The Kiss Curse

by Erin Sterling

Gwyn had no doubt that whoever he was, his ancestors had absolutely once stared down the business end of a guillotine. You didn’t get cheekbones like that without oppressing some peasants.

“Was it because you had to talk to people and therefore pretend to be a person yourself rather than an android who runs on tea and disdain?”

And when her eyes briefly met his, her cheek dimpling with a Go fuck yourself smile, Wells realized he had never been attracted to any woman more in his life. Well, that was bloody inconvenient.

She looked like something out of legend, a siren, a sorceress, the kind of woman men happily went to their dooms for.

Rhys and his Vivienne

Her face was still red and probably a little puffy from crying, and whatever makeup she’d put on that morning was long gone. She felt tired and raw and worried about her magic, and Wells was looking at her like she was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, a world wonder he could not believe he was in the presence of.

my Gwynnevere,”

And part of it was probably the fact that he was, he suspected, falling quite desperately in love with her and would do whatever she wanted him to.

And she smiled. Wells felt that smile in every part of him. A sunrise could not be brighter than that smile.

“We knew something was wrong,” Vivi said. “Both of us. Practically at the same time,” Elaine confirmed, reaching out to smooth Gwyn’s hair, and Gwyn leaned into the touch, tears stinging her eyes. When she’d thought about them there on that awful table, they’d felt her. They’d known she needed them, and they’d come back for her.

“You’ve never met Gwyn Jones,” Wells said with a small smile, and Rhys laughed, leaning back. “Ah, the sound of a man completely clobbered by love. I know the feeling well.”

Wells didn’t bother to argue. He loved her, was completely mad for her, and surely that was obvious to everyone by now.

Gwyn blinked, and Wells stared at her, his chest heaving up and down, his fist propped on one hip, his hair a wreck, and, she noticed, he was wearing one black shoe and one navy one, and if she hadn’t already fallen in love with him sometime between the night he’d found Sir Purrcival and the moment she’d walked into this shop on the day of the Gathering and seen him frantically making cups of tea, those mismatched shoes would’ve done it.

“And if I wanted to call you mine?” she asked, her voice low, and Wells’s grip tightened on her hand. “I’ll be that until I die.”

“And this is what I want,” she told him. “Not big gestures. Just you. All of you. The disaster bits and the parts that say words like ‘henceforth.’

Still smiling, Gwyn ducked her head, kissing his knuckles. “I want the man who finds missing pets and makes me soup and may sound like he’s auditioning for Masterpiece Theatre but will also make love to me in the back of a pickup truck.”

“I want all of you, too,” he told her. “The powerful witch and the woman who loves nothing better than to take the piss out of me when I deserve it. The woman who inspires loyalty in talking cats and Baby Witches and everyone she meets because her heart is the only thing more impressive than her magic. I want you, Gwyn Jones.”

“Love me, love my Baby Witches,” she said, and he looked back at her, smiling. “The first part is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. The second may take some practice.”

“We’ll talk about it at home,” Wells replied, and as he kissed her again, Gwyn realized she didn’t know if he meant her cabin or his haunted mansion, but it didn’t really matter. Wherever the two of them were together, that was home.