Page 14 of Secrets of the Eternal Flame

‘Maybe,’ I admitted.

His eyes twinkled. ‘If I’dknown you could take out red lights, I would’ve gone even faster the other day!’ As if I could have handled any faster. I glared at him.

‘I’m going to drop Nour back at her house,’ he continued, ‘then I need to see Dad about pack stuff. I suspect there’s a tonne of shit I need to shovel. I’ll message you later. Stay in touch and let me know how it goes. If you need anything, you know where I am.’

‘Thanks, Ez,’ I said. I leaned back to wave at Nour behind him. ‘See you soon, Nour!’ She waved but kept her face helmet in place so they were ready to take off.

‘Thanks for everything, Ezra,’ Fraser said. ‘I really appreciate it.’

Ezra extended his hand and fist-bumped Fraser through the window. I felt warm and fuzzy all over again: the men in my life were getting along, and that mattered a surprising amount to me.

Ezra snapped down his visor, revved the bike engine and rode off. We followed; we had finally reached the outskirts of Witchlight before Fraser spoke again. ‘Where do you and Maddie want dropping off? I’m happy to take you home, but there’s enough room at my place if you want to stay.’

‘Thanks,’ I replied, ‘but Yanni’s been looking after the cottage for long enough. We should get back.’

‘No problem.’ He hesitated. ‘I could pop over later with some food from the restaurant to save you cooking dinner?’

‘That would be amazing,’ Maddie said before I could reply. Fraser had already given up so much time for me, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t because the bond was forcing him to. In fact, I suspected that even if he hadn’t given me his pelt he would still have come on this journey with us.

‘Can you get me one of your delicious curries?’ Maddie asked.

‘Sure. Bea, is there anything you want?’ He paused and grinned. ‘Other than Oyster Bay?’

The way he’d assumed I probably needed alcohol wasn’t really a positive, but I was grateful all the same. ‘To be honest, I’m not all that hungry.’

‘Pizza,’ Maddie said decisively. ‘Bring her pizza.’

‘I probably wouldn’t say no to pizza.’

‘You’ve got it.’

When we arrived at my home, Fraser stopped the engine and climbed out to help us with our bags. In the six weeks we’d been gone, summer had well and truly arrived and it was still light. ‘Thank you,’ I said, sharing a moment alone with him while Maddie rifled through her bags for her house keys.

‘Eva!’she demanded. ‘Where have you put my damned keys?’ Eva replied with a bark and pawed at a section of Maddie’s bag.

I met Fraser’s stormy blue eyes. ‘We still need to talk.’

‘We do,’ he agreed. ‘All I ask is that you give us a chance to do that before you do anything.’

‘Like bond my soul to a huge magical flame?’

A smile tugged at his lips. ‘Like that.’

I rocked back on my heels. ‘Okay, I’ll wait for you to come with food and maybe we can talk then.’

He nodded. ‘Sounds good.’ He stepped closer. ‘Do I get a goodbye kiss?’

We hadn’t kissed since our fight and I found that I really wanted to rectify that, but Maddie was still arguing with Eva only a few feet away so I gave him a demure brush of my lips. ‘Just a little one,’ I said as I moved away. ‘You can have a better one later.’

His eyes glittered. ‘I’ll hold you to that. I won’t be long.’

I cleared my throat. ‘And maybe we could pencil in that date we’ve been talking about?’

‘Agreed. Let’s put it in the diary for this week. We’ll do something, just the two of us.’

‘That would be nice,’ I admitted, as Maddie finally entered the house.

A momentlater she screamed, a sound that pierced me to my very soul. Panic shot through me as I dived inside.Please don’t let it be Grandmother!‘Maddie!’ I yelled as I raced in with Fraser behind me.

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