Chapter 9
Morgan
The first kiss of summer is deadly. It’s only May, but the heat is unbearable. The garden is wilting beneath the sun, and I am too.
Infuriatingly enough, Sylvan is unbothered. He’s added exactly one accessory to his outfit—a pair of sunglasses which are pushed up the bridge of his nose. The sun turns the tips of his hair a reddish brown, and he doesn’t burn like I do. It’s annoying.
The front door shuts behind us, the lock clicking softly all by itself. I groan as the heat hits me. I feel like a popsicle on midsummer pavement.
“Hold this,” I mutter, handing Sylvan my black parasol.
He takes it silently, his brows drawing together as he glances around us. The manor faces a quiet street with neighbors who mostly mind their own business. They haven’t bothered us yet, at least, although I’m absolutely certain someone is peeking out their window and watching.
“Everyone is nosy,” he mutters.
I smile despite the fact that he grates my nerves.
The good news is my period went by fast, so now I don’t have to hear him occasionally moan in pain or ask me how I’ve survived for so long with cramps.
Admittedly, it was kind of cute. Our routine over the last week had turned into us bickering, us trying to figure out if the weird book he’d found had anything useful inside, bickering again, him cooking food, bickering a third time—then pretending like the full moon wasn’t coming up soon or that it was falling right around when my ovulation would start.
“At least we have no one living behind us,” I say.
“True. I like the woods . . .” He trails off. “Do people ever swim in the lake? We should go sometime.”
“Well, it’s right by the coven house,” I say. “That’s why Maeve’s funeral was there. People do swim, but I think they would not be very inviting toward us.”
Sylvan sighs. “Maybe we should try to make friends with people in the coven.”
I snort. “Sure. Go ahead.”
“Have you ever considered making friends, Morgan?”
“Have you?”
He chuckles, but doesn’t respond. I shoot him a dirty look, but then think about the wild forest behind the manor.
It was always a perk of living at the edge of Hex Ridge while growing up.
The woods surround the small, quaint town—stretching until they hit the slopes of the mountains that then crawl up toward the sky.
The town was named after the view that can be seen from the center square of the spiny ridge in the distance.
The hex part comes from the theory that the Hex opened right here in the mountains—right over the lake. A gateway to another world that was then closed by my unlucky ancestor, a werewolf, and a daimon. Regardless of the history, it’s beautiful. Even in summer, the ridge is often capped with snow.
It’ll take us about twenty minutes to walk to the grocery store and cafe, which is the perfect amount of time to stretch my legs, breathe some fresh air, and get the fuck out of the house.
I need to do something besides reading all the books from my grandmother’s library and researching forms of dark magic.
After getting over our awkward night encounter a little over a week ago, Sylvan showed me the book he found in the library.
Between the two of us, we've been making notes on the contents inside.
It’s a bizarre book. It’s one that I’ve seen in countless libraries and is generally regarded as the correct history of Shadow Seers.
One is born about every seventy-five years, and usually they are killed before their magic can manifest. Truthfully, I find that horrid, but it’s practically a law that if your child shows signs of being a Shadow Seer—you turn them over to the Council.
Every page in that book has annotations and corrections.
I can’t tell if they’re true or not, but I do find it bizarre to find this sort of thing in my grandmother’s library.
It hasn’t helped us find any answers, but reading and studying together is about the only thing Sylvan and I can do without arguing.
It’s a sad day when I feel the need to dress up for a walk into a town the size of a grain of salt. I wear a black sleeveless maxi dress with a plunging neckline, thigh length shorts underneath to keep my skin from rubbing together, and black tennis shoes that are cute and comfy.
Sylvan and I are no closer to learning about the darkness we saw in the woods on the night of the first full moon we spent in the manor. It’s still a mystery. All I know is that I walked down the garden path, and then he was there, rescuing me.
Pinning me down.
And then I humiliated myself, just like I did again last week when he woke me up.
At least he was embarrassed too. Not that he should have been. Nudity has never been something I felt the need to be shy about. I love my body and I love the effect I have on him, even if we dislike each other. There’s a deep satisfaction in seeing how hard his cock can get.
For me. All for me.
If he’s that big in this form, I have no idea what kind of weapon he swings during a full moon. I never got a glimpse, which is a shame. I’m too curious, which is bad. Very, very bad.
My embarrassment now is from the fact that I suggested he get me off to relieve my cramps. It’s one of those moments that I keep recalling because I said that to him knowing full well we’re stuck in a house together until the Wolf Moon.
Sweat beads and my cheeks warm. Grasshoppers leap in the grass below as I dig through my bag in search of my sunglasses, annoyed.
Annoyed by him, by the sun, and by the fact that somehow, our routines have become so intertwined that he is always here.
Forever my shadow. At this point, I’m paranoid he knows when I use the bathroom. Ugh.
“You could take off, you know?” I grit out.
“Could take off to the woods and never see me again. Maybe you could find a pack that would be able to handle the fact that you drink your coffee black like a psychopath and add salt to everything, even ice cream. What kind of person sprinkles salt on ice cream? What kind of person eats an entire pint of ice cream without asking the other person they’re living with if they’d like some? It’s real dick energy, you know.”
Sylvan rolls his eyes. “I offered to get you ice cream, and you told me no. So I bought myself some, and ate it.”
“Yeah, but you should have offered anyway. That’s what a normal person does.”
“Nothing about either of us is normal. I offered, you declined. I don’t know why you're still upset about it.”
“Because I wanted something sweet, and instead I got to deal with a complete alphahole taunting me with a stupid I told you so.”
Sylvan ignores every barbed word and delivers a flat look. “What are you looking for in your bag of endless garbage, Morgan?”
“My sunglasses.”
“They’re on your head, sweetheart.”
Fuck. My cheeks burn as I immediately reach up, and sure enough, there they are. With a soft curse, I adjust them on my face. Hopefully the lenses are thick enough to save him from the sharp glare I’m giving.
“Don’t ever call me sweetheart again, or I will find a way to curse you,” I snap.
“It’s too fucking late for that. Do you need your sunscreen?”
“No.”
Truthfully, I do. But I don’t want him to be right about another thing. I put some on my face, but not anywhere else.
“You don’t smell like body sunscreen.” He wrinkles his nose. “You told me last week to always remind you about your sunscreen since it’s starting to get warm out. Are you sure—”
“Have I told you how annoying you are?”
A dry smile traces his lips. “Just every minute of every day, witch. But if you burn, you’re going to be bitching about it over the next week, and I’d like to save us both the headache.”
“I said I was fine.”
“Okay.” His voice pitches a bit higher. “If you say so. Just remember this. I don’t need a second ice cream meltdown.”
I snatch my parasol away from him and pop it open. He steps back before it smacks him in the face. He pushes his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, following me down the steps and out the front gate.
“I like the summertime. End of June will be when it gets really warm, but I like a run beneath a hot full moon,” he sighs. There’s a sense of longing in his voice, and it makes me wonder if Sylvan has any hobbies outside of werewolfing. I never see him do anything but read and watch me.
I tilt my head curiously as we start down the sidewalk.
I still don’t know much about him. We’ve been living together for a few weeks now, and while I know how annoying his daily routines are, like leaving fur around the house every time he shifts, I don’t know Sylvan.
I'm not sure I even want to get to know him, but small talk would make the walk to town a little more comfortable. When he’s silent and brooding, it puts me on edge.
“Why did you take the job with my grandmother?” I ask.
Sylvan lets out a low hum. My skin buzzes as he glances over at me suspiciously. “That’s out of the blue. Why do you want to know?”
“I’m just trying to make conversation.”
“Okay. Well, she reached out to me.”
“How? A vision? Raven?”
He chuckles. “Good ol’ fashioned email.”
I feign a gasp. “I didn’t know she knew how electronics worked.”
“Frankly, I don’t think she really did. But yeah, she emailed me, sent me the job details. And well, it landed right after I’d finished up with the one before this.”
“What was that job?”
“Guarding a vault outside Salem,” he says. Oh my goddess. Excitement hits me as he continues. “It was some sort of vault that belonged to a long dead daimon, and I guess they’re excavating it.”
I clutch his sleeve with wide eyes. “Are you serious? You were guarding the Helios Vault? I’ve been reading about it because it was supposedly buried not long after the Hex. What do you think is inside it?”
Sylvan’s brows arch in surprise. “I’ve never seen you so excited about something before.”
I flinch, releasing his sleeve. “I get excited about things. I just . . .”
“Hate me.”