Page 21 of Pitch a Witch
“I’m still Miss. Byrne to you, Blackman.” Avoiding his burning gaze, I shuffled to the torture device that was a guest chair in Danika’s world, and after turning it to face River, I lowered on it with a groan. “We are not that close, you and I.”
“You call me a pigeon.” Amusement rang loud in his tone, and because of that, I had to roll my mouth so it didn’t curl into a smile. Damn him.
“I call everyone names, Mr. Blackman. Trust me, you’re not that special.” Sissily snorted at my gibe but coughed to cover it up.
“It’s true,” my best friend informed Blondie, her voice croaking while she suppressed the laughter we could clearly see dancing in her blue eyes.
“Firefly,” River mused while eyeballing me critically.
“Huh?” My eloquent reply was answered by a painfully slow growing smile on his handsome face.
My heart tripped over itself before galloping hard enough to make my borrowed t-shirt tremble over my skin. An imaginary feather started tickling the back of my throat, and I pressed my thighs closed to calm down my hormonal reaction to him. None of which he missed, judging by the heating of his gaze, which was glued on me.
“You can call me a pigeon.” I had a very bad feeling we were no longer talking about birds or insects, and the conversation had headed toward the deep end of the ocean while I had no clue how to swim. “I will call you a firefly. It’s only fair.” Insufferably and deliberately, his peepers rolled from my face down my neck and chest before they pointedly settled on the bare skin of my arm.
The weakling that I was, I followed their direction to the blinking sigils under my skin that illuminated it in uneven intervals. Just like a firefly, my mind supplied unnecessarily, and something in me shifted emotionally, but I felt it like a physical sensation.
“Aww, that’s sweet,” Sissily gushed, and I flung my gaze at her like an accusation. In answer, she jutted her chin as if daring me to call her out on it. And just because she loved making fun of me, she grinned as she said, “Say thank you, Hazel.”
“You know I’m not a monkey performing tricks, right?” But I watched Blondie from the corner of my eye, and the soft smile that played on his lips almost undid me. “Why are we here again?”
“Because we can’t exit the wards.” My friend spoke with so much glee I had half a mind to throw something at her.
“Hazel,” a familiar voice bellowed my name loud enough to be heard through the closed door, and it freaked the crap out of me.
My ass lifted a foot of the chair when I jumped.
14
Amber burst through the door with a frantic look on her ashen face, and the moment her horror-filled gaze landed on mine, she hurled herself at me from a few feet away. The chair tipped and wobbled on its back legs, sending my heart into my throat, but thankfully we didn’t go down. My bones did not fare so well, though, because she wrapped herself around me like cellophane, restricting my oxygen intake as if the older woman was a python ready to swallow me whole.
Panicked, I searched the faces of River and Sissily for help.
“Oh, thank goodness you are alive.” Amber sobbed into my hair, digging her slightly elongated nails into my back as she fought the need to shift. “I thought the worst when we were blocked by the ward and saw all the demons surging through it.”
“I’m sorry.” Tears prickled at the back of my eyes as I awkwardly hugged her back. “I didn’t mean to worry you, I swear. I’m fine, I promise.”
It spoke volumes about what kind of a person Amber was when my own flesh and blood never blinked an eye no matter what happened to me. The fact that her heart was beating so fast it thumped against my own chest made me feel like shit for sneaking out, but in my defense, I never expected her to react that way.
Alex stormed in a moment later, bare chested but with an air of barely restrained fury that made me stiffen in his mate’s arms. Sure that he was about to start raging and probably tell me to never return to his land again, I bit on the inside of my cheek to suppress a whimper. For whatever reason, the idea of never going back sounded too horrible to contemplate. I even flinched when he stomped toward me and pathetically shrunk back so I could hide behind Amber.
“I should smack you right now for scaring us like that,” the Alpha snarled viciously before his tree-trunk arms curled around both Amber and me.
Flabbergasted, all I could do was gape when I ended up with a face full of bare muscles, and a gasp was ripped out of my chest when I felt the proud man trembling. It took a moment to realize I was continuously mumbling apologies while they held me squeezed between them in a vise-like embrace, and my eyes darted to River, who hadn’t moved the entire time. What I saw in his gaze was another punch in the gut.
“I thought you’d be angry,” I told the couple honestly. “I hoped to be back before you noticed I was gone, but …” My voice trailed off because they knew what had happened without me reminding them of it.
“You better believe that I’m angry, young lady.” Alex released his punishing hold but kept his hand on my upper arm. “But just because I feel like lecturing you right now, that doesn’t mean you didn’t scare the daylights out of us. I’m sure I’ll find a way to punish you for shortening my life, don’t you worry.”
Smoothing the wild corkscrews of Amber’s hair, I peeked through them to see his face. His mismatched eyes burned with suppressed anger, but I could tell not all of it was aimed at me. “I’d understand if you didn’t want me to come back.” Him wanting me around his family again, was the last thing I’d expected after what I’d done.
“Is that so?” Alex huffed like I was a dumbass. “My mate loves you as much as she loves our young. They, all of them, think you are some superhero who can do no wrong. My beta disobeyed my orders to do your bidding. Of course, you are coming back.”
“What about you?” It was out before I could stop it, and my breath froze in my lungs as I waited for his answer. In just a few days, his opinion of me mattered more than what Danika thought.
“I never turn my back on pack, Hazel. You are not a shifter, but you are pack. Nothing will change that, not even your grandmother’s ploys.” The truth of his words shone brightly in his mismatched gaze, and hot tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Thank you.” My choked gratitude softened the harsh lines on his face. “How are you here? The ward?”
