Chapter 4 #2
He stared at me like I had grown another head. “You have got to be the worst witch I’ve ever met. How do you cast something that permanent without a way out? What if the man who showed up here was a pervert?”
“Gods, you are insufferable.” I turned and stormed toward the break in the trees.
Abram fell into step beside me. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes. Because I don’t know how to fix what you did.”
“Me?” He looked genuinely offended.
“Yes, you,” I snapped. “I told you to leave. You didn’t listen. Now look at us.” I gestured between us. “Married.”
That word seemed to steady him.
Abram slowed. His gaze lingered on my face longer than necessary, thoughtful now instead of panicked. Heat crept into my cheeks under his scrutiny.
“I’ll figure out a way to undo this,” I whispered.
Something shifted in his expression. The tension in his shoulders eased as his eyes traced over me, measuring, considering.
“No,” he said finally. “Don’t do that.”
My chest tightened.
“This is fine,” he went on. “It doesn’t mean anything. You need to be married for your coven, right?”
“Yes,” I said warily.
He nodded, visibly relaxing. “Then use me as your husband. As soon as I meet my mate, this marriage is over.”
Mate.
The word punched the air out of my lungs.
“My… your mate?” I asked carefully.
“Yes. All gods have one. The one made for us.” He shrugged. “I haven’t met mine yet.”
My heart hammered. “How would you know?”
“There’ll be a golden bond between us.”
My gaze dropped instinctively between us. The moon didn’t make mistakes. Was this fate, twisted and cruel?
“We can’t tell anyone,” he added quickly, cutting through my thoughts. “Gods are only meant to be with their mates. I don’t want anyone knowing we’re married.”
“Fine,” I said. “But you come to the crowning in a month. They have to meet you. I’ll be sworn in as permanent queen. It’s the most important day of my life.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Deal.”
He held out his hand.
After a beat, I slid mine into his.
“I’m going to have to live with you until the crowning,” I blurted out.
“What?” he gawked at me.
“The coven knows I am getting married right now. It is customary for the queen and her husband to be gone until the crowning. I mean, maybe for an event or two if needed.”
“Why is that a custom?” he asked.
My cheeks immediately heated. And his body was tense.
“To produce an heir,” I whispered.
“Fucking.” He glared. “That will not be happening between us. This is a marriage in name only.”
Something inside my chest sank. This didn’t mean anything to him.
“I know,” I said quickly. “But they can’t know it’s a sham. Not yet. Once I’m sworn in, you can leave.”
You would be the one leaving. Not me.
Abram studied me for a long moment, jaw tight. Then he exhaled.
“Fine.” He gave in. “Let’s go home.”
I grabbed the bag I had packed before coming.
He grabbed my hand and used his magic to take us away.
When we reappeared, my eyes widened as I saw we were outside of a beautiful black home deep in the woods.
It wasn’t large, but it looked homey. He led me inside, and his scent instantly filled my lungs.
I relaxed as I glanced at the house. The walls were covered in art and small wooden carvings.
Rocking chairs faced the fire that was roaring. I took a step forward and glanced over the pretty kitchen. I looked over my shoulder at Abram and smiled.
“This is not what I thought your home would look like.” I turned back to look over the shelf of books. “It’s beautiful.”
Abram’s soft footsteps stopped right behind me.
“Thank you.”
I looked over each book, each carving, everything my greedy eyes could because this was like seeing inside his head. Did anyone ever get to come here?
“We have a problem,” he sighed as he grabbed my hand before leading me to the left. He opened the door, and a large bed sat against the far wall. My chest was tight as I stared at the bed. I had never been with a man. I had never even kissed one.
I had always been a little scared to give myself away like that. I glanced at Abram and frowned—he didn’t make that seem scary to me. He said that wasn’t going to happen, though. I shook my head as I looked at the bedroom. It felt oddly intimate to see where he slept.
“One bed,” he muttered.
“Well… we could share?” I offered, the words escaping before I could stop them.
He recoiled as if I’d suggested something obscene. “Absolutely not.”
Heat rushed to my face as I pulled my hand from his. Stupid. I turned away before he could see it.
“Relax,” I said lightly. “I was kidding.”
I wasn’t.
“I’ll take the couch.”
“No,” he said at once. “You take the bed.”
“It’s fine, Abram.” I lifted my bag. “I’m the one imposing. Besides,” I added quietly, “you’ll probably want to save it for your mate.”
I headed back into the living space, letting my eyes roam over the warm, whimsical room.
“Did you build this yourself?” I asked as I grabbed my bag of clothes.
“Yes.” His voice was steady. “I figured my mate would want a home. If she doesn’t like it, I’ll build her another.”
I looked back at him.
He was watching me.
Something tight gathered in my throat. If I had a mate… would they have done something like this? Loved me enough to build a place for me before even knowing my name?
I looked away before the feeling could spill over.
“It’s perfect. I’m sure she’ll love it.” I gave him a small smile.
Jealousy bloomed inside me. I would likely never get this.
Jade had made the coven's curse impossible to break. I could fall in love once, and if that man did not choose me back then I would die lonely. Maybe that is why I never gave myself to a man before; I was terrified to fall in love with someone who wouldn’t love me back.
No man had been interested in me for more than one date anyway, so I hadn't had any chances.
I had never thought of myself as undesirable. Not really. Not until Abram. He had caught me off guard the moment he appeared all those years ago. Somehow, I had caught him off guard, too. And no matter how hard I tried, the foolish crush refused to fade.
“What are you thinking of?” Abram came up beside me with a hot cup of tea.
I took it and sipped it.
“How nice it would be to have a fated mate,” I confessed. “To love someone and know that they were made to love you back. Maybe if I had that, then I wouldn’t feel so scared to open up to someone.”
Abram stared at me for a long moment.
“It’s not uncommon for queens of witch covens to have a fated mate if they are powerful enough.”
“My coven can’t have mates,” I sighed. His brows pinched together.
“When Jade hexed us, that was part of the hex. My mother changed the fate of my father. She tricked him into leaving his real fated mate with a spell. So Jade took away my ability to have a mating bond. It makes it harder to break the coven’s curse. ”
He stared at me with confusion. His eyes fell to my chest before looking at his. What was he looking for? His brows pinched in confusion.
“Where is your father?” he asked.
I took a sip of tea to try to keep the lump in my throat at bay.
“When my mother died, her spell broke, and with that my father learned the truth of what she did. He went back to Jade. They are still together.”
“Damn. Are you close?”
I shook my head. “Not anymore. He used to be my favorite person in the whole world. But when the spell broke, it was like his love for me did too. He told me I was a disgusting reminder of my mother, and he didn’t want to be reminded of her ever again.
He slammed the door in my face and never talked to me again. ”
I blinked the tears back so Abram wouldn’t see the pain I held in. As the queen, I did not get to be weak.
“Little weaver…”
“It’s fine,” I muttered. “Him and Jade had their own daughter. I’m sure he has erased me out of his memory for good.”
I left out the fact that I had spied on my father for years.
There was nothing that made me feel better.
Time did not heal my wounds. My mother died and left me to clean up her mess.
But I thought that with time, maybe my father would come back to me.
He must have loved me at one point. How could he just stop so quickly?
I thought I could change fate so that I could have him again, but then one day I saw him cradling a baby girl.
Him and Jade had been standing outside, and he muttered how perfect she was.
How he had never loved anything like he loved her.
Tears fell down my cheeks as I turned my back to Abram. The last time I saw my father, he had been walking down the street with his daughter.
She was getting older and looked similar to me.
They were walking up the street toward me, and I thought he would see me and stop.
He didn’t. He looked at me and didn’t even linger on me.
Either he didn’t recognize me or didn’t want to.
That was the most painful moment in my life—watching someone I love pretend not to know me.
I felt like his dirty secret.
The coven had never really felt like home to me either. My mother was so obsessed with my father when I was growing up that I didn’t get much affection from her. And when the coven figured out what she did, it was me they took it out on. No one in this world would care if I disappeared.
“Elowyn.” The pity in Abram’s voice made me feel disgusted with myself.
“I’m tired. It was a long day—getting married and all.” I tried to lighten the mood. “Will you undo the back of my dress so I can change and go to sleep?”
I turned and moved my loose hair out of his way. He was taking too long to say anything, so I looked behind me, and he seemed unsure.
“It doesn’t mean anything, Abe. I just can’t get it off by myself. The women at the coven helped me in it and expected my husband to tear me out of it, or that is how they phrased it.”
Abram nodded and stepped forward. I stared at the small carving on the shelf and smiled at the wooden flower he had carved.
My breath held when his hands touched my back, slowly undoing the string of the corset.
Abram’s breath fanned over the back of my neck, and my body shivered.
The looser the corset became, the more my skin was exposed.
I could feel the ghost of his skin brushing against mine and tried not to think anything of it.
He was not mine. But what if he was? The moon sent him to me, and he was looking for his mate. Maybe I was lucky enough to be the one made for him. The thought made my chest ache with hopefulness.
“There you go,” he whispered with a strained voice.
I held the dress to my chest as I turned to face him. My gaze lingered on his face.
“Thank you.”
Would I ever be blessed enough by the heavens to have him? He was the only man who ever caught my attention. There had to be a reason for that—right? Maybe we needed to be around each other more for it to snap into place. Could he love me if he spent enough time around me?
“Goodnight, Abram.”
He turned and headed for the bedroom, but stopped with his back toward me.
“Goodnight, Elowyn.”
Then he closed the door to his room, and I prayed to everything that this was fate working in a mysterious way. Maybe he was my fate.