Page 21 of The Witch’s Shifter (Season of the Witch #3)

Faolan

I WAKE TO THE SCENT of cinnamon and woodsmoke. When I first come to, pulling myself slowly from the depths of sleep, I’m not sure where I’m at. There’s something soft beneath me, something warm draped across me, and a feeling of contentedness wrapped around me.

Then my eyes open, and I remember: I’m in her house. Aurora’s house.

As I sit up on the plush couch, a blanket slips from my shoulders, reminding me of last night. Aurora draped it over me and placed a kiss to my temple, and I was so exhausted from everything that had happened the past few days, I fell immediately into a deep dreamless sleep.

It’s not often I sleep that hard; I’m usually on edge, easily awoken by the slightest sound. But as I reach up to scratch my head, I hear sounds coming from the kitchen, and I’m amazed they didn’t wake me sooner.

I yawn and stretch my arms overhead. Pain lances through me, stealing my breath away.

That’s right, I’m covered in wounds, both from Cathal and my idiotic dive through Aurora’s parlor window.

My gaze shifts in that direction, and shame curls in my stomach at the sight of the rough boards nailed over the broken window. I’ll have to make it up to her somehow.

Standing, I look down to find myself in a pair of borrowed trousers. My chest is bare, wrapped in bandages still, and when I trail my fingers over the soft cotton, I remember how Aurora tended to me yesterday, how her green eyes were so focused as she mixed her poultice and applied it to my wounds.

I remember how she tasted when I kissed her, the softness of her waist as I lifted her onto the countertop. Then I hurt her when I was unable to control myself, to control my hunger for her.

Fool.

A small growl pulls my attention away from my wrappings and to the parlor doorway, where the cat, Harrison, is lurking, half hidden behind the doorframe, green eyes affixed to me.

Naturally, my lips pull back in a snarl. This only makes him growl louder, the hair along his back puffing up.

“Harrison?” comes Aurora’s voice. It sounds like she’s trying to whisper, probably because she thinks I’m still asleep. “What’s the matter?”

Her bare feet pad softly through the foyer, and then she’s standing in the parlor doorway, her flushed cheeks looking soft and healthy in the morning light.

“Oh, Faolan. I didn’t know you were up. Good morning.”

At her feet, Harrison growls once more, then vanishes, his footsteps thumping up the stairs. With his going, Aurora frowns.

She introduced me to him yesterday, but it didn’t go well. He hissed, I growled, and we both seemed to disappoint her.

I’ll have to try harder not to let my instincts take over when he’s around. If I don’t want Aurora to reject me, I’d better figure out how to at least be amiable with him.

But a cat? Really?

“Are you hungry?” Aurora asks. “I was just making some breakfast. Come on.” She waves for me to follow her, and I do just that.

When I step into the kitchen, I expect to find the red-haired one seated at the table, but it’s empty. I cast my gaze through the window, but he’s not out in the garden either. All I see are a few chickens pecking the ground and leaves falling gently from the aspen trees.

“Where’s the knight?” I ask.

“He’s not here. After all this time, he really needed to get back to the guardhouse. He’s stationed in Faunwood, if I didn’t already explain. Go on, sit down. Do you like apple-cinnamon bread?”

He’s not here? He left me alone with the woman carrying his child?

Either he’s a fool, or we’ve turned a new leaf, even if I still don’t like him all that much. He did come after me though, and that’s worth something, even in my book.

“I like everything,” I say, then sink into a chair with a sigh.

“A man after my own heart.” Aurora giggles to herself as she puts a few slices of bread onto a platter, and as I watch her, I’m overcome with the need to be closer to her, to nuzzle my face into the side of her neck and run my fingers through her hair.

But maybe that’s just the mate bond talking.

There’s a lot to this that even I still have to figure out.

Growing up in the pack, we’re all well aware of mate bonds and how suddenly they form, but having never felt one for myself, I feel a bit like I’m running blind through the forest, without even my sense of smell to guide me.

My gaze roams over the smooth column of Aurora’s throat, as of yet unmarked.

If she truly decides to accept me, to bond with me, that neck will soon bare my mark.

The very thought of it, of sinking my fangs into her throat, has me hardening in my trousers.

I shift to hide my legs beneath the table just as Aurora sets a steaming platter of bread, butter, and fresh blackberries before me.

My eyes widen. The scent of apples and cinnamon curls up my nose, so potent it makes my mouth water. “Do you cook like this all the time?”

“Usually.” She places a hand on her belly while sinking into the chair across from me. “I enjoy it. There’s not much that brings me more happiness than watching people I care about enjoy my cooking.” Her smile is so soft and warm that it takes my words away.

Does she consider me one of those people? Someone she cares about?

I scarf the food down before Aurora’s tea has even had time to cool. After popping the blackberries into my mouth, I lick my fingers clean of their juice. Aurora giggles again, such a light and airy sound, and shakes her head at me.

Sitting back in my chair with a contented sigh, I tip my head at her. “So, what are we doing today?”

Aurora blinks at me. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been nothing but a burden since you found me in the woods. And I’d like to change that. So tell me, what can I help you with?”

The surprise in her expression slowly shifts to excitement. It makes her green eyes twinkle. “I know just the thing.”

AND THAT’S HOW I END up out in the garden, on my knees in the dirt, helping Aurora harvest her crops.

I don’t have much experience with gardening—back home, in the pack, my primary role was hunting.

The gardening is mostly left to the older members, those whose bodies are no longer fast or strong enough to support us on hunts.

It feels a bit silly now, realizing I’ve never pulled something so simple as a carrot or a beet from the earth.

My hand wraps around a bunch of fluffy-topped carrot stems, and as I pull them from the soft brown soil, revealing vibrant orange tubers, a feeling of satisfaction washes over me.

I’ve had no part in growing or caring for these crops, yet I still feel a rush of excitement each time I unearth something new from the soil.

It’s almost as satisfying as being the one to make the kill on a hunt.

“How do you know how to grow all this?” I ask Aurora. She’s working on harvesting a nearby garden bed—potatoes, from the looks of it—and pauses to look over at me.

“I’ve been working in the garden for as long as I can remember.

” A wistful look comes over her face as she sits back on her knees and rests a hand on the bump beneath her brown cotton dress.

“This was my auntie’s cottage. She built this garden.

” Her gaze sweeps around the area surrounding us.

“Whenever I visited her, we’d be out here together for hours, sowing and weeding and harvesting.

Not to mention I’m an earth witch”—she reaches up to touch a strand of forest-green hair—“so it comes naturally to me.”

I never even asked why her hair is that color; I suppose I assumed it had something to do with her being a witch, even if I didn’t know the details—I know very little about witches to begin with. Seems we have a lot to learn about each other.

I reach for another bunch of carrots. They slide free of the soil with little resistance, and I brush the clumps of dirt away before settling them into the basket on the ground beside me.

“What about you?” Aurora asks.

I look over at her. “What about me?”

She leans forward again, hands diving into the soil to dig up potatoes like they’re buried treasure. “What do you like to do? Do you have hobbies?”

Hobbies? I have to think on it for a moment.

In the pack, we spend about as much time in our wolf forms as we do in our human forms, and with that comes a feeling of instinct, of being rather than thinking, of feeling everything without needing words or to process the complex emotions humans have.

It’s a raw, natural way to experience being alive.

In my human form, my brain is always busy, always spinning and contemplating and wondering. But when I’m a wolf, all of that falls slowly away, leaving me completely in tune with nature and its never-ending cycles.

All that to say I’ve never really developed any hobbies, at least not in the way Aurora seems to expect.

“I like the stars,” I say at long last.

Aurora settles a few potatoes into her basket, then tips her head at me. “Stars?”

“I like looking at them, tracking constellations.” Does that even count as a hobby? I’m not quite sure. But it is something I’ve enjoyed doing since I was a pup. “It’s not as useful as gardening,” I say, holding up a carrot, “but I like it. It’s... grounding.”

And the stars always make me feel small, insignificant. But in a good way, like my worries and fuckups are meaningless in the eyes of the sky.

“I have to admit, I don’t know much about the stars.

I had an astronomy class at Coven Crest, but I found it hard to grasp.

” Aurora shifts her gaze back to the potato bed, a thoughtful furrow in her brow.

“I think I do better with tangible things—like plants and cooking, things I can touch and understand. The stars...” She turns her face to the sky, even though all we can see now is a swath of baby blue streaked with fluffy white clouds.

“They feel so far away. I can’t grasp them, you know? ”

I nod slowly. “I know.”

A moment of silence passes between us. The chickens scratch about in the fallen dried leaves, and the breeze through the aspens causes them to hiss. Earlier, I saw Harrison watching us from the table near the garden, but now that I glance that way, he’s gone.

“Maybe you could show me,” Aurora says.

“The stars?”

“Well, I can see those.” She tucks a long strand of hair behind her ear. “But the constellations. Maybe you can point some out for me.”

I brace my earth-stained hands on my knees and feel my lips pulling back into a small smile. The idea of lying beneath the stars with her, warm summer grass like a bed beneath us, makes comforting warmth drift through my chest and around my heart. “I can do that.”

A far-off sound catches my attention, but Aurora, with her human hearing, hasn’t yet detected it. I push to my feet and look into the distance, down the lane leading away from the cottage. Footsteps are approaching, boots sweeping through fallen leaves.

“What is it?” Aurora lifts a hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the bright sunlight, not at all concerned with the soil covering her hands. “Do you hear something?”

“Someone’s approaching. I can hear their footsteps on the dry leaves.”

She glances my way, eyes wide. “Your hearing is incredible...”

Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, I turn my gaze back to the wooded path.

And a few breaths later, a woman and a man step out of the trees and into the autumn sunlight. My eyes narrow. I’ve never been particularly good with strangers.

“Oh, it’s Lydia and James. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

Aurora seems pleased enough, so I suppose they’re no threat. But I can’t say I’m excited about meeting them.

Some shifters choose to live amongst humans, to cohabitate with them in their cities and villages, but my pack, the Emberstone pack, has always lived far removed from the human settlements. Sure, we’re visited regularly by traders, but I have very little experience being surrounded by people.

I get an itch beneath my skin, a desire to tear free of the trousers confining my legs and gallop for the woods, to feel my paws upon the earth, but I resist it. This is Aurora’s world, and if I want to be around her, I have to learn how to live in it too.

She trots along ahead of me, and I lumber slowly behind her, sniffing the air as a breeze catches the cloaks of the visitors and sends their scents in my direction.

They smell of sage, smoke, anda hint of coal.

The woman has dark curls and a quick smile, and the man behind her has a soft face, the kind of face that makes you want to trust him quickly.

Still can’t say I’m interested in conversing, but as Aurora greets them, she turns back to look at me and holds out a hand. So I bite down on the urge to run and approach the trio with my hands in my trouser pockets.

“I was there when Alden and Rowan left the village suddenly,” the woman is saying as I approach.

“I’ve been worried it was something to do with the baby.

Goddess, I should’ve come sooner. The mercantile has just been packed lately with all the preparations for the harvest festival.

James has even been taking time away from his smithing to help me.

” She glances back at the man, who smiles softly and steps closer to her, his fingers gliding along her low back.

A couple, then.

The reminder of Aurora’s pregnancy has my gaze shifting to the bump beneath her dress.

Cathal would die of cruel laughter if he were to learn I’ve finally found my mate but that she’s pregnant with another man’s seed.

My lips almost curl into a snarl at the thought of my twin, laughing at my expense.

Asshole.

“Oh,” the woman says as I ease up behind Aurora. Her dark brown eyes sweep quickly over my bare chest and down to my feet, and a slight flush touches her cheeks. “Who’s this?”

Aurora looks over her shoulder at me. The expression on her face is a mix of emotions I can’t quite read.

“This is Faolan,” she says. “Faolan, this is Alden’s sister, Lydia, and her husband, James.”

“Nice to meet you,” James says, stepping forward to shake my hand. I acquiesce, putting my hand in his, but he flinches when I squeeze too hard.

I’m still not used to humans and how breakable they are. That’ll take more adjusting to if I’m to stay here with Aurora.

I have to stay with her , my mind screams at me. She’s my mate. There’s nowhere else for me to be.

“He’s the reason Alden and Rowan had to come help me,” Aurora continues.

Lydia arches a dark brow and looks me over again. “Help you with what?”

“It’s a bit of a long story.” Aurora glances at me with a question in her eyes, as if to ask if it’s okay to share said story with these humans. But I don’t mind. I’ve never hidden who I am, and I don’t intend to now.

So I give her a subtle shrug, and a smile spreads across her face.

She looks back to Lydia and James, who still haven’t taken their eyes off me. “Do you have time for tea?”