Warlock: Book 4 -- Early Preview Chapters

A quick note about these very early Warlock 4 chapters. We're still very early in the process, with only about half of the book written, but I want to keep ̶t̶e̶a̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ giving you some Warlock content once the early chapters are pretty baked, but the nature of my writing process means a lot of additions and moving things around at this stage.

So this one has a bit of a repeat of the last one, with some additions, and then the new stuff.

If the changes and some repetition put you off, it might be best for you to wait until I start the final previews, as there'll be fewer changes like that.

Also the PDFs in these early ones will just be the post content, not what came before. It's a little more complicated to get multiple scenes into a PDF from Scrivener (my writing software), so the aggregate PDFs will have to wait until the full previews in a couple months.

Chapter

I sipped a glass of forty-year tawny port I’d brought up from Mel’s wine cellar with the wine for dinner while the girls made clinky-scrapy sounds with their spoons to get the last of their desserts.

Mel had made pears poached in the same wine she’d used for the lamb sauce — at least Cassandra hadn’t added Buffalo to hers.

As the plates were finally pushed back, Cassandra sighed.

“I don’t suppose —”

“Let her have it,” Sam muttered. “She’ll just sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and eat it standing in front of the refrigerator.”

Cassandra didn’t even bother to deny it — she just grinned as Mel handed over the dish with the remaining pear halves.

“Don’t wait for me,” she said, setting the dish in front of her and picking up her spoon.

I cleared my throat.

“Okay,” I said. “What have we found out about the Fieldings? Rachel?”

During the school year, we’d started a habit of talking out coven plans and issues after Sunday dinner at Mel’s, and hadn’t changed that now that those dinners were every night. We had a lot of stuff going on.

There were a lot of important things on that list, like finding out who Morgan’s family was, since she’d been stolen by the Fae as a baby, and finding my mother, who I’d only recently found out was still alive, before my psychotic, serial killer cousin found her.

Those were longer-term things, though, and my main goal for the summer was to find some way to convince the Fielding Family to allow Hannah and Brittany to join us.

“Punctum ordnis, Dominus,” Sam said.

I sighed. “I don’t think we need to run our dinner meetings like a witch council.”

“Now, maybe,” Cassandra said, swallowing. “When there are thirteen of us? Plus when the kids get old enough to have issues they want dealt with?”

I slowly closed my mouth.

Yeah … things got shouty in these meetings even now once in a while. Thirteen witches and … fuck, everybody but Rachel was going to want a kid once they graduated, all within four years of each other … we were going to wind up with a dozen teenage witches at the same time …

Sam was giving me a tell-me-I’m-wrong nod. “See? And that’s before they grow up and we start having full Family meetings.”

“Rules and structure are important,” Rachel said.

I nodded. “Okay … I guess getting used to it now means we won’t have to change things later.”

It would be a lot easier if the rules were there as new girls joined the coven, and the kids grew up, rather than changing things when it became an issue.

I sighed. “Okay, Sam?”

“Right,” Sam said. “So Morgan’s almost there with her shields … I think we should plan on a date-night schedule change starting this weekend.”

“This weekend’s mine,” Cassandra said.

“And Morgan’s been cooped up in the house for a long time now,” Sam said. “She should get the first available slot.”

I started to tune out — whatever the decision was, it would be time with the girls, either alone or together, so I’d be happy however they wanted to —

“We’re out of school,” Cassandra argued. “There’s more than one night in a week, you know.”

“That’s right!” Rachel said. “Every night could be date-night!”

I tuned back in.

“I can’t take one of you out every night,” I said.

“That’s right,” Priscilla put in.

At least one of them was thinking of how exhausting that would be for me.

Priscilla shook her head. “If he takes one of us out every night, then that means four nights the rest of us are here alone without him.”

“Every other night?” Rachel suggested.

“Uh-uh.” Sam shook her head. “Only two of us can sit next to him on the couch — do you really want to take half the days out of that rotation?”

The other girls stared at Sam for a minute, silent.

“You sit with him every night,” Cassandra said.

Sam at least had the good grace to flush red.

“That’s in the floor-spot! None of you wanted the floor-spot — and I give up my beside-spot slots.”

We had schedules.

First there were the evening and morning sex schedules, which usually, at least, coincided with the sleeping schedules. Then there was the date-night schedule, followed by the sit-next-to on the couch after-dinner schedule — which had the sub-schedule of who took Sam’s turn beside me. That was a separate schedule because it didn’t include my arm on that side, that being reserved to play with Sam’s hair or rub her shoulders.

I think there was also a rotation for who got to walk beside me when we went out, but I wasn’t sure — I assumed there was, because we never had the sort of musical-chairs dive for the spots like we did for the couch spots during the day. That was first-come and fun to watch, even if it did result in the occasional elbow jabs from mistimed leaps for the spots.

Normally, the girls handled this sort of thing without me and I just cuddled whoever wound up next to me, but this meant more going out and date planning, so I was glad I was here to have a say.

“Two date-nights a week over the summer,” I said, “and we’ll reevaluate when we get back from the trip.”

The girls shared some nods.

Cassandra took out her phone. “I’ll update the calendar — Morgan gets first-available after her shields hold?”

I nodded.

Morgan cleared her throat.

“Why, yes, Ashe,” she said when the rest of us were paying attention. “Sure, I’ll go out with you.”

I sighed. “Problem?”

Morgan shook her head, pursing her lips. “Just I get told I’m going to join your coven, then you tell me when we’re going out — you’re very bossy.”

“I’ll take her spot if she doesn’t want it!”

“Isn’t it great?”

Cassandra managed to get her comment in just before Sam.

“Nice try, Elsa,” Morgan said, shaking her head.

I sighed again. Morgan hadn’t stopped giving me shit for my sucky “proposal” while we were trapped in the Cait’s circle trying to keep the Morrigan from possessing her. Apparently, I got no leeway for, you know, keeping her soul in her body.

“Morgan,” I said. “Would you consider doing me the honor of going out with me at some unknown number of times according to a schedule determined cooperatively with your peers?”

She smiled widely. “Yes! Thank you for asking.”

Then she frowned.

I sighed. “Something else?”

“Yeah,” Morgan said. “What’s this green shit?”

Morgan was looking down at herself.

I was confused. Morgan’s shirt was red and her shields were blue-white, so …

“Drop your shields so we can see,” Cassandra said.

“Another nice try, Elsa. I’m not resetting the clock that easy.”

Mel cleared her throat. “We can’t see through your shields, dear, so can’t answer your question unless you drop them. It won’t count against your twenty-four hours.”

Morgan narrowed her eyes.

“It’s not a trick, dear. The shielding tests are for force, not deception.”

“Okay,” Morgan said, dropping her shields.

I squinted — there was a tiny, green glow in one of her formerly dark resonants, with just a bit more being sucked in.

It wasn’t the sickly green of Cassandra’s Malice — this was darker. Not dark in a bad sense, but almost comfortable — it felt like a color you’d find in some old library or bank filled with dark wood.

I wasn’t the only one squinting.

“What?” Morgan asked. “Does this mean we know what one of them is?”

“It means you’re generating whatever it is,” Sam told her, “but I don’t recognize it.”

Cassandra leaned back to get a better look, then snort-laughed.

“What?” Morgan demanded.

“Tell her to do something,” Cassandra told me, ignoring Morgan.

“What?”

“Tell her to do something,” Cassandra repeated.

I looked at Morgan, who was scowling at me.

That seemed a little unfair, considering it was Cassandra who was telling me to do it.

I shrugged. “Put your hand on your head?”

“Fuck you.”

I nodded. About the response I’d been expecting.

“Now do it,” Cassandra told Morgan.

“Fuck you twice.”

“Do it, dear,” Mel said. “I believe Cassandra is correct.”

“Correct about what?”

Morgan looked around, and, for once, I wasn’t the one being stared at by a room full of witches.

“Fine,” she muttered and put her hand on top of her head. “Happy?”

I raised an eyebrow — a trickle of green mana was sucked into Morgan’s resonant. It wasn’t the steely grey of Control, even though there was some of that drifting off her as well.

It’s hard to think when a pregnant witch is laughing her ass off.

Sam was grinning. “Oh, this is gonna be good.”

“What?” Morgan demanded.

Priscilla was biting her lip and looked just as amused as everyone who knew what the fuck was going on.

“It’s Surrender,” she said, edging a little away Morgan.

Morgan’s face froze.

“It’s what?”

“It’s a sub-Resonant of Conflict,” Rachel said.

I think she was the only one not smothering laughter … but I was also certain that Rachel, having Passion, had the most self-control of any us, so I wouldn’t put money on it.

“What’s that?” Morgan demanded.

“Conflict is —” Rachel shrugged. “— arguing, fighting, stuff like that.”

“And?” Morgan asked warily.

I winced, waiting.

“You have to give in,” Cassandra said. “Surrender.”

I watched Morgan’s jaw move.

“On the plus side,” Sam said, “you should get your shields set with more mana to work with.”

Cassandra snorted. “So long as you’re a good girl.”

Morgan closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Magic is stupid,” she muttered.

Chapter

I gave Morgan a minute to adjust.

We still didn’t know her other Resonant, and I hoped it would turn out to be something that didn’t piss her off even more, but I wanted to move on to what we’d learned about Hannah and Brittany.

“Okay,” I said. “Is everybody okay with the new date-night schedule?”

The girls smiled and nodded — except for Mel who looked more amused.

And Felicity … who was crouched next to her plate with her ears back.

“See why we need rules?” Rachel whispered.

I gave her a reluctant nod and when I looked back, Felicity’s ears were back up as though nothing had happened.

Something was clearly wrong, though, but the cat-witch was so reserved that I didn’t think asking her in front of everyone was a good idea. I’d have to either get her alone or figure it out myself, and I really didn’t get that much alone time with Felicity anymore.

Yeah, she could talk in my head, but responding that way felt weird.

I’d always spoken out loud to Felicity growing up, since I didn’t know she was anything more than a cat — besides, it seemed rude to have a private conversation like that while a bunch of other people were around.

One more thing to add to my list, the top of which had now received schedule and prepare for a date with Morgan.

I nodded. “Anything else before we discuss the Fieldings?”

“Great,” I said when no one spoke. “Rachel?”

Rachel pursed her lips, not a good sign.

“I’ve read through the Principium twice —”

“Six times,” Sam muttered.

“Those were skims,” Rachel corrected. “And all the Council and coven minutes I could find that mentioned previous Lost Ones — it’s been a long time, though, so a lot of records are missing.”

I nodded my understanding.

We’d become an official witch Family due to my being the last of Mel’s line and her being unable to have more children. That qualified me as a Lost One — the last of a line lost to the Goddess during the Black Death and now found. There was an ancient, magical geas associated with that, demanding that all witches assist us in reestablishing the line.

“Anyway, there are a lot of things we could get if we needed them, including asking for witches to fill out the coven, but the thing is, we don’t need them.”

I raised an eyebrow. I definitely needed Hannah and Brittany, if only so the ache in my jaw every time I thought of not having them would go away.

Blackwood warlocks have control issues.

“Without Hannah and Brittany, we have eight open sedes in the coven,” I said. “How does that not count?”

I counted on my fingers: Sam, Cassandra, and Rachel, with Priscilla and Morgan, was five. A coven was thirteen. Thirteen minus five was —

“Six,” Sam muttered.

“He’s taking us for granted,” Priscilla whispered to Morgan, who nodded, glaring at me.

I sighed.

“I’m not taking you two for granted,” I told Priscilla and Morgan. “I’m just trying to get the numbers right.” I turned to Sam. “And I know you’re counting on a couple gigantic Swedes coming out of our trip, but there aren’t any guarantees any of them will even like us once we meet.”

Several girls snorted derision at me.

Sam glanced down the table. “That’s not who I was — never mind.”

“Mwumass ‘eral,” Cassandra muttered around a pear half.

“Rachel?” I prompted.

“That’s the problem, though,” Rachel said. “We already have, like, fifty possible initiatae for those seats —”

“Seventy-four,” Sam corrected.

“What? You’re supposed to be narrowing the list down,” I protested.

Sam had started the list way back before we were even a recognized Family, getting applications from all over North America and Europe from witches who were willing to break with their own Families for the chance at a coven.

“That was before we became a recognized Family and I told Sara Morgan-Gould to have her mother call me. I thought she’d just use that as an excuse to stop trying to seduce you in the sauna, but her mom actually did.” Sam shrugged. “Apparently word got around.”

I groaned. “And now we have twenty more? Can’t you just say no?”

“These are official Family requests — either because they want a tie to us or they think their girl has a chance of marking you.”

“Mwumass ‘itches,” Cassandra muttered.

“So we have to at least meet with the new ones — otherwise we’ll piss off even more Families. I managed to put a lot of them off by saying we’d talk to the girls at school, but we’ll need to set something up for the others. Maybe at the Conclave.”

I sighed. Sam’s and Cassandra’s mothers already hated me for binding the girls without their permission — despite both of them having instructed their daughters to try and get me. At least we’d made an arrangement with Rachel’s grandmother so the Winthrops didn’t have to pretend to be mad at us anymore.

“See the problem?” Rachel asked. “With so many witches offering, we can’t really say we need Hannah and Brittany, so the Fieldings aren’t denying anything to reestablishing the Blackwood line by refusing. It was one thing when it was just Sam’s secret witches, but now everybody’s involved.”

“I don’t have any secret witches,” Sam said. “The list is fully available to all of you.”

Rachel stared and Sam flushed.

“Fine,” she muttered. “I may have kept some pictures sent by rejected applicants.”

“Let’s get rid of those,” I said, while Rachel’s eyes narrowed.

“But —”

“There are plenty of boobs on the internet. Delete.”

“Fine,” Sam huffed.

“On top of all our options now,” Rachel said, “the Fieldings haven’t even refused — they just won’t talk to us.”

Sam nodded confirmation. “Call number ninety-six, unreturned as of this morning.”

I sighed — maybe we should tone that down before we got dragged before the Witch Council for stalking.

“Cassandra? Anything on the trade front?”

I’d set Cassandra to examining past exchanges of witches between Families. It happened fairly often as the Families managed their covens to avoid consanguinity.

“There’s not really a standard,” Cassandra said after washing her pear down with the rest of her wine.

It was still unnerving to see someone drink that much while pregnant, but the witches all assured me it wasn’t an issue. I was still unclear whether that was because Cassandra could use the body-magic she’d used to make her breasts larger and her ears pointed to keep the alcohol from the baby, or because she wanted the little warlock to come out fully prepared for witch celebrations.

“Past trades are all over the place,” Cassandra said. “Some trades were witch-for-witch, some are two-for-one, some add cash or property — all different.”

Rachel nodded. “It’s like spellstick trades — each team’s trying to improve, so they value the players differently and each try to come out ahead for what they need. We need to figure out what we have that the Fieldings might want.”

“It won’t be one of our kids,” I said. “The deal with the Winthrops is right on the edge of what I’m willing to do, and I certainly don’t trust the Fieldings that much.”

Cassandra nodded. “And both Hannah and Brittany are pretty valuable to the Fieldings. They use Precog and Hindsight a lot in their business, and the last Precog trade in the records was to the Fieldings, and it was three-for-one with a huge credit for the Fieldings’ services. They really want more Precogs.”

The Fielding Family did investigative and security work in both the witch and mundane worlds, making the ability to see the future and recreate past events pretty core to their business model.

“None of which matters if they won’t even talk to us,” I said, frowning.

“Sorry,” Sam said.

“It’s not your fault — Mel? Anything on the favor front?”

Mel shook her head as well. “While I’m owed a number of debts, it seems the Fieldings are as well. Everyone I’ve spoken to is more likely to owe them something than be owed.”

I sighed, frustrated. It seemed like every avenue ended in a dead-end.

“I think you’re missing something,” Morgan said.

“What’s that?”

“Well, Cassandra said she hadn’t seen any futures where they wound up with us, right?”

Nobody answered, because we were all very confused.

“What are you talking about?” Cassandra asked.

“Cassandra’s visions.”

“I don’t have any visions!”

Morgan frowned. “Why would you have visions, Elsa? You’ve got the whole ice-thing going on.”

I might not have Precog, but I had a sudden, dawning realization of what horror was about to unfold.

“Do … do you mean Brittany?” I asked.

Morgan waved a hand. “Whatever — the one who sees the future. Cassandra.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Cassandra yelled.

“Chill, Elsa.”

I groaned, but everyone else was suppressing grins.

About the time I bound Rachel, Morgan had started complaining that there were far too many girls hanging off me to remember names, so she assigned nicknames.

Cassandra got Elsa — which was a lot better than some of the other options Morgan had thrown out — because of … well, white-blonde hair, pale skin, surprisingly good at Ice magic, despite Fire being the affinity she got from her Malice resonant.

I swear there were wisps of steam coming from the tips of Cassandra’s delicately pointed ears.

“So, ah, what about Cassandra’s visions?” Sam asked, now making no attempt whatsoever to hide her grin and completely ignoring Cassandra’s glare.

“I hate you all,” the pregnant witch muttered, pulling the dish of pears fully in front of her and attacking the poaching liquid with her spoon.

Morgan nodded, as though fully satisfied with her work, and went on.

“She didn’t see any future where they joined us, but —”

“Mrowr!”

“None that didn’t involve wholesale slaughter,” Morgan amended.

Felicity’s centuries in cat-form had given the witch a rather direct preference for dealing with obstacles.

“How does that help?”

“She also said she doesn’t see futures with Noah in them. Ever.”

I nodded. “Yeah?”

Morgan looked at me like I was an idiot. “Yeah. That means the solution isn’t going to be the stupid witch-rules — no offense, Lotte.”

Rachel waved it away.

At least she didn’t have a problem with Morgan’s nickname for her. Sam didn’t have an issue with Hexual Deviant, either, taking a bit of pride in it.

“It’s not going to be in the trade histories, either, or even favors — sorry, Mel.”

Not even Morgan was confident enough to give Mel a nickname.

“So what is it?” I asked.

“You,” Morgan said. She looked around at the others. “If we want Cassandra and Memorex, we need to let Noah be Noah.”

Chapter

“Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see.”

Morgan grinned and bumped her shoulder into me as we came down the townhouse steps. Much as it might have irritated her to generate it, she and I had worked together (argued about random shit) until she’d generated (given up) a decent amount, and that really helped with her shields.

Honestly, it wasn’t that much more arguing than we usually did.

Now that she had her shields, though, we could go out on her first date as a witch.

I was a little worried about the precedent I seemed to have set — taking the girls somewhere special and personal on dates, at least the first date, but they all seemed to genuinely like the effort, so I’d keep trying.

“No car?” she asked as I turned at the bottom of the townhouse steps.

I shook my head. “Subway.”

Morgan had always said she liked the subway — I thought it made her feel grown-up and independent.

She was walking close as we made our way down the street, so I took her hand, glancing over as she ran her thumb over the back of mine. I got a smile as she ducked her head and cleared her throat.

“Cheaping out on me, Ashe?”

“Well, your student pass might work through the summer, but mine expired last year, so this is going to cost me, like, six bucks round-trip, and Mihai’s sort of on salary now, so a drive wouldn’t have cost any extra.”

“Oh, big spender, six bucks.”

There was a direct subway line to our destination, but I led Morgan to a different stop, even though it meant we’d have to change trains later. The direct line would probably tell her exactly where we were going right away and I wanted to keep her wondering a little longer.

It was surprisingly nice to ride the train with Morgan — nostalgic, something we’d done a hundred times before.

Except now I had my arm around her.

It would have been even better if my stomach hadn’t been roiling with nerves and the little box in my pocket hadn’t heated itself to about ten thousand degrees — and getting away from the girls to pick that out had been ridiculous.

“What the hell, Ashe?” she asked as she saw the second station I was leading her to after exiting the first line. “The aquarium? We go there all the time.”

I shrugged. “You like the aquarium.”

“Well … yeah.” She frowned. “Wait! You’re using my transit pass to get me someplace we have a membership that gets us in free? You are cheaping out!”

I knew Morgan was just taking the opportunity to give me shit — she still wasn’t comfortable with me spending a lot of money on her and the aquarium was her absolute favorite place.

I thought she’d probably gone there every time she managed to save up the admission price — which was about once a year while we were growing up, and I thought she might have been more often in the last year than all the others put together, since it had made sense to purchase a membership the first time we all went. That let us get five people in — and eight kids … a thought that still gave me pause. Especially since we’d need three of those for our whole coven, which would mean entry for twenty-four kids … and when I mentioned it to the girls, they seemed to think we might need more than three.

I’d made Morgan one of the primaries on the membership so she could use it after school or on weekends when the rest of us weren’t in the city. It got her away from the foster home and Gabriel more often.

Now Morgan was confused, wondering what I had planned in taking her there.

I was having fun, at least.

I let her lead the way once we arrived, which led to her typical path that allowed for a maximum of three other exhibits between revisiting the penguins.

I think she would have been perfectly happy if that had been the extent of the day and she confirmed that as we ate a quick lunch.

“It was nice to come here with just you again,” Morgan said around a mouthful of significantly overpriced chicken tender. “Thank you.”

I smiled back, but quickly checked the time.

“Do you want to check out the penguins again?”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “Of course, I do.”

We disposed of our lunch trash and I led her back to the penguin exhibit, but I took Morgan’s hand and led her to a door next to the exhibit where an employee was already waiting.

“Mr. Blackwood?” she asked, smiling. “Right on time.”

Morgan looked at the sign and squealed.

*

As much as Morgan liked the aquarium and loved the penguins, she’d never had the chance to do one of the encounters — having to save up money for nearly a year to pay the admission didn’t leave much for extras.

I’d had this planned for one of our first outings as a group, but that was the day we’d been followed by Gabriel and I hadn’t tried again, despite us visiting a few times. Our group had grown so much by then and I didn’t want Morgan to feel like she was just one of a bunch of us getting the experience, so I’d waited, and was glad I did, because I got to concentrate on Morgan’s happiness as she got to meet, touch, and feed her favorite animal.

“Mr. Blackwood?” another employee asked quietly while Morgan was distracted by holding a dead fish out to be pecked at. “We’re ready.”

“Great,” I whispered, grinning and digging in my pocket for the box, then handing it over. “Thank you!”

She smiled. “No problem at all — we love these.”

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t being entirely original, but I didn’t think Morgan would mind.

The woman disappeared and the one helping Morgan started to wrap up the encounter.

Yeah, Morgan had said she was going to design rings for the coven, but I figured those would be more like wedding rings and the engagement ring should be something I got her. Maybe the other girls would demand them, too — I could live with that. What I was really hoping was that if we had a clear commitment that met her expectations, some of the weirdness might go away.

Also, she’d complained so much about the suckiest proposal ever that I’d decided she was getting a good one — and I was going to get a proper yes.

Morgan shot me a wide grin as she hugged the little penguin and it waddled off.

“Just one more thing,” the trainer said, refilling Morgan’s fish bucket. “Octavian said he has something for you.”

“Octavian?” Morgan asked, then gasped as the slapping of flippers — or whatever the penguin feet are called — came from the hallway the little one had just gone down and the biggest fucking penguin I’d ever seen waddled into view.

“Oh! You look hungry!” Morgan said, then several things happened at once.

Morgan excitedly grabbed a fish and tossed it.

The trainer yelled, “No, wait!”

Morgan glanced at me. “Why are you on your —”

Octavian opened his beak and tilted his head up for the fish.

The trainer yelled, “Shit!”

And the engagement ring Octavian was holding in his beak preceded a fish down his throat.

*

“I’m so sorry,” the trainer said as she ushered us out of the encounter room. “This has never happened before.”

Well, at least I’d managed something original for the day.

“It won’t hurt him, will it?” Morgan asked.

The trainer shook her head. “No, it was small enough that it won’t hurt him.”

“It wasn’t that small,” I muttered.

“Noah!”

“I’m just saying …”

I mean, it wasn’t like I’d bought a huge diamond, but I thought it was impressive, while still being tasteful.

The trainer held the door open for us to return to the public areas.

“I have your number,” she said. “Octavian might regurgitate it within the next few hours, but it’ll certainly pass within the next day or two.”

“Thank you,” I said.

The door slammed.

Morgan stared at the door for a full minute.

“They’re never going to let me in there again, are they?”

“There are other aquariums,” I reminded her.

“They probably have a list or some shit.”

We moved over to the exhibit proper and Morgan stared wistfully at the penguins.

“You, ah, never said yes or no,” I prompted.

Morgan glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.

“I don’t have a ring yet,” she said, returning her gaze to the penguins. “And you haven’t —” She gestured at the ground. “You know.”

I repressed a sigh — I guess, ring or not, there was no way I was getting out of that part.

I went down on one knee and took Morgan’s hand.

“Morgan, I love you. I think I have from the first moment I saw you, I was just too young and stupid to realize what it was. I never want to be without you near me — and you’ll get your ring as soon as the penguin poop’s rinsed off. Will you marry me and join my coven forever?”

Her face lit up and she cupped my face in her hands, pulling me up and towards her.

Morgan’s eyes closed and her lips parted as mine neared her.

“Ow, fuck!” she muttered as our teeth clacked together painfully.

I tilted my head and tried again.

“Ow!”

She’d tilted her head the same way and our noses collided.

I gave up on the kiss for the moment and just pulled her close. Her fingers caressed my cheeks as she slid her hands down and then around me.

“Awkward?”

“Fucking weird.”

I let it go for a while, not wanting to add anything too heavy to the moment.

I sniffed, catching a whiff of far more fish than we typically smelled at this exhibit.

“You didn’t get a chance to wash your hands, did you?”

“Nope,” Morgan whispered, face pressed against my chest.

I held her for a minute, then realized there were actually two questions pending. I was pretty sure which one she was answering, but thought it best to be certain.

“The ‘nope’ was about washing your hands, not an answer, right?” I whispered.

Morgan giggled — something I think I’d heard about three times ever before.

She pulled back and looked at me.

“Yes, Ashe, you can fuck me into your coven,” she said, grinning.

I ignored the snark and didn’t try for another kiss, figuring we could work that out later. Soon, though, because I didn’t want to try binding Morgan until we could at least kiss successfully — weirdness with kissing was one thing, but I was hoping to get past it before anything more.

A knot of tension in my chest eased as I pulled her close again. Then another one grew.

“So, um, I guess you and the girls will handle planning the wedding, right?”

“What wedding?” Morgan murmured.

I frowned. “But … you said …”

Morgan sighed. “Noah, I said I wanted a proper proposal — weddings are stupid.”

“Oh.” I pondered that for a minute. It was very Morgan. “Sorry it didn’t go better, then.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Morgan whispered. “I’m going to have the only engagement ring in the world that went through a penguin!”