Page 14 of Mane Squeeze
He looked back.
“Whatever this is, don’t treat it like one of your games. You get one shot with someone like her.”
Dominic didn’t reply. But his hand brushed the doorframe on the way out, grounding himself before stepping back into her orbit.
She looked up as he approached, arms still crossed, eyes unreadable.
“Well?” she asked.
He smirked. “Bad news. You’re stuck with me.”
“Oh yay,” she sighed sarcastically, but didn’t walk away.
Which, he’d decided, was progress. Even if, technically, she couldn’t.
6
LILLITH
Lillith was cursed. Literally. Magically. Emotionally. And possibly cosmically.
And not just because of the soul-tethering or the fae prince with a flair for drama. No, this was worse. This wasdomestic.
She stood in the doorway to her guest room—hersanctuary of solitude, her sacred space of scented charm bags and books she never lent out—watching Dominic Kane stretch out on the freshly aired bed like he’d always belonged there.
“Don’t wrinkle the quilt,” she snapped.
He turned his head lazily toward her, hair a mess of gold and shadows against her sage-green pillowcase. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Lillith muttered a ward under her breath just to keep her hands from glowing.
The house had sealed the moment he stepped inside the room. Literally sealed. Golden runes bloomed across the doorframe in swirling script, locking with a satisfied sigh like a gossiping aunt who finally got the tea she wanted. The air in the cottage shimmered faintly—content, as if it had been waitingfor this exact arrangement and could now stop holding its metaphorical breath.
“It’s notweirdat all that my house is matchmaking now,” she muttered, pacing into the hallway.
Behind her, Dominic yawned. “Pretty sure that’s just good architecture.”
“Pretty sure you’re just smug because my windows like you.”
“They do, don’t they?”
She glared at the kitchen door as it creaked open just wide enough to let the scent of cinnamon float through. “Betrayal,” she whispered at the woodwork. “I loved you.”
In the kitchen, the kettle started to boil.
Lillith dragged her fingers through her hair, trying not to combust.
They had no answers. No Hazel, no Twyla insight, no ancient grimoire that screamed “here’s how to uncouple yourself from a magically binding curse forged by an ex-boyfriend-level fae prince with issues.” Just questions. Tension. And a growing headache shaped suspiciously like Dominic’s lopsided grin.
So they were going to have to do the unthinkable:get on with life.
That meant sharing a home, respecting personal space, and trying not to murder each other over whose turn it was to steep the night tea.
It also meant accepting the consequences of being two magically bound adults living in a town where privacy was a myth and every fence had ears.
She found that out the next morning.
She was elbow-deep in potion prep, her hair pinned messily atop her head and lavender stains smeared across her knuckles, when someone knocked.
