Chapter 25
Sammy
The crickets welcomed me home, a sound I hadn’t heard in many, many years. Crickets were native to Maine as well as Tennessee, but somehow, being in the mountains, standing in the muggy forest in the middle of October, it felt like home in a way Maine never had.
Tennessee nights cooled at some point in October, most years.
But this year summer had clung to the mountains.
I didn’t mind. I’d always loved summer here.
The river was the only real escape. The humans had public pools, but we witches didn’t bother with that unnatural nonsense.
The river flowed through us, energizing our magic.
It was one of the things I looked forward to most about coming back.
After everything I’d been through the last few months back in Bluewater, coming home had been inevitable.
Stepping forward, I put my hand on a tree that marked a spot I’d been so familiar with once. It had been as much a part of me as my nose or hair. The magic in them thrived, even without a coven here for all these years to work the magic, cultivate it.
I’d never been the type to cry. But the magic here was pained. It ached to be used.
Some parts of the world had more magic than others. Bluewater was a great example. The Appalachian Mountains, the entirety of them, was another. They were one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, worn down over the years so in some spots they were just large hills.
But the magic ran deep and ancient. And it hurt.
All because of fucking Leonard Mason. May his soul rot in Hell.
His old pack still roamed nearby. Nobody, no witch, would begrudge the pack their happiness. Just the twisted, black souls like Leonard. He’d been cast out years ago, but had his dark connections really been severed?
I walked forward and felt Livvie moving not too far from me. She’d wanted to come and connect with her former home. As we stepped over the gold, orange, and red fallen leaves, the magic whispered to us, waking and sighing in relief.
One day, I hoped, anyone left of our old coven might feel good coming back. This was their home, and the source of our magic was centered here. My place was now in Bluewater, but these old mountains would always be in my blood.
The moon shone down on me through the trees illuminating the forest enough for me to easily walk amongst the leaves.
I froze as a flash of something ran through my mind. It was the same broken pieces I’d been seeing for months, but I couldn’t place it or piece them together no matter what I tried.
There was a man, an absolutely gorgeous man, in these woods. And then there was me, smiling. But it didn’t make sense.
“Who are you?” A rough voice pulled me from my musings. “Why are you here?”
I whirled, gathering magic in my fingertips, ready to blast whoever was on my clan’s ancient lands. Livvie wasn’t far to my right, close enough that she stood with her hands up defensively as well.
A massive man stood behind me. How he’d snuck up on me, I didn’t know, but he was a beast of a man.
And as soon as I saw him, the wind left my body, like falling from a horse and hitting the ground with a thud.
All of the pieces of the last few months, the splinters of visions, the fragments of thought, they all came together at once and formed to make an image of this man. This shifter. This… dragon.
This man who stared at me like he’d just seen hope personified.
“Oh, no,” I muttered.
At the same time, he spoke. “Holy shit.”
“What is going on?” Livvie asked.
“I’m pretty sure we just set off some magic in Grove Holler.” I stepped forward, studying the gorgeous face in front of me. “I think this man is my mate.”