Page 26 of A Circle of Uncommon Witches

TWENTY-FOUR

The smell of lavender struck her first. Followed by clove and rose. A blend of tea her aunt made when she had been sick as a girl. As she came to, she realized she was lying on soft cotton, not the hard sand of a beach or in a grave, dead, as she had expected. She shifted, groaning when every muscle in her body screamed.

“I had hoped,” a voice said, deep and groggy and ridiculously sexy, “that I was finally going to save you, and yet, once again, you saved me.”

The smile broke before she opened her eyes. When she did, Doreen found Ambrose lying beside her in the bed at her aunt’s home, the one she had slept in as a girl. He was every bit as bruised and scraped as she felt, but his eyes twinkled, and his hand was slipped around hers.

“How are we not dead?” she asked, her throat tight, her voice strained.

“You’re very lucky,” Stella said, entering, “that your aunt and I were able to reach you and keep you both from jumping off the ledge. Took every bit of our strength to stay open and hold back your spirits when they tried to do something stupid.”

“Our spirits?” Doreen asked.

“You never left this world,” she continued. “Your mind entered the prison world, and so your bodies were stuck in the rain and elements for weeks. Thankfully they were bespelled, but you’re incredibly lucky. You called for me.”

“You’re welcome,” Doreen said, shifting her gaze to her aunt’s. “For, you know, killing Ada and freeing the trapped souls, and making sure you didn’t end up there when you went tits up.”

Stella sniffed and smiled. Doreen laughed, and then coughed.

“You did marvelous. Safe as secrets. As it ever was,” Stella said, her eyes shifting to Ambrose. “He hasn’t left your side in days.”

“And yet, you’re in the room together,” Doreen said.

“I…” Stella cleared her throat. “I had amends to make. I was wrong, and my actions were unconscionable. Ambrose has been so distraught he simply waved me away and continued panicking over you. He was quite insistent we keep a minute-by-minute watch over you and that he be the main guard.”

“You’ve forgiven her,” Doreen said. She could see it, even if he could not say it, or wasn’t ready to admit it to himself.

“Losing you is all that mattered,” he said, before flicking a glance at Stella. “Don’t need to kill you until she’s better, witch,” Ambrose said, though the corner of his mouth twitched.

Stella rolled her eyes. “I would deserve it, though I can guarantee I am not one to go without a fight. After all, my niece takes after me.” She placed a cup of fresh tea on the table for Doreen, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and whispered another apology. This one rang deep into Doreen’s bones, and she swallowed around the lump in her throat. She nodded to Stella, who gave her arm a tight squeeze before she walked out of the room.

“You’re really okay?” Doreen asked, reaching up to touch Ambrose’s face. He brought her hand to his lips and his kiss lingered on her fingertips.

“I am free, and I am in love,” he said. “I am the best I have ever been.”

“You’re not… dying?” she asked, wincing as she said it.

“I am dying,” he said, his tone cheerful. “As you are and as Stella is, though I think she will go faster. I will die years from now, after we have had a love for the ages, you and I.” He grinned, then stopped, glaring at the wall. “Together, I mean. Not that you will have one without me.”

She laughed, and her heart felt as though it might burst from the hope building there. “Margot? She’s okay?”

“She is waiting downstairs. She and her mother were braiding clovers. She said they had to write a new spell to rebind the whole coven, the living and the dead, and that when you woke, I was to bring you down straightaway.”

“Sounds like Margot.”

“She sent her Dean away,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “With the curse broken, she swears he needed to be free. He isn’t taking to it. Has been calling day and night, but she thinks the curse is delayed for him.”

“What do you think?”

“I think Dean may have a bit more to him, but time will tell.”

“Hmm,” she said, reaching for the tea, finding she wasn’t quite as sore as she thought. She drank it down, and then she turned to Ambrose, her hands finding his face again. “I think my strength is returning,” she said, relief and desire coursing through her as her power flared bright and brilliant in her veins. He laughed and his lips found hers, until Doreen didn’t bother to think at all.

Ambrose’s hands slipped into her hair as her hands slid into his shirt. She gasped as he took the kiss deeper, and she pressed against him before she leaned back and yanked his shirt up and off. He murmured her name, and the sound vibrated across her skin. Every nerve ending on her body lit with desire, and Doreen’s mouth turned greedy as it sought his. Soon it was a clash of tongues and lips, and the occasional scrape of teeth. Every angle brought the need higher, and soon their hands grew as rough as the sounds they made.

Ambrose lifted her up and over, so she was straddling him. He was careful in his movements, treating her as though she were more precious than a promise, as he removed her clothes in the time it took mortal men to blink.

Doreen explored his chest, biceps, and collarbone with her teeth and tongue. Ambrose’s moans steamed the room, and Doreen had never felt more powerful as she took control. Their forms aligned, and as she lost herself in the ecstasy of his body, it was even better than Doreen could have dreamed, had she been a dreamer.

After a nap, and another round of discovering new angles of Ambrose—he was wonderfully ticklish under his left knee—Doreen sent him downstairs as she showered. She was eager to see Margot, to thank her and hug her, and to help with the binding of the family.

It was right, and it was time for new beginnings for all of them.

She finished toweling off her hair and looked into the mirror before she turned to shut the light off and leave the bath. She stopped, blinked, and swallowed.

A faint outline flickered behind her. The image of a woman, there and gone.

The ghost had touched her eyes, then pointed at Doreen.

The lady of the Goodbye Castle, her scent of moonflower lingering on the air. Doreen shook off the shock and smiled to herself. Margaret had been saying goodbye. Doreen hoped she was free now too.

“May you be free, and may you finally find peace,” Doreen said to the space where she had been. “Thank you.”

She flipped the light off, and starshine drifted in from the open window.

Doreen looked up into the mirror again as she went to step away, and this time her breath caught. Her cheeks were flushed, her skin was rosy from the shower, her smile was tender, but her eyes…

“The spell is the truth, the truth is the spell,” she whispered as she stared into her own eyes, which now glowed in the dark, a bright and luminescent shade of pearl.