Chapter Twenty-Three
It would be a lot easier for Maggie to stomach the coming trek through the Wilds if the square mile around Hawthorn weren’t blanketed in a dense, pall-induced fog.
Thankfully, Maggie hadn’t even bothered to put away her winter clothes as the seasons shifted, because the weather was so unusually chilly.
She’d dug through her clothes to try to find something—anything—to wear to traipse through the Wilds.
She settled on black leggings, an old long-sleeved Hawthorn shirt, and a colorful fleece she could remove when they emerged from the pall fog.
She set a Hawthorn Splinters baseball cap on her head and threw her hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck.
She’d had no idea what kind of shoes to wear but finally chose a pair of neglected sneakers.
In a small backpack, she packed extra clothing, a full water bottle, enough peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and granola bars for two days of hiking, and a sample collection kit that Dr. Silva had offered them when they’d told the botanist their plan.
It would keep the gloaming creeper alive until they returned to the campus to make the decoction that would counteract the confluence.
As she walked toward campus, Maggie tried not to think about what camping with Arthur would be like.
Would they have to share a tent? She had spent a restless night imagining telling him the truth about Beltane next to a campfire and reaching for him in the glow of the flames.
The memories she had of Beltane were made sharp by the spell fading, and it was so easy to conjure exactly how it would feel to finally kiss him again.
To have his large hands roam her body in the darkness, to feel the press of him against her.
She’d driven herself into a frenzy with want and need until sleep was impossible, so her hands had drifted below the band of her underwear, and she’d taken care of herself.
Now, a blush crept up her neck as she drew closer to Ilex Hall.
Arthur waited for her below the hawthorn tree. Even though it was June, the air was crisp like October. Arthur wore a hunter-green fleece and a wool beanie pulled over his ears. He held two insulated mugs, and when she arrived, he handed one to her.
Maggie took a sip. It was a little creamier than she liked, but he’d known not to put in any sugar. “You made me coffee?”
Arthur shrugged. “I make one for myself every morning. It wasn’t too hard to make one for you, too.”
“How’d you know how to make it?” She took another sip.
“Oh, I bribed Edna,” he said easily. Just as Maggie was about to spiral about whether Edna would read into Arthur asking about her coffee order, he added, “I’m joking. How many times have you called Dahlia from our office and begged her to bring you a treat?”
Somehow, it was worse that he’d just been observant. “Dahlia always forgets I don’t like it sweet.”
The howling screech of a banshee echoed through the foggy air. She looked to the sky, but the beast wasn’t close by, deterred by the warding around campus. She set her pack on the picnic table and unzipped it. “We should get going,” Arthur said, watching her.
“I need to do something first.” She rifled through her carefully packed belongings.
She should have put the paint on top, but she hadn’t been thinking.
Well, that wasn’t true, she had been thinking.
About Arthur holding her beneath the stars, about the way his kiss had melted her, about the pressure of his leg between her thighs as they’d danced.
About the hours they would be spending alone together now.
She looked up at him. “Take your fleece off.”
“Excuse me?” he sputtered, and she nearly laughed to see him so unmoored.
He may not remember what happened on Beltane, but she could still rattle him.
His eyes grew wide as she pulled the collar of her fleece to the side, revealing her collarbone and a rune painted in an ocher pigment blended with vervain.
The shock on Arthur’s face was quickly replaced with curiosity as he put his coffee mug down and leaned in to get a better look.
“Oh, wow. Vintage magic,” he said as he straightened to take off his fleece, revealing a black undershirt that clung to his biceps.
She’d only ever seen him in sweaters and jackets and dress shirts that he tended to wear loose. Her mouth was suddenly very dry.
Arthur picked up the pot of paint. “You just happened to have a mixture of ocher and”—he smelled the paint and grimaced at the strength of the lemony herb scent—“vervain?”
“Of course I had body paint,” she huffed. “Doesn’t everyone keep some, just in case?”
“Just in case of what? Casual monster hunting after work?”
Maggie laughed. “It’s left over from my barhopping days.
” It had been a trend, for a while, to use the coppery paint as decoration for a night out.
Charms were much more popular these days.
They could be worn as earrings or necklaces, even belt buckles or shoelaces, but Maggie was worried something physical would fall off during their hike.
“But I guess that was a little bit like monster hunting.”
Arthur grimaced, but she gave him a small smile so he would know it was a joke. Mostly. “And the vervain?” he asked.
“I grow it in a pot on my patio. Can’t be too careful this close to the Wilds,” she explained. “And the store-bought vervain powder always feels less potent, you know?”
He was looking at her with an almost reverent expression, but she wasn’t sure what she’d done to earn that. “You are a surprise, Maggie Linden,” he said quietly.
Maggie didn’t know what to do with that statement. She hated feeling this unsteady. She hated that she didn’t know what she wanted.
No, it was worse. She knew exactly what she wanted.
She wanted to push Arthur Taliesin back on this picnic table and kiss him until she was dizzy.
She wanted to lead him by the hand back to her apartment instead of deep into the Wilds.
But she was so, so afraid. What if she let him in and he hurt her? What if she hurt him?
Her cheeks flushed, and she turned quickly back to her bag to hide how red they were. She pulled out a small notebook she used for calculations and asked Arthur, with her back still turned, “How tall are you?”
“Six two.” Arthur sat down on the picnic table bench next to her bag, looking over at her so she couldn’t hide her expression anymore.
She was secretly pleased with her guessing skills.
She’d have to remember to grab that list from Rodrigo’s next time she was in town since there was no reason to hunt for her mystery man anymore.
Not when he was sitting right in front of her, holding the collar of his undershirt to the side to reveal a stretch of firm, smooth chest.
Maggie dipped her smallest paintbrush in the ocher.
The reality of what she was about to do struck her, and she hesitated for just a moment, standing over him.
She avoided looking at his face, instead focusing on that stretch of skin dotted with a few freckles.
When she dared to glance up, she found him staring at her, his lips parted, and Maggie couldn’t help but remember what it was like to have those lips on hers, all-consuming.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to be doing.
She ached for him, a hollow need between her legs that was getting harder and harder to ignore.
“Maggie.” His voice was barely above a whisper, more growl than speech. She tore her gaze from his lips and pressed her palm to his shoulder, leaning him back against the table. He let out a low oof, and then Maggie held the brush to his skin.
“Hold still,” she commanded. She carefully dragged the paintbrush across his skin, each line and curve of the rune a precise match to the spell she’d calculated.
She’d adjusted it for his height and birthday, which she’d looked up in the university celebration directory the night before.
When the rune was complete, she brought her face close to his skin and blew on it to dry it quickly.
Goose bumps rose along his skin, sending a thrill through Maggie.
She paused, and, almost imperceptibly, Arthur tensed and his jaw twitched.
He must have realized what was coming, too.
“Go on,” he breathed, and she wondered if he felt whatever this was between them like she did.
Every word out of his mouth was a reminder of what he’d said on Beltane, every touch, every sound.
She placed two fingers on the rune she’d just drawn.
She tried not to think about the way his skin felt beneath her fingers, about her palm still pressed against his left shoulder to keep him still, and she said the protection spell in a shaky but sure voice.
A cord of light zipped through the ocher paint, and Maggie knew the spell was wrapping its way around Arthur like armor, just as it had on her that morning.
Maggie didn’t pull away immediately. She stayed between his spread legs, crouched awkwardly over his body.
I’m just making sure the rune activated properly.
But she could barely convince herself that was true.
Before she could say or do something she would regret, she stepped backward, and the spell between them broke.
Arthur released his collar, hiding her work, and tugged the fleece back over his head. His voice was strained as he hiked his pack over his shoulder. “We need to get going. There’s a bit of a drive and then a long walk before we cross the Dismal.”
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