Page 13
Story: The Hazelwood Pact
The apothecary still smelled like mugwort and scorched thyme, like longing and failure baked into the walls.
Outside, dusk was softening the Hollow’s cobblestones to burnished gold, the kind of light that turned even moss into something holy.
But inside… inside was ruin. Cracked shelves leaned like old bones, bottles overturned in sticky puddles of long-spilled intentions.
Threads of ash spidered up the walls, shadows of spells gone wrong or unfinished.
Dust motes danced in the air, glowing faintly with the residue of old magic, like ghosts clinging to the rafters out of spite.
Rowan stood in the middle of the wreckage, barefoot, soot-streaked, her breath a little too shallow, her magic a little too loud beneath her skin.
It was thrumming like it was stretching beneath her ribs for something it had been denied too long.
She'd come here under the noble pretense of salvaging her old journals, of digging up some long-forgotten notes that might make sense of the cursed sigils carved into the wardstones. And maybe she had meant to do that.
But it was hard to think with her body still echoing the sex dream that had ruined her sleep and her sanity and any pretense of self-control. Harder still with Linden across the room, watching her with those warm hazel eyes and that maddening quiet, like he knew.
And gods, he probably did. The bastard had always been able to read her magic before she could. And right now, her magic was damn near writing sonnets about the shape of his collarbone and the memory of his hand on her ribcage.
Mottle, of course, was not helping.
The toad perched on the sagging edge of a half-melted jar of pickled eyebrights, smug as sin. “If either of you starts humping on that table, please aim away from the hawthorn tonic. It might burst.”
“Out,” Rowan said, flat and sharp, without turning her head.
Mottle snorted. “Fine. But if you break the bed this time, I’m not helping you stitch the sheets. My hands are metaphorical, you know.”
With a wet-sounding plop, he hopped off the counter and waddled into the back room with the air of someone who definitely planned to eavesdrop through the floorboards.
Silence fell, thick and buzzing.
Rowan exhaled, sharp through her nose. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides.
She could feel Linden not just there , but present , like gravity.
That calm steadiness he wore like a second skin.
That scent, rosemary and loam and storm-kissed pine, curling around her like a memory she’d buried and now couldn’t stop breathing in.
She didn’t dare look at him. Didn’t dare trust herself if she did.
And yet, his presence was in her blood now. In her teeth. The air between them vibrated, too full, too charged, like a thunderstorm coiled behind her ribs.
She wasn’t going to make it to the journals. Not with her skin still remembering his hands. Not with her magic pulsing golden against her collarbones like it wanted out. Not with ten years of aching want bottling up behind her teeth.
So she gave in.
Three steps. That’s all it took.
Three decisive, reckless, utterly doomed steps across the room, and Rowan yanked him down to her.
She kissed him like he was water and she was parched, like hunger and heartbreak and ten years of silence were burning behind her teeth.
It was not gentle. Her fists curled in the loose linen of his tunic, dragging him closer, anchoring herself with the same desperation she hadn’t let herself feel since the night everything shattered.
Linden made a sound against her mouth, low, hoarse, stunned, and then he melted into her. No hesitation. Just a sound like surrender breaking in his throat as he kissed her back.
His hands cupped her face as though she were something sacred, thumbs stroking under her jaw like he was afraid she might dissolve into light if he held her too loosely.
But there was nothing soft about the way their mouths clashed, about the way she bit his lip just enough to taste the gasp it pulled from him.
He tasted like rosemary and mint. Like summer spells and stolen chances.
He kissed her like he remembered every time she’d let herself almost love him and every time she’d walked away instead.
“Rowan,” he breathed between kisses, her name cracked and reverent and wrecked.
And that , gods, that nearly undid her. That soft, sacred ruin in his voice. Like saying her name was a prayer he hadn’t dared speak until now.
She groaned against his mouth, cursed under her breath. “You smell like damp dirt and feelings, Thornling.”
He laughed, low and shivery, before kissing her again so hard her knees buckled.
Then she shoved him backwards. Into the nearest shelf. The brittle wood gave a creaking protest as his back hit it, and the whole thing exploded in a cascade of dried chamomile and spell-thread and a single jar of bath salts that burst like glittery shrapnel between them.
Neither of them noticed.
He caught her around the waist, lifted her like she weighed nothing, and her thighs wrapped around his hips on instinct, friction dragging a sound out of her she couldn’t blame on magic or potions.
The table was behind her now. Somehow. Probably because Linden had half-carried, half-fumbled her there in between kisses that stripped air from her lungs and sense from her skull.
They landed in a crash of glass vials and rolled parchment. Her skirts bunched up around her waist, his tunic already halfway off. She yanked it the rest of the way with a growl.
“Gods,” she whispered, her fingers splaying over the planes of his chest, the slope of his shoulder, the faint silvery scar near his hipbone. “I hate how good you look.”
He grinned against her throat, voice rough and golden. “I missed you hating me.”
And then he bit her just beneath the ear, and Rowan moaned, bucked, clawed at his back because godsdamn him , he knew exactly where her weak spots lived.
Her magic pulsed, wild and golden, from her skin to his, and his flared in answer, a deep green glow like moss and moonlight. It braided with hers like ivy winding around thorn, seamless, aching.
They were unmaking each other by inches.
And gods, it had never felt so good.
The table beneath them groaned in protest, whether from age, magic, or the sheer ferocity of the kiss, Rowan didn’t know.
Didn’t care. Her whole body was lit from within, magic licking under her skin in lazy, golden arcs.
It pooled at her fingertips and curled around her spine, like her desire had bloomed into spellfire.
And Linden, gods, Linden , was glowing.
His skin shimmered faintly where her fingers dragged over him, trails of green-gold blooming like moss in sunlight. This was his magic singing back to hers, answering every greedy touch with reverence, every scrape of her nails with blooming devotion.
He tugged her bodice loose, careful but unrelenting, and she arched into him, mouth dragging along the line of his throat, her breath coming fast and ragged.
“You’re too gentle,” she gasped, pressing her thighs tighter around his hips, her voice threaded with irritation and longing and want. “I’m not glass, Linden… I burn. ”
“Good,” he rasped against her skin. “Then let’s burn.”
And oh, they did.
He pushed up her skirts, hands reverent and rough all at once, callused palms sliding over bare thighs like he was mapping his way back to her.
She made an utterly filthy sound when his fingers found the heat of her, slick and already aching.
Her magic sparked in response, flaring golden and wild, and the shelves behind them trembled.
“You’re already… gods, Rowan…” His voice caught, hoarse with wonder, fingers slipping through her with aching slowness. “So ready for me.”
“You took too long,” she said, and then whimpered as he curled his fingers just right, a moan catching low in her throat. “ Ten years, Linden. Ten fucking years.”
“I’d wait ten more,” he whispered against her breast, kissing the soft skin above her heart. “But I’d rather not.”
And then he was undoing his trousers, his breath stuttering as she palmed him through the linen, teasing and demanding all at once. He was hard and hot in her hand, and the sound he made when she stroked him was indecent, like something primal and reverent all at once.
“Now,” she demanded, and gods help him, he obeyed.
He pressed into her slowly, agonizingly, with a reverence that made her eyes sting. Like every breath was a return.
Her head fell back against the table, curls tumbling into crushed lavender and glass dust. “ Linden… ”
“I know, Ro” he said, forehead pressed to hers, voice shaking. “I know.”
And then they were moving together, breath to breath, body to body, magic slipping between them like liquid light.
Her thighs locked around his hips, and every thrust sent sparks of golden magic crackling up the walls.
Candles flared. Bottles shattered. Something in the ceiling cracked and rained down a single, shimmering cobweb of dust.
But Rowan barely noticed.
All she could feel was him — in her, around her, with her. The heat and stretch and rhythm of it. The unbearable sweetness of being touched by someone who knew her magic like he knew her breath. Like he knew her.
And maybe he did. Maybe he always had.
He leaned down, kissed the hollow of her throat, and whispered, “Come with me.”
She did.
Her magic surged up her spine like wildfire, bursting in a wave of golden light that made the windows rattle in their frames. Her body arched, clenched, broke open around him, and then he followed, groaning her name like it was a spell, spilling into her with a deep, shuddering cry.
They collapsed together in the wreckage, breath tangled, hearts racing, magic humming low and satisfied in the air around them like a storm spent.
The apothecary pulsed with golden light, the air thick with the scent of sex and the slow drip of crushed moonseed syrup from a shattered jar.
Her body trembled in aftershocks, and his arms came around her with the bone-deep instinct of someone who’d never really stopped holding her.
Later — gods, much later — they somehow ended up in his bed.
She didn’t remember how. Only that the walk was slow and clumsy, a blur of laughter and bruised kisses, of him carrying her into his cottage with a possessive arm under her thighs and a growl in his throat every time she wriggled against him.
The bedroom was all old quilts and pressed herb bundles, a place that smelled like cedar and longing and rain.
He laid her down like she was the center of a ritual and then took her again with quiet reverence, slow and aching, until her name fell from his lips like prayer.
Again.
And again.
And again.
No spell could match the way he moved inside her like he belonged. Like her body had been a locked door all these years, and his was the only key that had ever truly fit.
When she could no longer speak, when even gasping felt like too much effort, he kissed her brow and tucked her beneath the covers, limbs entangled, skin damp and glowing faintly gold.
He held her until the world softened into velvet and the stars began to pale.
He held her until dawn broke against the windowpane like a secret kept too long.
She woke with her cheek pressed to his chest, warm and safe and held .
One of his hands rested in her hair, still, fingers half-curled in the soft curls at her nape as if even unconscious, he couldn’t let her go.
And Rowan, brilliant, broken, terrified Rowan, stared up at the ceiling like it might hold answers if she just glared hard enough.
Shit.
She did what she always did when something felt too big to name.
She moved.
Carefully, slowly, like she was trying not to crack the fragile spell of morning light between them, she eased herself out of his bed. Her bare feet kissed the floorboards. The air was cold against her skin, and the ache between her thighs was sweet and cruel all at once.
Her blouse lay discarded at the foot of the bed. She tugged it on with shaking hands. Her hair was a mess, wild and snarled, full of rosemary leaves and moonlight.
Her boots were nowhere in sight.
Typical.
She didn’t dare look for them. Her body hurt too much and her resolve was already splintering.
Her thighs trembled when she stood, the press of their joined magic still humming inside her, like a soft purr under her skin.
Her core throbbed, wet and well-used, and the memory of his voice, low and hoarse, saying her name like it meant everything , burned behind her ribs.
She paused at the door, her hand on the frame.
Looked back.
Linden didn’t move. His golden hair was tangled against the pillow, his lips parted just slightly, breath slow and even.
Beautiful, calm, endless.
Good. Then, she slipped out. The door closed behind her with a soft click.