The Rose Witch - Chandelle LaVaun Page 0,36

me. “My home.”

“This is your house? This is where you live?” My eyes widened, I hadn’t expected that. “This is where you brought me…”

“Yes, yes, and I wanted to bring you somewhere safe.”

“So you brought me home…and I attacked you,” I whispered. Regret filled my lungs, choking the oxygen out of me. I wished so badly that I had known the truth.

He sighed and shook his head. “You behaved as any sane person would have. The fault was all mine…sometimes…sometimes I go a long time without speaking to people and then forget I have to.”

I frowned. That’s so sad and lonely.

“You get used to it,” he said softly, his eyes locked on the stone floor. “And I have Spot.”

I grimaced. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud but now I felt the need to comfort him in some way, except I had no idea what to say. Before I could stop myself, I jumped off the sofa and walked back over to him, then I reached out and put my hand on his forearm and squeezed. “I’m sorry that that’s something you’ve had to get used to…but you can talk to me any time.”

What? What is happening to me? I was giving myself whiplash with the change of emotions. I’d gone from terrified to now…friends? If possible, his eyes blazed even brighter. He stared down at me and silence fell between us. I had no idea what he was thinking and it was killing me. The air seemed to pulse between us like there was an electrical charge.

Did I just offend him? Did I just make it weird?

Quick, say something. Anything. Change the subject.

I opened my mouth and said the first thing that came out. “Wait, you did say something to me. After Tegan summoned you…I didn’t know the language—”

His face fell. He cursed and glanced away, breaking the hold he had on me. “Okay, that makes sense now. I’d said to you that I wasn’t going to hurt you, just needed the necklace…I said it in the arcana ancient language. You don’t speak it?”

My jaw dropped. “That’s what you said? Bloody hell. No, granny says when Lancaster magic was lost so was the language. Pippa thinks it will return to us. We’re not sure.”

“That makes sense.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I should have thought of that.”

I smiled because my body seemed to want to smile at him. My chest tightened and I realized my hand was still holding on to his arm. Heat rushed through my body. I pulled it back then gestured around us. “So…you brought me here before…and tackled me to the ground.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, then he pointed to small chest on the ground. “Spot here likes to rearrange furniture and therefore I did not see that with your dress being everywhere…Spot thinks it’s funny when I trip.”

Spot picked his head up and made a playful groaning noise. Malachi walked over to his hellhound and ruffled his ears.

I chuckled. “You named your hellhound Spot.”

“It’s an inside joke with my father.”

I looked up at him and bit my lip. “So…you’re really an angel?”

His eyes met mine. “Yes.”

“So angels don’t have white feather wings and halos?”

He stared at me for a long, long moment with the strangest expression. Like he was perplexed. Then he stood and his black smoke wings popped out of his back. He took a step forward and they changed into massive white feather wings that looked exactly like I thought they would – but bigger and softer looking. He took a few more steps and then a golden light seemed to shine from within his body, illuminating his skin. With every step he took toward me, the light grew brighter, warmer.

Two steps later his black jeans changed into a pair of loose, low slung white pants that looked like silk. Another step and his shoes disappeared, leaving him crossing the room barefoot. His black long-sleeved shirt vanished, and to my horror, I gasped at the sight of a whole lot of gloriously tanned skin stretched tight over chiseled muscles. My face lit on fire and I knew I was blushing. He was almost all the way to me. I needed to pull myself together but my pulse had taken a crazy bumpy road.

Faint dark golden lines spread across every inch of his body from the neck-down. They looked almost like vines – wait. Those are the same lines Tegan had. Her soulmate glyph. Does