It was time to find out what, exactly, deep purple meant on a charm that was only supposed to glow green, red, or yellow.
And maybe—just maybe—find out who the shadow boy really was… and why my heart ached at the thought of him.
10
SHADOW
I have been waiting for her for so long, my little witch. I watch as she departs with her new friend. I feel her happiness and it makes me smile. I have always been attuned to her emotions.
It was her magic that called me when she was only a child—thin and trembling, hiding in a bedroom far too dark and frightening for someone so young. Her fear reached out like a silver thread through the Veil and wrapped itself around me. It pulled me from my place in the Shadow Lands and anchored me to her.
She didn’t know it then, of course. She never saw the spell she wove around me with her terror and her need. But I felt it. I felt her.
I came to her when she called, just a shadow at first. A dark outline against the brighter hallway where danger waited. I stood between her and the man pounding on her door. I had no body then, no voice, nothing but the shape of protection. She called me “the shadow boy,” and it pleased me. She whispered my name—her name for me—and it bound me tighter than any magic spell ever could have. She called me from the Shadow Lands and gave me a shape and a reason for being…and I loved her for it.
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
