A Little Green Magic (The Little Coven #1) - Isabel Wroth Page 0,16
end up in prison.
“A raging animal with a taste for human blood inside a cage filled with delicate little humans? It'd be a disaster, and the government's don't-ask-don't-tell policy about shifters would wind up in the shitter.
“The hunts would increase, violence, rivers running red and all that. The shifter tribunals decided we were better off being banned from mating with humans. I don't have a sleuth, no clan that I'm aligned with. I'd be a Lone Wolf if I was a butt sniffer, but the guys I employ are all shifters. If they found out I had pursued you as anything other than a casual acquaintance, it's a death sentence.”
Horrified, Ivy wrapped her legs tighter around his waist. “The other shifters would kill you just for being friends with me?”
His expression softened, and Uriah looked at her in a way that made her heart flop around in her chest like a fish out of water. “Not me, honey. You. A lion pride has control of this territory. They're basically the shifter police, and if word got back to them that we were anything more than friends and there was even the slightest chance you knew I was a bear, you would disappear. They'd hunt you down and kill you. It was a risk I couldn't take.
“But I couldn't stay away, either. I needed something to do to focus my bear and keep him occupied so he wouldn't tear me up inside trying to get out and be with you, without flat out refusing to let him see you.
“So... I bought this property because it had been on the market next to forever. Everyone in town tried to tell me the woods out here are haunted—probably because of those wards Rowena's family put up—but the moment I got out of the car, it felt right.”
Ivy immediately thought of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and because she was picturing some little girl traipsing through Uriah's house, tasting his porridge and sleeping in all the guest rooms, she was completely blindsided by what he said next.
“I thought I'd never get to bring you here, but I built the house for you anyway.”
“You what?” she wheezed, feeling like he'd reached in and grabbed hold of her lungs with both hands.
Uriah lifted his chin, glancing quickly around at the home he'd built, and shrugged. “Creating a den for our mate settled my bear enough to allow me to see you in public without losing my shit.”
It took Ivy a good two minutes to fully grasp the enormity of what he was telling her, and still, she couldn't quite believe it. “You built this house for me?”
“It helped that I had access to your dream house files,” he murmured, searching her expression with a crooked, uncertain smile.
Stunned, Ivy looked at the house with a completely different eye. From the modern cabin feel, to the hand-crafted features like the tree root chandelier, and the carefully groomed river-scape, it was more than she could have ever hoped for.
“You built this all for me?” she repeated, struggling not to cry.
“I built it for us,” he corrected, his hands roaming down her back, stroking up and down her thighs where she was still wrapped around him like a creeper vine. “I don't know what the term is among witches, or if there is such a thing as a soul-bond with your people, but shifters have mates and—”
Unfettered horror crossed his fingers when Ivy couldn't hold back the spill of emotion any longer. To him, the tears sliding down her cheeks were like trails of fresh blood.
“Don't, please don't,” he groaned, leaning in to kiss her trembling lips, over and over while the shock quietly leaked out. “I'm sorry, I'm such a fucking idiot, I shouldn't have just dumped all this shit on you so fast. Please don't cry. You don't have to stay here if you hate it, I swear. I'll rip it all down and start over.”
Ivy shook her head quickly, wiping her eyes with the cuff of her sweater, sucking in breath after trembling breath until she found a semblance of calm. “It’s okay. I just got a little overwhelmed for a minute. I'm good.”
Uriah ignored her assurances, pulling her in for a hug that was the end all, be all of hugs. A bear hug.
She closed her eyes to savor the feeling of being completely enveloped in his arms, her head tucked under his chin, and her ear pressed right over his drumming heart.