we’d fixed the problem. It would be over. It might ruin this evening, but by tomorrow, I’d wake up without this hanging over my head and be back to gooey pie feelings.

Hawk walked over, waiting for me to open it. “He wants a meeting, I assume.”

I felt Bibbi shifting closer, everyone waiting for the inevitable.

I opened the parchment.

“Yes, he does.”

35

“You don’t need to come with me. I can handle it. You should be resting,” Hawk said, stealing my lines.

“I rested all day and it’smymeeting, remember? The invite was for me.”

He was walking beside me toward the square, and for the first time in a long time, things felt like they were getting back to normal. I hadn’t spotted a grouslie since we started out, and the ever-present feeling of Dread that had plagued Xest was gone. Lou had said that the hill we’d trapped it in might not hold, but I was beginning to feel like everyone else. I was going to enjoy the reprieve and revel in the success we did have.

“After what you did yesterday, most witches wouldn’t be alive.” There was a heavy pause before he added, “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

He spoke in a tone I’d never heard him use, ever.

“Why, Hawk, you sound surprised. I didn’t realize that was possible.”

“I’ve known for a long time you were different, but that was an entirely different level.”

There was that tone again, the one that made my spine feel an inch longer. As much as I wanted to thank him coolly, say something suave and sophisticated, I was afraid to speak. I felt like a dog that had just robbed a cupcake off the counter and gotten away with it. That the golden retriever inside of me would end up doing something goofy, like slobbering all over him for giving me praise.

Plus, the way he was looking at me was beyond words. I’d seen lust in his eyes before, but not this. This was something utterly different. No one had ever looked at me the way he did.

Had I been the idiot this whole time not believing Bibbi? Had Hawk declared for me? It wouldn’t be my first blunder in judgment. Nor the second, or the hundredth, and definitely not the last.

My feet slowed as the shock to my system began sucking up all the available energy in order to process what I was sensing.

I kept slowing until I’d stopped completely.

“Are you okay?” he asked, stopping not far from me.

I stared at him for a few seconds, having a hard time believing I was going to rehash this conversation, and right now, of all times. “You did declare. You called it an old wives’ tale, but it wasn’t, was it?”

His eyes locked on mine. “I don’t think the timing is quite right for this discussion,” he said, before looking the other way.

Up ahead, Xazier stood, waiting. At that moment, I didn’t care if Xazier waited. But what if Hawk was stalling so he didn’t have to tell me how wrong I was right before this meeting? Did I really want to be rejected right now?

Hawk was right. This conversation was better off at a later time, or never. Maybe never?

All that gooeyness was getting to my head. I shoveled it away, focusing on Xazier. It might be an act, but he didn’t look as angry or annoyed as I’d hoped. He had to know that we’d trapped Dread. He had his finger on the pulse of everything here, not to mention you could literally feel its absence.

“If things go bad, please, for the love of Xest, follow my lead for once in your life,” Hawk said, hearing the same alarm bells I had.

I opened my mouth to say I would but then had to pause. “I’ll try.” It was the best I could offer. If he did something I disagreed with, I’d end up doing things my way no matter what I said. It was best to set realistic expectations.

He looked at me, shaking his head. “I gave you your way on the hill and I can’t get this?”

“Let’s be honest about that—you were touch and go at best. You were a hair away from stepping in and trying to call the shots,” I said. He was going to play the hill card? That was hardly an earth-shattering compromise.

“ButIdidn’t.” He tilted his head, the way he did when he was convinced of his rightness.

“Is this really the time?” I asked, making a point of looking up ahead and smiling. If the hair on the back of my neck was accurate, it might be the only smiling that would happen for the rest of the night.

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