The Bound Witch (The Osseous Chronicles, #3)

by Ivy Asher

“I swear on Rufio and the epic love you two would have shared if he hadn’t died in Hook,” I tell him, not an ounce of humor in the declaration, because we never joke about the great loves of our youth.

“Rufio died a hero,” Tad sobs after a couple of minutes. “Bangarang,” I confirm, my own tears once again dripping down my face as we hug. “Even Hook knew he fucked up. He stopped fighting and everything,” Tad goes on, hugging me even tighter.

I reach over his shoulder and start bunching the fabric of his too soft shirt as I try to pull it up and off. He leans back, pinning me against the wall with his hips, and rips it off with lightning fast speed. Part of me is disappointed; I kind of want to savor the strip tease, but the other part of me, the fiendish part, screams later, bitch and then redirects all moisture and focus directly to our vagina.

I never want to shut out truth or reality like that again. I never want to be so closed-minded that others suffer around me because of it. Enough is enough.

“I love you, Lennox,” he tells me evenly with absolutely no hesitation. “I love you in the way that grows as we grow together. The kind of love worth fighting for, that has me waking up every day grateful and willing to do whatever it takes. I know what you did for Elon, because it’s the same thing you did for me. You’re the light in the darkness. The stars that guide you home when you’re lost. You carry the broken from battle and lift the drowning from the clawing cold that’s trying to claim them. You slay the demons.”

I kiss Rogan, my lips capturing his fiercely so I can sip on his words and let them soak into me. His raw declaration fills the cracks that mistrust and messed up circumstances chiseled into us, his faith and trust the very mortar we needed to repair and move forward. I know we have a lot ahead of us, that nothing about this is going to be easy, but Rogan is right. We’re worth fighting for.

Damn, the dude has an ass you could bounce a quarter off of. I’ve never felt the urge to bite down on a good piece of ass meat before, but I can now no longer claim that to be true.