[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]
Carolyn came alongside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a quick squeeze before letting go. Matt’s arm settled around her shoulders again, drawing her tight against his side, as if he was somehow suddenly afraid she’d vanish into thin air.
Hecate had no intention of doing that, not now and not ever. Her hand strayed unconsciously toward her stomach, her lips thinning.
I want a life. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I want a life, something close to a normal life. I have a family now, friends. She leaned into him, her arm sliding around his waist. “We’ll have to pick Seamus’s brain. Leinth’s, too. It’s not going to be easy.”
“It wasn’t easy for you to talk about Olympium,” Matt murmured. “You still did it.”
“I did,” she agreed. And in a lot of ways, both of them are much more mentally stable and in a better place emotionally than I am. Seamus is a little bit of a physical mess right now, though. “Did he say why?”
Matt startled. Thordin was the one that answered.
“He just said that he wanted you,” Thordin rumbled, voice soft like distant thunder. “Hell. He said he wanted the witch.”
She snorted softly, feeling a pang somewhere deep, though it didn’t hurt as much as it might have once. “Well, that’s not necessarily an inaccurate way to refer to me, is it?”
“Well, you’re certainly powerful,” Carolyn said. “You think he wants you because of that?”
“I don’t have much doubt of it,” Hecate said, then shrugged slightly. “I seriously doubt he’d just want me to be a companion to Persephone. He has a plan for something and he needs to be able to command my power so he can accomplish it.”
“We don’t always get what we want,” Matt said.
“No,” Hecate said softly. “And he won’t.”
