Page 113 of A Witchy Spell Ride

“So do men who watch women sleep and call it love,” I said, still gentle. “Tell me about Adam.”

He stilled. Then he laughed, a thin high wire barely holding. “Every story needs a villain.”

“He was a decoy,” I said. “You wanted us to waste time. You wanted him blamed. Convenient that he also had a thing for me.”

“He didn’t deserve you,” Briggs snapped, heat breaking the glass. “He was… loud. Like all of them. Like your brother and his dogs.”

“And you’re what,” I asked, “quiet thunder?”

His chin lifted. “I’m patient.”

“Patient enough to sit in a motel room and wait,” I said, watching his pupils, “and when he walked in, you… what? Said amen and cut him open?”

Briggs’s eyes unfocused, like replaying a favorite movie. “He thought he was the main character,” he murmured. “He didn’t even look up at first. It was almost… peaceful.”

The blade on the altar gleamed. The edge was clean. He’d washed it since. Pride again.

“And the driver?” I pressed. “The jittery one. He ran.”

“He’s nobody,” Briggs said, dismissive. “He owed me a favor.”

“Does nobody have a name?” I made it a tease, not an interrogation.

He hesitated. “Ty.”

“Ty,” I repeated, tasting it. Not Banks. Not anyone with a patch. Just a skinny cousin who likes fast money. Good. Cross would find him. Reaper would turn him into a warning.

“Why the vent,” I asked. “Why show me you could snake a petal into my hallway?”

“So, you’dfeelme,” he said simply. “So, you’d know I wasn’t touching what was his. I was touchingyou.”

“You don’t listen,” I said, and let my mouth curve. “I’m not his either. I’m mine.”

“Not anymore,” he said, and the softness in his tone hardened into something devotional. “Not when I’ve done all this. You can’t walk away from a covenant.”

“Covenants need consent,” I said, voice still in that calm place I used for skittish customers and unpredictable storms. “And rings. And paperwork. You brought zip ties.”

He blinked.

“Speaking of,” I added lightly, wiggling my fingers, “they’re too tight. Kind of ruins the romance. If you want me tofeelyou, you should let me feel something besides plastic.”

He swallowed, pacing again, the blades of his shoulders twitching with each turn. “You’ll run.”

“Where,” I asked, widening my eyes in mock innocence and letting it catch candle flame. “There’s a door with a lock. A window with bars. You planned too well for me to be clever. Didn’t you?”

Pride won again.

He came back with a small craft knife and cut the tie on my left wrist. The nylon whispered as it parted. Pain flooded back in pins. I didn’t flinch. I kept my right wrist still so he wouldn’t notice the slack I’d already worked into it by heat and stubbornness.

He stepped behind me to cut the right tie.

“Wait,” I said quickly. “You’ll do it wrong. There’s a ritual for this.”

He paused. “What?”

“You think I’m joking about cleansing? We’re in a garage pretending it’s a church. If you want anything you believe in to stick, you have to followsomerules.” I nodded toward the plastic cup he’d abandoned. “Water. Both hands. Otherwise, you offend the element.”

He stilled. Ritual and control wrestled in him. He wanted to be the priest and the prophet and the lover and the hero. He wanted to beright. He set the knife down. Retrieved the cup. The tap coughed old pipes into a thin stream. He brought the water back like a man bringing wine.