Page 5 of The Witch & the Hound
"It's a good town," I heard myself say, as if I needed to sell it to him. "It just… takes time to warm up."
"I don't need warm," he said, and then, after a beat, almost so low I missed it: "I need useful."
The way he said it made my chest tighten. Like warmth was for other people, and he'd settled for utility. Like that was all he was allowed to ask for, all he thought he deserved. A year in our world. A year of making himself useful to anyone who'd let him, and maybe that was the only way they let him stay.
Something in my chest ached. I turned to study him, the long line of his throat, the clean geometry of his jaw, the horns catching a last milky ribbon of light. A year in our world. A year of making himself useful to anyone who’d let him. I knew that kind of bargain. I’d made it with the city and my badge and a basement full of soap.
"You're more than useful," I said, and immediately wanted to choke on the earnestness. Too much. Too raw. I backpedaled. "I mean, today. You kept me from becoming a cautionary tale on Aisle Thirteen. That's at least one step above useful."
His mouth made that almost-smile again, as if he were trying it on. “You were very red,” he said, solemn as a judge.
“Thank you. I pride myself on dramatic color stories.”
We turned down my street, Tudor Revival cottages with shuttered eyes, hydrangeas gone papery, porches sporting tasteful ghosts. He eased to the curb in front of my place, andfor a ridiculous second, I saw it the way a stranger might: half-timbered charm, climbing rosemary, a small workshop tucked behind like a secret. My house. My stubborn, hard-won life. And for the first time in years, I wondered what someone else saw when they looked at it. Not just the house, but the life I'd built in the ruins of the old one.
Bram cut the engine but didn’t move. He scanned the street, porches, parked cars, the alley that cut behind the row. He cataloged threats only he could see. It should have been unnerving. It made my shoulders drop an inch.For once, someone else was scanning the exits. For once, someone else was on guard so I didn’t have to be.
“Do you want me to—” He stopped, glanced at my tote. “I should carry that.”
“I’ve got it,” I said on reflex, then relented when my knees chimed in from the cheap seats. “Okay. Maybe you can take one end.”
We wrestled the tote up the short walk like partners moving a couch, and I realized two things in fast succession: 1) he was deliberately letting me take some of the weight, and 2) his skin felt cool even through the brush of our sleeves. Cool and smooth, even in the late afternoon warmth.
He wanted me to feel strong, even when he could've lifted the whole thing with one hand. He wanted me to share the burden,not just be carried. And damn if that didn't make my chest do something complicated and inconvenient.
On the porch, I dug for my keys while he cast that slow, methodical look across my little slice of the world. His tail made a lazy arc, then tucked along the rail, patient as a rope.
“Nice house,” he said.
“Thank you. She leaks in the nor’easters, and the plumbing makes sounds like a haunted oboe, but she’s mine.” I unlocked the door and propped it open with my hip. "Workshop's out back. Where I make the soap that apparently smells like rosemary and questionable life choices."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Interest, definitely. Not wishful thinking.
We parked the tote just inside, and I turned, suddenly aware that I'd brought a horned, velvet-skinned stranger to my threshold like some ancient folklore story, only reversed, the witch inviting the beast in. Except he didn't look like he wanted to eat me. He looked like he was waiting for permission to care whether I made it through the door without collapsing.
“I’m fine from here,” I said, because boundaries were important, and also because my pulse had climbed into my mouth and set up a drum circle.
Bram looked at me. Not through me,atme, with that steady, evaluating attention that had nothing to do with my hair being a disaster and everything to do with whether I'd make it throughthe next hour without face-planting again. He nodded once, accepting my boundary like it was law.
"If you need anything," he said, reaching into his pocket, "you can call." He produced a small, slightly bent business card: BARROW'S SUPERMART in block letters, a store number, and below it a name written in neat, uncompromising handwriting.Bram.Just that. Like he didn't need a last name or didn't have one to give.
I took it. His fingers brushed mine. Zing, again, low and deep, like my body had started saving up sparks to fling at me when I least expected it. If this was what sparks felt like after forty, maybe spontaneous combustion wasn't the worst way to go.
“I’ll bring an umbrella next time,” I said, and immediately wanted to walk into the sea.
“Good idea,” he said, failing once more to recognize a joke as a joke, and yet by some miracle not killing it. “Rest. Drink water. Avoid toy aisles.”
Chapter 3
Bram
I should have left.
I was halfway down her walk, hand on my car door, when she called out from her porch: "Want to stay for dinner?"
I should have said no. Should have made an excuse about work, about the drive back, about anything that would get me safely back to my beige apartment where I couldn't make mistakes like this.
Instead, I stepped inside.
