What was I thinking? She asked for the millionth time.
She wasn’t sure how smart it had been to agree to dinner with them. She didn’t know where she stood with the twins. If she was being honest, she had never really hated them. She hated the way they had abandoned her. After hearing about their parents, she could understand their reaction to her magical bomb in the woods.
Ezra had willingly admitted that it had scared him. She was willing to bet that was an understatement.
They had hurt her. Being chased out of town had been scary. Leaving behind all of her stuff hadn’t been fun. She had cried every night for a week. She hadn’t been crying about her apartment of car though. She had cried because Ezra and Ezekiel had broken her heart.
They had apologized though. That had gone a long way in her book. In short? She was torn.
Ivy thought about the framed rose. She loved that Ezra had chosen an open bud. Seeing the soft yellow center surrounded by soft pink petals had always made her smile.
She had put the little flower on her entryway table. Her eyes had strayed to it constantly in the last two days. It was one of the most thoughtful gifts she had ever received. She wasn’t ready to tell him that; she might never be ready.
She gave a tiny sigh. Now was not the time to psychoanalyze herself. She had said yes because she had wanted to spend time with Ezra and Ezekiel. She wouldn’t start picking that reaction apart until she got home.
She knocked on the front door. Glancing behind, her she saw that Jack’s truck was still idling on the sidewalk. Frantically, she shooed them away. The trunk didn’t budge.
She heard the door knob start to turn and whipped around trying to act normal. She was sure she looked like a crazy person when Ezra opened the door.
His smile widened when he saw it was Ivy. She felt her own smile transform into a real one. His eyes focused behind her. Seeing Jack and Grace acting as her drivers must not have phased him because Ezra rose his hand in greeting.
He turned his attention back to Ivy. “I’m so glad you’re here. Come on in. Ezekiel’s in the kitchen finishing dinner right now.” He gestured her inside.
Ivy stepped into the twin’s house. Her first thought was that everything looked so normal.
There was a small entryway with a bench for people to take off their shoes. Above the bench was a set of hooks. She recognized one of the sets of keys from their truck.
Next to the bench was a set of stairs. Family photos lined the stairwell. Ivy was tempted to ask which one of the brothers had hung them. She honestly couldn’t picture either of them doing it. They didn’t seem like the type to hang family photos.
The rest of the space was open and inviting. The room was broken up by huge, well-loved tan couches. There were cracks in the leather from years of use.
All of the couches faced a fireplace with a TV mounted over it. On either side of the couches were matching side tables. A coffee table finished the set. It was all brought together by a thick rug.
In short, the room was well decorated.
Ezra must have seen her face because he asked, “What?”
Ivy shrugged at first before admitting, “Your house is really nice. It’s easy to see that you have put a lot of time into making it a home. I’m surprised.”
Ezra Tate blushed. It was just a little one. It disappeared as quickly as it came. Ezra lifted one shoulder, “Thanks. We wanted Cass to feel like this was home.”
Ivy nodded taking in the living room, “It feels like home.”
He led Ivy into the kitchen. Before he opened the door, she could smell garlic and tomatoes.
The kitchen counter wrapped around two walls before dividing the room with a breakfast bar. There was a second set of stairs across from a small four-person table.
Ezekiel stood at the sink, his back to them. He turned slightly giving Ivy a huge smile. “You have perfect timing, sweetheart. The pasta is done,” he held up a steaming colander, “so we can get dinner started right now.”
Ivy shuffled from one foot to the other. “Is there anything I can do?”
Ezra had already gone to gather plates and utensils. Ezekiel pointed to an open bottle of wine on the countertop, “You can pour.”
Ezra swung by on his way to the table and dropped off three wine glasses. He winked. Ivy ducked her head trying to hide her blush.
When she carried the wine to the table, she noticed that there were only three settings.
“Is Cassidy not joining us?” She tried to sound casually.
Ezra shook his head. “She’s at a friend’s house working on a ‘last minute’ paper.”
“Supposedly,” Ezekiel muttered.
Ivy tried not to let her relief show. She had just dodged a bullet. Ivy wasn’t sure she would be able to pretend that she had never met Cassidy. The guys would have known something was up instantly.
Ivy took her seat. “Ezekiel, this smells so good. I didn’t know you could cook.” That sounded lame, even to her, but it was true. The food smelled amazing.
The brothers shared a look as Ezekiel started dishing up food. He shrugged, “I can’t cook a lot but I’m glad you like it. It’s just spaghetti and meatballs but,” he kept his eyes focused on the plate he was fixing, “it’s our mom’s recipe and its fucking delicious.”
Ezra growled, “Dinner table.” The reprimand left his mouth so quickly it had to be habit. The tone and warning look came off fatherly.
Ivy snorted when Ezekiel rolled his eyes.
Ezra gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I usually eat dinner with this idiot and our teenage sister. Neither of whom care about table manners.”
Ivy felt something warm growing in her stomach. “Well, if it tastes as good as it smells, then it’s going to be fucking delicious.”
Ezekiel smiled wide.
Ezra groaned, “Not you too.”
Ivy looked at her plate. Spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread, and salad? It felt gourmet. Ivy never bothered cooking like that for herself. Since moving to Black Bird, she hadn’t been able to supplement her diet with takeout either. None of the places in town would deliver to her. Or let her pick up her orders.
This was the first hot, not recently frozen, meal she had eaten in weeks. The garlic bread might as well have been manna from heaven.
Ivy moaned around a bite of herby, buttery goodness, “So damn good.”
Ezra didn’t chastise her for swearing like he would Cassidy. He chuckled.
“That is the highest compliment I could hope for,” Ezekiel joked.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Ezra said as he started eating. “He hosted a spaghetti dinner for the track team and they still ask if he’ll host the next one. Despite the fact that Cassidy quit her sophomore year.”
They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. Ivy relaxed as she ate good food with two people whose company she enjoyed. It was nice.
They waited until she was nearly done before they interrogated her.
“So,” Ezekiel drawled, “what happened this morning with Pearl?”
“Honestly, whatever rumor you’ve heard is probably worse than what actually happened.” Neither of the guys said anything. They just stared, waiting for her to continue. Ivy sighed. “One of her cronies came in this morning and, while I was restocking merchandise, locked the front door. Pearl came in through the back door, told me to leave town, and left.”
It really wasn’t that exciting. If you left out the part about Cassidy being there the whole time. And Pearl shifting.
“She shifted?” Too bad they hadn’t forgotten that part. Ezra asked the question with a surprisingly calm tone.
Ivy nodded. “Just one of her hands. Not the whole thing either. Just the claws.”
Ezekiel gave his brother a concerned look. “That’s all she would need.”
Ezra hummed, sitting back in his chair. “Pearl is a bitch. She’s a backwater elitist who hates anyone who isn’t a wolf shifter. Add to that the fact that she likes to cause problems and you’v
e got one nasty woman. This,” he shook his head, “this is way more sinister than Pearl’s usual routine.”
“She knew that Pat was sitting out front.” Ezekiel said.
“She brought a partner,” Ezra added.
“She broke one of our most important laws,” Ezekiel listed.
“Flagrantly, broke the law,” Ezra corrected. “Pearl knows as well as anyone that rumors would start the second someone heard her voice through the walls of Chic Chick. She wanted to stir shit.”
Except, Ivy suspected that no one had overheard Pearl’s scene. The more she thought about the timing of the brothers’ appearance, the more she thought that Cassidy had text them the second the alley door shut behind her. Not that Ivy was going to tell the brothers that.
That meant Pearl was just as smart as the brothers were saying. She had wanted to keep it quiet. If Cassidy hadn’t been there, no one would know what she had done. Ivy nearly shivered.
Ezekiel nodded grimly. He kept ticking off points, “She threatened Ivy.”
“She didn’t threaten me,” Ivy cut in. “I joked with her that all her little speech was missing was a threat. She made sure I knew that she didn’t need to threaten me. She would just do whatever she was planning.”
Ezekiel’s eyes flashed yellow. Ezra tapped a hard, fast beat onto the table.
“This is not how Pearl acts.” Era nodded towards Ivy while talking to his brother. “She’s loud and mean but she loves an audience. She does this shit in grocery aisles and church pews for a reason. She doesn’t sneak in through a back door to a non-consensual private meeting.” He shook his head. “She doesn’t pass up the opportunity for a public reckoning.”
“She’s never had a witch in her town.” Ivy didn’t say it in the woman’s defense. “I’m pushing her past her comfort zone.”
Ivy felt the full weight of Ezra and Ezekiel’s gaze.
“We have to talk to Ben about this,” Ezekiel warned her. He cut off Ivy’s protest before it started. “Any wolf who threatens a human, especially partially shifted, gets reported,” he explained. “We would be required to tell Ben no matter who was involved.”
“I don’t like where things are headed,” Ezra admitted quietly.
Me either Ivy thought quietly. There was no denying that the townsfolk were escalating their tactics.
Lawrence’s threat hung over her shoulder like an axe.
Monroe Springs had liked her before they found out she was a witch and they had turned against her. Black Bird hated her. She did not want to find out how they treated people they hated.
Thankfully, she had a small lead to look into at the library tomorrow. She just had to get inside first. She wasn’t letting them keep her out at any rate.
Ivy drooped. The whole point of tonight had been to relax and forget. She looked at Zeke and Ra. She had been naïve to think that she could put a pause on time.
“Ivy.” She glanced up when Ezra said her name. While she had been deep in her own thoughts, so had the brothers. They looked like they were about to face a firing squad. When she nodded, Ezra started, “About today, with Carol. We never wanted you to find out about Cassidy like that. We were planning on telling you just without the audience,” he reassured.
“If I had a choice, I would have been there when we told you,” Ezekiel grumbled.
Ivy looked at their tense expressions and decided to be play along. “Well, here’s your chance. We’re the only ones in the house.”
Ezra sat across from her, one arm across his chest, the other hand covering his mouth. His chest expanded impossibly wide. His hand dragged down his face as he exhaled.
He didn’t start to speak immediately. He took two deep breaths. “We grew up in a Pack that was half the size of the Black Bird Pack. If you can believe that. We had the bad luck to live right smack in the middle of the White Mountain Coven’s territory in New Hampshire.”
“About ten years ago, White Mountain started the beginning stages of a turf war. They started preparing to attack the Grant Coven. They didn’t have the man power to take over the Grant Coven though. They started to harvest magical resources from their territory.” Ezekiel almost choked on the word.
Adrenaline surged through her veins. Her magic reacted, prickling under her skin. Hot then cold. It made her painfully sensitive. She tried to take a few deep breaths to keep her magic from gaining control.
Harvesting was the correct term. Most shifters called it “draining magic”. Most textbooks call it harvesting though. It was an old technique used to tap into the magic of a living thing and harness it. It allowed a single magic user to operate spells that were beyond their natural ability.
It was perverse. An immoral act that no follower of Hecate would condone. That didn’t stop the vilest Covens from doing it though. They still found ways to get their hands on the spells to do it. She would know.
“We didn’t know that at the time. All we knew was that one night, just after school got out, our parents didn’t come home. We waited up all night, worried sick. Then our Alpha knocked on the door.” Ezra couldn’t hide the anger and pain from his voice.
“Our parents were dead and we were orphans with an eight-year-old sister.” Ezekiel ran a hand through his hair.
“Alpha Koch told us that our parents had been drained of all of their magic and in practically the same breath told us to just accept it. He told us to just forget it. Like our parents had never existed.” Black claws eased out of Ezra’s fingers. They pressed into his biceps. He didn’t notice.
“We woke up Cassidy and were out of town before the sun had risen. We picked this area for her. We thought it would help.” Ezekiel shrugged. “The area only reinforced our prejudices. Everyone has a story to share about witches, none of them good.”
“Witches might not be welcome here but they’re talked about constantly,” Ezra added. “South Creek has an annual festival where all of the Packs are invited. It’s mostly just an excuse to barbeque and mingle but at the end there’s a massive bonfire.”
“Where they burn a fake witch,” Ezekiel bite out. “We felt confident that our opinion of witches was right.”
“You’re the first witch we’ve run into since we left,” Ezra admitted. “We didn’t really know what to do with you.”
Ezekiel rolled his eyes. “What Ra means is that you surprised us. In a good way. We wanted to get to know you from the instant we saw you. The more we got to know you, the more we wanted to make changes.”
Ezra smiled. “You changed what I thought a witch could be.”
“That’s an understatement,” Ezekiel joked.
She cleared her throat. “What happened then?” Her voice cracked on the question. Her cheeks blazed.
Both brothers looked at the table.
Ezekiel scratched his finger over the wood. “Things were going so great. I thought I had gotten over it. Then Grace found that spell and-”
“-we were teenagers again.” Ezra picked up seamlessly.
Ezekiel reached across the table. “I got scared and started questioning everything. I felt like I couldn’t trust myself. I feel so stupid looking back.” He met her eyes. “We let our past cloud our instincts and hurt you. I am so sorry you’ve had to deal with all of this on your own.”
Ezra looked at his brother. Ezekiel nodded encouragingly. Ezra rubbed his eyes “I felt like I was that kid again. Like I had just heard Alpha’s fist hit our door. Everything felt claustrophobic.” He dragged his hand through her hair working out nervous energy. “Fuck, I talked with Ben about it,” he spit out like it had been eating him alive. “He helped me get some things straight.”
Ezekiel cracked a smile. “I talked to Carol two weeks ago,” he admitted.
Ezra smiled and suddenly, the mood changed. The heaviness lifted. Both of them laughed softly. He looked at Ivy. “We made a shitty choice while we were in a bad place and you’ve been suffering because of it. I’m sorry.”
“We regretted it almost immediately.”
Ezekiel said softly.
“We should have told Cassidy about you the night we met. She would have loved you instantly.” Regret lined Ezra’s face.
“I’m sorry.” Ezekiel said again.
“I miss you.” Ezra didn’t bother hiding his emotions. His soft confession felt so earnest it sent a shiver through her body. “Can you forgive us?”
An unnatural warmth washed over her back. It felt like a ghostly hand comforting her. The feeling brushed over her shoulder engulfing her like a blanket. She looked across the table. For a second, the cooling scent of garlic and tomatoes was replaced by an acrid, oily scent. She sniffed, confused.
Worry. Fear. The words came to her mind out of nowhere. In an instant, she recognized the scents. Ezra and Ezekiel were worried and scared. The kitchen was practically fogged over with the smell. It turned her stomach.
They shouldn’t have been so worried. She had been asking herself that question for weeks. She already knew her answer. She had been…softening towards the Tate brothers since that day in Ben’s office. It helped that they were still the amazing men that she had dated. They didn’t wait long to own up to their mistakes. They wanted to make things right. Now that Ivy knew the full story, and had met Cassidy, she couldn’t hold on to her anger anymore.
The real problem was that she still loved them. She loved them desperately. She suspected that she could love Cassidy too. A part of her wanted to look Ezra and Ezekiel in the eyes, tell them that she loved them, and live happily ever after.
She wasn’t being completely honest with them. They’d opened up about their past but she’d never shared hers. Suddenly, she was worried and scared.
“I forgive you but, before I lose my nerve, I need to tell you something,” she took a deep breath but refused to look at them.
“When my parents died, I took over for them as the Coven historian. It was an easy job at the beginning. I liked it. Lots of record keeping and translating. Then our Matriarch asked me to take over a project my parents had been working on before their deaths.” She scratched the table with her nail, desperate to dispel some energy. “It turned out that the Coven was losing power, they couldn’t perform the spells they used to. She wanted to start draining power from other sources.”
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