Page 23 of His Whispered Witch

“It turns out most people don’t love chocolate. They love sugar.”

She looked over into the bowl. “You’re making chocolate from scratch.”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“It, um, is?”

She looked back at him. “So you weren’t banished for being super violent?”

He laughed. “What? No! I have a pack. Nobody banished me.”

“What?”

“No, they were super pissed when I left.”

“Are they in trouble? Running out of territory? Threatened?”

He didn’t know what she was trying to figure out with these questions. “No. They’re doing great.”

“So you banished yourself.”

He’d never put it in quite those terms. “Yes.”

“And if I fix you, will you go back?”

He opened his mouth and closed it. Would he go back? Could he go back? Could he slot back in and see the trees flowering in the spring? Trees did not flower in Colorado; they just spat out leaves. Then in the fall, they all turned yellow and brown and died, nothing like the foliage of the Appalachians. Could he see that again?

“Yes.”

She stared out the window, but he could tell she wasn’t seeing anything.

Absently, she swiped her finger through the chocolate again and then came back to herself when she put it in her mouth.

He was alone in silence all day for months and years at a time, but how come it sounded so loud when there was another person in it with him?

“Did you banish yourself?” he asked

She turned back to him, an eyebrow raised. “Did I banish myself?”

“Your car has Pennsylvania plates, and you explained you don’t have a coven, just a collection of leftover witches. Leftover from what?”

“The Youngs of Pennsylvania were a coven with territory an hour outside of Philly in Amish country, though we weren’t.” She ran a hand over her nearly shaved scalp. “Obviously. Another coven took us over.”

“You said that.”

“That’s what happened.”

He raised an eyebrow. “If they wanted more power, you were a perk of the territory, not to be banished.”

“You’re right. They wanted me to stay. Had a dude all lined up. It’s not as weird as it sounds. All witches have arranged?—”

“Oh, I know,” Asher said feelingly.

“Forgive me, but how the hell do you know that? I knew nothing about werewolves. I’ve been double-checking the bushes on the full moon, and you know how we find our husbands.”

Unlike most shifters, he grew up with a witch who had fled just such an arranged marriage and married one of his uncles instead. It was she who had shown him the world of magic and what was possible between a shifter and a witch.

---