Page 6 of An Oath at Midnight

“Night.”

A good night’s sleep was what I desperately needed, but I didn’t have a whole lot of them anymore, especially when Bram was away, or we slept apart.

I waited for Else’s door to close and slipped back outside. I quickly glanced up at the tree house. The lights were on. Bram was inside.

Spinning around, I raced down the road to our cemetery, opened the iron gates and ran through, then I yanked off my jacket, shoved it against my face, and screamed into it, releasing all the pent-up rage inside me. Rage that wouldn’t leave me alone, that had only grown with every passing month. That anger had lived inside me for two and a half years. I knew when it started, but I had no fucking clue how to control it. Or stop it.

Lying on the ground beside Gran’s grave, I stuffed my jacket under my head and stared up at the stars, trying to fucking breathe. Sometimes I felt as if I were truly losing my mind.

I kicked off my shoes and pressed my bare feet and palms to the earth, relishing the texture of soft grass beneath me. I couldn’t be with Bram right then, so this place was the next best thing.

The power from our cemetery danced over me, reaching through my hands and feet, and I felt it filter through me. Even after death, witches exuded magic; it poured from our bones into the earth. Everything in this place was useful and held power. The dirt, plants, the grass. Mom and Art tended gardens here, so Else and I always had a supply of ingredients for the tonics and potions we made for the store, and it was strongly warded, for the same reason.

Breathing deep, I bathed in the light of the moon and worked at calming myself.

It was a long time before my eyes finally grew heavy. I tried to fight it, knowing what would come, but the way I felt tonight, it was inevitable. Then I couldn’t fight it anymore.

I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself, naked in every way a person could be. Clayton’s cold blue eyes slid over my bare skin, and I whimpered, wanting to recoil, but I couldn’t move. He gripped my throat, pumping more of his magic into me, causing me to tumble more and more out of control. I was lost, here, but also in the world he was spinning in my mind. His hand slid over my breast, squeezing roughly, a look of disgust on his face.

“You are utterly repulsive. You make me sick, Magnolia.” He closed the space between us, his hand going lower, shoving between my thighs, the other taking my forearm in a bruising grip. “Your family is in agony. They’re bleeding because of you. Do you see them? Can you hear their screams?”

More of his magic pulsed through me and I screamed, I screamed with them.

He smashed his cold lips against mine in a hateful kiss, biting me before he lifted his head, a twisted smile on his face.

“Kill me,” I choked out. “Please, kill me.”

My eyes flew open, and I sat up with a gasp.

The images were still there, in my mind, and I gripped both sides of my head. It’s over. He’s dead. The images he fed me, the sounds, they weren’t real. Bram, my sisters, Mom, Else, Arthur, they’re okay. Everyone’s okay.

Snatching up my shoes and jacket, I ran from the cemetery, sprinting along the dirt road back to the yard and across the damp grass. I raced up the ladder to the tree house and through the door. Only then could I breathe, only then did the racing of my heart and the terror in my gut begin to calm.

I walked into Bram’s room. He was on his side, the sheet at his hips, revealing an expanse of smooth, golden skin. I craved the warmth of it, of him. I tiptoed to the side of the bed, eased the covers back, and tried to get in without waking him.

“Come here,” he said in his sleep-roughened voice.

My scars had calmed for now, the pain was gone, so I let him pull me into his strong, warm arms, let him hold me in that comforting, familiar embrace, soothing me the way only Bram could.

CHAPTER 2

Bram

I woke to the rustle of leaves, and the creak of the tree house. That sound always soothed something inside me.

The clouds were thick, the room washed in muted gray. I looked down at Magnolia again, curled against my side. We’d gotten home late after visiting my family. I studied the familiar curve of her cheek, the bow of her upper lip. She’d seemed distracted most of the night, then she’d gone straight up to her room when we’d gotten home. She’d been angry and trying to hide it from me, but I didn’t miss it. I knew exactly why she was angry, and I deserved it.

I’d come to my tree house in the backyard and tossed and turned until I finally went to sleep. I’d woken again around three a.m. to Magnolia crawling into my bed.

I brushed the hair away from her face. Even in sleep she looked tired. My beautiful, wild, tortured, brave, maddening-as-fuck, little witch.

I swiped my thumb over the scar on her forehead, the one she’d gotten the day we first met.

One of many scars Magnolia had on her body now.

Scars she’d gotten when a sick, twisted monster had used magic to carve slices into her skin. I’d held her thrashing, bleeding body in my arms while she screamed in agony and fear. I’d been utterly helpless, unable to fight an invisible enemy attacking my reason to live.

That was two and a half years ago. The monsters were gone. One locked up, the others dead—one at my hand. That day still fucked with me, though. It felt like yesterday. I dreamed about it most nights. Sometimes about a different outcome, one that I couldn’t bear to contemplate in the waking hours, one that took Magnolia from me. And other times, I dreamed of their screams, of their blood on my hands, of making the ones who hurt her pay again and again.