Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
For years I stayed at her side. She grew, and so did her power. I lingered at the edges of her room, in the corners of her dreams, under her bed where no other monster could reach her because I was already there. I became her shield, her comfort, her silent guardian.
But then she changed.
The woman who had been a frightened little witch learned to forget. Her mother dragged her away from the grandmother who had taught her stitches and spells. The walls of the mundane world closed around her, dulling the glow of her magic until she couldn’t feel me anymore.
She stopped calling my name…she forgot me.
She grew up. She married. She lived her mortal life and forgot she had ever been mine.
But I never forgot her. She who called and formed and bound me with pure need and desire—I am hers. I will never forget.
I lingered in the space between worlds, tied to the empty cottage that had been her grandmother’s, waiting…watching. The Veil only thins once a year, in the days leading up to All Hallows Eve, when spirits slip more easily into the Mortal Realm. And finally, this year, I decided I had waited long enough.
I found her husband’s lawyer, nudged his thoughts with shadows until his hands obeyed mine. I made certain the keys came to her. I whispered the instructions onto the parchment in her own grandmother’s hand. Every move I made was to draw her back to me.
And now she is here.
She has crossed the threshold, even if she doesn’t yet understand what that means. She has stepped into the cottage and breathed in the scent of me—fur and cedar and spice—and her magic has begun to stir again. She has seen my eyes under the bed. She has heard my voice…felt my desire.
She ran, yes. But she came back.
I can feel her now—close enough to taste the hum of her power as it reawakens. She is older now—softer, and full of grief and longing, but still she is herself. Still my little witch.
If only she will believe in me.
If only she will remember who I am and let me in.
I long to hold her, not as a shadow but as a creature of flesh—flesh and warmth and strength and devotion. I long to wrap myself around her and be more than a whisper beneath her bed. I want to pleasure her…to touch her and taste her and make her moan for me.
If only she will trust me.
The Veil is thin. All Hallows Eve approaches. The magic is building, rising like a tide. This is my chance—our chance.
I have waited years, lifetimes it seems, for her to return to me. I have protected her from both dark and danger, even when she didn’t know my name anymore.
Now I will claim what is mine.
If only she will look at me and not see a monster. If only she can remember the boy in the shadows who loved her before she even knew what magic was.
If only she can remember me.
11
DANNI
The walk to Madam Healer’s office was brisk and bracing, the crisp Autumn air nipping at my cheeks as I tugged my hand-knitted sweater tighter around me. Now that I saw it in the outside light, I found the navy-blue yarn flecked with tiny bits of silvery thread I barely remembered weaving in. I’d made it years ago, on long winter nights when Craig was still alive and the house felt too quiet.
I had always liked the sweater, but somehow it felt… different now. Like the threads themselves were humming with something warm. Something old. Something mine.
Harmony walked beside me, hands shoved into the pockets of her dress.
“Just a heads up,” she said as we rounded the corner past the general store. “Madam Healer might surprise you.”
I glanced at her.
“Oh? How so?”
She shrugged.
“She’s a Naga.”
I nodded.
“Um…okay.”
“You don’t get it, but you will.”
Harmony grinned, apparently amused by my lack of reaction, but I honestly didn’t know what that meant. Was it a witch thing? A fae thing? A monster thing? Everything about Hidden Hollow felt like it belonged in a storybook, and I was already knee-deep in it.
The healer’s office was nestled in a crooked little stone building with ivy crawling up one side and mist curling along the edges of the porch. It smelled faintly of lavender and something sharper—pine resin or sage, maybe. Inside, the waiting room was dimly lit by softly glowing sconces shaped like mushrooms. The walls were painted a deep forest green, and the ceiling above was a swirl of moss and shadow. It smelled faintly of smoke and cloves which was decidedly different from any other doctor’s waiting room I’d ever been in.
“Madam Healer?” Harmony called out. “I’ve brought a new friend to visit you. She just came from the Human World.”