Page 63 of His Whispered Witch

He shushed her and tipped her head back. She realized they were upright on the tiny shelf with her curled in his lap, her head on his shoulder. Her hands still clutched his shirt. They were sweaty and cramped, and she finally let go.

They were sitting in a truck with the engine off in summer on the prairie. The cottonwoods provided a bit of shade, but not enough. She was hot, sticky, and thirsty. She pushed away from his chest as her brain tried to normalize.

“I need a shower,” she said, looking down at herself. She was still wearing a shirt, too, and it was wrecked.

He chuckled, and she felt it against her hip.

“Grab your pants, and we can make that happen.”

She glanced out the windshield at the trees and the endless nothing behind them.

“Don’t tell me there’s a magic shower in the horse trailer.”

“Human habitat does exist out here. Somebody somewhere has a shower.” He cleared his throat. “And failing that, there’s always home.”

She paused as she was forcing jeans up over sweaty skin and wishing she’d brought a skirt.

Home.

She’d been so sure driving this roadtowardColorado that she was heading for home. She’d found a coven of misfits deep in the mountains where no one would bother her, and she could build her life and her business. Now, less than a year later, she was driving back down the mountain, having blown up every single commitment she made.

She glanced at Asher. He looked like some ancient Viking with his long white-gray hair slicked back with sweat. He looked younger, more peaceful, as if there wasn’t an epic internal battle being waged within him.

She hadn’t realized until they were gone how pronounced the lines of stress on his forehead and around his eyes were. She was immeasurably grateful that she could do that for him, even for a moment, to quiet that epic battle.

She leaned into him and kissed him with a sigh.

He pulled back a little. “Sound good?”

She just smiled wider.

“You okay?” he asked.

She realized she was far calmer as well. The manic adrenaline had burned itself out.

She hadn’t failed. She’d just found a better option, right? She blew up her new life because it needed blowing up, not because she’d epically screwed up once again.

She couldn’t help wondering if she was mistaking good sex for a good decision, but it was far, far too late to fix it now.

15

It was after eleven by the time they made it to West Virginia on the third day. Asher glanced over and confirmed Penn was still asleep, curled up in the passenger seat with the lizard wrapped around her like, well, a lizard with a giant heat source.

Asher maneuvered his truck carefully past the parking lot where they left most of the vehicles on the edge of pack land. He drove onto the bumpy track into the valley itself. He didn’t want to force her to walk through the woods in the dark for her first introduction to what was hopefully her new home.

When the trees thinned out, he could see two lights in the darkness, the porch light at the big house where he grew up as the alpha’s son and one on the front of the barn doors where two hundred horses were hopefully sleeping peacefully, soon to be joined by four donkeys. Why had he even brought them? What were they going to do on a horse ranch? He sighed; that was a tomorrow question.

He rolled to a careful stop and turned the key in the ignition. The sudden silence felt like an ending or a death, like he would never turn this truck on again, which was ludicrous. Theyweren’t prisoners, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of the door locking behind them.

He wanted to reach over and wake her, if only to catch the smile in her eyes, but he also didn’t know where they were going to sleep tonight, and he was going to have to wake somebody up to find out…

A light flicked on in the room above the front door of the big house. He was parked at the bottom of the lawn but could hear someone moving.

He took a deep breath. Step one was done. The alpha was awake.

He didn’t know how he knew it was Malcolm sliding out of the bed he shared with his mate and heading downstairs. That was information a normal wolf would be sharing with its human half, but his wolf was as silent as ever.

Is this you?he asked.

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