Page 75 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

She opened her mouth to speak, but only a croak came out. Flustered, she turned a pretty pink before seizing hold of the man beside her and hustling him forward. “This is Allen Chase. M-my mate. My fiancé.”

“ Mate? ” By the Green Mother, what else had I missed while enthralled by Ossian and questing in Elfame? I searched her with new eyes, seeking a twin of the bond that connected me to Arthur.

“By way of green spark,” the younger Nemean wolf explained. He shook my hand, sniffed the air between us, and grinned. “Lewellyn accepted you into our pack, didn’t he? Well, Nemean wolves don’t exactly have packs, just loose family ties. Either way, nice to meet you, sis.”

“Do not call her that.” Lilac shuddered and nudged him out of the way.

She took a breath and gave me a soft smile.

It was so vulnerable. “I have a lot to tell you, Meadow, but it can all wait ’til tomorrow.

Take these for now. I daresay if you’d just read some more romantasy instead of all those spellbooks, a lot of this could’ve been avoided. ”

She pressed two books into my hands: a tiny leather-bound one with Forgotten Lore of the Arcane embossed in gold ink across its cover and some modern romantic fantasy book that included an ampersand in its trite title.

“You brought smutty books to a battle?” I asked incredulously. “Who are you and what have you done to my cousin?”

“Only one has smut,” she said defensively. “And it was a long flight from the East Coast. There was plenty of time to read and no time to shed any weight when we landed. So yes, I brought books with me. You’re welcome. And take this too.”

She pulled a satin pouch from her pocket; it slid across the romantasy’s glossy cover and shored up against my stomach. I smelled motherwort, ginger, and a whole host of other herbs that made up only one kind of concoction.

“Lilac, is this, this—” I don’t know how my cheeks could’ve gotten any redder, so I supposed they were purple now.

“Contraceptive tea.” She nodded. After a quick glance at Arthur that set off old jealousy alarms in my head, she added in a whisper, “Extra strength.”

“How do you even know how to?—”

“Like you,” she said in a clipped tone that spoke of the many times she’d had to defend herself against the same accusation in very recent history, “I have also changed. Mom isn’t the only talented potions maker in this family.”

“The tea works,” Allen assured me. He nuzzled his nose against the top of Lilac’s hair. From the way she looked up at him, entirely besotted, I knew she had no designs on Arthur. “Ask me how I know.”

“I will not be asking that.” I slipped the pouch into my pocket. “I’ll just take your word for it.”

“Half a tablespoon,” Lilac murmured to me, her attention on her wolf. “No need to wait.”

“Okay, um, thanks.” I turned around to leave them to stare all gooey-eyed at one another. Seeing their affection only made me impatient for my own.

Arthur was still conversing with the Coalition, but there was a striped tomcat waiting for me a short distance away.

His ears and whiskers perked up when I realized he was there, then his tail lifted as I smiled in invitation.

Thistle, facing away from him as she eyed the many skinchangers, was immediately alerted of the change in his posture and whipped around.

Her slitted green eyes warned us both that no cuddles could take place without her present.

“Little cats,” I greeted them both.

“Sawyer. Blackfoot.”

My familiar froze mid-stride, pupils dilating. He gulped as the lynx stalked between us, rocked back on his haunches and flattened into the ground when she sat down in front of him.

“President Longclaw,” he whispered.

“Your mentor Ame had the gall to actually ask for my help on your behalf for this”—she gestured to the air with an enormous paw—“ mess . I can confidently say that, without a doubt, you have been the most troublesome familiar to ever attend Grimalkin University.”

Sawyer winced, ears pressing against his skull as if he was afraid she’d lurch forward and tear them off his head. Immediately after, he flattened his whiskers so she couldn’t do the same to them. Tucked his tail in for good measure too.

“And our bravest,” the lynx said. “She explained everything, including Brandi, and I saw the rest for myself. For the great service you have done your witch, your town, and your school against the Stag Man, you have been reenrolled with a clean record. You may resume your studies at your leisure.”

“I-I can?”

He winced as the lynx leaned forward.

“I never did this,” she growled down at him. Then she swiped his head with an affectionate arc of her tongue. “Well done, little one.”

Fanga Longclaw turned to Thistle. “I would very much like you to accompany him. There is much we can learn from one another.”

“Doubtful,” Thistle replied, lifting her black nose into the air.

“I’m faelene, after all. Much wiser and more knowledgeable than the feline you mistake me for.

But I’ll still come if it means I get to be with my Sawyer more.

I heard he was bullied there.” Her fangs elongated, as did her claws.

“I like bullies. Their screams are the sweetest. When they struggle, they tenderize their own meat.”

Dangerously cute indeed.

“Congratulations, kitty.” I scooped him up after the lynx had stalked off. Thistle flew to my shoulder and spread herself across them, hooking her claws into my clothing to anchor her there. I lifted a hand to massage her face as I buried my own into Sawyer’s tawny belly.

“Now I feel left out.”

Someone had given Arthur a spare set of sweatpants, which did wonders for both preserving his modesty and stimulating my imagination. My pack and Faebane were slung over his shoulder. I added my old iron cuffs and Lilac’s books to the other trinkets inside.

The bear shifter pulled all three of us gently into his arms. By the Green Mother, he was so warm, so here , so mine. I wanted to melt into him like butter into freshly toasted bread.

“The Coalition is going to stick around for a few days,” he said. “A few of the magic hunters got away, including Alec, and they want to do another thorough sweep to make sure they got all the mallaithe. They’d feel better going if all the loose ends were tied up.”

That sounded like work. Work that I should be a part of, having drawn them to this quiet little town.

Arthur must’ve sensed the tension that had taken over me, the steeling of my resolve to push my own needs aside until the job was complete.

“ They are going to handle it, Meadow,” he told me firmly. “And you and I are going to rest. The world can wait for a night. Now, are you taking us home or am I?”

Startled, I lifted my head from where it rested against him. “What?”

“Granddad told me of some interesting butterfly teleportation magic. Pick up another trick in Elfame?”

I grinned, chin on his chest as I looked up into that handsome face. “The ladies are calling me a shadow temptress now.”

“Don’t keep me waiting.”

That whisper sent all manner of things tingling.

Flushing, I wrapped my arms around his waist and told everyone to hold on.

I’d never transported anyone but myself before.

But the need was there. A heartsickness for a moment of peace.

For a little sod-roofed cottage with a stone chimney in a glen nestled on the banks of a stoney creek.

The butterflies lifted and shrouded us in shadow.

When my feet felt like they were touching solid ground again, I peeked open an eye I hadn’t realized I’d squeezed shut. Sighing with relief, I straightened at the sight of the cottage. I hadn’t transported us into the middle of a tree. Ha-cha!

I glanced down at my forearms as the rush of coolness that succeeded each flight of the butterflies subsided.

There were indeed fewer tattoos inked there than there had been in the Twilight Court, but I didn’t miss them.

They were gifts, nothing more, and I was glad to have fewer abilities.

The primal magic of the Dara Shield was plenty, thank you very much.

“Why are the lights on?” Arthur immediately went on the defensive as something fluttered the curtains at the window. Releasing me, he prowled forward. The front door swung inward, the screen door kicked outward with a foot. “Hey?—”

“Boy!” Cody trampled down the few plank steps of the front porch and hobbled down the beaten path, all flailing knees and elbows.

Arthur straightened out his crouch for only a moment, then rushed up to meet the old carpenter.

Emmett carefully closed the front door behind him and eased off the porch steps. He patted Arthur’s back as his best friend was smothered in a bear hug. “A rousing success all around, I take it, Miss Meadow?”

“Flora raided my crystal stash at the farmhouse and made a barrier, Daphne mustered her nanny goats, Shari gave him a fistful of hellfire, and the rest is history,” I replied, closing the distance and leaning in for a hug. “You?”

“You are leaving out a ton of details,” Sawyer snorted. Then his ears twitched and he whipped around. “Thistle! Do not eat the bees!”

“Pangur’s Teats,” the faelene cursed.

“All according to plan, as you see.” Emmett gestured to the Cedar Haven carpentry shop across the drive and my sedan parked at a very odd angle in the pile of red mulch.

“After we dropped the ladies off to infiltrate from Alder Ranch, we circled back around to cause a little mischief and mayhem ourselves. Broke up a few skirmishes or two, Cody got to hit some folks with his baseball bat—“Reliving the good ol’ days,” he called it—then maintained the fort. ”

My feet lifted on tiptoe of their own accord, nose scenting and mouth watering. “Is that steak I’m smelling?”

“Well, you can’t maintain a fort when you’re dying of hunger, Miss Meadow. We made enough for you too.”

“How did you even know we were coming?”

“The pixies, of course.”

Of course. They were quite chatty. And I hadn’t seen them since restoring Arthur.

“They told Monkfoot and he told me and I told Cody. We got the generator going, but it’s only hooked up to the main so the water doesn’t freeze, so we got a fire going in the fireplace.

And well, it would’ve been a shame to waste all that heat, hence the steaks.

Thick-cut ribeyes, actually. Which we will now take and get out of your hair. ”

Through this entire explanation, Cody had not once stopped hugging on his boy. Arthur had preserved the old man’s dignity, and spine, by not scooping him up off his feet. Rather, he humbled himself into a hunch so the old carpenter wouldn’t have to strain.

“That’s enough of this now,” Cody blustered, pushing the hulking lumberjack away.

He smeared the back of his hand across his eyes.

Then he flapped out his ball cap and resettled it, adjusted his belt, and sniffed in the way all men do when they’re trying to mask their emotions.

He patted Arthur’s shoulder. “Big day of repairs tomorrow. Redbud’s still having its Winter Fete in a few days and we gotta get this town shipshape, so don’t be sleeping in.

Past, uh, three in the afternoon or nuthin’. ”

Arthur’s hazel eyes twinkled. “Yessir.”

“Emmett? Grab our steaks.” He hobbled over to me and gave me a more modest embrace. “Thanks for keeping your promise.”

I gave him a fierce but tender hug. “Always.”

Cody wiped his eyes again and accepted his plate from Emmett with a violent clearing of his throat. “Well, you kids don’t break anything you can’t fix. ’Night, now.”