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When she’d shied away from healing magic, when she’d chosen instead to embrace her power in a darker, more violent way, a part of Fey had always thought she should have been born a Fire Witch. Felt she was more suited to the rage and violence that was associated with the Fire Coven. And now that power, that energy danced inside of her, raw and powerful.

But it wasn’t her. Wasn’t fully her, anyway.

Each of the four elements was a pulse inside her now, flowing through her like her own blood. But one sang louder than the others, one called to her on a deeper level, beat in time with the same pulse as her heart.

Standing in the heat of the shower, feeling the air and water and fire and earth all around her, Fey knew with absolute certainty that she was a Water Witch after all.

It was strange to acknowledge it. She’d always rejected it, always thought the Goddess had chosen wrong when she had gifted her the power over Water. She didn’t use it the right way, hadn’t even once used it to heal, or help—not knowingly, anyway. But Water didn’t just heal. It could drown you, freeze you, boil you. It was death just as much as it was life. And now that she could feel the Goddess’s touch in everything around her, she knew she wasn’t using her power wrong at all. Had never been using it wrong.

What am I? she asked herself. And this time she knew the answer.

She was Fey. She was a Water Witch. Always had been. This was the power the Goddess had chosen for her, knowing how she would use it. It wasn’t blasphemy, what she did with it. It was… right.

She felt complete. For the first time in her life, alone and fractured from her sisters, Fey finally felt complete. Sure, the resurgence of Fire and Earth in her body had helped, but it was the surge of Water that had filled her that completed her.

Fey reached for a bottle of soap and began to wash herself, knowing that no matter what happened in the coming days, at least she had this.

At least she finally knew who she was.

Chapter 50

ALASTAIR

“Thanks for this,” Alastair said, taking the pizza boxes from Jasper. “Really, I owe you. Now get the fuck out of my home.”

Jasper chuckled, leaning back against the door behind him. “You’re the boss,” he said, but instead of leaving, instead of turning his ass around and walking right back out the door, he tipped his head to the side, as though listening.

“Is that her?” he asked. “In the shower?”

“I hear a lot of talking, and not a lot of ‘getting the fuck out of my home,’ Jasper.”

Jasper’s smile only grew, a predatory glint in his eyes. “You mind if I join her in there? I haven’t had a chance to shower yet, and it sounds like she’s had a stressful time lately, you know? I bet she could use some relaxation, and if there’s one thing dogs are great at, it’s licking?—”

“Jasper, if you finish that sentence, I will fucking kill you. If you think about getting into that shower again, I will fucking kill you. If you look at her, if you glance in her direction, I will fucking kill you.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Get the fuck out of my house, Jasper. Be a good doggy and get your ass to work before we have a problem.”

Jasper’s laughter followed him out and onto the street as he left, but even still Alastair stayed in the doorway a little longer than necessary, to make sure he’d gone.

Smart ass fucking Wolf, he thought. Alastair had never been the jealous type, not really. But after spending the last few days thinking Fey had been found and killed, he couldn’t stand the idea of another male being around her right now. Some protective, fucked up instinct was rearing its ugly head and was taking full control of him.

Satisfied Jasper had, in fact, gone to work like a good puppy, Alastair closed the heavy door and engaged the lock. Faintly, he heard the shower turning off, so he carried the pizzas into the kitchen and began to assemble everything he would need to make sure his Witch was well fed.

“Is that pizza I smell?” he heard her call from his bedroom. The eagerness in her voice made him smile.

“Pepperoni and meat lovers,” he called back, and when she groaned in response, his cock twitched.

Fuck. He’d been hard since the moment she’d left to shower. Since the moment he started picturing her wet and naked and perfect, and it had taken all of his very limited self-control not to break the door down and join her. But food, first. Sleep after. She must be exhausted—wherever she’d been these last few days, whatever she’d been doing, she looked raw and hurt. His cock could wait.

As if on cue, it twitched again, as though to say no I fucking can’t. Not with her.

Alastair growled.

He heard her footsteps on the wooden floor of his living room and quickly piled a few slices of pizza on a plate for her.

“Did you want something to drink?” he asked, poking his head out of the kitchen to address her. “I have wine, or—” Alastair stopped mid-sentence. Stopped and stared.