Page 87 of The Witch's Pet

“Han? Still there?”

My heart beats faster. I clutch my chest, recalling the warm purr there when we kissed for the first time, and Julia brushed my cheeks with her thumbs in a fleeting moment of tenderness. Was that sensation the spell cracking? Was she already beginning to surrender her heart in that split second? And all those other moments when she looked at me with unexpected softness…the warmth behind my ribs, like the spell was squeezing and releasing…

Holy crap. This could be the answer. It makes terrible, perfect sense. Of course Rebecca would design a spell that requires Julia to—

My excitement crashes. “What if she’s incapable of being vulnerable?” I ask, barely a whisper.

“That’s not for you to fix.” Dean’s voice gets serious. “Anyway, if she’s got her own baggage and already just about ditched you tonight, maybe it’s for the best if you go home and chalk this up to a rebound one-night stand.”

I bite back a hysterical laugh. If only it were that simple. If only I could go home, shower off the night, and never think about Julia Moreau again.

In any ordinary circumstance, I’d agree with him. But I don’t have time to wait for Julia to go to therapy or do some soul searching, and I don’thave time to process my breakup. We need to break this spell within the next couple of hours—and I might finally know how to do it.

“You can take a leap of faith with this woman if you want,” Dean says into the silence. “But you can’t be the only one jumping.”

He’s right.

I swallow hard. If breaking the binding spell requires both of us to be vulnerable, then I know what I have to do. I need to get her to surrender to me. To make her open her heart enough to let me in. If she can do that, not only will we break the spell, but then I’ll know that this connection between us is real.

I drop my shoulders and let out a slow breath. “I love you, Dean. Thanks.”

“I love you too. You sure you’re okay? Want me to come get you?”

“I’m good. I’ve got this.”

We say goodbye, and I start walking back across the lawn, my shoes crunching on the frost-stiff grass. The binding spell loosens with each step closer, like my body is sighing in relief.

In the forest, birds begin their dawn chorus, their songs cutting through the silence. The world is waking up, oblivious to the impossible task ahead of me.

One thing I’ve learned tonight is that a sanguine witch always takes what she wants. She doesn’t ask. She doesn’t yield. Now, somehow, I have to flip that. I have to convince Julia Moreau, a woman who believes she’s a monster incapable of love, to surrender to me the same way I surrendered to her.

Somehow, I need her to let me take control.

25

Julia

Aloneinthesanctum,I seize the grimoire Elizabeth left behind and drop to my knees, flipping feverishly through the pages. I’m willing to try anything at this point—blood magic, necromancy, nothing is off limits.

I’ve scanned a few pages when an explosion rattles the stairwell, and I gasp, leaping to my feet. Wood splinters and books tumble down the stone steps in a cloud of dust.

“You just couldn’twaitto take another innocent life.” Rebecca stalks into the chamber, her hands glowing with white-hot magic. “Is that all you know how to do? Take and take until there’s nothing left?”

I raise my hands defensively. “She volunteered—”

Rebecca’s hand cuts through the air, and an invisible force slams into my chest, the full weight of a century of grief behind it. I fly backward into the wooden shelves with a thud that rattles my bones. Wood cracks and jars shatter, raining glass across the floor.

Coughing, I push myself up, tasting blood where I’ve bitten my tongue. “She offered herself to break your damned spell,” I grit out.

“Liar,” Rebecca snarls. “Riley would never submit herself to a sanguine witch. She knows what you are.”

I wipe blood from my lips, grinning through the pain. “You underestimated how far she would go to protect the love of her life. When you cursed me, I suppose you didn’t consider how your curse would affect your own descendant.”

In Rebecca’s moment of shock, I lash out with my own power, sending the surrounding glass shards at her like bullets.

She raises her hands and deflects most of them, but hisses as red cuts open in her palms. “Just because someone offers themselves to you doesn’t give you the right to kill them!”

My hair lifts as magic fills the sanctum, trapped and amplified by the stone walls and runes. The air crackles with our combined fury, stinging my skin like biting insects.