Page 55 of Oh, Sacred Dark
In a leap of fear and hope, Roman did.
A gasp filled the room. Roman couldfeelit, feel his own magic finally tethered to something bigger than itself.
He hadn’t realised exactly how toxic and painful his old coven-bonds had gotten until that moment. Being tied to Imber had been like a sickness of the blood, as if his organs had been rotting away. His mind.
This was something else entirely. He could feel Archie, of course, a bright and guiding light, but behind him was the real beauty—the thriving community that tangled together in a beautiful constellation.
“Oh,” Roman breathed.
This was what it was supposed to be like. This wasn’t a cage—it was a foundation.
And then, from the undersoil, something tainted and bloody uncurled. Roman stilled, feeling it inside him, choking for a moment before it just—
Disappeared.
Roman rocked forward, touching his forehead to his knees, catching his breath. He was shaking, adrenaline making it hard to think.
“You okay?” Archie checked when Roman forced himself to straighten again. There was a wide smile on his dark face, hair in waves around him.
“Yes,” he lied. But…maybe it had been nothing. A final goodbye to old strains. “Thank you.”
Archie’s expression brightened further. “Welcome to the Meliora coven.”
Roman couldn’t help but smile, the impact of those words almost making tears spring to his eyes. He managed to hold them off until he stepped out of the Main House and found Cross, Charlie, and Connie waiting.
Cross had been clasped that morning and was standing there with a garland of flowers on his head. “They did the same for me.” He shrugged, eyes glittering.
“Congratulations,” Connie shouted, waving an ‘It’s a Boy!’ sign.
Charlie stepped forward, slinging a ring of flowers on Roman’s head. “There ya go. Don’t be looking too dapper, now, or Tyler’s gonna swoon.”
Tyler snorted, tracing one of the petals with a soft expression on his face.
Roman promptly started blubbering, hands over his face. They all crowded him, pulling him into the centre of an entropic hug.
They all took him to his new house. Roman felt as though he’d stopped processing things fully, standing in awe at the one-bedroom cottage, at the intricate carvings on the furniture, the soft upholstery, the rose bushes outside.
Roman ran his hand across a beautiful rocking chair, and a familiar magic warmed his fingers. He stared up at Tyler, eyes wide.
Tyler shrugged. “We can replace any furniture you don’t like. I don’t want you to think you don’t have a choice in what your place is like, I just wanted to—”
Roman cut him off, tackling Tyler into a hug and squeezing him tight. “Thank you,” he whispered into the Dom’s chest, pressing closer as arms came around him.
“You’re very welcome. And we didn’t decorate—that’s still all you.”
Roman nodded. He hadn’t known what home felt like.
In Tyler’s arms, he finally recognised the feeling.
And if there was a little shadow of something curling in the pit of his stomach, it would go away in time.
**********
A large party was thrown in one of the fields to celebrate Cross’s and Roman’s inductions into the coven. Someone had carved a pit in the middle of the area where a bonfire flared now, lighting up the new moon night.
Roman had only been told about the event a few hours before it started so, as Connie had so descriptively put it, ‘his adorable little head didn’t spin off his neck in a fit of overthinking.’
Perhaps Roman should have been irked that he was being managed, but he was just grateful instead. He would have insisted on cooking something, which of course would have been a ridiculous endeavour, considering how many people were going.
