Mark of Damon by Eva Chase Page 0,35

about what Damon had said last night about working through the last pieces of trauma before we moved on to better things, I was even less sure than before what I’d been hanging onto.

The friendship the six of us had shared as kids had been amazing, but what we had now, what each of us was doing and bringing to this place, was even better. Had I been too focused on where we’d started to really appreciate that? Maybe my uneasy feelings had been seeping out and affecting my consorts, drawing them back into the past rather than pointing them toward the future too.

I didn’t want to live like that. I wanted our relationship to be about who and where we were now—and what we could continue building together. I wanted our home to be ours as we were now, not a shrine to shreds of past happiness.

We had more than bits of joy now. We had bucketfuls. The life we were leading and the place we were leading it should reflect that.

“Thank you,” I said to Seth. “But you know… I think you were right. The estate is ours now, and we should make it what we’d want it to be going forward.” I took in the gazebo for another dazzling moment, but an eager urge had gripped me. I spun toward the house. “Let’s see what else we can do.”

Seth chuckled as the guys all fell into stride around me. Damon shot me a look I couldn’t read, but he didn’t say anything.

Gabriel caught up with me in the garden with an amused air. “What did you have in mind, Sprout?” The old nickname rang with a deep fondness.

“Well…” I marched into the main hall and down it. In the front sitting room, I cast my gaze around. “That couch and that table can go. We could open the wall between this room and the music room”—I glanced at Seth—“couldn’t we?”

He nodded, smiling. I tapped my finger to my lips, swiveling in the other direction. “Maybe take down the wallpaper and paint the walls instead. And in the living room…”

Damon raised his eyebrows, his shoulders tensed. “Why make all these changes all at once?”

Was he wondering where he fit into my new vision? I forced myself to slow down. “I want all of you to weigh in, of course. It’s not just my house but all of yours too. I just feel like we’ve waited so long to embrace that—it’s about time.”

My mind slipped back to the crib I’d found in the attic. Another longing, deeper and more poignant, swelled around my heart. A smile stretched my mouth. “And maybe it’s time we make room to expand our family too.”

Chapter Thirteen

Damon

I’d already spent more time than I’d have liked in the witches’ Assembly building back when we were on the front lines of the demonic invasion—and before that, when we’d been locked away in the same prison area where Rose’s father had spent most of the past year. The bare walls and rows of office doors reminded me too much of the juvenile detention facility I’d had a couple of short stays in during my teens, before I’d gotten smarter about my not-entirely-legal pastimes. And every employee that passed us I’d swear was looking down their nose at the bunch of us.

Even the two witches who were conducting this interview to determine our “reproductive acceptability” or something ridiculous-sounding like that had a haughty air as they asked their questions:

“Are you aware of any illnesses affecting more than one of your relatives?”

“What do you see as the benefit of bringing a child into your lives?”

“What can you say about your ability to handle yourself under pressure?”

At that last question, Rose laughed and motioned to the five of us. “I’m sure you haven’t already forgotten that we were the ones your leadership called on to figure out how to defeat the biggest paranormal threat the witching world has ever faced. I’m pretty sure between the six of us we can take on an infant.”

She didn’t look fazed by the questions. I guessed she’d either heard about the process or maybe gone through it before with that traitor asshole she’d nearly married. The asshole her father had been setting her up to be a slave to.

A flare of anger rippled through my chest and sent a sharper stabbing across my arm.

None of that history mattered to Rose anymore. With each nod of the interviewers’ heads, her face brightened a little more.