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“The breaking of a bond requires the witch to sacrifice their magic.”

“Fuck that.” He put his hand over his mouth. He didn’t want to sound like one of those witches who thought only of magic. “Sorry. I want my magic, but I don’t know what to do with a mate.”

“Pray to the Fates that the bond fades. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No.” She’d been no help at all. “I’ll stop around when I get back.”

“I’ll make a note.” She hung up.

That had not gone well. He closed his eyes and saw Bailey—if that was even his name—and felt his hands on his body. His lips…the way he moved…

He sat up and shoved aside the thoughts before his magic reached out to his mate. He needed a cold shower and to get his shit together. He didn’t have time for this consuming distraction.

* * *

The bedroom doorswung open and thumped against the wall, waking him from pleasant dreams of getting naked with the witch. He lifted his knees, hoping Gran hadn’t noticed.

“Four cards, and two of them are cancelled already,” Gran snarled.

Bailey pulled his pillow over his head. He couldn’t deal with her demands after only a few hours of sleep.

Gran tugged at the bedsheets. “I gather more at the shops.”

“Then you go do it.” He mumbled from beneath the pillow, keeping hold of the sheets and wishing he was asleep and still in his dream.

She yanked the pillow off his head. “Lazy boy. Do you want the men totalkto you?”

Fury and fear coiled in his gut. “I did the best I could.”

And it was never enough. He hated it. Not just the stealing, but the threats that if he didn’t obey the men would show up. If he got out of bed, got on a train and left? He’d heard enough times that the only way out was in a coffin. And it wouldn’t just be bad for him. The men would take it out on his grandmother. He couldn’t let that happen either.

“Always men’s cards. Pretty ladies would be better.” She tutted and opened the bedroom curtains like he was seven, not seventeen.

“I’m not stealing from girls.” It was bad enough he was stealing at all.

She watched him with eyes as blue as summer but as bitter as winter. He didn’t remember his mother, only Gran. It had been the two of them until he’d turned five. Then he’d started school. “We need to do our work.”

“If I find a job, then we don’t need the men and their help. I can find something outside of school hours.” But he wasn’t quitting school. He wanted his leavers certificate. Then he’d leave. He’d do his best to disappear…and always be looking over his shoulder.

And if he stayed? He’d graduate from theft to getting blood on his hands.

She shook her head. “The men protect us, and we help them. We don’t get jobs. If we have jobs, then we need to do tax returns and then the government knows who we are. What we are. Do you want to end up in a lab?”

“No.” But the witch wasn’t in a lab. He glared up at his grandmother.

“We have to stick together. We’re family.” She smiled, her wrinkles shifting and softening. Her eyes were still like shattered glass.

“Yeah.” But he didn’t mean it, hadn’t for a while, but he didn’t know what else to do. Gran only had him, and he only had her. And he didn’t want her hurt because he ran. “Family.”

She nodded. “You’ll do better tonight.”

She didn’t shut the door when she left. Bailey stared up at the ceiling and the peeling paint. He couldn’t tell her about Kass and the bond. If there was one thing she hated more than the government, it was witches.

Fuck.

One kiss. One he’d actually wanted, not one for work. He pulled the wallet out of the drawer of his bedside table, knowing he should’ve ditched it already. But the blue leather was good quality, and the ID cards inside showed Kass stern and serious in uniform, as well as a more casual, though still unsmiling, photo on his driver’s license.

He smiled. Because he was an idiot.