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“Whatever you’re talking about? No, I don’t.”

“Clara,” Soria began softly and crossed her arms like she was starting a lecture. “Okay, forget everything else for a minute but this. Who else
could
bring that hard butt down
but
Fay Hopkins. Your sister. You should be praising her skills, not just as a woman but as your sister! She tamed a beast!”
              “I don’t believe he’s being true. It’s an act.” Clara looked at me. “I’m sorry, Fan—sorry. Fay. I’m sorry, but I think he’s going to hurt you. He’s very good when he wants to be. He’s fooled me before. I don’t think he would just flip his switch like that, especially for…”

I smiled. “For me, right?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean that he doesn’t like humans. If he was going to
fall in love
with someone, it wouldn’t be a human,” she finished really softly. I could tell she honestly, in her soul, believe what she was saying. She was trying to protect me.
              “I get that you’re trying to protect me, Clara, but I wish you could just be happy for me. I get that you were in this world before me and you think you owe it to me to like…shield me or something, but…” I looked over at Enoch and he was already watching me. I smiled at him and he smiled back before looking over at Franz who was talking wildly about something. “I’m okay here. I know there’s all these things that I don’t know, but you have no idea what my and Enoch’s relationship is like. I know you don’t trust it, you don’t trust him, but there’s proof that devourers change. You’re married to one.”

She shook her head. “That’s different.”

“It’s not that different. Enoch was a devourer for longer than Eli, that doesn’t mean that he’s worse. You just didn’t have to see Eli at his worst with your own eyes. You saw him when he was already changing, like me and Enoch. And that’s a blessing, isn’t it? We don’t want to think about the person we’re with as a monster, even though we know they’re capable of it. If they choose to change, we should honor that. Enoch has changed and if you don’t see it like everyone here is seeing it, that’s fine. But I don’t want to hear any more about Enoch not being changed, okay? I mean it, Clara.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Whatever. Just because I don’t say it doesn’t mean I don’t think it.”

“That’s fine.”

“So, now that that’s out of the way,” Bridgette rolled her eyes and looked at me with a grin, “is Enoch a good kisser?”

I burst out laughing and covered my face. They laughed and poked at me, saying that meant a definite yes. Even Clara was laughing and shaking her head.

“Let’s just say,” I told them, “that they don’t call them devourers for nothing.”

“That’s true,” Clara said and laughed looking at Bridgette and she nodded.

“So you’re all bonded, right?” I asked. “I mean, I can’t see them, but…”

“Not all of us,” Clara said and glared. “And don’t even think about it.”

Bridgette laughed harder. “No, I’m not bonded, just mated to my devourer.” She pointed to them. “And Soria is mated to Franz.”

“It’s all so confusing and romantic. Aries and Regina are bonded.”

Clara crossed her arms. “How do you
know all this? And how do know Aries?”

“After the shot the other day, Enoch got Aries to walk me to your house so I wasn’t alone,
and he could meet Franz. He was telling me about his mate and his bond.”

She squinted. “
That was the day that the troll took you in the woods.”

“Yep.” She pressed her lips together. “That was also the day that he was almost killed, almost stabbed by a goblin
’s tooth right in front of Aries to get me away from that troll.”

“No way,” Clara hissed under her breath.

“It’s true. Ask Aries, he was pretty pissed at him about it. I didn’t know that was the only way you could kill a devourer until after he’d done it and Aries was so mad, saying that he could have grabbed me instead, but Enoch wouldn’t have it. He said he had to do it, that he couldn’t let me be hurt.”

Clara looked in my eyes
and then back at Enoch. Enoch was watching us again and I knew he knew we were talking about him when he and Clara made eyes contact. She looked away angrily, but I didn’t know if it was because her theory was dying or because she was still clinging to it.

All of a
sudden, Soria gasped and grabbed her chest. She gripped onto Bridgette with her other hand and tried to breathe as…whatever it was kept happening. I assumed she was having an asthma attack.

Bridgette rubbed
her back and said, “That’s right. Just breathe through it.” She looked at me. “She’s okay. She’s a witch, but she also gets these vision sort of things. It’ll be over soon. It’s okay.”

I nodded, but I was on the verge of freaking out.
Soria looked to the sky, leaning her head back and moaned. She cursed and grabbed her neck.

“Block her, Clara. Don’t let Franz see,” Bridgette hissed. “He always freaks out. She doesn’t want him to see.”

A few more seconds, which felt like hours, and she calmed, breathing in long breaths; pulling them in and pushing them out looked painful to her. She looked up at me and said, “Oh, God no. Something’s big coming.”

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“She doesn’t see,” Bridgette explained and sighed. “She can’t see a vision, she just gets an episode and knows something is going to happen. It’s like a warning system, but we never know what to look for or when.”

“But it’s still really useful. We’re on alert, if nothing else,” Clara soothed.

Soria came to me and reached her hand up to my face. “Fay, I’m going to give you a gift.”

“No, Soria!” Clara yelled and reached for her. I was so confused by the sudden turnaround of events that I just stood there. Clara yanked on Soria’s arm, but she still reached my cheek and cupped it as if Clara hadn’t yanked her at all. As soon as she touched my skin, I felt a warm wind all over me and then my eyes were opened to a new world.

I could hear voices and yelling around me as Franz, Enoch, and the men ran over from the fire, but all I could
really
see was Soria’s face and all the magical, ethereal things that had suddenly appeared at her touch. The dark world was suddenly bright, almost like night vision. I pulled up Clara’s arm from behind Soria and felt my mouth open as I stared. I pulled my fingers through the barbed string and it went straight through it. It looked like smoke. I followed it with my eyes the short distance to where Eli was standing next to Enoch, right behind Soria, next to Franz. Then I saw Aries’ and Regina’s between the two of them. My eyes looked all over for anything that wasn’t normal, anything that I could notice and pick up for being different. When I saw the little jars in the trees, I cocked my head to the side and squinted at the glowing bugs in them.

“Security system,
” Aries told me and smiled. “They make a high-pitched squealing noise when anyone is moving about at night. Soria activates them with her magic before she goes to bed every night. But…humans can’t see them.”

I
felt my muscles tense as I let my eyes wander and fall on Enoch. He looked epically pissed.

He growled
his words at Soria, even though it was obvious to all that he was trying to contain it. “Soria, get your hands off her, give her back to me, and what the
hell
do you think you’re doing!”

“Enoch, that’s my mate you’re growling at,” Franz told him, a hand on his shoulder.

“Your mate just gave my mate the sight, without permission or cause or—”

“Mate?” Clara screeched. She looked at me accusingly, but I didn’t even know how all of that worked, so I didn’t know if I was his mate or not. Did he just say I was? Was the
re a ceremony? A bond or something? I didn’t know.

All I heard was Enoch say I was his mate and everything pretty much stopped for me.

He and I stared at each other and he smiled a little in that
why does this always happen to us in front of a hundred people
kind of way. “Come on, Fay.”

“What did you do to me?” I ask
ed her as I went to him. He tucked me under his chin and wrapped one arm around my back, the other hand he used to lift my chin as he looked in my eyes. He sighed. “What?” I asked him softly since Soria didn’t seem to be answering my question.

“I’m going to miss your blue eyes,” he whispered and pulled my chin up higher
to kiss me. I didn’t know what that meant, but I clung to
this
moment,
this
second, as I gripped his shirt lightly and kissed him back. When he pulled back, I opened my eyes and immediately saw Clara behind him. She was covering her mouth, looking skeptical and peeved. I licked my lips and looked over at Soria, who was being shielded by Franz now. He was wielding a wicked scowl.

“Soria, what did you do to me?” I asked softly. There was no nice way to word that sentence.

Franz grunted. She laughed and palmed his cheek, pulling him to look at her. “Oh, how I love it when you get all alpha male for me.”

He tried to hide it, but he was practically a strutting peacock at her words.
She kissed him and then looked at me. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to scare you.”

“You didn’t,” I told her and smiled wryly. “I just…don’t know what’s going on.”

“When I have a ‘vision’,” she said and made air quotations with her fingers, “it means something is coming like we told you.”

“You had a vision?” Franz asked, all worried. “When?”
              “Just now. It’s not a big deal.”

“But you hate them. I wish you wouldn’t hide them from me.”

“But you get all worked up over them and it’s not a big deal. That’s why I don’t tell you every time I have one.”

He sighed her name in a growl. “Soria.”

“Baby,” she responded with a smile. She looked back at me. “So we know something is going to happen. It’s only fair that you have the sight if you’re going to be with us, so you can be prepared.”

“I think you should have asked,” Enoch said hotly, but obviously less angry.

“I felt the need to give it to her and I follow my instincts.”

Clara sighed behind me and I looked at her over my shoulder. She shrugged. “What? I tried to stop her.”

“Why do you and Enoch not want me to have this sight so badly?” I laughed once. “It’s something you actually agree on.”

She shrugged. “I don’t want you to have anything to do with magic, anything more than you have to. I feel responsible enough as it is that you’re involved in all this and with…” She sighed again and cleared her throat.
              “Point taken,” Enoch said hard. “I don’t care if you have the sight if that’s what you want. I just wanted her to ask your permission first. I never want to force anything on you.” He looked at me. Right at me. “If there ever comes a time that you don’t want any of this anymore, just say the word and with a little persuasion, I’ll help you leave it all behind.”

Clara’s gasp was audible behind us.

“Stop,” I whispered. Begged.

“I’m just telling you the truth,” he whispered back. He looked at Soria over my head.

I gripped his shirt in my hands tighter and blocked them all out. “What does the sight do?”

“Just that,” Soria answered. “Shows things that are supernatural. Bonds, things that would normally be glamoured over to humans,
anything paranormal that you normally wouldn’t have seen before. A side effect of it, however, is that your eye color turns green.”

My eyes were green…
I was in this world now. I needed to have my eyes wide open. “Thank you. I didn’t know about the sight, but I would have asked for it had I known it existed.”

She paused. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry. My gift chooses people and it isn’t always tactful about it.”

I wrapped myself around Enoch’s arm, tugged him to follow me, and laughed nervously. “It’s all right. Like I said, all is forgiven.”

Everyone was more reserved when we got back around the fire. I could hear Franz asking Soria about her vision.

Enoch rubbed my hair for a minute and then turned me to face the fire so he could wrap his arms around me from behind. “Now you won’t be cold,” he whispered in my ear.

“You’re being really sweet,” I mused. “I’m fine, I promise.”

“There’s some scary things in my world. Now you’ll see them all. ”

“I’m sure. But you’ll be there to prote
ct me, won’t you?” I couldn’t help but grin as I looked up at him over my shoulder and leaned further into him.

He laughed into my neck. “Bloody hell. I’m done for.”

“Bloody hell. I’m done for, too.”

He bellowed
a deep laugh and gripped me tightly to him. Clara and Eli were so fascinated that they did nothing but practically sit there and stare. So I ignored them. Franz and Enoch made up in like ten seconds. What would have taken girls ten months to apologize for took them ten seconds to take care of.

When Fran
z, Enoch, and Aries were talking about the next night and how we were going to get there was when we heard the scream come from the river. I jumped up from the log, but Enoch grabbed my arm.