Page 11
Story: The Hazelwood Pact
The dream unfurled slowly, the way old memories sometimes did: half-sweet, half-dangerous, all too real.
Rowan was back in the Nine Grove.
Not the ruin it had become, overgrown and half-forgotten, choked with nettle and regret, but as it once was: alive, lush, golden with midsummer magic.
The trees stood sentinel around them, ancient and watchful, their leaves whispering spells in a dialect older than sorrow.
Honeysuckle curled through the undergrowth like ribbon, and the air was so thick with the scent of green things that it felt like breathing incense.
The ley line pulsed beneath her bare feet, steady as a lover’s heartbeat.
Linden stood beside her. Close enough to touch. Close enough to hurt.
His hand was in hers, their fingers threaded with the same instinctive ease they’d had at twenty, like the spaces between her knuckles had been carved with his name.
They stood together before the ritual pool, its surface still as glass, catching the light of a hundred floating motes that shimmered like stars fallen too low.
Sunlight poured through the branches overhead in rich, dappled shafts, gilding his hair like threads of honey and fire.
She remembered this.
Sort of.
They had kissed here, once. Brief and startled, like the breath before a confession.
He reached for her like he remembered the shape of her soul.
Cupped her face in both hands, thumb brushing her cheekbone in a gesture that was at once reverent and achingly familiar.
His eyes searched hers, steady, solemn, loving in a way that made something crack open beneath her ribs, and then he kissed her.
Slow and deep. Like he had all the time in the world and intended to use it.
She melted into him with a soft, desperate sound she didn’t recognize in her own throat.
Her hands found his chest, broad and warm under the thin fabric of his tunic, her fingers curling against his heartbeat as he pressed into her.
The kiss deepened, and her lips parted to meet the slow, sure slide of his tongue.
Her spine bowed with it, a prayer in motion.
Magic rose between them like smoke to a flame.
Her magic pulsed in rhythm with his touch, a soft golden thrum beneath her skin. Where his fingers brushed her collarbone, light bloomed. Where his palm splayed against her waist, heat spread.
She gasped.
And the magic cracked open like a seed in sunlight.
It poured through her, viscous and golden, trailing the path of his hands as they mapped her with gentle, unhurried worship.
Her breasts ached under her dream-dress, nipples stiffening as his thumb swept the curve just beneath the fabric.
Her thighs clenched, slick with want, every nerve alight with the unbearable sweetness of being touched.
He whispered something against her skin, a word in the old tongue that made her shiver like wind through birch leaves.
She didn’t catch it. Didn’t need to. His mouth was at her neck now, teeth grazing the hinge of her jaw, and her fingers tangled in his hair as her hips arched toward his without shame.
He laid her down on the moss with aching care. Like she was sacred. Like she was something made of light.
The ground was soft beneath her, cradling. The air hummed with magic, and when he pressed his body between her legs, she let out a sound she couldn’t have made in waking life. Not without breaking. Not without falling apart.
His mouth trailed the neckline of her dress, open-mouthed and hungry. His teeth caught on the swell of her breast, and her hips lifted helplessly in reply. Pleasure and power braided through her, rising in tandem, neither overpowering the other. Her magic didn’t fight. It sang. It purred .
Every cell of her knew him. Every aching beat of her body welcomed him home.
And when he sank into her — slow, thick, deep — she cried out from joy.
The joy of being opened. The joy of being touched and touching back. The joy of a magic not laced with shame, but threaded through desire, humming along every inch of her like it had been waiting for this. For him .
She clutched him tight, thighs trembling as he moved within her, not frantically but with purpose, with connection, their bodies locked in a rhythm that was both new and ancient, sacred and wildly carnal.
His hand found hers on the moss, fingers tangled, and golden light burst from between their palms like sunrise.
“Rowan,” he murmured, his voice breaking open on her name. “You’re… gods, you’re…”
She came with a shuddering cry, light tearing through her like a psalm, like truth.
And she woke up with a gasp.
The cottage ceiling came into focus, pale wooden beams blurred by sleep. Her sheets were twisted around her legs, damp with sweat, and she was breathing like she’d run miles.
Her body still trembled.
She was slick between her thighs.
Rowan slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the involuntary sound she made, a soft, utterly incriminating whimper, and tried to sit up without drawing attention from the rest of the cottage.
That was when she noticed her hands.
Glowing.
A faint, unmistakable gold shimmer pulsed in her palms, as though the harmonic magic from the rites had seeped into her skin and decided to live there now. Her magic was no longer chaotic or burning. It was soft. Gentle. It felt...sated.
Rowan clutched the sheets tighter, heart thudding.
This was not fine. This was the opposite of fine. Her magic had responded to a sex dream. With Linden. From ten years ago. Except now.
“Gods, I’m broken,” she whispered. “Or cursed. Or tragically and erotically hexed.”
Mottle gave a faint snore from the chair across the room. Useless.
Rowan flung the quilt off and padded to the door, trying not to feel like she was about to be caught with her hand in the honey jar. Her legs were still unsteady. Her thighs ached.
She cracked the door open. Peered into the hallway. No sounds except the whisper of the hearth fire.
Then she saw him.
Linden was in the main room, back to her. Shirtless.
Of course he was shirtless. Because the gods were laughing at her.
He was crouched in front of the hearth, feeding in a few sprigs of rosemary and sage from the drying rack, and the firelight kissed every inch of him like it had a personal grudge against her composure.
Broad shoulders, lean muscles dappled with the faint shimmer of old magic marks, those curling vine-like sigils that had always appeared when his power was near the surface.
His hair was still damp from some ungodly early morning rinse, and the curve of his neck was so lovely she nearly walked into the wall.
He shifted slightly, murmuring something under his breath as he stirred the coals, and Rowan watched the lines of his back flex, the shadow of his hipbones where his soft drawstring trousers hung dangerously low…
Nope.
Nope, no, absolutely not. She was not going to combust like some kind of virgin in a ballad.
She ducked back into her room like a thief, palms still glowing faintly, heart hammering so hard it might break her ribs.
Her body remembered him. Her magic wanted him. And she was in so much trouble .
She leaned against the closed door, forehead pressed to the wood, eyes squeezed shut.
You can’t want him. You can’t do this again.
Rowan decides she needs to fix the Hollow’s leylines quickly before she becomes even more entangled with Linden.