 
### Dream Spell

By Sarah Doughty

Copyright 2016 Sarah Doughty

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved

Excerpt from Listen copyright 2016 by Sarah Doughty

This book contains an excerpt from Listen by Sarah Doughty. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the final edition.

Cover design and art: Sarah Doughty with the assistance of sheswideawake. Cover image copyright BestPhotoStudio/Shutterstock.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

http://www.sarahdoughty.com
Table of Contents

Dedication

Epigram

Dream Spell

Appendix

Thank You Message

About the Author

Connect with the Author

Acknowledgments

Preview of Listen
For Janine Giske, may you one day find the one that will love you unconditionally and protect all you hold dear.
"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."

\- Edgar Allan Poe
"A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work."

\- Colin Powell
"I close my eyes, then I drift away, into the magic night I softly say. A silent prayer, like dreamers do, then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you."

\- Roy Orbison
Chapter 1

Living a secret life was never easy.

I was living proof of that. But I wanted that kind of life.

There I was, wearing a frayed tank top and faded flannel pants, washing bottles and setting them on the drying rack, hearing the beginnings of cries coming from the baby.

"Good morning," Robert said as he fiddled with his blue tie and walked into the kitchen to my right.

"Coffee's on the counter," I said over my shoulder and headed to the living room to scoop Lily up into my arms. But it did nothing to soothe her.

Screams erupted from her tiny body and, despite rocking her and speaking to her softly, she still didn't calm down. So I caressed the top of her head and closed my eyes.

Power leaked from my fingertips as I said, low, "Sanft wie die Wellen, sanft wie der Wind. Sei still Kleines. Alles wird gut."

By the time I finished and the power fell away, Lily was looking around with renewed interest, those clear, hazel eyes were bright as her little limbs moved around, trying to catch my long hair as it fell over my shoulder.

"You sure are good with her, April," Robert said in between sips of coffee.

I turned toward him. "It's all about staying calm," I said, forcing a smile.

It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth either.

Lying to my husband wasn't something I enjoyed. But he was human.

I wasn't.

I was something else.

A witch.

And that was a secret I could never share with him.

"What did you say to her anyway? Is it some kind of old lullaby?" he asked.

"Sort of, my grandmother used to sing it to me. It means 'Gentle as the waves, gentle as the wind. Be still, little one. All will be fine.'"

It wasn't a complete lie. My grandmother taught me most of what I knew about magic. German, as she explained to me when I was little, was one of the oldest languages of the craft and thus tended to be more powerful, so most witches continued to use it.

"I didn't know that Carver was German," he mused. Carver was my maiden name.

And he was right, Carver wasn't German. "Yes. That was my father's last name. My grandmother's was Reichs."

Without saying anything else, he turned his attention back to his coffee and the black phone perched on his palm.

Robert Johnson was handsome, but not the type of man that would make the eye of every woman that caught sight of him linger. He stood at five feet ten inches, just a few inches taller than my five and a half foot frame. His dark hair was trimmed and in perfect shape, his face clean shaved, and his deep brown eyes were sharp.

He looked like any other businessman, wearing his black pants, shoes, and cream colored dress shirt with that blue tie that didn't match. I didn't comment on his appearance. It wouldn't have mattered.

"You'd better get going or you'll be late," I said, eying the clock on the stove behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder as he took another sip of coffee. "Oh, shit," he muttered, and put the cup on the table, grabbing his briefcase and shoving his phone in his pocket as he went. "See you tonight, Mrs. Johnson," he called as he descended the stairs toward the garage, forgetting again to close the gate at the top to keep Lily from tumbling down.

I sighed and rolled my eyes as a coo escaped from Lily. Looking down at her, I smiled as I secured the gate while she captured a small chunk of my hair in her hands and began to twirl it around her little fingers. She loved my hair.

It was long, flowing well past my shoulders and down my back. The reddish tints to it just seemed to draw more attention from the happy baby. I didn't mind, though.

"Alright, baby girl, let's get you changed, fed, and burped."

As I worked, I let my mind wander. I remembered the day we moved in to that brownstone condo right after we found out I was pregnant. It was close to Robert's work. Close to everything. But I didn't like it. I wasn't entirely sure why.

There were good schools and Robert's family nearby. It was the right place to grow some roots. Yet, I still didn't want it. But I was tired of running and that was my chance at a normal life.

The second we walked in, I knew he wanted to buy the place. And I didn't protest. It was his money, his choice. And I wanted him to be happy.

The kind of place I wanted was nowhere near there, and I knew that dream would never happen.

But there we were, looking around the brownstone that was built in the thirties, standing proudly amongst all the other brownstones that looked just like it, save for a few minor details.

The rooms were cramped, and there was no back yard. The realtor showed us the view of Ashford Park across the street from us as we stood at the living room window, and I knew that was enough for Robert. He made the offer, it was accepted, and we moved in a month later.

Ending up pregnant was the last thing I expected.

That was because witches and other supernatural creatures, or _others_ , couldn't conceive unless we wanted to. So it came as quite a shock.

I never worked a spell to allow it to happen, because I didn't _want_ it to happen.

The thought of having children never crossed my mind before I met my husband and I wasn't even sure if that was something I wanted. Whether it was with him or not.

But it didn't take me long to realize it wasn't that I didn't want children, it was that I didn't want children with him.

I loved my husband, in a way. I hardly knew him, but he was human and could offer me the kind of life I wanted. Lily was what I would call a happy accident.

Being with Robert made me feel normal. And I was far from it. So when he said he loved me and asked me to marry him when I told him I was pregnant, I said yes.

A lot could change in nine months.

We met and found out I was pregnant a week later. He did the honorable thing and asked me to marry him. The brownstone was purchased. We were married and moved in a month later. Then Lily was born five months after that. She was three months old.

One of the drawbacks of being a supernatural creature attempting to live my life with a human was that my metabolism was faster than normal. It wasn't a surprise to me or the doctor — a Healer, one of the neutrals — that Lily arrived when she did. Six months was considered full term for _others_.

Despite all the dangers that surrounded supernaturals, the neutrals were there to help. The ones that were neither for nor against us.

Robert didn't know about my status as a witch and considered it a miracle when she arrived after six months without any signs of being premature.

My head was spinning, but living a normal life was my goal. As normal as possible, anyway. And that was my chance to do it.

Living a life as an _other_ was lonely and dangerous. Having a chance to leave that behind wasn't something I could pass up.

There were plenty of times I thought I wouldn't survive the next few moments, let alone years. But if supernaturals were careful enough, we could survive.

The biggest problem was discovery. There were humans that hunted us, killed us for being different. There were dark witches that killed to take power from other witches like me. It was dangerous to be discovered by anything else _other_ as well. You never know where the danger will come from one day to the next.

My world was all about survival. And people would do whatever they could to live on.

When I finished tending to Lily, I set her back down on the floor with her toys and made my way to the bathroom just off the kitchen. I flipped on the light and looked at myself in the mirror.

Dark circles were forming under my eyes and their normally brilliant green looked a little dimmer than normal. My straight, reddish brown hair fell all the way down my back and looked a little oily against the harsh overhead light. It made my tanned skin look sallow. Even my rounded lips looked pale and chapped.

The woman looking back at me was tired and sad. I could see it in her features.

Though I wasn't terribly thin, I was slim, and it looked like I was losing weight. I knew then that something needed to change. I couldn't keep going on like that. My life was miserable.

Being Lily's mother was the best thing that ever happened to me, and no matter the confusion behind ending up pregnant, I didn't regret having her. It was everything else in my life that made me unhappy.

But I didn't know what I could do. That was the life I wanted.

I heaved a sigh and went back to the little girl, squirming on the floor and lifted her into my arms to head upstairs.

When she was settled and secured in her rocker just outside the shower in the master bathroom, giggling at the little toys that dangled above her head, I turned on the shower and began removing my clothes.

Tossing them into the hamper, I stepped into the shower and steam enveloped me as hot water slid down my bronzed skin. As I methodically tended to my hair and shaved, I thought about all that happened since the night I met Robert.

Minutes before I met him, a dark witch attacked me. I was lucky to be alive.

I knew living my life among the humans would be difficult, so I figured out ways to protect myself. Even though humans couldn't see them, my biggest problem was my aura. That little glow that surrounded anything not human. Anything _other_.

Except for vampires.

It was useful for them, because other than having pale skin, retractable fangs or seeing their eyes glow like cat eyes, they could pass in society without anyone ever knowing they weren't alive. Weren't normal.

I needed that same kind of protection. But it wasn't easy figuring out how to hide my aura.

That was the tricky thing about auras. As one of the supernatural creatures, I could see them surrounding _others_ , but I couldn't see mine. No one could see their own aura.

After weeks of trial and error, I took Lily to the grocery store and as we walked down the aisle, a man with a black aura — the color for evil, found only on dark witches — turned toward us. The blood drained from my face as I prepared myself for him to notice me.

But when he looked at me, he just smiled, glancing appreciatively at my body, and kept walking.

In that moment, I knew my most recent spell worked. Once he turned the corner and left my sight, my shoulders sagged and I let out a sigh of relief. When we finally made it home a half an hour later, I sat down on the couch with Lily in my lap and cried.

Relief didn't begin to cover what I felt in those hours after seeing that dark witch.

If the spell failed and my aura was visible, he would have figured out I was a witch and attacked me. He would try to take my power for his own.

That was always the goal of dark witches. They wanted more power. So they took it from other witches. But they didn't stop at stealing magic. They took what possessed the most about of power — the soul, or essence.

Dark witches were killers, and that fact didn't bother them.

Having a baby wouldn't make them reconsider killing me if I was discovered.

I managed to escape notice that day, but my life as a house wife and mother was weighing on me. No matter how much I tried, I would never be a normal human. It helped when it came to keeping my baby happy, and I wouldn't hesitate to protect my family if I needed to. Being a witch was part of who I was, but my husband didn't know anything about that part of me.

As I finished washing away the last of the suds from my body, I sighed, turned off the shower, grabbed the towel, and stepped out. But what I saw when I turned to look at Lily made me freeze and the blood drained from my face.

Her hand was outstretched above her, but still not able to reach the toys that dangled there. But as she waved her little hand back and forth, the toys moved with her.

In that moment, I knew she was different. I just didn't know how. Children weren't born as _others_. The strangest thing was that I couldn't see an aura on her.

Not only did I have no idea how it was possible that she was moving those toys over her head for her enjoyment, but I didn't know what I could do to keep her from doing it in front of anyone else.

It was too dangerous for anyone, even Robert to see her do something like that.

If I could figure out a way to stop her, or prevent her from doing that in front of my husband and anyone else that might see her, we would be alright. But it still scared the hell out of me.

Though the rest of the day was just like all the rest, my mind was reeling over what I witnessed, and I pondered what I could do to protect her. By the time Lily was down for the night, Robert was already asleep.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.

That was my first clue that something was wrong.

### Chapter 2

Most of the time, sleep didn't come easy to me. But there were some nights when I barely settled in bed and I found myself in oblivion. A blissful, dreamless state that left me feeling safe, loved, and happy.

Those were the nights I cherished. Those were the nights I also wished never happened. I would wake with an odd sense of wrongness. About everything.

A deep, unending feeling that my world wasn't what it should be. If I dreamt during those nights, I never remembered them. I could only describe those nights as time that seemed endless.

As I realized my sudden transition from wakefulness to deep sleep, I knew it was happening again. There were nights I resisted the pull to let myself fall deeper into what waited for me in my sleep.

But that night, I wanted to escape. Needed it.

The weight of my normal life with my normal, safe, yet boring husband was too much. And I needed a break.

So I let sleep pull me under, deeper into that safe, dark abyss.

And then I opened my eyes.

It was night, and there were no sounds. Nothing that would explain waking me up from such a deep sleep. But yet, I found myself out of bed, pulling on my most comfortable jeans that flared around my ankles, a billowy, black tank top and black flats. I ran my fingers through my long hair, feeling its silkiness between my fingers as I reached for a hair band and pulled it onto my wrist.

Then I moved soundlessly through the empty house I didn't recognize, leaving behind nothing of importance. I grabbed my tiny wallet, my keys, pulled on my leather jacket, zipped it up, and then opened the front door.

The cool mid-May air hit me and I breathed in the faint scent of wood smoke and lavender as I closed the door behind me, locked it, and then moved toward my car.

By the time I was on the road, I was questioning what I was doing and where I was going. But, somehow, I knew exactly where I was headed as I drove through the night.

I could see the trees dancing with the breeze that picked up during the evening. Otherwise, I didn't see anything but the road ahead of me as I drove.

There were no cars. No pedestrians. Not even raccoons or birds.

Just me, the road, and the trees. And that feeling in my stomach.

That pull I refused to acknowledge most of the time, I realized, was my guide. As time dragged on, I followed that pull. It was like a compass, guiding me through the endless night.

At some point along the way, I realized it was _him_ , the man that often haunted my dreams. The man I didn't know, didn't remember, yet felt an odd sense of familiarity.

It was _him_.

That was when I realized I was still asleep. I wasn't awake, driving away from my family. I was still at home, safe and sound in my bed. Dreaming.

Dreaming of _him_.

Or at least, I knew once I arrived at my destination, _he_ would be there, waiting for me like _he_ always did.

Anticipation filled me, excited me, as I grew nearer to the person I missed.

It was a living, breathing ache for _him_. Yet during that long drive, I couldn't remember who _he_ was. I tried to remember _his_ face, the sound of _his_ voice as it traveled over my body in the only way _his_ could. But there was never anything there.

There was nothing. The harder I tried to remember, the cloudier those memories became.

By the time the sun came up, I was still driving, but that feeling in my stomach was so strong, I knew I was minutes away.

And I was right.

My car traveled slowly over the bumps and divots in the path that I knew would lead me to my destination. Then I pressed the brakes and the car slowed to a stop as I put the car in park and took the key out of the ignition.

Before I realized what I was doing, I was standing next to my car as the door shut behind me and I looked around. I could hear waves lapping at a shore in the distance, just minutes beyond the trees, but I couldn't see the water.

The early morning light filtered through those trees, illuminating them so much they looked like they were glowing.

The smell of the salt mixed with sandalwood hit my nose and I relaxed. I knew if I walked through the tree line and followed the boardwalk right in front of me, in a matter of minutes I would find myself looking at a large lake on a tiny stretch of a beach.

_Our_ beach.

But that wasn't where I wanted to go in that moment.

I turned toward the farmhouse. It was old, with chipping white paint, a faded, blue front door with a screen door in front of it, and a porch that spanned the entire front of the house.

Love didn't begin to cover the way I felt for the place. The instant I saw it, I knew it was perfect. The crumbling façade just added to its beauty. That place, in every way possible, felt like home to me.

That was the kind of house I wanted to live in. Surrounded by the woods, with birds chirping to the sky and the waves just out of sight.

It was perfect.

It _was_ home.

And I knew _he_ was inside.

I put the keys in my pocket and stepped up onto the porch, hearing the boards creak under my weight as I moved. Then I froze, remembering something so faint, I barely recognized it was there.

There were laughs shared on that porch. Watching the sunset through the trees while sitting next to _him_ on the swinging bench just off to my left, with his arm wrapped over my shoulder.

It looked just as I remembered it, yet I didn't recall it until that moment.

I couldn't stop there. I wouldn't stop until I reached that faded blue door. _He_ was there. On the other side. Waiting for me.

Reaching out, I pulled the screen door open and the spring groaned in protest as a few flakes of white paint rained down around me. Then I grasped the old white knob and turned it, knowing it was unlocked.

And then I pushed that door open.

### Chapter 3

The blue door groaned even louder than the one that preceded it, but as it swung open, I saw _him_. And _his_ aura swirled with a deep pink. But I didn't need to know what the color meant to know how _he_ felt in that moment. I could see it in the look on _his_ face.

_He_ loved me.

Wanted me.

Just like I felt for _him_.

My eyes stung from the onslaught of emotion. "Ian," I whispered as the first tears fell down my cheeks.

His lips curled up into a smile and he said, "April."

I stood in the doorway, looking at the man I forgot.

Ian Harlow.

He was leaning against the stairs, nearly a foot taller than my five and a half foot frame, barefoot, wearing a faded black shirt and jeans. With his dark hair sticking out in random places and stubble darkening his jaw, he was beautiful. Exactly how I remembered him.

Before I realized I was moving, I crashed into him, wrapping my arms around his strong shoulders and let my fingers slip into the smooth hair at the back of his head, reveling in the sensation of those hairs gliding between them. He was so warm, so perfect.

He didn't falter or hesitate at my greeting. His arms wrapped around me and held me tight against him, like it was the last time we would ever embrace.

I breathed him in and it was the most soothing scent I ever smelled in my life.

Hazelnuts.

"I missed you so much," I breathed into his shoulder.

It felt like I was meant to hug that man. My body molded into his in just the right way, I felt like I could stay there forever. I wanted to stay there forever. Safe, in his arms.

He pulled back just enough to look at me, but I didn't drop my arms from around his shoulders. His warm hands smoothed my straight, reddish brown hair away from my face and tucked it behind my ears before resting his warm palms on my face. The gentle caress of his thumbs against my cheeks forced more tears to fall from my eyes. "I missed you too," he said, low.

His hazel eyes locked with mine and I remembered how much I loved that color. His skin was fair, almost pale against my sun kissed skin, and freckles peppered his otherwise flawless features. I reached up and took his face in my hands, reveling in the sensation of the stubble against my palms.

He kept his eyes on me. It was like he was afraid I would disappear at any second. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that I was dreaming, so I supposed that was possible. I could wake up at any moment.

My gaze dropped to his mouth. The mouth that I remembered so well. The lips with just the right amount of thickness to them. The tongue that tasted like heaven.

Then I kissed him, hard, opening my mouth to grant him access at the same time. The butterflies in my stomach lurched with excitement as his taste exploded across my tongue. Like honey and brown sugar. It was bliss as our tongues danced and his warm hands held my face and pulled me closer at the same time.

It was then that I realized my hands weren't on his face any longer. They were frantic, clawing at the material of his shirt, gripping the top of his shoulders, fisting the hair at the back of his head. All in an attempt to pull him closer.

His hands left my face and my cheeks felt frozen in their absence. But then he picked me up in the next instant and I wrapped my legs around his waist without hesitation.

I felt magic in the air for an instant before the blue door swung closed behind me. But it wasn't magic of my doing. It was him.

Ian was much more advanced with his magic than I remembered, and I smiled against him. But then I forgot why I was smiling as he pushed me against that chipping front door, trapping me there by the force of his body.

He was surrounding me, enveloping all my senses. I tasted him, smelled him, heard the sounds of his frantic breaths as his mouth trailed down my jaw.

Then his hips shifted slightly, grinding against me in just the right spot. I cried out and pulled his mouth back up to mine, reveling in the feel of his body pressed against mine.

I wanted to kiss him for the rest of my life. I wanted to taste his sweat, his desire. I could taste every inch of his skin a million times over and still feel like it wouldn't be enough.

The pressure of the door behind me fell away and I felt him moving deeper into the house and up the stairs, but I couldn't bring myself to care where he was taking me.

All I wanted in that moment was him.

I was finally home. In the arms of Ian. The man I loved with every ounce of my being. I could have died in that moment and died happy.

Before I knew what was happening, it felt like I was resting on a cloud with him on top of me, pressing into me at exactly the right spot that left me moaning breathlessly with anticipation. I realized it was his bed as more of his scent hit my nose, but I couldn't focus on that.

I gripped the hem of his shirt and he wrenched his mouth away from mine as I pulled it over his head. Tossing the shirt aside, I ran my hands down his chest, reveling in the feel of his smooth skin, rippling over his muscles as his mouth found mine once more.

But I didn't stop there. My hands kept moving down until they reached his pants. He knew what I was doing and shifted his weight on his knees, giving me room. I worked to open the belt and then released the button before I unzipped his jeans with an agonizing slowness that left him groaning into my mouth.

His mouth trailed down my jaw as I pushed his jeans past his hips, releasing him. And then I took him in my grip.

He groaned as a shiver moved through his body. "I love your hands on me," he whispered into my ear, sending shivers down my spine before he bit the lobe, causing my toes to curl with anticipation.

Then he pulled back, which elicited a whimper from me and he grinned. Then his hands reached for the zipper on my leather jacket. He pulled the zipper down slowly, and my eyes closed as I felt my breasts tingling with eagerness to have his hands on them.

I sat up with him, pulling my jacket off as he reached for the hem of my tank top and lifted it over my head.

"You're flawless," he whispered, letting his gaze slide over my exposed flesh.

Grinning up at him, I reached behind my back and released the clasp of my bra and let the material fall away. His hazel eyes watched the motion and he licked his lips in response.

I moved forward and kissed him, hard. I didn't care that I wasn't naked yet. I needed his mouth on mine more than I needed anything else in my entire life.

He shifted his weight and let his jeans fall to the floor before kicking them away. Then he pushed me back on the bed. His hands gripped my wrists and pulled them over my head, pressing them into the mattress. "Stay," he growled.

I bit my lip and nodded in submission as his hands started moving down my arms with an agonizing slowness that left me writhing beneath him.

By the time his hands reached my breasts I was practically levitating off the bed with as much as I was arching my back toward him. I cried out and turned my face into my arm as his fingers finally reached my aching nipples.

But then he stopped and his hands moved away.

"April," he whispered as his warm fingers touched my chin and coaxed me to turn to look at him. "What's wrong?"

That was a good question. I didn't know what was wrong. All I wanted was him and yet, in the worst possible moment, I shut down. "I don't know," I whispered as my lip trembled.

I took a deep breath, steeled myself and tried again. "I don't remember us. Just little things. I feel like there's a huge hole in my heart and I can't fill it. I don't know how else to explain it. All I want to do is tell you how sorry I am, and how much I love you, but I don't know why."

"I know." Sadness undulated in his aura with dark blue as the red of his desire started to fade back to pink. "You don't remember because you erased me. I've been trying to reach you since you left."

"I _erased_ you?"

He nodded. "We were happy, but I was confronted by a dark witch that wanted you. I was compelled to push you away and you were heartbroken. You spelled yourself to forget me and then you left. Every night, I've tried this spell, trying to reach you in your dreams. Tonight was the first night I created a night shade. And this is the first time we've come this far."

I knew what a night shade was. They were creatures that were created and lived in the dream realm. Their specialty was to bring a person into a dream and keep them there. They could alter time and create the dream itself, depending on what the witch that created it wanted.

His thumb wiped away a tear that fell before I spoke. "I don't understand. Why would I want to forget you?"

"I don't know how much you forced yourself to forget, but we're mates, April."

The blood drained from my face. That pull. Ian was the pull I always felt, but didn't know why I felt it. Whenever I tried to think about it, I would find myself distracted.

Ian was my mate, my supernatural equivalent of a soulmate. Long before we were born, we were destined for each other by fate.

"The dark witch cast a glamour to make you think I turned dark so she could get to you. I think she didn't attack me because she thought I was too powerful. But your reaction was far beyond what she anticipated. By the time her spell wore off, I came back here, knowing you were gone and found your note."

"I left you a note?"

He nodded. "You said you didn't want to live with the pain of losing me, so you were going to make yourself forget. You asked me not to come after you." He grinned, "Technically, I'm honoring your request."

I blinked. My head was spinning in a thousand different directions as I tried to understand why I would leave my mate.

Why would I leave Ian?

I wanted nothing more in that moment than to remember all I forced myself to forget.

But before I could say anything, everything went black.

### Chapter 4

"Where are we going?" I laughed as the truck bounced over what felt like a massive speed bump.

"You'll see," Ian responded with a sly grin before turning his attention back to the road.

Calling it a road just didn't do the thing justice. Dirt path was a more accurate description. We were in the woods, near the lake, but that was as far as my knowledge went. The truck hurdled over another bump and a very unladylike snort came from me as Ian threw his head back and laughed.

His hand reached out and he laced his fingers with mine.

That's when the dense trees thinned out and I saw it. The old farmhouse stood, looking a little weathered over time, yet it did nothing but add to its beauty.

I was too busy gaping at the building in front of me to realize the truck already rolled to a stop and Ian was looking at me. "What do you think?"

Realizing, too late, my mouth was hanging open, I closed it and turned to face my mate. "What do you mean?"

"I know how much you like the lake and the forest, and I saw this place was up for sale." He shrugged. "So I bought it."

I blinked.

Am I hallucinating?

"You what?" I asked.

"I. Bought. It," Ian replied slowly, that sly grin returning to his expression as his aura shifted to light blue with his humor.

"Seriously?" I squealed. Before I realized I was moving, I was in Ian's lap, straddling him and kissing him like our lives depended on it. And in that moment, they did.

Ian shook with suppressed laughter as his arms wrapped around me and then groaned as I simultaneously ground against him and deepened the kiss.

I pulled back and grinned devilishly at him.

"I take it you like the place?" he asked.

Words escaped me. I wasn't sure how to answer that question. He couldn't have picked a better home. A home for us. And he bought it because he knew how much I would love it.

Though Ian was my mate, it went deeper than that. He meant the world to me. He knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. And despite the world around us — the danger and uncertainty — he still wanted to be with me.

He was willing to be with me, even though that could one day turn into tragedy. We both knew it. But he still wanted it.

I still wanted it.

His hazel eyes flickered back and forth between mine and then he said, "A simple yes or no would do."

I blinked and tears slipped from my eyes. "Yes. The answer is always yes."

Warm thumbs wiped away my tears and the light blue faded from my mate's aura as it shifted to deep pink again. Then his eyes dropped to my mouth. "Do you want to go inside?"

I didn't answer him. I didn't need to. The inside was perfect. I knew it would be. Because it was _ours_. Instead of speaking, I kissed him again, hard, pressing him back into his seat.

It wasn't very often I wore a dress, but that day I did, and I was happy for it. As I wrenched my mouth away from his, I opened his belt, released the button, and pushed the zipper down, releasing him.

_Others_ weren't like humans. We possessed more energy, regenerated faster, and because of that, it allowed us to embrace our sexuality a little better than humans.

Ian was ready. He was always ready for me.

I took him in my grip and reveled in the feel of him. It never ceased to amaze me at how good he felt. And he was big. So long and thick, it made my mouth water.

He groaned and reached behind me to turn off the engine before his hands slid up beneath the material of my dress and his fingers brushed over my breasts.

A gasp escaped from me and I moved closer, settling myself on top of him. He hissed as I let him enter me and his eyes were rolling by the time I took him all the way in.

Contrary to popular belief, witches didn't have superhuman strength, but Ian was a strong man, beyond that of a witch. But he didn't look like an athlete or a body builder. He was toned and powerful and it felt like he was built just for me.

A shiver wracked through my body at the sensation of him filling me. A sensation only he could provide.

Then I kissed him, and fucked him nice and slow, driving him wild. But I was just beginning.

It didn't matter that the truck wasn't very big. There was just enough room for us to do what we needed and we took our time, driving each other higher.

My nerve endings were on fire as I reveled in the sensations he caused. The feel of him moving in and out and that delicious friction, combined with his hands moving with precision over my body and his mouth against mine was better than I could have imagined.

The tension between us built higher and higher until he whispered, "Come for me, April," and before I realized how close I was, I crashed over the edge. It was so powerful, lights exploded behind my eyes and I lost all sense of myself for a few moments.

We didn't emerge from the truck until the sun started setting over the horizon of trees.

That first night in our new home, after spending most of the day in the truck, we sat on the front porch's swinging bench, watching the stars twinkling in the night sky. I sat with my legs pulled up beside me and leaned into Ian's warm body as his arm wrapped over my shoulder.

We sat there together for a time in silence, and then he sat forward, took my hand, and led me toward the boardwalk a few steps beyond the house.

The sound of the gentle waves hitting the shore soothed me and I enjoyed seeing the lightning bugs illuminate the night as we walked down the path.

When we made it, Ian sat down on the sand and pulled me down with him. He laid back and I curled up against him, tucking my shoulder beneath his and resting my head on his chest while his arms circled around me. I looked up into the twinkling sky and felt the soft blue light of the moon shining down on us.

In times like that, I usually stayed quiet unless he spoke first, because hesitation always won out. But in that moment, I needed to say something. "Ian?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you, you know that right?"

"Of course I know that."

I swiped a traitorous tear that fell, hoping he wouldn't notice, but he did. Without hesitation, he shifted, pushing me onto my back and looked down at me.

"What's wrong?"

Taking a deep breath, I let it out and tried to find the right words. "I just don't think I can ever live without you. You bought this house for me. And all I can think about is how long we might have left."

"Listen to me, April. I will always be here. And I will never leave you. As long as I'm alive, I'm going to be right by your side."

I nodded. I didn't think I could speak after hearing something like that. Joy overwhelmed me and then it was replaced with something else as Ian dropped lower and kissed me so hard I nearly came.

As we made love on the beach for the first time that night, I forgot about my worries for a time.

After we were sated and spent, we laid next to each other, panting from exertion and in each other's arms once more, something whispered in the back of my mind.

It's never going to last.

Three weeks later, it happened. When he returned from a trip into town for groceries, I knew something was wrong. Watching him stand in front of the porch steps without emotion, the smile on my face faded away.

At first I didn't understand the dull purple aura that surrounded my mate. Nor did I understand the expression on his face when he spoke.

"It's over, April."

My heart rate tripled as I processed his words and then the blood drained from my face. "What?" I breathed.

"You heard what I said. This—" he waved his hand indicating the distance between us "—is over. I. Don't. Want. You."

"But ... I ...," I stammered.

"That's my point, April," his aura exploded with green anger as he shouted at me. "You can't fucking think on your own and that's going to get us both killed." He turned away, kicking over the flowers I just planted. But then he turned back around to face me. "I want you gone by the time I get back." Then he walked out of sight in the opposite direction of the lake.

And I crumpled to the floor.

### Chapter 5

I wasn't sure how long I sat in the threshold of the farmhouse's entrance, but eventually, I quieted my sobs and stood up. Confusion didn't begin to cover what I felt after he said the words that cut me the deepest.

It wasn't as though I didn't already know our time was limited. Living in a world like ours meant that happiness never lasted long. Discovery was inevitable. Danger was constant.

Since I met Ian, he always knew the answers. Knew how to navigate through cities and towns, knew how to blend in, and how to disappear, depending on the situation.

But I wasn't entirely clueless. I lived as a witch since I was sixteen years old. That was six years before we found each other. Even when we met, we knew it was temporary. Staying together always led to tragedy. One or both of us would end up dead.

After he bought the farmhouse, I believed those words about taking our chances together.

I didn't have any reason to doubt him.

It made sense that we were in love. We were mates for heaven's sake. If he felt anything like I did, I loved him as soon as I met him.

Why would he bring me here and then throw it all away in less than a month?

It didn't make sense to me.

So I dragged my sorry ass off the floor, dusted myself off, and went after him. I didn't need anything more than that pull in my stomach to guide me and I made my way through the woods, away from the lake and the farmhouse until I stumbled on a little cabin after walking for almost an hour.

His sudden change of attitude was a mystery, and I was going to figure out what caused it. As I walked, dozens of theories crossed my mind, but I dismissed each of them.

But when I looked through the filmy window pane into the cabin's open space, I saw them.

Ian and a woman — a dark witch.

Fucking on the couch.

It no longer mattered to me _why_ he suddenly changed his mind. He left me and went into the arms of another woman. With her ashen skin, pale green eyes with an outer rim of black, and straight raven hair, she was nothing short of beautiful. And it wasn't surprising that he found her desirable.

She was everything I wasn't.

But then I realized that his aura wasn't that same dull purple any longer. It was black. Just like hers.

My mate turned dark.

I didn't need any other explanation.

Once a witch turned dark, there was no going back. It was like a sickness. A literal darkness. A need for more power.

I didn't know if I was powerful enough to fight off two dark witches. Especially if one of them was my mate.

I loved him.

And he was my greatest weakness.

I couldn't take that chance.

Backing away from the window as their cries of pleasure reached me, I ran back to the farmhouse and headed straight for the garden in the back. I ignored the two resident pixies that greeted me and grabbed what I needed before I made my way inside the house.

I filled the tea kettle and set it on the wood burning stove to heat up while I packed my bag. My clothes and toiletries were all I needed to take with me. I wouldn't need anything else.

No pictures. No souvenirs. Nothing.

With one last glance at the bedroom we shared, with the softest bed I ever slept in, and the view of the lake beyond the trees, I took off the last of my reminder of Ian and set it down on the dresser as I pulled out a pen and ripped a blank piece of paper from my journal.

Ian,

This is the last you will ever hear from me. You are my mate and I can't live with losing you. You told me to go, but I needed to know what changed. I have my answer, so I'm leaving. I survived before without you, and I'll survive again. You made your choice, and I'm making mine. The only way that can happen is if I forget about it all. Forget you. Don't come after me.

Yours,

April

By the time I finished writing, tears were streaming down my face and the kettle whistled, telling me the water was ready. So I took my bag and made my way to the kitchen.

The spell was easy, and I designed it after I met Ian, knowing that one day I might need to escape. He didn't know how much I knew about magic.

He didn't know what I was capable of.

As I steeped the tea, I said the German incantation. "Nimm alles was er war, alles was wir waren, und entferne es aus meinen Gedanken, als sei es nie passiert."

Take all that he was, all that we were, and remove it from my mind, like it never happened.

By the time I finished drinking the tea, I felt the memories fading. I grabbed my keys, my bag, and left the farmhouse behind.

Left my life behind.

Navigating my car over the bumps and divots in the dirt path wasn't easy, but I finally made it to the main road and started driving south. By then, my memories of the past several months were jumbled and unclear. Months of the same life, drifting. That didn't sit well with me.

Something needed to change.

Later that evening, when my gas light started flashing, I was yawning and ready for sleep. So I stopped at a gas station to fill up, and then I rented a room for the night.

Just like doctors, or Healers, there were Shelterers — the innkeepers, hotel managers, and the like. They offered safe places to stay at night to weary travelers like myself.

After living on the road for months, drifting from place to place, I was weary. It wasn't what I would call living. It was lonely and empty. Surviving wasn't pretty. It was time I tried living life like a human.

And that was exactly what I planned to do.

### Chapter 6

My eyes slid open as I heard faint coos coming from Lily's monitor. But I didn't get up. I didn't need to unless she started crying. As I listened, I remembered my dream. I remembered _him_.

Ian.

I remembered our time together. How happy I was. But then I remembered why I left. Before my memory returned, he said he was compelled. I needed to know what really happened.

His aura was as black as that woman fucking him. He turned dark. It was impossible to return to a light witch. But in the dream, he wasn't dark.

He cheated on me — his mate. That wasn't something I could easily forgive. I needed to know more. I needed to know what happened.

As the last of the sounds coming from Lily's monitor faded away, I closed my eyes, chanting the German incantation in my head, _Führe mich dorthin wo ich gewesen bin._

Return me to where I was.

I opened my eyes to find I was in the bedroom Ian and I shared in the farmhouse. But I wasn't on the bed beneath my mate like I was before the memories of our time together came flooding back. I was standing in the doorway. With my clothes as they were before Ian started removing them.

In the nine months since I left, nothing changed. Right down to the dust on the floor and the spot in the corner of the ceiling that leaked when it rained. It was just as I remembered it.

Ian was there, sitting at the edge of the bed with his back to me, but his clothes were on and his shoulders were slumped in defeat. His aura told me enough.

It was a deep, dark blue. Sadness emanated from him as he scrubbed his hand down his face. "That's it then," he said.

"Ian?"

His head whipped around to see me and he was on his feet, readying to move toward me again, but he paused, and shook his head in disbelief. "You disappeared."

I nodded slowly. "I came back."

Confusion filled his features and a faint smile spread on my lips.

"After all that's happened between us, you didn't think I was capable of finding my way back into your spell?"

He took another step toward me and I held out my hand in the universal signal he recognized and stopped.

"I remember what happened, Ian. I just don't understand why."

"A dark witch spelled me. It was compulsion. I don't remember all of it, just bits and pieces. I remember saying those awful things to you, but I fought against it. I was hoping you knew it wasn't me. When I walked away, I knew eventually you'd follow."

A tear fell from my eye and I swiped it away. "When I found you at that cabin, you weren't just some mindless victim. She was fucking you. And your aura was dark. There's no coming back from that."

"No. I never touched her and I sure as hell didn't go dark. She set a glamour for you to see it as if it was real. I was standing at the other side of that window, trying to break through the control she kept over me."

It was all a disguise? A spell meant to make me see something that wasn't real?

His gaze dropped to the floor. "I watched your face harden as you saw the glamour and I knew I lost you. I just didn't know how far you would go to get away from me."

"I thought I was dealing with two dark witches in my back yard. I wasn't about to stay around and try to be a friendly neighbor."

"But I don't understand, April. Why did you spell yourself to forget me? Especially if you thought I was dark?"

I chuckled grimly. "You didn't know the full extent of my abilities at the time, but I knew how to protect myself. Not only would the memory of what we were haunt me, and prevent me from living my life, but I would have come back for you. Even if you were dark, I would have risked everything to save you. I loved you that much, Ian."

Taking a step forward, I sighed. "I've been able to create some very unique spells, and they've worked. I created that spell in part because I didn't think our time together would last, and I needed it to allow me to move on quickly. It was always about survival. And I couldn't survive if I lived with the memory of you. The memory of us."

Pain flashed across Ian's features, but I wasn't finished. I needed to say the rest. "When you pulled me into this dream, I didn't remember much of the life I'm living now in the real world. I didn't remember you, either, only that it felt like I was coming home, not leaving it."

"I packed as much power as I could into making a night shade for this spell, April," Ian muttered. "I needed to see you again. For as long as possible."

Before I realized I was moving, I pulled my mate into my arms and held him tight against me, breathing him in.

His strong arms wrapped around me and his head dipped into the curve of my shoulder. "I thought you woke up. I thought the spell was broken."

"I did wake up, but only for a few minutes. I wanted to come back here, so I did."

My mate pulled back and looked at me, his hazel eyes searching mine. "You woke up and then came back?"

"I told you my magic is unique."

He laughed, relief washing over his features.

I missed his laugh more than I realized. I missed everything about him.

I missed my mate.

Without thinking, I kissed him, hard, cutting off his laugh with a surprised groan.

My biggest problem wasn't the dream I was sharing with my mate, or what happened to separate us, or what happened after I left and forgot about it all.

The problem was my little girl, sleeping in the next room as I slept. The baby that was showing signs of having power, but wasn't a witch.

And the man sleeping next to me. The human.

The man I didn't love. But the man I married.

Robert.

But I couldn't bring myself to care as Ian picked me up and carried me back to the bed.

### Chapter 7

The mattress felt like a cloud. But the pressure of Ian's body against mine was so much better.

His scent surrounded me and his taste exploded on my tongue as he deepened the kiss and pulled my leg up to change the angle of our hips, forcing me to gasp as he ground against me.

I wanted him. Needed him. Inside me. All around me.

I needed everything all at once.

My fingers reached for the hem of his dark shirt and Ian broke away from my mouth for long enough to let me pull it off him for the second time. And then his mouth was on mine once more.

His hands slowly pulled the zipper of my jacket down and then snaked his warm fingers beneath my tank top and pushed all the material over my head and let it fall to the floor behind me.

My arms were still outstretched over my head and just as I was about to reach up and touch my mate's face, his hands started trailing down my arms. Just like he did before my memories returned.

But my bra was still on and I needed to feel his hands on my skin.

Ian must have understood my frustration because his hands traveled over my ribcage and expertly released the clasp of my bra before pulling it away.

"I've been waiting so long for this," he said as I reached up and took his face in my hands. The stubble on his cheeks tickled against my palms and sent tingles down my spine as I pulled his mouth down to mine.

I opened my mouth, giving him access and cried out as his fingers brushed over my nipples in a slow, agonizing caress.

And then they started moving lower, barely touching my skin as he went. But it was enough to force me to arch my back with anticipation.

Though I was mindless with need, my hands still found their way to his jeans and worked to open them. And by the time I was ripping open his zipper, he pulled away from the kiss to help me remove my jeans, leaving me naked and cold without him.

His jeans were still clinging to his hips, but only barely. He let me watch as he pushed the material down, releasing himself slowly. Then he let his jeans fall to the floor.

The bed was soft and the fibers of the blanket against my skin felt like I was on a silken cloud. Every nerve ending in my body was on fire as Ian advanced up the bed toward me and I watched his muscles move with him.

His mouth found mine in the next instant but then he pulled away, trailing his lips and tongue down my jaw, letting me feel the stubble on his chin along the way.

He kept moving lower, down my neck to the top of my shoulder, and he didn't stop.

But when his hot, wet mouth closed over my nipple and his tongue swirled over it, his fingers plunged inside me, forcing me to arch my hips toward him to increase the friction against him and cry out at the same time.

He froze and lifted his mouth away from my nipple and his hazel eyes locked with mine. "You like?"

I wasn't sure I could answer him, and as I tried to formulate some semblance of a coherent sentence, his fingers circled my clitoris and my hand flashed out to grip his wrist, silently pleading for more. "Oh my god," I cried breathlessly.

My other hand searched for him. I wanted to feel the hard length of him, feel the smoothness of the skin there, but he was poised just far enough away that I couldn't reach him.

"Please, Ian," I begged. But then I looked up at him and froze. The look in his eyes was intense. I recognized it instantly. It didn't matter that his aura swirled with a dark red.

His fingers stopped moving and it no longer mattered how much I wanted him. My hands reached up and touched his face. "I love you."

"You know I love you. I've always loved you," he said, but I caught the glint in his eyes before he closed them.

"No. Don't shut down on me. Please."

But his eyes stayed closed.

I pushed his hand away and rolled us over. Though I was straddling him, he wasn't inside me. Not yet. "Listen to me, Ian. I need this. You need this. Don't shut down on me. We might not have much time left."

To emphasize my point, I took him in my grip and reveled in the feel of him. He let out a groan and all the hesitation in his gaze vanished.

Then I moved forward and let him enter me. I watched as his eyes rolled and then he sat up, kissing me like our lives depended on it.

My nails clawed at his back, trying to get him closer as I moved, rocking against him with a grind on each thrust and it felt like my nerve endings were just doused with gasoline.

Desperation filled me as the need for him grew. He seemed to notice and rolled us over, pinning me against the bed. He lowered down to his elbows, caging me beneath him and the pressure of his body against mine was nearly my undoing.

All it took was one thrust and I crashed around him, arching my back as much as his body would allow as I screamed from the intensity of my orgasm.

He slowed, letting me ride the wave and then just as I started to come back down, he started moving in a slow in and out motion with a grind at each thrust and it did nothing but fuel my desire even further.

Every second we spent in that bedroom was like heaven. He hurt because I left and erased my memory. My heart overflowed with love for my mate, with the memories of all that we were returned. And yet at the same time, my heart was shattering into pieces.

I made the decision to leave. To protect myself. To try to live as a human. And I succeeded. He spent the entire time in pain, suffering over my loss.

We were in a dream, reunited at last, but it was only temporary. And we would lose each other again.

It was only a matter of time.

### Chapter 8

We made love for what seemed like hours, but yet only a few minutes. There were moments we took our time, savoring every caress, every sensation. Then there were moments we went hard and fast.

In the last few moments I was fucking him, driving him wild by moving slow and steady, building him for sweet release, he took a handful of my hair at the back of my head and pulled down, changing the angle of our bodies as it forced me to arch my back and look up at the stained ceiling.

He growled, "Come for me."

Before he finished speaking, I shattered. Lights exploded behind my eyes and the sensation intensified as he followed after me.

I collapsed to the bed, breathless and sated. Ian pulled me into his arms and held me as our breathing slowed to a normal pace. My head rested against his chest and I listened to the beating of his heart as his red aura dulled to a deep pink. Then I breathed him in. The scent of hazelnuts surrounded me. It was most intense on him, but it lingered on my skin, on the bed, everywhere.

It was the most intoxicating scent I would ever smell.

"Will you tell me what happened after you left? What's your life like now?" Ian asked as he caressed the bare flesh on my arm.

"The point of the spell was to force me to put distance between us, and attempt to live as a human. Try to live a normal life in hiding. The first night, that witch found me."

"The dark witch?" His grip tightened around me as I nodded into his chest. "Tell me."

It was a long day on the road. The past three months were like that. A blur of drifting from town to town with no discernible difference between them.

I wasn't sure what was more disturbing, the fact that the last three months were a blur of the same thing, or the fact that I was living such a barren, empty life. That wasn't living at all.

That needed to change. I couldn't keep living like that.

But I felt like I would collapse from exhaustion at any moment. So I made my way to the motel room, unlocked the door and stepped inside.

Leaving my bag that consisted of all of my belongings on the bed, I headed straight for the bathroom and turned on the shower, set to scalding.

I smelled like hazelnuts. It was my favorite scent, but every time I breathed in, a feeling of loss and longing fell over me.

So I washed away the stress of the day. I took my time, shaving, blow drying my long, reddish brown hair into some semblance of order, and then I made my way back to the bag, still sitting on the bed where I left it. I pulled on a pair of matching black panties and a shirt before pulling on comfortable flannel pants.

Then a knock sounded at the door.

I sighed. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep, but I knew the Shelterer wouldn't knock on my door if it wasn't important.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's important," said a woman with an accent I couldn't place.

Flipping the lock, I pulled the door open with a yawn and froze. The motel manager wasn't standing in front of me.

The palest green eyes with an outer black rim looked back at me from a woman with raven hair and ashen skin. I thought she was utterly beautiful. Breathtaking.

But then I noticed the black aura undulating around her.

She was a dark witch.

A sudden feeling of anger, revulsion, and jealousy washed over me as she smiled at me, but it wasn't a genuine smile. It felt like a show of teeth. I didn't understand why I was repulsed and jealous of her, but I was. The anger was the only thing about my reaction that made any sense.

I should have felt fear. But I didn't. She was dangerous. The black aura was enough for me to know that much.

"My name is Zoe Kavanaugh, I don't believe we've met. I was wondering if you might help me with something?" she asked in what I realized was an Australian accent and held her hand out in greeting.

She stood in front of me, standing a few inches taller than me from the height of her black leather stiletto heels. Everything she wore was black. Skin tight jeans, a billowy blouse, and a leather jacket completed her look.

Though she was smiling at me as if we were old friends, I didn't return it.

Dark witches only wanted one thing from a light witch like me.

Power.

Not only were dark witches evil, but they enjoyed employing some intense, nasty spells. They didn't hesitate to kill if it meant they would gain more power. I knew the beautiful woman standing in front of me wanted to kill me and take both my magic and my soul.

When I didn't respond, she let her smile fade away into a scowl. But I still wasn't afraid of her.

And then a wave of dark magic pulsed from her outstretched hand and smashed into me with the force of a freight train.

I felt an odd sense of detachment, like I was floating outside of my body, held in stasis. When I opened my eyes, I realized that was exactly what was happening.

Floating above my body, I saw the dark witch step into my tiny motel room, not even bothering to close the door behind her. "That was too easy," she chuckled in that same accent that grated on me.

Even though I was unconscious on the floor, I wanted nothing more than to open my eyes and punch that bitch in the face. I didn't know her, but I hated her.

That wasn't normal for me.

Sure, I knew that discovery was my biggest danger as a witch. But those dangers came from many different places. There were the human hunters that called themselves the Malleus Dei Maleficarum. There were dark witches. And there were _others_ willing to share information to save their lives.

The world was not a safe place. Anyone could be a threat. But I never hated anyone. People were who they were, believed what they wanted to believe. There was nothing I could do to change that.

I just needed to stay safe and protect myself.

But there I was, unconscious on the floor of a dirty, dingy motel, floating over my body while a dark witch looked down at my body like I was something to eat.

The only problem was that the witch didn't know who she was dealing with. Whoever the hell she was.

Despite how I looked, to _others_ , I wasn't just a meek light witch. I looked like I spent more time in a tanning bed than learning about what I was. That was part of the reason why I survived so long. No one expected what I could do.

I could make spells no other witch could. Spells that required more power than most witches possessed. Spells that utilized a bit of will in addition to the proper ingredients and words. Those abilities were extremely rare.

But that wasn't all.

Grim satisfaction washed over me as the dark witch knelt next to my body and rested her hand on my forehead, starting the spell that would rip both my magic and my soul from my body.

The power running through her felt like a charged battery against my skin, and then I felt the same cold, tingling sensation I felt once before.

I was being siphoned.

The dark witch hissed and pulled her hand back like she was shocked. It wasn't far off.

She looked at her hand in disbelief as it started smoking.

An instant later, a whoosh sounded as her hand was engulfed in blue flames. She screamed as she ran from the room and I felt what little amount of power she took from me come flooding back.

And then I opened my eyes and smiled.

### Chapter 9

"You never told me you had Earthen traits," Ian said in wonder as I finished speaking.

Earthen witches were the reason our world was in so much turmoil. They were the most powerful of all _others_ and ruled over the supernaturals, keeping the peace. They didn't use traditional moon magic like the rest of the witches. If they wanted something to happen, it did. That was their will.

But then they were killed by those human Malleus Dei Maleficarum hunters in the seventeenth century. In rare cases since, witches could possess certain Earthen abilities.

Those were the traits. The skills specific to Earthen magic. According to the Guardians of Information, the neutrals that kept the lore of our world, one, sometimes two were possible in a witch. But most witches didn't have any.

I shrugged against my mate. "It's not like I was hiding it from you, it just never came up."

"How many do you have?"

I lifted my head to look at him and his hazel eyes met mine. "How many?"

"I didn't think about it before, but you have the ability to make spells no other witch can by using will. First, you were able to erase me from your memory. Then you brought yourself back into this spell. And now, I can't see your aura. I thought it was this dream." He shrugged.

"Yeah," I nodded. "I figured out how to hide my aura."

"That's incredible," he said in wonder as his aura shifted to orange. I wasn't sure if he was proud, or amazed, but I was still flattered. But then he continued, "I think you have the ability to draw _others_ to you. Otherwise I doubt I would have settled down with you. Considering the pixies that live in the garden, it makes sense. On top of all of that, you have a _shield_."

The blood drained from my face. I never thought about it. The _shield_ was rare, even by Earthen standards. It was a defense mechanism designed to engage automatically to protect against magic meant to harm or kill.

Ian was right. That was three traits that we knew about. That was unheard of. He sat up and turned to face me. "If you knew you had the _shield_ , why did you leave and make yourself forget?"

My gaze shifted to the wall behind him. "I thought you turned dark and I didn't want that constant reminder that I lost you. Plus, I didn't know if I could contend with two dark witches at once. That wasn't a theory I wanted to test."

I didn't tell him the rest. There was more behind my need to flee and forget. More I didn't yet understand. And then there was what happened after the dark witch ran away. I didn't think I could tell him about either of those things. Not yet, anyway.

His hand reached up and touched my chin, gently urging me to look at him. When my eyes met his, the tears started to fall. He pulled me into his arms in the next instant as I sobbed.

"I couldn't take that risk. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It's alright. I understand."

He held me for a time, letting me feel his strength as he soothed me. After a while, I finally calmed down and realized the sun went down. The blue light of the moon filtered through the windows and sparkled off the lake in the distance.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked.

I nodded.

Five minutes later, we were dressed and made our way through the tree line toward the beach. Ian held my hand like he was afraid I'd disappear.

And he was right.

I could wake up at any moment.

The weight of knowing all that happened to rip us apart — a ruse set by a dark witch — just made it that much harder.

Ian was the love of my life. He was my mate.

Not Robert.

Though my memories were still coming to me, combing through what I believed after I left with what I knew was the truth wasn't going to be easy.

My biggest mistake was leaving Ian, and my memories behind.

I laid there, looking up at the ceiling with that grin on my face. Whoever that dark witch was — Zoe, if that was even her name — she wouldn't come back.

A cool breeze hit me and I realized the door was still open. It was late August, but I could feel autumn was coming.

Just as I was about to stand up to close the door and try to get some sleep, a man with no aura ran into the room and dropped to his knees next to me.

"Are you hurt? I heard a scream." The man looked me over, searching for signs of injury. His skin wasn't pale enough to be undead, so I knew he was human. But that didn't mean he was harmless.

The last thing I needed to do was tell a human the truth. "I'm fine," I said and sat up. Someone tried to rob me, but he ran off."

"I'm going to call the police," my savior said and reached into his expensive dress pants.

My hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. "No. Don't call the cops. It's fine. I didn't even see the guy's face."

He didn't look convinced but left his phone in his pocket. I could tell he was taller than me, but not by much. His brown eyes, perfect business appropriate hair and just the faintest hint of a shadow on his jaw fit with his attire.

I was surprised he was kneeling on the carpet of the dingy motel. The thought that he might burn his pants out of sheer disgust made my lips twitch as I fought a smile.

His eyes traveled over me appreciatively and he moved to his feet as he extended his hand to help me up. It didn't escape my notice that he wasn't wearing a ring.

I accepted his outstretched hand, though I didn't need it and smiled at him in thanks when I was standing.

He shook my hand. "My name is Robert Johnson. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"April Carver," I said, smiling back at him.

Though Robert was attractive and handsome, he wasn't my type. But it wasn't very often a man came to my rescue. I didn't let go of his hand.

"Thank you for saving me," I said and let my gaze drop to his lips.

He licked his lips and looked down at mine in response.

I couldn't remember the last time I felt the skin of a man against mine. After what happened with the dark witch, I couldn't bring myself to care.

Pulling him with me, I closed the door and locked it before I turned back around to face him. A small smile crept into his lips and he stepped closer.

Making love with Robert wasn't what I would consider exciting or satisfying, but he was human. A normal, flesh and blood human.

A businessman.

That was exactly what I was looking for. And it was as if a gift box just dropped into my lap wrapped with a bow.

While he slept naked on the very uncomfortable and lumpy bed, I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. My green eyes were bright, my long, reddish brown hair looked healthy and shiny, albeit messy from what just happened as it trailed down my back, and my tanned skin was luminous.

It didn't take a genius to know Robert was interested in my body. Most men were. But he seemed to genuinely care about my well-being.

Though it was a little unorthodox to start a relationship with sex, I was just so damn tired of running. Of being alone.

I turned off the light and crawled into bed next to him, pressing my bare flesh against his. He turned toward me as his bleary brown eyes opened. Shifting closer to him, I snuggled into his arms and let out a sigh.

He kissed the top of my head and drifted off a moment later.

That was when I knew he was the one. The human that would give me the life I wanted.

### Chapter 10

I loved Robert because he was human and offered me the perfect life. But it never compared to the way I felt when I was with Ian.

Since we were destined to be together by fate, we were mates. And that kind of love would win out over anything else.

If I remembered Ian and all that we were together, Robert would have never happened. I wouldn't have invited him to stay in that dirty motel room with me. I wouldn't have married him or bought the brownstone condo. I would have stayed alone.

I shook my head and sighed, but Ian caught the look on my face.

He stopped walking and turned to me. The woods that surrounded us were dark, but there was enough moonlight shining down for me to see his features. "What's wrong?"

"I...," I sighed. "I don't know what to do."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to leave, but I know it's only a matter of time before I wake up."

His hand squeezed mine and he said, "I know."

I wanted to learn all I could about what I missed. "What have you been doing these past nine months?"

We started walking again and as soon as my feet stepped off the boardwalk through the woods and onto the sand, I relaxed. I loved the feel of the sand on that beach.

_Our_ beach.

It was my favorite part of living at the farmhouse with him. We walked there almost every night, and the sound of the gentle waves in combination with the feel of the sand beneath my feet and the warmth of Ian's body next to mine was nothing short of perfect.

"I've been here the whole time. Hoping your memory would return and you'd come back."

I sighed. "There are so many memories here."

Two weeks after Ian brought me to the farmhouse — our home — we were sitting in the kitchen, sipping our steaming cups of coffee and enjoying the sounds of the birds from outside the window in amicable silence.

Happiness and contentment didn't begin to cover how I felt being with Ian in the home we shared. A home that I loved, right down to the chipping paint and leaking roof.

It was a life I always dreamed of, but never thought possible because of what we were.

Witches.

Others.

We were taking a risk. Trying our luck at happiness. Hoping that we wouldn't be discovered by dark witches, the human hunters that called themselves Malleus Dei Maleficarum, or _others_ that might betray us. We knew the dangers. But we still wanted to try.

Two weeks felt like forever and yet only a few moments at the same time. I took another sip of coffee and my eyes flickered up at my mate, flipping through the morning paper with that same purple and deep pink undulating in his aura that told me he was both content and wanted me at the same time.

"So I think we should get married," he said, not looking away from the paper. Then his gaze flickered to me and he grinned. "I know when you're watching me. Your aura gives you away."

I was hallucinating. I had to be.

"What did you say?"

The corners of his mouth lifted into a grin and light blue started to bleed into his aura. "We. Should. Get. Married."

Okay, I wasn't hallucinating.

"Are you serious?"

"I'm happy here. Aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

"And I love you. You love me, right?"

"What kind of question is that?"

He grinned at me in the way that made the corners of my mouth lift in response. "So why the hell not?" The paper shifted as he folded it and set it down on the peeling, white painted table in front of him. But I didn't expect what happened next.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled a little black velvet box out and slid it across the table toward me.

I picked it up, eyeing him suspiciously as I felt my cheeks flame with hope. When I opened the box, I gasped.

It was a diamond ring.

"I bought it right before I brought you here," he said, answering my unspoken question. "What do you say? Will you marry me, April Carver?"

I blinked and tears fell from my eyes. "I told you before, my answer is always yes."

He moved toward me and took the ring out of the box, slipping it onto my finger. Then his mouth covered mine, but it was slow and gentle, just the way I imagined a moment like that would be.

But before we could do anything else, he took my hand and pulled me to my feet. "Let's get to work, shall we?"

That night, my head was still spinning. Life as an _other_ was filled with danger and tragedy. Especially when a mate was involved. It always ended badly, and most of the time, mates kept their distance to stay safe. More importantly, to keep each other safe.

That was why the rituals of binding, the permanent supernatural marriages that entwined two mated souls together, were practically gone from the lore. No one stayed together long enough, nor did they ever want to risk something so intense.

Two weeks before, Ian bought the farmhouse. That morning, he proposed. Though he only proposed by human standards, it was still enough to take my breath away.

Two miracles. Two dreams coming true.

I knew only a few days after I met him that I would be willing to risk it all if it meant I could be with him. But I never said it. I never told him. I was too afraid of what he might say in response.

He took his time, but he always told me how he felt. He took those chances. Though he bought the ring and the farmhouse at the same time, he waited to show me the ring. I wasn't sure what he was waiting for.

Maybe he was afraid of doing too much, too fast.

It wouldn't have mattered. Ian meant everything to me. I would have said yes a million times over.

Just the idea of spending my life with Ian, no matter how little amount of time that might be, was a dream come true.

As much as I wanted to do otherwise, he kept us busy all day, working to fix up the farmhouse as much as we could, and when it finally came time to walk on the beach after the sun went down, I was nearly mindless.

The heat wave was finally beginning to break and the sand was still warm beneath my feet. I took a tentative step into the water and felt it was cool, just as it should be for that time of summer.

I turned toward my mate, my fiancé, my love, and I grinned. I was done waiting. And I wouldn't take no for an answer.

The beach was ours. Our little stretch of land. No one ventured out nearby. And no one could see us. There was too much overgrowth of trees and shrubs.

It was _ours_.

I let go of Ian's hand and pulled my dress up and over my head, tossing it to the dry section of the shore as I took another step out into the water.

His aura flamed with red for an instant before dulling back to a deep pink, but his hazel eyes traveled down my naked body. "The sight of you in the water next to the lily pads with the moon shining down on you is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

I didn't know how to respond to that. That was one of many reasons I loved him so much. It wasn't that we were fated. It was how well he knew me. All of me.

He pulled off his shirt as I stepped back once more, deeper into the cool lake water and by the time I was surrounded by lily pads with the water at my waist, he was already coming toward me.

When he reached me, he didn't stop moving. He kissed me, hard, gripping the back of my head and holding me against him. I responded instantly. My arms wrapped around his shoulders as he picked me up with ease and walked deeper into the water.

His mouth tasted like honey and brown sugar and I didn't think I would ever tire of the way his flavor exploded across my tongue.

The cool water enveloped us and the warmth of his body pressed against me made my nerve endings feel like they were on fire.

I wanted everything with him. I wanted a home, a life, a family. All of it. The benefits outweighed the risks and I would spend the rest of my time with him happy.

Especially in moments like that. After he proposed, I couldn't have picked a better moment to be with him than in the water, under the moon's soft blue glow, minutes away from the house we shared.

When the water reached our necks, he stopped walking and I shifted my hips, letting him enter me. With one thrust he was inside and I came with the force of a thousand setting suns, crying out into his mouth.

He devoured every cry, every moan, and every whimper. And we stayed in that water, surrounded by lily pads, crickets, frogs, and the moonlight until we were both sated and spent.

I stopped walking and turned to Ian. The sand was cool but the air was mild and I smiled at the man I loved. "Those were the best three weeks of my life. From the moment we pulled up in your truck until...," I trailed off as my vision started to blur.

He waited, knowing I wasn't finished and that just made my heart ache even more.

"I would give anything to have it back," my voice cracked at the end.

"Oh, April," Ian whispered as he reached up and held my face in his hands, wiping away the tears that fell down my cheeks with his thumbs. "Why do you think I worked so hard to create the night shade and the dream spell that brought you here?" He looked around us and then his gaze settled on mine again.

That was a good question.

Why did he cast that spell to allow us to share a dream?

I thought back over all the moments we shared together, and how I was always the one to hold back how I really felt. He was always the one to reveal his heart to me.

That wasn't something I was going to do any more. If that was the last time I would ever see my mate, I wanted him to know how I really felt.

How I hoped he felt.

If his actions during the time we were together when he wasn't under the influence of the dark witch were any indication, then there was only one answer to that question.

Hope flared within me and I squared my shoulders, steeling myself for his reply.

"You want me to come back to you," I said.

### Chapter 11

Though I never cast a dream spell, nor did I ever experience one before that night, I knew how night shades and dream spells worked. Those night shades pulled the dreamer into a deep sleep. Though it was possible for some external source to wake them, they would otherwise sleep through the night.

With spells like that, it was possible for time in the dream to move slower. Though I didn't track the time like I should have, I knew that when the dream started, it was at night. We were in the middle of the second night in the dream.

That was both a good and bad thing about dream spells. If they were pleasant like the one I was in, it could last for days and by the time it ended, the dreamer would want to jump right back in.

But a dream spell wasn't always like that. It was entirely possible to experience terrible ones. The possibilities were endless.

Part of the reason why those types of spells weren't used often was because they felt real. Right down to the tiniest of details.

The farmhouse was exactly as I left it nine months before.

It smelled the same, looked the same, even the stains in certain parts of the ceilings were the same.

Ian didn't look any different than I remembered him. He still smelled of hazelnuts and the color of his eyes was the same that haunted my dreams even before the night he pulled me into the spell.

The nights I dreamt of him, despite not having the memories to understand who he was or why I was dreaming of him, those were the best dreams I ever experienced in the nine months since I left. It wasn't that I woke up after, not remembering his face or the specifics of the dreams, it was only a sense that something intense and special was lost.

The faintest remnant of what was or could have been.

Those mornings were the worst for me.

Living amongst the humans, hidden, was a compulsion built into the spell that made me forget Ian and all of our time together.

It was meant to set me on a specific path. One that would lead me away from him.

But despite the intentions of the spell forcing me to forget, there were still tiny pieces that remained with me.

I felt their significance, and I listened to my instincts.

A small smile crept into Ian's lips as orange filled his aura.

"What?" I asked.

"Your aura is starting to show, and I can see your hope. But beneath it, I know how hard it was for you to say those words. You were never the one to lay your heart on the line first."

I nodded. "I kept the truth as more of a defense mechanism than anything. I never told you enough of how you made me feel. Deep down, I always knew that we would end up apart. And I was trying — failing — to protect myself from it. I never told you about everything."

That much was true, and guilt rose within me.

He must have noticed, because his hands moved to my face to force me to look up into his hazel eyes. "I know," he breathed.

But I knew he wasn't finished.

"I felt the same way, but I hoped that you would open up if I did first, and you always felt the way I hoped. Why are you opening up now?"

A faint smile spread across my lips, but I couldn't manage anything more. "I made mistakes then. I don't want to make them again."

I needed to tell him about what happened after I left. After the dark witch showed up at the motel. There was something about the way he was looking at me in that moment that made me pause. But more specifically, he still didn't give me an answer.

Was I right? He wanted me to come back so we could start again, right where we left off? Or was the dream meant to be a warning of some kind?

At last, my mind settled on the worst case scenario. He brought me there, not to tell me to go back to him, but to tell me to stay away.

It was already hard enough knowing how much time we spent apart. But it would ruin me if I heard those words come from his mouth.

"So tell me," I said, trying to force down the onslaught of emotion that rolled over me like a tidal wave. "Why did you bring me here?"

Ian dropped his hands from my face and the orange faded from his aura, replaced with a sad, dark blue and a fearful gray. It reminded me of those late afternoon thunderstorms we spent inside, dancing to nothing but the sounds of rain and thunder.

In that moment, I knew my worst fear was the truth.

He didn't want me to come back to him.

The spell was meant to be our goodbye.

I pulled away from him and turned toward the water, stepping close enough that the tiny waves washed over my bare feet. The water was still cold for mid-May and it sent a shiver up through my legs and reverberated through my body as I tried not to sob in front of the man I loved.

Then I caught sight of the lily pads, undulating with the water beneath that same pale blue glow of the moon.

It was a painful reminder of our perfect time spent together.

My dreams came true, but they were only temporary.

I crumpled to the soft sand beneath me and buried my face in my hands. The water soaked my jeans but I couldn't bring myself to care.

Before I even registered that Ian moved, he was in front of me, kneeling in the frigid water and pulling my hands away from my face. "Listen to me, April," he said with determination. "I love you and that will never change. I will always be here, waiting for you to come back to me."

That caught my attention and I froze, blinking the tears from my eyes and focused on his face.

"I brought you here, hoping you would remember me. Us. All that we had here. And yes, I want you to come back to me. I would give anything to have you back in my arms. For real. Not here in a dream."

Fresh tears spilled over at the overwhelming emotions I felt. Those were the most beautiful words I ever heard in my life.

Ian wanted me. He wanted me to go back to the farmhouse to be with him. And I wanted the same.

But it wasn't going to be easy.

"I love you, Ian," I whispered. "I always have and always will. No matter what."

It wasn't an answer and we both knew it. Life was never that simple.

He leaned forward, grasping the back of my head as he kissed me, hard, and used his momentum to push me onto my back.

It no longer mattered that we were both soaked from the waist down with frigid lake water. I needed him in that moment just as much as he needed me.

And we stayed there on that beach, savoring every sensation, every sound that escaped our lips, making love like it was the last time.

By the time the sun rose across the horizon, we could both feel that our time was almost up.

It _was_ our last time.

### Chapter 12

That night we shared on the beach during the dream spell reminded me of the night we shared after he proposed to me. That was one week before I left it all behind. I was a whirlwind of emotion then, just I like I was in those hours we spent together.

I missed him so much. Even when nothing remained of his memory, I still missed him. There was always that deep feeling that I lost something important, and that night, it all came flooding back to me.

There were certain reminders of him. Whenever I smelled hazelnuts, though I knew it was my favorite scent, it still hurt my heart when my lungs filled with it.

We dressed in silence, brushing off the sand that still clung to our bodies as we went, but my mind was still reeling with the new memories.

After I spelled myself to forget my mate, I spared myself the worst of the aftermath.

It wasn't the dark witch.

It was taking away the worst imaginable pain.

Finding my mate, the one person in the world perfect for me in every way, and then having him ripped away, was enough to ruin me. It was enough to ruin anyone.

That was why most _others_ didn't stay with their mates for long. It was dangerous. It was risky. But most of all, that inevitable end would hurt the worst. So they stayed away. To protect each other.

Ian and I didn't have that kind of strength. We both wanted to take that chance together. To try to beat the odds.

And in the span of three weeks from the moment we arrived in front of that farmhouse, it was taken from us. Like the flip of a switch. One second we were happy and life was perfect.

The next, it was all gone.

If I left, but retained my memory, I wouldn't have survived. Not because of the dark witch. My _shield_ activated automatically, protecting me from the woman who called herself Zoe. But the enormity of what I left behind, and the reminders I brought with me without realizing it, was enough to force me to crumble under the pressure.

It was hard enough attempting to live as a human, disguised amongst them, feeling like I was alone the entire time.

Those three months we knew each other turned into a blur of drifting from place to place, an intense desire to fade away and blend in, and a need find the comfort in someone else's arms — a human's arms — those were all part of the spell.

It wasn't by accident.

The life I lived with Robert wasn't a happy one. And I knew it all along. My life belonged with Ian. Deep down, I knew that.

The dangers, however, were still there.

If I left Robert and went back to the farmhouse to be with Ian, the risks wouldn't disappear. At any point we could be discovered, just like Zoe discovered Ian in town.

I wasn't sure if I could live through that again.

As I zipped up my jacket, I looked up at Ian, watching me with pink and gray swirling in his aura.

I sighed. Only a few minutes remained. I could feel the pull of waking up. Everything around us was changing.

The normal dark blue of the lake was gray. The lily pads floating there weren't lush and green any longer. The sun didn't hold the same golden intensity. It was faded and lacked color.

Everything was turning monochromatic gray.

Except for Ian and his aura.

"It's almost over," I whispered.

Before I realized he moved, Ian pulled me into his arms and dipped his head to my shoulder.

But, too soon, he stepped back and held me at arm's length as I swiped a tear that fell down my cheek.

"I know how hard this is for you," my mate said, low. "But I still want you. Here. With me. I still want to take a chance. To be happy. I still want to marry you. I still want all of those things with you."

He dropped his arms as a sad, dark blue engulfed his aura. "I can't do this spell again, April. I know the risks of what I'm offering you. And I know that you might not want to go through that again. You remember now, and that's all that matters."

Silence filled the air around us and I realized the sounds of the water stopped. The frogs went silent. Then the birds and crickets. There were no sounds but what I heard from Ian's lips.

"I will always be here, waiting for you. If you decide to come back, I'll be here. Always remember that I love you," tears filled his eyes and his voice cracked at the end.

Without another word, he turned and walked away, back up the boardwalk that led through the trees to the farmhouse.

My hand reached up to my forehead as I realized the enormity of what happened during the dream. Ian's offer wasn't meant to pressure me. It was the hardest decision I would ever have to make.

But then sadness filled me as I realized those were the last words he would ever say to me.

He didn't hold me, didn't kiss me, he just walked away.

It wasn't difficult to figure out why. He couldn't bear to see me disappear in front of him again.

I didn't think I could bear seeing him fade in front of my eyes either.

We spent three perfect weeks together at that farmhouse. Three weeks that felt like the world was right. Perfect. Because Ian wanted to be with me.

He wanted me to come back to him.

But at the same time, he finally had the chance to tell me goodbye.

My heart shattered in my chest and I collapsed to my knees on the cool sand, sobbing.

And then I opened my eyes.

### Chapter 13

"April?"

The sound of Robert's voice hit my ears but I couldn't register what he said to me. Tears were streaming down my face as I sat up, seeing the light pouring in from the windows in the bedroom I shared with my husband.

I buried my face in my hands and cried.

Weight shifted on the bed and I felt Robert move next to me as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"It was a dream," I whispered. "It was only a dream."

I wasn't sure if I was responding to my husband's question, or if I was just babbling, but it didn't matter. I knew the truth.

My true past came back to me, and though I only slept during the night, I spent much longer with my mate.

I didn't want it to end.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Robert sounded confused, uncertain of what to do for me.

I chuckled grimly, knowing that Ian would know how to help me without having to ask. It was one of the perks of being mates. Taking a deep breath, I answered him. "No. I'm fine."

It was a lie. A very bad lie. I could tell he wasn't buying it, but he wasn't the type of man to pry.

For emphasis I wiped the tears from my face and turned to my husband and feigned a smile. "It was just a sad dream."

That wasn't a complete lie. The whole experience of the dream spell was bittersweet. It felt right being in Ian's arms. Felt right at the farmhouse, tucked in the woods near the lake.

Being with Ian felt right.

Being with Robert didn't.

No matter how much I tried to sugar coat it, Robert just couldn't measure up to what Ian meant to me as my mate.

I kept secrets — big secrets from my husband. And I kept them to myself because I knew if I revealed what I was, he wouldn't understand.

My time with Ian was different. I was quiet, reserved, and let him take the lead. I never outright lied to him, I just didn't share everything with him.

Not until the dream.

But even then, I never had the chance to tell him everything.

A coo sounded from the monitor sitting on the modern bedside table, and I knew Lily was awake. With a quick glance at the clock, I realized it was nine in the morning.

Not only was that the first night Lily slept through, but it was the latest she ever slept.

I smiled. But that time, it was genuine. My baby gave me the greatest gift ever.

Sleeping so peacefully through the night allowed me to spend more time with Ian. More time remembering, more time to say goodbye. To be with each other one last time, like we were before everything was taken from us.

The dark witch created a glamour to make me think Ian betrayed me in every way imaginable. Not only making me see him as a dark witch, but also seeing them together inside that cabin.

That kind of betrayal would solidify my actions. Though I didn't think Zoe anticipated what I would do before I left, and what I could do when she found me.

She thought Ian was too powerful to take his magic and his essence, so she used him as a pawn to try to take mine. It was very lucky for him.

Ian never betrayed me. Never went dark. He was compelled to say the right words to make me follow him into the woods.

We never said our goodbyes.

Though the dream spell was meant to return my memory and give us closure, it was also meant to let me know I could go back, if I wanted to.

Every cell in my body screamed at me to stand up and head back to the farmhouse. To Ian. But instead, I turned to my husband and said, "Do you want pancakes for breakfast?"

Without waiting for his reply I stood up and made my way to Lily's nursery. I froze, happy Robert didn't follow me.

He never did.

The sight in front of me sent ice down my spine.

Lily was three months old.

I met Robert six months before that.

Our life together after Lily was born was no different than it was before. He earned the money while I took care of everything else.

I accepted that life.

But seeing my little girl in her crib with her little arms and legs in the air while her mobile swung around above her, cooing and giggling at it was what caught my attention.

Her mobile wasn't on.

My little girl was using power again. Yet she didn't have an aura to indicate that she was _other_. That both terrified me and filled me with pride.

But that was also a very dangerous thing.

It would increase our chances of discovery. Not just by Robert, but the hunters.

I needed answers. I needed to sort out my memories.

I needed to go to the library.

### Chapter 14

The day I met Ian was like nothing I ever experienced before. It wasn't that being in his presence electrified me, though it did. And it wasn't that I knew in that moment the pull I felt in my stomach for so long was directed at him, though it was.

It was him. Everything about him caught my attention and kept it.

His hazel eyes were the most beautiful I ever saw in my life, and his freckled, fair skin did nothing but make them more beautiful. More piercing. When he looked at me in those first moments, it felt like he could see me.

All of me.

Even my soul.

At the time, I didn't know that pull meant he was my mate. And though I could see his aura, that purple that shifted to pink as soon as our eyes made contact, I didn't know what kind of _other_ he was.

Black indicated evil, and was only seen on dark witches.

And vampires didn't cast auras.

I wasn't sure if the man standing in front of me was a witch, or a were-animal.

But it didn't matter. Whatever he was wouldn't matter. I could feel it through every cell in my body that he was special.

It was the way he looked at me, the way he moved. That jaw darkened by stubble, lips that looked as if they tasted like heaven. It was _him_. All of him.

It didn't take long for me to realize we were mates.

One trip to the library was enough to settle that.

I hardly knew him at that point, but it made sense what the Guardian of Information — the librarian — told me. When two supernatural creatures were destined by fate to be together, they would feel a pull toward that person.

That pull would never fade.

But the world was a dangerous place and staying together could lead to disaster.

The librarian was right. I knew it. Staying to learn more about the man that was my mate would leave me with an impossible choice.

Stay and be happy for however long that might be before tragedy struck, or leave him behind and never come back.

I almost left.

But I wanted to say goodbye. I _needed_ it. So I followed that pull and found him in the park, fifteen minutes from the farmhouse I didn't know existed. He was sitting beneath the warm, April sun, waiting for me.

"I knew you would come," he said as he squinted up at me. "I brought food. Why don't you sit down and we'll talk? No strings."

Before I realized what I was doing, I sat down.

We spent the whole day sitting on the grass. He made me laugh, and in those hours, I was unguarded, yet still felt safe.

When the sun started to set, he realized he was sunburned and began to feel the warmth spread.

I could see him redden as the hours ticked by, but I never commented on it. And I didn't want that day to end. So I reached out and took his hand in mine.

Power rushed up my arm and I realized he was a witch, just as I was sure he realized I was as well, but no warning bells sounded in my head.

Magic leaked from me as I concentrated on his reddened skin. "Verheile," I whispered the incantation, willing him to heal.

And then we both watched as the heated redness faded away.

The rest was history.

Two months and one week later, I thought my dreams came true when he drove down that path toward the farmhouse. But then we lost it all in only three weeks.

Reconciling my real memories with the spell's memories wasn't easy. It was like piecing together a puzzle with new pieces when I thought it was complete.

By the time I made it to the library with Lily, leaving Robert to catch up on a little bit of work he brought home for the weekend, I was a jumble of nervous energy. I was sweating into my cream colored blouse and my jeans felt three sizes too big. But I couldn't worry about that. I felt like my world was just turned into dust by a nuclear explosion.

There were a few inconsistencies and unanswered questions before Ian pulled me into the dream spell. But the details were so minor I hardly thought of them.

With my memory restored to all that it was, I felt that odd sense of foreshadowing that those memories were the key to filling in the blanks.

I wasn't sure if I was terrified that my suspicions were true, or that I would find I was wrong.

But I _needed_ to know.

If I was right, hopefully the Guardian could verify it. And if that was the case, it was going to change everything.

### Chapter 15

When I walked out of the library with Lily in my arms, my world was spinning on its axis.

As the Guardian answered my questions, I realized my suspicions were right. All of them.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

But that wasn't all. The dangers ahead were much more complicated, much more intense than I ever thought possible by trying to live amongst the humans.

No matter how I looked at it, or analyzed each possible scenario, my life was never going to be the same again.

Once Lily was secured in her seat, I sat down behind the wheel and cried.

I thought camouflaging my aura was impossible, but I kept trying, and I found a spell that worked. Despite the fact that it was only temporary, it allowed me to blend in.

It allowed me to feel normal again.

But what was happening to my little girl was the most terrifying thing that I ever experienced.

I wasn't scared of her.

My job as her mother was to protect her at all costs. Keep her safe, secure, and happy. So far in the three months since she was born, I managed to do that.

But she started showing signs that she was different. Yet, she still didn't cast an aura, so I didn't understand what was happening.

After speaking with the Guardian, I understood.

All the pieces fell into place and there was no doubt in my mind. My fears were confirmed.

I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep her from using her power.

I was afraid that I might not be able to protect her.

And that broke my heart.

After dinner that evening, Robert suggested we go to Ashford Park and take a walk. It was across the street from the brownstone, and the days were growing longer, so I agreed.

He noticed my silence after Lily and I returned home from the library, but he didn't comment. It wasn't that I thought he didn't care. It was that I didn't think he knew what to do.

Whenever I showed emotion, he tended to leave me alone and let me work through it by myself. That was how I wanted it, because I never felt comfort in his arms.

I never knew why.

Until the previous night when all the memories came rushing back.

I loved my husband, in a way. But it was nothing compared to how I felt for Ian. My mate.

Ian knew exactly what to say, exactly what to do, and he never once hesitated to give me what I needed. I never needed to tell him, because he knew. He knew me well enough to understand what I was feeling, and he was able to respond without any hesitations that his assumptions were wrong.

They never were.

Robert only knew the parts of me I wanted him to know. My emotions were confusing to him. And I didn't think he bothered much with trying to understand them, because he knew I would work them out on my own.

That was Robert. He was the kind of man that was hands off. And that was fine with me. It made sense that I didn't want him to hold me.

Because he wasn't the one I needed.

Ian was.

I just didn't remember it until the night before.

Combining that with what was happening to Lily, I was quiet. I fought the emotions that overwhelmed me and tried to keep from crying in front of my husband.

So when he offered the distraction of walking in the park, I agreed without thinking and picked Lily up from her place on the floor, pulled on her little jacket to keep her from feeling the chill in the mid-May evening air, and then we walked out the front door.

Robert locked it behind him and carried the small bag of essentials for Lily in case she needed attention before we made it home, and we crossed the street, headed for the park in the dying light of the day.

I was too distracted by the cooing and curious hazel eyes of the baby, squirming in my arms to notice that the park was empty. For a night like that, there should have been children playing on the playground off to the left. Parents sitting on the benches just outside those mulched grounds.

But there was no one.

Not a soul was in the park with us.

Odd, but not anything to be alarmed about. And Robert stayed quiet as we walked.

When we made it to the first of the picnic tables, I knew Lily needed a new diaper so I turned toward it, knowing my husband would follow. I laid her down on the table's wooden surface and took the bag from Robert's outstretched hand.

All afternoon, my mind was running so fast, I couldn't keep up. I knew I needed to do something. I needed to make everything right again. I just didn't know how.

There were so many factors that I needed to consider. And the biggest consideration was my daughter. She was three months old and needed to be protected. As her mother, I would do anything to keep her safe.

The question was how could I keep her safe when she was using power without being _other_? How could I keep her from doing it when other people were around?

I didn't have the answers to those questions. But I knew what I needed to do. I knew it when I first woke up that morning after the dream spell.

The truth was weighing on my shoulders like boulders and especially after my conversation with the Guardian of Information, I knew everything would change.

The breeze picked up as I worked, but my mind kept circling, keeping my attention elsewhere. And as I set her back to rights and picked her up again, I realized she was using her power again.

I never even felt it charge the air. One of the perks of being a witch meant that when magic was used, it was a tangible feeling in the air. Like a summer storm was bearing down and the air was thick with energy.

But I felt none of that. All I saw was my three month old girl, waving her little hands in the air, smiling up at me.

Robert gasped as he saw my hair, swaying in a nonexistent wind Lily created.

And then the blood drained from my face as I realized what was happening.

### Chapter 16

In the confusion and sudden realization that Robert discovered something was wrong with Lily, something very wrong, something that wasn't possible in his world, I panicked.

I touched the top of Lily's warm head and looked into her beautiful hazel eyes and let power leak from my fingertips. "Sei still Kleines," I crooned the abbreviated version of the spell I used on her the day before.

Be still, little one.

Her arms lowered and my hair settled around my shoulders again. I sent a silent prayer to the moon, thanking her for allowing me to stop what my little girl was doing, but at the same time, I felt awful for doing it.

Suppressing her nature wasn't something I enjoyed. But it was necessary. Especially in that moment.

My eyes slid closed as adrenaline coursed through my body and made me feel like a live wire. But it wasn't a good feeling. Nothing like how Ian made me feel when I was with him.

The feeling that washed over me was dread.

Robert saw what happened, and though his mind couldn't place what he saw, he knew it wasn't right. "April, what just happened?" he asked in a calm tone, but I knew him well enough to know he was anything but calm.

Steeling my shoulders, I turned toward my husband and feigned a smile. "What was what?"

"Don't play dumb. I've seen little things happen around you before, but nothing like this. What the hell are you?"

A momentary feeling of relief flashed across my senses at the realization that my husband believed whatever was happening was my doing, not Lily's. But then it fell away.

It didn't matter how he saw it. Whether he thought it was me or Lily. He knew. Maybe not exactly what was going on, but he was a smart man. He would put the pieces together on his own.

When I didn't answer, he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Robert was human, through and through, but I could still sense the overwhelming anger he felt in that moment and my arms tightened around Lily.

"You're a witch, aren't you? Some kind of devil worshiper?"

I couldn't help myself. I laughed. Though the former guess was correct, the latter wasn't.

Witchcraft, true witchcraft anyway, had nothing to do with any kind of devil. It was magic granted by the power of the moon, allowing us to manipulate things on a small scale.

Sure, dark witches were evil, but it was the types of magic they used, and the things they did that made them evil.

People, whether they were human, _other_ , or something else, were perfectly capable of heinous acts. True evil was in the heart and soul of a person, not some kind of devil.

As far as I knew, nothing like devils and demons even existed.

"No, Robert. It's nothing like that," I finally said as more anger filled my husband's features.

"So what is it, then?" He said as he eyed Lily. I wasn't sure what that look meant, but I kept my hold on her.

"It's nothing."

"No. _That_ was something, April."

"That's right, little lady," a man said from off to my left. I turned and realized what he was.

The man was dressed in black, and various weapons were strapped to his body, but he wasn't holding any of them. In the low light, it was hard to tell that the weapons were even there.

Though my eyes were nothing like a were-animal or a vampire, I could see a little better than most humans could, and judging by Robert's reaction to the man walking toward us with a small smile on his face, he didn't realize the man was armed and ready for battle.

"Listen, buddy," Robert said, holding his arms out in front of him, "this has nothing to do with you. This is between me and my wife."

The man in black kept walking. "I'm afraid it's you that doesn't understand, sir." He paused, and I thought he was waiting for something, like some sort of response from Robert, but then he stopped walking and leveled his gaze on me.

Without another word, he pulled the gun from the holster at his waist and pointed it at me.

Robert stepped in front of me with his hands in the air. "Listen, whatever you want, you can have it." He pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and tossed it on the ground in front of the man's feet, his Rolex was tossed next. "We don't need any trouble."

The man laughed. It wasn't a chuckle. It was a full on, tip the head back and guffaw into the sky kind of laugh. And it sent chills down my spine.

I knew that he wasn't there for our money. It wasn't hard to guess what happened. He saw my hair billowing in a breeze that wasn't there.

For a Malleus Dei Maleficarum hunter like him, that was evidence enough that I was a witch. And he wasn't going to stop until I was dead.

My only hope was that he thought it was me and not Lily that caused my hair to move around.

Even if he only thought it was magic of my doing, he wouldn't care that I was carrying a baby in my arms, he wouldn't hesitate to kill me.

My heart rate tripled and my breaths escaped me in shallow bursts as my mind whirled, trying to come up with something — anything I could do to protect my family.

The last thing I wanted was for anyone, including a hunter, to end up hurt. Or worse, killed.

By the time the man stopped laughing, all emotion fell away from his face as he lowered his head and looked at Robert. "I don't want your money, mister. You see, that bitch behind you—" he nodded toward me "—is a witch. And I cannot allow her to live."

Robert shook his head in disbelief. The concept that I was a witch with capabilities that he believed was only found in fictional stories still didn't absorb in his mind.

Though he knew what he saw, he didn't _believe_ it. And the man in front of him was telling him that it was real, and I needed to die because of it.

Despite the fact that the hunter held his gun at my husband's chest, he didn't step out of the way. Robert was still protecting me.

Protecting Lily.

Pride swelled in me as Lily let out a faint coo and I sent a prayer to the moon that she would stay quiet and calm in my arms.

"This is ridiculous," my husband said, pulling my attention away from my thoughts. "Because you think my wife is a witch, you think she needs to die?"

My vision blurred and stung as tears filled them. But I forced them back, blinked a few times, and then spoke from behind him. "Robert," I warned.

But both men ignored me.

"Get out of the way, or I will shoot you," the hunter said as he raised the gun to point at my husband's head.

"No. Let's talk about this—" my husband began, but the deafening sound of gunfire went off.

A faint spray of warm blood hit me in the face as the back of Robert's head exploded and his lifeless body fell to the ground in the next instant.

I froze as screams erupted from Lily and watched in horror at what was happening in front of me.

"Now it's time for you to die," the hunter said.

### Chapter 17

Time slowed to a crawl as terror and despair filled every cell in my body at what just happened.

I couldn't tell if it was my mind that registered everything in slow motion, or if it was something else.

But I couldn't think about that. I needed to protect myself and my daughter.

My eyes slid closed as the sounds of Lily's terrified screams continued to travel to my ears and I forced my mind to clear.

A wave of power erupted from me as I opened my eyes and sliced my nail over my palm as hard as I could. A small strip of flesh tore open and blood welled up.

Then I pressed my palm against the back of my daughter's tiny hand, smearing the blood onto her skin as I whispered with all the power I could muster behind it, "Entferne uns aus seinen Sinnen."

Take us from his senses.

Using blood would act as a catalyst for my spell, and since it was also on Lily's skin, it would work on her as well.

The hunter, standing only a few yards away, blinked and glanced around the park as my power fell away. But I didn't stay still. I moved with as much speed as I could as the sound of gunfire went off, whizzing by so close, I felt the air of it.

If I didn't move when I did, the bullet would have hit and killed me on impact, just like it did with Robert.

Despite every instinct to run away, I knew I couldn't. The hunter would find us in a matter of minutes if I didn't force myself to stay and take care of something first.

But I wasn't going to kill him.

He stood at around Robert's height, but he was a highly skilled hunter. I needed to move fast and precise, or he would kill me, despite not being able to see me.

Stepping over Robert's lifeless body, I stayed out of the way of the gun the hunter waved around in front of him, searching for me in the night.

I bent over and snatched what I needed and then ran back toward the brownstone condo as fast as I could with Lily still screaming in my arms.

"Sei still Kleines," I whispered as I continued to run through the empty park, trying to calm her down. But my magic was too depleted to offer much comfort to the screaming baby in my arms.

Only a few minutes remained before the hunter would realize I was gone and he would come looking for us. I took what I could, holding Robert's wallet in my bloodied palm as I ran, holding Lily tight against me.

I stuffed it in my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I tapped the screen and then held it to my ear.

"Midtown Cleaners," a pleasant woman answered.

"I need to speak with the manager immediately," I cried, breathlessly, hoping that the woman could hear me over the screams coming from Lily.

There was silence and at first I thought the call dropped, but then a man said, "This is Steve."

"Is it safe to talk?" I asked in the same breathless cry, drawing closer to the brownstone.

"Yes."

"A hunter killed a human in Ashford Park a few minutes ago. My address is—" I told him the information as I ran up the stairs and dug the keys from my pocket, unlocking the door and rushing inside.

I flipped the lock behind me and ran up the stairs toward the living room. Closing the gate on the stairs, I sat Lily down on the floor. "I need you to destroy the condo and make it look like a robbery gone wrong or some kind of accident. I don't care what you do. It needs to look like my husband, my baby, and I were killed. You need to come up with some kind of explanation as to why the Range Rover is gone. Do you understand?"

"Yes," the Cleaner responded. "I will be there in ten minutes. If the hunter is still in the park, I suggest you get out of there."

"I will be, expect a donation within a week," I said and hung up the phone before I dropped it on the floor and smashed it with my boot before dropping my husband's wallet next to it.

The Cleaner was right. Robert's cell phone was in his pocket and it was only a matter of time before the hunter would figure out where we lived and come looking for us. My phone was programmed in it as well. That meant I couldn't take it with me.

"Stay here, baby," I said and ran up the stairs to the master bedroom and headed straight for the closet. I pulled the duffel bag down from the shelf, filled with enough clothes to last several days and a small emergency toiletry bag before I moved to Lily's nursery.

I pulled the oversized bag out of her closet and grabbed all the remaining diapers and wipes within reach. Then I grabbed her blanket and all the clean clothes that were left in her dresser.

Running back down the stairs with both bags over my shoulder, I moved into the kitchen and grabbed the three clean bottles that sat on the counter and tossed them into Lily's bag along with what was left of her formula and the jug of distilled water from the cabinet before zipping it closed.

I moved back to the living room and collapsed the play pen that doubled as a travel crib and then picked up my little girl, still upset, but her cries were nothing more than whimpers. Time wasn't a luxury in that moment, and I couldn't do anything to calm her until we were safe and some of my magic could regenerate.

With the two heavy bags on my shoulder, an upset and wiggly baby in my arm and a collapsed play pen dangling from the other, I made my way down the stairs toward the garage at the bottom floor of the brownstone.

Two minutes later, everything was tossed into the trunk, Lily was secured in her car seat, and I was pulling the emergency cash out of the tin can that sat on the floor beneath the counter by the door leading inside, and stuffed it into my pocket an instant later.

I sat down in the car, hit the button for the garage door before tossing the opener out the window, started the engine, and then Lily and I left everything behind.

I only hoped I moved fast enough that the hunter wouldn't follow us.

### Chapter 18

After we drove for a few minutes and I felt confident that no cars followed us, I reached behind me and touched the top of Lily's head. She was still whimpering, and I felt we were safe enough for me to calm her down.

I let the last of my power leak from my fingers as I whispered. "Sanft wie die Wellen, sanft wie der Wind. Sei still Kleines. Alles wird gut."

Gentle as the waves, gentle as the wind. Be still, little one. All will be fine.

She quieted and sighed in contentment.

I swiped a tear from my cheek and made my way to the highway.

Two hours later, I pulled off to refill the gas tank and then fed and changed Lily. She protested when I wiped the dried blood off her skin and changed her clothes, but then she quieted as soon as I finished and settled her back in her car seat with her blanket draped over her legs.

Taking a few wipes, I looked at myself in the vanity mirror. Dried blood was on my face, but luckily not enough to make me look like I survived a slasher movie, and I methodically wiped it all away. I cleaned the cut on my palm and covered it with a bandage from the first aid kit I kept in the trunk. Then I changed my shirt, pulling on a loose black tank top before tossing our blood-stained clothes in the trash.

Ten minutes later, I finished switching the license plate — one of the best ways to disappear in a hurry. Then I took the rings off my finger and dropped them into the cup holder beside me before we made our way back to the highway.

I kept my eyes in my rear view mirror, looking for signs of someone following me, but I saw no one. By three in the morning, I decided it was time to stop for the night.

Lily was asleep in her car seat, so I wasn't going to go to a Shelterer and disturb her. I pulled off the highway and made my way to a truck stop and parked beyond the reach of the overhead lights.

I settled into the seat next to Lily and watched her until I started dozing.

For the most part, it was a sleepless night, because I was too worried the hunter would find us. But while Lily slept, the soft sounds of her breathing soothed me.

Before the sun came up, Lily woke up and I tended to her needs. Then we continued on our journey.

By mid-morning, the growing sense of anticipation filled me, and it grew tenfold as I turned down the path that led to our destination. I moved slowly, trying not to jostle the napping baby in her car seat behind me, and when I finally made it through, I stopped the car and looked up at the farmhouse.

It was just as I remembered it. Even in the dream.

Judging by the pull I felt, I knew Ian was inside the house. And I knew he was waiting for me, just like he was in the dream.

I rolled down the windows and stepped silently out of the car before I made my way up the peeling porch and pulled the screen door open. It groaned the same way I remembered and then I grasped the white knob and turned it, knowing it was still unlocked.

Then I opened the door.

### Chapter 19

Ian stood in the middle of the foyer, leaning against the staircase, smiling at me with pink and white swirling in his aura.

I didn't say anything.

I didn't have to.

The man I loved was standing in front of me, waiting for me just as he promised. The overwhelming relief that we were finally safe washed over me.

Before I realized I moved, I was in Ian's arms, hugging him as tight as I could. His strong arms wrapped around me as the scent of hazelnuts filled my nose.

I wasn't sure if I was afraid he would disappear, or I was too emotional from seeing my mate again. Or maybe it was that sense of security I missed so much.

Maybe it was none of those things. Maybe it was all of them. But it didn't matter.

"You came back to me," Ian said, and I heard the wonder in his voice.

I nodded into his shoulder. "As soon as I woke up, I knew that I would come back."

"I missed you so much," he whispered into my shoulder and held me tighter.

I sagged in his arms and started sobbing, not realizing how much I needed to hear those words. How much I needed him. All along.

"Hey, what's the matter?"

I sniffled, trying to stop the sobs. "It's a l-long story," I managed.

"Tell me everything. I'm here." He kept repeating those last two words as I cried.

After a few minutes I pulled back and looked into my mate's hazel eyes. A sad, deep blue undulated around the pink and white in his aura.

I steeled myself and began, "A hunter found us and killed my husband."

Deep blue overpowered Ian's aura as his eyes widened. "I'm so sorry, April," he breathed, but I wasn't finished.

I rushed as I regained a bit of composure, "I was already going to leave him and come back to you. He was human and I didn't love him. Not like I love you. Okay?"

He nodded and waited, but his aura remained unchanged.

"We managed to escape and came here. I don't think we were followed, and I asked the Cleaners to make it look like we were killed."

Confusion flashed across my mate's features as he registered my words. "We?"

I nodded. "Will you wait here for a minute, please? I promise I'll explain everything."

The muscles in his jaw worked as indecision bled into the edges of his aura in a brilliant green light. I waited, and after what seemed like forever and only a few moments at the same time, he nodded.

Without saying anything else, I turned around and made my way back out to the car. Lily was just beginning to wake up from her nap and she cooed at me as I smiled down at her, released the harness, and pulled her into my arms.

I took a deep breath and made my way back to the farmhouse, up the porch steps, and then stepped through the threshold.

### Chapter 20

The confusion in Ian's expression intensified as the green in his aura brightened and I walked into the farmhouse with Lily in my arms.

But as soon as she caught sight of him, an excited giggle escaped her lips as her eyes locked with his. Ian took a step forward and kept his gaze on the little girl squirming in my arms.

"Ian," I said. "This is your daughter."

He froze and looked at me. "What?"

In that moment, as if I wasn't already sure with every fiber of my being that Ian was her father, I could see it. Their noses were the same. The curve in her lip matched his. But it was their eyes that were the most obvious. That perfect shade of hazel. They were identical.

It was no wonder I loved her eyes so much.

I nodded at my mate. "I didn't know for sure until after I woke up from the dream, but she's yours, Ian."

"I don't understand. How?"

A smile crept across his lips as he looked back at Lily, reaching for him. She never reached for Robert and my heart melted. Even she knew who her real father was. "I spoke with a Guardian of Information. Do you remember in the dream how you said I have Earthen traits?"

He nodded and turned his attention to me again.

"Well, she said that if neither of us worked a spell to become fertile, it means that both of us can use will."

That was the biggest factor that made Earthens so powerful while they were alive. They didn't need to cast spells to do what they wanted. They needed will — that deep desire to see something done. It was what separated them from regular witches.

"I remember thinking that night at the lake after you proposed...," I trailed off.

"Tell me."

I sighed. "I remember thinking how I wanted everything with you. I wanted my life with you, to spend it here, for us to have a family together. I just never said it."

He sucked in a breath. "I wanted that too," he breathed.

"Do you remember what you said to me when I stood in the water?"

Without hesitation, he said, " _The sight of you in the water next to the lily pads with the moon shining down on you is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen._ "

I smiled at the memory, and my heart swelled that he remembered exactly what he said to me that night. "I spelled myself to forget you, but deep down, I remembered."

"Remembered what?"

"Ian, her name is Lily."

Without saying another word, he reached out and took the little girl in his arms. "It's perfect," he said, still looking at our daughter with awe.

She cooed excitedly and reached up to touch his face. The stubble that I always loved tickled against her palms and she giggled before she turned her head to look at me.

"A week later — the day you came home from town, the day I left...," I trailed off and he nodded, remembering. "I wasn't sure, but I thought I was pregnant. When I saw that glamour and thought you turned dark, I didn't hesitate to make myself forget, because I couldn't risk her life."

Two pairs of identical hazel eyes looked at me with adoration, and then one of Lily's tiny hands moved away from Ian's jaw. A glint appeared in my mate's eye before he blinked it away. "You did the right thing to protect yourself, April."

Tears leaked from my eyes at his words. The guilt that I felt over leaving when everything was a ruse set by a dark witch was overwhelming me. But in that moment, he understood the full extent of my actions. He agreed that I made the right decision.

Before either of us could say anything else, my hair started to move in a non-existent wind our daughter created. But it was slow. Like my long hair was levitating, instead of billowing in a tiny breeze.

Orange engulfed my mate's aura as he realized what was happening.

He didn't need a Guardian of Information to tell him that Lily was his, or that both of us willed ourselves fertile without realizing it that night. He also didn't need someone to tell him our daughter was special.

Powerful.

All shred of doubt fell away as he realized the implications of what the future might bring.

We wouldn't know until she was older how far those powers would go. But she was ours. And that was all that mattered.

Ian took a step forward as his free hand reached out, pulled the back of my head toward him, and then kissed me, hard, with Lily giggling in his other arm.

By the time he pulled back, I was breathless.

Relief didn't begin to cover what I felt in that moment. But it was the words he said next that left me speechless.

"This was what I wanted with you all along."

In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to spend my life with Ian and Lily, at that farmhouse for as long as we possibly could. I wanted everything with my mate. I wanted to marry the man I loved. But it was more than that. I wanted to bind my soul with his, in that permanent supernatural marriage that would last for the rest of our days.

It took me a few moments, but I was the one to speak next. "Then let me be the one to ask you if you still want to marry me, if you'll bind with me despite all the dangers, and spend the rest of our lives together, raising and protecting our little girl?" By the time I finished speaking, tears were leaking from my eyes. Hope flared within me, but I waited for his response.

Nothing but deep pink, orange, and white remained in my mate's aura as his hazel eyes locked with mine. "April, my answer is yes. The answer is always yes."

I smiled, remembering that was always my answer, too.

The End
Appendix

(Please note: This is not a comprehensive listing. Only areas relevant to this book are covered.)

Auras

Colors and Emotions

Pink to Red – intensity of love and/or desire

Orange – pride, amazement

Green – indecision or anger

Light Blue to Dark Blue – ranges from humor to sadness

Purple – contentment

White – hope

Gray – fear

Black – evil

Others

**Witches** – confined by moon magic which requires the use of traditional spell casting. Commonly includes: chanting (due to the long history of its use with spell casting, German is used); elements such as blood, which acts as a binding agent, connecting something to the caster. Defined as either light (good) or dark (evil). In rare cases, witches may possess Earthen traits.

**Dark Witches** – emit black auras, and they are the only _others_ that exhibit that color. They are often after power and will do anything they can to obtain it. The preferred method is through siphoning magic from other witches, including the soul, or essence, which holds the most magic. This results in killing the victim. They typically utilize the types of spells that will assist them in obtaining more power, something they desire, or simply to cause general havoc.

**Earthens** – ruled over the supernatural community and kept the peace before their eradication in the seventeenth century by the human hunters called Malleus Dei Maleficarum. They were not confined by moon magic, and could use will to use magic. Other traits include, but not limited to: _shield_ (automatic protection against magic meant to harm or kill), drawing _others_.

**Night Shades and Dream Spells** – Night shades are created solely for the purpose of pulling someone into a deep sleep, making it unlikely to wake up without some external sensory change, such as an alarm. They also work in tandem with dream spells, and are often considered one entity, as most dream spells are unsuccessful without the use of a night shade. Their capabilities include altering the time within the dream, usually extending or slowing time, while also making them vivid and real to the dreamer. The dreams can be pleasant or akin to nightmares, depending on the caster's intentions.

**Vampires** – undead. Their skin lacks melanin, which makes them pale. They also have fangs and their eyes can glow like cat eyes.

**Pixies** – tiny people with wings. They are cultivators and commonly live in gardens or other areas with lush plant life.

**All** _Others_ – not fertile unless they want to be, which means utilizing some kind of ritual or spell to become fertile. Or, as is the case with Earthens, or witches that possess will, they need to _want_ it. Often, _others_ have a mate – a supernatural soul mate – and will feel a pull toward that person. That pull will never fade as long as both remain alive. Due to the nature of the world, most mates that meet stay apart to protect each other, but in rare cases, they will remain together despite the odds. Binding is a permanent supernatural marriage that will bind two mated souls together, but due to the danger and unrest in the world after the Earthens were killed, most rituals have fallen away from the lore entirely because it is so rarely used.

Neutrals

**Guardians of Information** – librarians maintain the lore on all _others_ in vaults of information. These vaults are often incomplete, but the librarians will update information as necessary. They also keep track of current events in the supernatural world. If someone asks them about the lore or for information they have, they are required to share it.

**Shelterers** – innkeepers, motel, and hotel managers offer safe places to stay with anonymity. This means that anyone staying in these locations are protected from attack (from both the Malleus Dei Maleficarum and _others_ such as dark witches), but this is not always honored.

**Cleaners** – dry cleaning service managers and other cleaning business managers will assist when an accidental (or intentional) death or other incident occurs that should be kept from humans. If asked, they will create a scene to assist in allowing an _other_ to flee, and will do so without question.

**Healers** – doctors and veterinarians are knowledgeable about _others'_ biology and metabolisms, including length of gestation for pregnancies. Veterinarians are well versed in all were-animals and will treat an injured were-animal that cannot or will not shift back to their human state.

**All Neutrals** – only the top members of each establishment, such as a manager, doctor, or librarian acts as a Neutral. No assistants or lower level employees are aware of the supernatural world. Payment is not required, but donations are appreciated if cost is incurred.

###
Thank You

This story was very enjoyable for me and I hope you agree. I'm hoping it resonated with all the dreamers — the ones willing to chase those dreams and make them a reality. Everyone deserves a chance at happiness and a chance to love. As always, thank you for reading. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to leave a review with your retailer or Goodreads. And read on for an excerpt from _Listen_ , the third book of the Earthen Witch Novels, which continues Aisling's journey.

Always,

Sarah Doughty
About the Author

Sarah Doughty is a Most Downloaded Author that writes adult urban fantasy and paranormal romance novels, which is not a genre typically available on the market. The novels are filled with characters that have their own unique stories. Characters that will make you laugh with them, cry with them, and know what it feels like to live right along with them.

Writing is her therapy and her solace, so she writes every chance she has. Including into the wee hours of the morning, with her faithful canine companions always next to her or at her feet.

When she's not writing, she spends time with her husband and peanut butter-loving little boy, or fueling her addiction as an urban fantasy or paranormal romance-reading junkie.

She lives in Indiana with her husband, son, two dogs, and psychotic cat. Visit her website at www.sarahdoughty.com.
Connect with Me

Website: http://www.sarahdoughty.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/TheSarahDoughty

Twitter: http://twitter.com/thesarahdoughty

Instagram: https://instagram.com/thesarahdoughty/

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/thesarahdoughty
Acknowledgments

The lives of my characters feel very real to me. I wanted from the start to be able to tell the stories of those that devoted their lives to help Aisling. But along the way I started learning about other people in her world with their own stories. If not for the unwavering support of my friends, family, and fans, this novella wouldn't be possible. I was not the only one that wanted to learn more. To my husband for being willing to help me when I could not make a decision, for listening when I was grieving over something I knew would hurt my characters. But most of all, for his willingness to be my rock, constant support, and my rescuer. I love you. To my biggest fans, beta readers, and friends, for their unwavering guidance and support: Márcia "Mah" Lima of emotionally.inconstant, and May Timani. To the ever amazing and talented writer-artist extraordinaire, sheswideawake for her tireless work on my covers, her selfless willingness to help me learn from her and offer guidance when I ventured out to create the cover for this novella, and for being a great friend. Special thanks to my friend Sonny Spencer for her continued support throughout this entire process and her impeccable German translations for this novella. To my mother for just being Mom and an amazing grandmother to my son. Finally, but certainly not least, YOU, my readers. Thank you for loving every second of this journey with me. There is still more of Connor and Aisling's story to tell, and more characters that deserve their own piece of happiness. I cannot wait to share it all with you.
Excerpt from Listen - Earthen Witch Novels Book Three

### Chapter 1

I took a deep breath, choking back the whimper from the sudden intense pain in my jaw as I tasted blood on my tongue.

Despite how it looked, I didn't like violence. I never did.

Maybe that was because of my environment growing up. Maybe it just wasn't in me. But either way, I didn't like it.

My first instinct was always to calm the situation, to diffuse it before escalation. But not everyone shared the same sentiment. And I learned to adapt to my environment. But that didn't mean I needed to enjoy myself.

As much as I wanted to say otherwise, we were at war. The supernatural world was in a constant state of war against opposition. But the enemy was never the same. It could be humans one day, and then _others_ — those like us, the supernatural beings — the next. Or it could be something different.

The war itself boiled down to the right to live. Some believed that we didn't have that right. That we — _others_ — should die. Some were after power and wouldn't hesitate to kill anything that either stood in their way or possessed power they wanted for themselves. Or, some just preferred to torture and kill.

My entire life and especially since I turned twenty-one, I saw how much hatred and greed for power ran through people. I lost count of the amount of times attempts were taken to assassinate me. And yet, there I was, deep in the underbelly of a centuries old vampire's opulent home, sparring with a vampire.

All in an effort to protect myself against my real enemies.

And it went against everything I was to willingly inflict damage on another living thing. Even while sparring, I couldn't hold back. Because my enemies wouldn't offer me the same courtesy.

"Come on, Greenie," Tobias grinned with his fangs in full view as he hopped back and forth on the balls of his feet, waiting for me to make the next move.

God, but I took the bait anyway.

"Stop calling me that," I gritted, but smirked, despite myself.

Chuckling, he said, "Oh, come on. You're not going to be Aisling Green much longer. So I need to use this time to my advantage."

His fist shot out in a blinding speed, but I was faster and blocked it with my forearm before he could connect with my eye. But it still hurt like a bitch. And I hissed as pain reverberated through my arm.

I was so tired of the war. As a victim of abuse, countless attempts to steal my magic by more than one person, and poisoned with unspelled vampire blood in the name of revenge on someone else, I was a popular target.

But the list didn't end there.

I was knocked out, kidnapped, tortured, poisoned with a drug no one knew existed. A drug that shouldn't have affected _others_. My dreams were hijacked and my body was controlled by a demon while I slept. Sure, I might have killed him and saved the world, but that didn't stop people from wanting to take my power.

_Others_ were powerful. But they weren't the only ones.

Less than three months before, I was a typical college graduate. I didn't know supernaturals existed outside of fiction.

All of that brought me to that point. Yet I didn't regret a second of it. Despite all the bad, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Why?

Before I turned twenty-one, my only family was my grandmother and my best friend. But after, my grandmother died. She never explained anything to me about supernaturals beyond our witch heritage and how a faint glow surrounding certain things and people meant they were _other_. I didn't know it at the time. But those were auras.

Not long after, I met Zoe Kavanaugh, someone I knew was _other_ because of the black glow that surrounded her. She was nice and intriguing with that Australian accent, but there were things that weren't right about her. I didn't understand that the black in her aura meant she was a dark witch. Dangerous. I didn't know what kind of creature she was.

By the time I realized I was in danger, it was too late.

I would have died if it wasn't for Connor Jennings, a light witch. The man that came to my rescue and saved my life. In addition to saving me, the color of his aura was completely different than Zoe's, and I felt something, deep down, that told me I could trust him.

He agreed to help me, because I was clueless. I thought I was just a witch, like my grandmother said. But we quickly realized that wasn't the case. I was Earthen.

Earthens were once royalty in the supernatural community. Because they were the most powerful of all _others_. Powerful enough to protect their world against humans and anyone that would disrupt the peace.

They were killed in the seventeenth century and the community collapsed into chaos. _Others_ made deals with humans to save themselves from annihilation, or they left a trail of dead in an effort to take the throne.

Earthens were thought to be extinct, but I was living proof that wasn't true.

It didn't take long for Connor and me to fall in love and meet people that we could trust. We found allies in unlikely places. One of which was a very old vampire. And it was in the basement of that vampire's home that we trained for battle.

The world was still unstable for _others_ , but we were determined to set it right.

I was determined.

No one deserved to live in fear, away from their families and their own kind out of fear of discovery and death.

For a while, I was the only one that could give that to them.

Connor wasn't just my fiancé. He was my supernatural equivalent of a soulmate — my mate. And he was _supposed_ to be an Earthen, but as fate would have it, he became a witch before he could transition on his own, like I did.

When we bound together — a very intense supernatural marriage that permanently connected two souls together — in preparation to fight the demon set on destroying the world, it triggered him to turn.

He was Earthen too.

Yet he was still trying to learn how to utilize his new powers. Though he learned more every day, he was still limited, and I could see the frustration on his face as he watched me from the edge of the mat with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

I knew why he was upset.

There were two ways Connor and I could spar the way we could. First, Liam, the master vampire of the house, was the only vampire that could heal an Earthen with his blood, since his blood was spelled centuries before. Or an Earthen could use magic.

I could heal my mate, or anyone else.

But I couldn't heal myself.

"Where the hell is Liam?" I asked for the third time. "I haven't seen him since Sunday."

It was Wednesday.

Without Liam, Connor was my only hope to heal from sparring. Which meant accessing his magic. And since he still couldn't accomplish that, I could guess what he was thinking with his sulking posture and that angry green and sad, dark blue aura shimmering around him.

Not only were auras useful in determining someone was _other_ , but the color also indicated the current emotion of the creature it surrounded, or the type of magic used on an object — light or dark. Humans didn't see them. And they didn't emit them.

But they weren't the only ones that didn't have auras. Undead — vampires and ghouls — never cast auras, since they weren't technically alive, but they could see them. A very select few supernaturals outside of the undead didn't have them as well. We didn't know why.

With my growing list of injuries while sparring against a vampire, and without Liam waiting to heal me with his spelled blood, it meant I would have to heal on my own. And Connor didn't like that at all.

Tobias stopped bouncing on his feet and stood at his full six foot three height. His grin faded as his fangs receded. His hair was sticking out in random places, and his goatee was fading in with the rest of the stubble on his face. He wore the same matching black tank top and loose fitting pants the rest of the men wore during training.

Unfortunately for me, I wasn't provided the same outfit. With my athletic, yet curvy five and a half foot frame, I wore matching volleyball shorts that were too short for my taste and a tank top with a built in sport bra. My long, curly brunette hair was unruly even in the loose bun at the back of my head, while my peaches and cream complexion probably looked more red and splotchy from all the fighting.

The vampire standing in front of me was Liam's third in command. But since Jon, Liam's second, was gone as well, it left Tobias in charge of the nest, a fancy way of saying a group home for the undead. "I don't know, Aisling," the vampire sighed and glanced at my mate. "It's time to stop training for today, since we don't know if Connor can heal you."

"No. I want to keep going," I said with a quick punch to the vampire's jaw.

### Chapter 2

Tobias's head snapped to the side with the force of my fist colliding with his jaw and he turned his head toward me slowly. He glared at me and his brilliant blue eyes flashed like a cat's — one of the few signs of an undead.

Though Liam was a very old master vampire that ruled over his nest and held more knowledge than a vault of information filled with supernatural lore, everyone knew who was really in charge.

Me.

It was part of the package of being an Earthen.

I didn't necessarily enjoy it, but there were times it came to my advantage.

Training was essential for survival. It helped to prepare us, and saved our lives more than once. I wasn't about to back down from it just because I couldn't heal a few bruises or cuts.

They might not agree, but when I pulled rank, they listened.

As Tobias's jaw clenched, his eyes searching mine, I felt Connor approach me from behind.

That was one of the perks of being fated to be together. Of being mates. From the first day Connor came to town, we felt each other like magnets. And that pull would never fade.

"Aisling," Connor said, low. Tobias looked away and I turned around to face my fiancé. "I know how important training is, but you could get hurt fighting against them and you know it."

Green swirled in his aura, which meant he was angry. But I didn't think his anger was directed at me. If I knew him as well as I thought, he was angrier with himself that he couldn't heal me. But he also knew the necessity of sparring.

I watched him for a moment, taking him in. Deep brown eyes searched mine, sending shivers down my spine. His long, straight brown hair curtained around his face and covered the back of his neck.

He stood six inches taller than me at six feet tall and my eyes dropped from his, glided over the stubble on his jaw and finally settled on his rounded lower lip. I licked mine reflexively. Pink bled into the edges of his aura, indicating his desire, and he crossed his strong arms in front of his chest again.

The muscles beneath his velvet skin were visible, since he was wearing the same matching black tank top and loose pants all the men used for training.

God, but he was mouthwatering.

There was nothing about him I didn't like.

Everything about him called to me in a way nothing ever could.

And he was _mine_.

I grinned devilishly at him and the corners of his mouth lifted in response. But then I let my grin fade. "Shouldn't we prepare for all situations?"

"We've been in this situation before. When we were tortured in Germany. You spent two days in pain while we waited for Liam."

"I know, but here, the worst that could happen is some bruises and scrapes. The Kramer Scholars did much worse than that."

The Kramer Scholars were the first and most devout group of supernatural hunters known as Malleus Dei Maleficarum — the Hammer of God Against Witches. They were headquartered in Germany, where Heinrich Kramer started his crusade against supernaturals in the mid-fifteenth century.

Initially, he operated under the direction of the Catholic Church. He was tasked with writing a book to help them fight against witches, which the Church considered to be demons. But his recommended method of the inquisition wasn't something they expected. And it forced the Church to denounce him.

Kramer anticipated the Church's action and wrote a second book of the same title, _Malleus Maleficarum_. It was filled with information about how to discover and destroy more than just witches. It covered all _others_. And there were plenty of humans that still followed him, with that book at hand as their bible.

While other sects of the MDM evolved with time, the KS did not. They still tortured, and they killed without question. They didn't bother to verify if someone was _other_ before they struck. Though we were at a stalemate with the MDM — Kramer Scholars included — the war with them wasn't over.

"I know that. But I didn't fight while I was injured." Technically that was true. It was the demon that played my body like a puppet, despite my injuries, and forced me to fight and kill six Scholars in a Berlin alley. Based on the pain I felt from that alone, I wouldn't have been capable of fighting at all. "And it's not as though I don't already know how to deal with this kind of pain."

Connor's jaw clenched as he regarded me, remembering what I told him about my childhood.

I sighed. "How about this? You and I fight together against them, and if I'm hurt, we'll see how well I can fight through the pain. Test my limits. If I'm hurt enough, we stop. Deal?"

"Only if they agree to fight us," he said and his eyes flickered over my head to Tobias.

I turned to look at the vampire in question.

He grinned at me and raised his hands in surrender. "Oh no, I'm not doing that. Connor looks like he's about to murder me with his eyes."

I snorted and looked back at my mate. "Oh, so we're going to play it like that are we?"

Two can play at this game, mister.

Connor grinned back at me and his aura shifted to light blue with his humor, but he didn't respond.

"Alright then," I said louder, despite knowing everyone could already hear us. "So who has the _balls_ to step up and fight us, huh? Are you going to bow out like a coward?" I bit my cheek to keep from laughing as my lips twitched. Though I was still looking into my mate's eyes, the last comment was directed at the vampire that just surrendered.

"Hey now, that hurts me," Tobias said from the bench to my right, and I caught him clutching his chest with a pale hand as if he was wounded, but he made no move to return to his place on the mat.

Connor's lips twitched in response as his eyebrow lifted.

"I'll do it," Jorge's baritone southern drawl sounded from the knife throwing section of the training room.

The whole room was like a massive arena, nearly three stories tall and lit by fluorescents. There were sparring sections, weight training, weapons training, and even a moving obstacle course in the middle.

As Jorge approached, Connor turned slowly to glare at him and the ghoul's deep brown eyes flashed as he grinned back in response.

He was the same height as Connor, but built completely different. Most of the undead in Liam's nest were highly trained and skilled warriors while they were alive. Jorge was no different.

While he was all muscle that rippled with every move he made, he was graceful. Transitioning from vampire to ghoul didn't change him. Except his required nourishment shifted from blood to meat. And his fangs were gone.

Connor wasn't built the same way. He was strong, and could carry my weight with ease, but his muscles weren't obvious like they were on Jorge. They were there, beneath his velvet skin, and he was far sexier than anything I ever saw before.

The ghoul stepped onto the mat, scrubbing his hand over his bearded jaw. "Ready to play?"

Connor took a quick, heated glance at me that traveled down my body in a shiver. A glance that promised retribution later as he turned to Jorge and moved into position, pink still playing at the edges of his aura.

Heat erupted across my body and my mouth went dry as I forced myself to look away from my mate and face our opponent.

Jorge nodded toward me and said, "Aisling," just like he did the first time we met. As if we were saying hello while out for the morning paper.

I moved into position and the ghoul was a blur of motion, his dark head speeding to the right toward Connor and landing a punch to his stomach before moving toward me.

Ducking, I heard a whoosh of air as the ghoul's fist sailed above me, right where my face was an instant before. I spun, kicking my leg out and knocked his feet out from beneath him.

He was back on his feet in a flash, but Connor was already there and landed a punch to his jaw, followed by an immediate knee to the side.

Jorge grunted but didn't slow down and his fist connected with my mate's side in response, forcing him to step back.

Just as I was about to lunge forward with a feigned attack to his face to land a blow to his midsection instead, a wave of nausea washed over me.

And then I realized I wasn't seeing out of my eyes any longer.

###
