“Why?” he gritted out, teeth clenched.
“You were so pissed off, wanting to exact revenge on the people who took me… I was afraid if I told you what really happened that night, you’d go after them. I didn’t have the heart to get three octogenarians into serious trouble. Not when they didn’t mean any real harm. They only did it to keep me safe.”
“We’ll circle back to you thinking I’d actually go after three little old ladies on a quest for revenge,” he said slowly, sounding ticked off by the idea. “For now, explain to me how, exactly, kidnapping someone is equated to keeping them safe in that fucked up head of yours?”
My tempter flared, but I tamped it down. “The Bay Colony coven wants me out of town. When they kidnapped me, they told me to close up the shop, sell the house, and leave Salem forever.”
Graham’s eyes flashed. “What?”
“Yeah. They weren’t too pleased when I told them I had no intention of going anywhere.”
Some of the intensity bled out of his eyes. He gestured for me to continue.
“They want me gone for my own safety, but also for theirs. They’re convinced that, as the only living descendant of their former High Priestess, my blood is the key to unlocking a curse they laid on a sept of other witches, ages ago. Dark witches. They call them Heretics. I don’t know specifics but, whatever witchy woo-woo they’re into, I’m guessing it’s a fair bit more taboo than dancing naked under the light of a full moon or sprinkling cinnamon on their stoops for good luck.” I paused, pulling in another breath. “According to Eliza, Agatha, and Sally—”
Graham shook his head, amused despite his deep frustration. “Christ.”
“—these dark witches, the Heretics, are the ones responsible for the animal sacrifices that have been popping up all over town. They think they’re gearing up for something else. Something… bigger.”
All humor faded instantly from Graham’s expression. His eyes raked over me. “You. They’re coming for you.”
“I…” I shrugged, trying not to let my voice shake. “Yeah. They’re coming for me.”
A curse exploded from his mouth, loud enough to make me flinch. “And you didn’t figure I needed to know any of this shit? Jesus, Gwen! I knew you were reckless with your safety, but this—”
“I didn’t take it all that seriously! Not until today.” My voice wobbled, regardless of my efforts at steadiness. “Not until I saw Eliza lying there on that crypt, stabbed through the heart with an occult blade.” I sank my teeth into my lip, hard enough to tear the skin. “They’ve been watching me. They knew I’d stop there to stretch after my run. They wanted me to find her like that. That’s why they left that message in the blood.”
An image of the crypt beneath Eliza’s corpse, the stone streaked with bloody letters, filtered into my mind, and I fought off tears with rapid blinks.
“Tu es proximus,” I murmured. “It’s Latin. It means—”
“You are next,” Graham finished for me. His face was set like stone when I looked across the island at him.
“I swear, if I’d thought for one minute that Eliza, Sally, and Agatha were right, that I was actually in danger… I would’ve done as they said. I would’ve left town. I would have…” I trailed off abruptly as another thought — a new one, and a seriously unpleasant one at that — snaked its way into my head. There was a brief moment of silence, only the faint gurgle of the coffee machine as it neared the end of its brew cycle to disrupt my troubled mind, which was tripping over itself, struggling to process the realization I’d just reached.
“Gwen,” Graham called softly, heading for me as he sensed my gathering panic.
“Oh my god,” I whispered, feeling the world tilt beneath me. Horror slammed into my chest like a sledgehammer, overriding every other emotion. “Oh my god.”
Sliding to my feet, I yanked my arms out of Graham’s leather coat and dropped it on the stool I’d just vacated. Without even looking at him, I sped for the door. I needed to get the fuck out of here. I needed to go home, pack my shit, get in the car, andgo.
Graham’s arm hooked around my waist, stopping me before I made it past the kitchen.
“Where are you going, Gwen?” His voice was uncharacteristically gentle.
I blinked rapidly, my breaths coming out so fast I was practically hyperventilating. “I have to go,” I told him, the words strangled with emotion as I struggled against his hold. No use — his arm was a steel band, unshakable. “I have to get out of town, right now, before anyone else gets hurt.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
My head tipped back and my gaze went up, up, up — passing the collar of his t-shirt, sliding up the tan column of his throat, bypassing his razor-sharp jawline, tracing the proud bridge of his nose, eventually finding his eyes. They were so soft as they met mine. Almost…
Tender.
It was a look I’d never seen before from Graham, not in all the years I’d known him, and it broke something wide open inside me. I felt a crack in the foundations of the walls I kept so close around my heart, in the shields I refused to ever let fall. I stood there in the circle of his arms, shaking like a leaf, heart hammering, and allowed my wild eyes to pool with the tears I’d been fighting since I realized what I’d done.
“She’s dead because of me,” I croaked, my voice shattered. “They killed her because of me.”
“No, Gwen.” Graham’s reply was firm. “That’s not true.”