Bonus Epilogue: Part One

Kate

Many hot, sweaty nights in bed later …

There’s a pounding at the door. A cop knock.

“Georgia,” I grumble, my cheek pressed to Tanner’s hard, sweaty chest. I lick him, and he shudders underneath me, fisting my hair and drawing my head back so that I’m looking up at him. “What? It is Georgia.”

“It’s been Georgia for days, Mrs. Skye. We’re not getting out of bed and we’re not answering the door.” Tanner looks serious. He is serious. Can’t say I blame him. We were apart for six months, but it felt like years. It’s a fate I don’t ever want to experience again.

“Mrs. Poppy,” I mumble, and then huff. “We can’t ignore her forever.” I’m angling to escape from this bed. A task made much easier by the fact that I’m not sporting harpy wings any longer. Also, don’t want to eat my guys unless I’m … like eating my guys. I found this Witchwood herb growing in the backyard that numbs the throat and so I’ve been practicing—

“Few more months alone in this house and I might be ready for company.” Marlowe sounds terrified behind me, white-knuckled with fear over the idea of venturing out and confronting his family again. But his arm is strong, and his grip is fierce when he wraps me up from behind. His teeth nip my earlobe as Tanner tightens his grip on my hair.

The pair of them look at each other, and I know I’m in trouble unless—

Brooks sighs and stands up, staring down at the three naked people in his bed. He, too, is naked, and it’s hard not to stare at his dick when I know that I should be answering my front door.

The guys and I have been home for … a period of time. Honestly, how long has it been since my coven heroically rescued me after I’d given up all hope of ever seeing them again? A week? Oh my God, is it Saturday already?

It’s breakfast-at-the-cafe day.

This is Georgia being nice, waiting this long to see me. If we don’t let her in soon, she’ll burn the house down looking for me. Having her as a best friend is like having two doms at once. Georgia tells me what to do. So does Brooks.

But he always, always tells me exactly what I want him to tell me. It’s like, sure I’m obeying orders because I was going to order myself to do exactly the same thing. Trickery. Witch trickery. Alpha dom witch trickery. Bleh.

Brow quirked, hair mussed, a red swoop of bang across Brooks’ glorious forehead. It’s dotted with beads of sweat, from the way he rode me just a few minutes ago. We look at each other, and if it was anyone but Georgia at the door, I’d invite him back to bed. Who could resist those sinful green eyes?

“The three of you, get up.” Brooks pauses to look around for his hat, only to be offered it by his bowing shadow. Black stripes of ink-antlers crawl up the walls around us, like a threat. It’s not intentional, but he sure does have big dick energy. The largest eye on his hat opens, blinking at us. On the side table, there sits a toad.

“I’ll make you a deal, South. I’ll get up if you get rid of that thing.” Marlowe sits up and jerks his chin in the direction of the one-eyed toad. It looks like that demon I met in the forest, Father Earth, an entity only mentioned in the fairy tales that Brooks’ mentor told him.

We have a lot to learn, as witches.

I’ll bet there are other worlds out there, just waiting for us to discover them. Creatures, straight out of a person’s wildest imaginings. Beings with immense power, like the goat monster that burned the Witch’s Tree to the ground. My heart sparkles with possibility and adventure. Maybe I got a taste for adrenaline, living in the Witchwoods all alone like that.

Ebon swoops in through the cracked bedroom window, landing on the edge of a mirror and staring at me with six purple eyes. Waiting. Flick whines at the door, gaze fixed on our Eastwoods.

“The familiar theory holds, doesn’t it, kitten?” Tanner gives my hair another playful yank and then turns, throwing his legs off the edge of the bed. My scalp tingles, and I decide that even if we’ve been having sex for an entire week, it’s not enough. I want more. “Our Southwoods has found himself a fucking devil toad.”

Brooks plucks his hat off and holds it upside down near the toad. He ushers the creature inside and then flips the hat around a few more times before placing it back on his head. The toad never falls out and—I know this because I’ve tried it—if you lift that hat up, there’s nothing underneath.

Trippy, huh?

“We need to meet with Georgia’s coven. It’s probably best that we stop pumping you full of cum and pause to explain things.” Brooks hatches this I rescued you from an impossible curse, and I’m totally the boss, and I refuse to acknowledge your contribution, blah blah asshole face.

“You son of a bitch.” I throw a pillow at him and, believe it or not, he spits on the velvet throw and it turns into a bat. Brooks shoos the paisley-patterned chiropteran out the window with a wave of his hand, his wedding ring catching the sunlight. I am beyond impressed. “How did you …?”

“Learned a lot of new things while searching for a way to get us out of that mess.” Brooks now raises both eyebrows at me, his shadow rising above his head, an unholy crown of antlers. The shape of his mouth is offensive, and I love it. I missed him. I missed Marlowe. I missed Tanner. The girls. My animals. This house. I get choked up, and Brooks notices. “Get dressed quickly and let’s get this over with.” He levels that bossman stare on Marlowe, and the shadow of our Westwoods curls over like it’s in agony, demon wings folded, like a gargoyle. “And you, you little coward. Call your mom.”

Lo’s mouth gapes open and the witch hat he just placed on his head blooms with yellow roses. Thorny vines curl around the cone and something like a songbird with two heads tweets from the bent tip.

“I … I’ve been texting her. I said we were all sick, on and off, for the last however many months. She doesn’t believe it, but she doesn’t really know me anymore either. What is she going to do? Send me to my goddamn room? There’s an exercise bike in there now.” Marlowe blushes as he says all this, and I know he’s hoping it isn’t true. That his mom does know him. That she realizes he’s full of shit. He wants her to chastise him, like she would’ve done if he’d never gone missing.

I want that for him, too. I’m also a little nervous because our new relationship with the Waverley family might mean getting honest, and I really don’t want to tell his parents that I tried to eat him. Had a few nibbles here and there. Gobbled up his shadow. Let him stab himself in the leg to lure me out like the psycho he is.

What sane parents would ever grant a woman like me their blessing? I’m already hyperventilating at the thought of facing them again. And his sisters? Oh hell, what if they hate me for keeping him from them for so many months after such a brief reunion?

Tanner slaps my ass and leans down, mouth very near my ear. I can feel him, them, all mixed together on my inner thighs. I close my eyes and breathe out, nice and slow. I open them again, and there’s his wolfish smile, a single canine flashing mischievously.

“Why don’t we let Lo and Brooks welcome your friends in while we have one more go at it?” I turn and slap him, and he loves it because he knows exactly how to get my attention. “Shit, I’ve missed that. You haven’t changed at all, but you … also changed a fucking lot.” And then that cocky grin of his shifts into something cold and serious. He runs a hand down his face to try and wipe it off, but I can see so clearly in his expression how much he missed me.

My broken heart pieces shift closer and fuse together.

I’m back, and this is it, just like I knew it would be.

This is our happily ever after. I found it. I was living it. I wasn’t sure if I’d get to keep it, but here it is again. In my grandmother’s house in my hometown. With my coven. With my pets. With my friends.

I won’t take a single second of it for granted.

Never.

I yank on one of the boys’ t-shirts (Tanner’s), and I slip into a pair of loose sweatpants (Marlowe’s). Most of my hickeys belong to Brooks, so technically I’m wearing a bit of all three men at once. Hat on my head. As much dignity as I can muster.

“I should’ve invited Georgia and the girls to Lost Coast Brewery the night I came home,” I whine, forcing myself out of the bedroom and over to the stairs.

“Wasn’t happening,” Tanner gruffs, rather unhelpfully I might add.

“Damn straight. That was our night.” Brooks.

“Dude, the dog ate the crotch out of my boxers.” Marlowe.

The walk down to the front door is traumatizing.

I’m about to get a talking to. I haven’t even properly had one yet from Brooks. Georgia is going to eat me alive.

Flick seems to find the whole scenario amusing, leaping and barking and wagging his tail. Stix hisses at us from her perch on the couch, and Ebon follows me on feathery wings, landing easily on the brim of my hat. When the stupid thing tries to lick my pet monster crow, I slap its tongue off.

“Behave,” I growl, and then I grip the brim with one hand and yank the door open with the other.

Just like tearing off a band-aid.

“You little shit,” Georgia snarls, and I see the floating quill pen behind her hat start to write. I love you, but I’m mad enough that I’m going to … I swear, I’ll … I’ll— “I am going to put an alarm spell on you, one that goes off when you’re trying to sacrifice yourself.”

Her face crinkles up, and I raise both hands in placation. If she cries, I’m toast. I’ll fold like a deck of cards and she knows it. Finally though, I have people around that I can show my squishy heart to. They know exactly how hard to squeeze it. Love overwhelms me, a fragrant bloom of warmth and comfort.

“I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me,” I whine, puppy dog eyes in full-force. My hat eats a random Witchwood bee out of mid-air, and it tastes like honey and poison.

“Breakfast. Now.” Georgia points at me, but her eyes lift up to Brooks. I know he’s standing behind me. I can see his antlers on the roof of the porch. “Don’t argue with me, any of you. It’s been months. Kate missed Christmas.” She hesitates, pushing up both sleeves of her UCSC hoodie (it has a banana slug on the front). There are marks on her arms, silver stripes that look like they were inflicted intentionally.

Blood witch.

That’s what Brooks told me, that he was training my friends to be blood witches. Have no idea what that means, but I’m sure we’ll get back to having lazy afternoon witch classes in my cozy kitchen. Drinking wine. Talking shit. Learning from brilliant but bastardly Brooks.

I smile gently. Emotions are big today. Emotions are huge.

“Breakfast,” I agree, glancing over my shoulder at the men. Brooks, looming with narrowed red eyes on his hat’s cone. Marlowe, leaning against the wall with his muscular arms crossed, spilling butter-yellow rose petals across the floor. Tanner, yanking up the zipper on his leather pants. His hat’s ears are pricked with interest. He twitches them at me and winks, and he’s shirtless and sexy, and ahem—

I turn back to Georgia, her eye twitching as I look past her to the van idling on the curb. My girls are in there, peering out at me. Waiting. Hoax, too. I did not expect to see the handsome one-armed YouTuber this morning.

“Breakfast,” Brooks acquiesces with a sigh, putting a huge hand on my shoulder. “We’re going whether you like it or not. Time to lock up that crazy sex drive of yours, you little harlot.”

And there he goes again: ordering me to do what I had already planned to do. I smack his hand away, but he catches mine in his. Happiness blossoms in the coldest recesses of my soul, obliterating my misery and my loneliness. Marlowe was right: we’re home now.

I can barely believe it.

“Put some clothes on, and hurry up.” Georgia lifts a dark, curved brow. Her lips are painted a brilliant, vibrant red, like the rhododendrons in my front yard. “You’re in big trouble, Katelynn Poppy. Huge. For once, I agree with these pieces of shit you call husbands.”

“Why don’t you wait outside, Miss Appleby?” Brooks slams the door shut and gives me an assessing look. Yep. Mind-blowing sex aside, he’s definitely still mad at me for burning down the Witch’s Tree. “Well. I suppose it’s time we fill you in.” A pause, and his face takes on the cast of someone older, wiser, and more experienced. More arrogant, too. Stupid twenty-something boomer. “It was a miserable six months, Kate, and you have a lot to make up for.”

“No, no. Technically I broke the curse. I paid with sacrifice and made myself human again.” I tap my hand against my chest as my hat hisses in indignation. “You know what it’s like, being the Hag Wytch?” I lift a brow. “When you’re the one singing, you experience every day completely and utterly alone while the whole world sleeps. Then, on the new moon, when everything is awake, the bloodlust is so intense that you black out and come to with mystery meat in your mouth. It sucks. I ate a unicorn. A unicorn!”

“Yeah?” Marlowe spits back, pretending like he’s the unruly jerk he was when we first met. Silly boy. Those dark eyes can’t hide a thing from me. “You think that’s bad? Try living with Georgia for half a year.” Lo shakes his head at me like he’s so unbelievably traumatized. I’d twist his nipple in punishment right now if he wouldn’t like it so much. “Fernanda and her weird romance books. Tacy and her annoying boyfriend. Talia, a literal fucking teenager. Here. All the time. Every single day.” He starts ticking off fingers. “No sleep. Constant bloodletting. Sacrificial offerings to the well. Posting dance challenges and thirst traps on social media.” Marlowe rolls his big shoulders and then works a kink out of his neck, sharp tongue pressed to the corner of his mouth.

Hot. Cocky. Mean.

He snags a hoodie off the hall tree, forgetting to take his hat off when he goes to slip it on and totally losing his cool factor.

I grin, and he blushes hard. My man is an obsessive simp, and I’m so grateful to have him in my life. So, so, so grateful.

“Here.” Tanner hands me a pair of old, comfy sneakers. “Go to breakfast in Humboldt honey mode today. No makeup. Messy hair.” He licks his lower lip, blue eyes on the hard points of my nipples. I’m tenting this t-shirt bad. “No bra.”

“Real cute,” I grumble, but now I’m the one that’s blushing.

We’ve spent days huddled together in this charming old house. Now, we’re out of bed and life has to find its way back to normal.

And what better way to start than with the ritual of breakfast in Bayside?

#

We take our truck (much to Georgia’s chagrin). It’s weird, riding in the truck like everything is normal. I glance out the window at the ocean, and I frown thoughtfully. Humanity doesn’t know they lost an entire month to the Hag Wytch’s song. Maybe the weather is a little off, but who’d ever think to attribute that to bad magic?

Georgia is red-faced and pissy when we arrive, already seated at a table outside with her coven (plus two extra boyfriends). She’s ordered drinks for everyone and they’re all iced honey lattes with bee pollen and lavender sprigs for decoration.

Oh yeah, this is going to be a rough morning.

My shadow horns explode up the exterior wall of the cafe like spilled paint. Anxiety horns.

“The dick must be really good for you to ignore us like this.” Georgia is smiling, but it’s a little dark. I take the seat beside her and grab her hand, peering into her brown eyes as the men scoot their own chairs as close to mine as they can get. They’re not going to walk inside to order at the counter without me. Not anymore.

What’d Tanner say? That they were going to be greedy with me for a while.

“I love you, and I’m sorry, Georgia,” I whisper, and she loses it, throwing her arms around me and squeezing me to death. Fernanda clamps a hand over her chest and sighs dramatically, slumping into her seat with profound relief.

“We weren’t sure if you two were going to squabble for a while before making up.” Fernanda chuckles, her pixie-winged shadow dancing across the patio pavers. Hoax, the guy we saved from the Witchwoods, shifts in clear discomfort beside her. They’re definitely holding hands. Cute.

The men have not mentioned Hoax to me even once this week. They’ve said nothing about Viv and Detective Gilley either. But if I know Georgia (and I certainly do) then she’s going to keep her word. Brooks will train her coven, and she’ll train … the other three random witches we’re acquainted with. As long as I’m not arrested for murder, it’s all good.

“I’ll order breakfast for you guys—and it’s on me.” Tacy stands up and I give her a thumbs up over Georgia’s shoulder. She takes off, and I have no idea what she’s going to order, but I definitely see her swiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

“Dude, I thought you were so screwed,” Talia whispers from across the table, her blue hair coiled prettily over one shoulder. Her lipstick is a metallic purple with glitter in it. “I thought we’d all be old wrinkled raisins by the time you got out of the Witchwoods. Tacy had to draw a chart to explain to me that six months here is the same as six months there.” She shifts her feet under the table. “Like, I get it now. The Hag Wytch sings the world to sleep. All the shit in the woods is only awake on the new moon. Sleeps until the next new moon without rotting or aging or whatever. It’s, yeah, you see why I got confused, right?”

“It’s literally not that hard,” Marlowe grumps, pretending like he doesn’t love the honey latte that Georgia ordered for him. His hat has grown fragrant lavender to match the decorative sprig in his glass. “Maybe it’s just a you problem?”

“Bro, you’re so lucky that you spared my life in those woods. Otherwise, I’d hex the fuck out of—” Talia doesn’t get the chance to finish her sentence.

“Alright, that’s enough of that shit,” Georgia barks, pulling back from me and swiping her arm across her watery eyes. I squeeze her hand. My hat tries to lick her cheek and … I let it. Her emotions read like the ending to a beautiful book. Contentment. Serenity. Peace. Love. “Want to talk about all the sexual deviants whose throats I had to slit to rescue you?” Georgia asks me point-blank, and I choke on my coffee. “No? You’re totally in trouble. Don’t even argue. I definitely qualify as a serial killer at this point.”

“Listen, I broke the Hag Wytch curse by making my own rescue impossible. It didn’t stop me from hoping for a while there.” I’m about to cry again, sucking down sugary coffee to keep me going. “Because even when you know there’s no way out, you keep hoping. It was only when that hope finally died that the curse broke. And then …” Sniff. Sniff. “You all came to rescue me somehow. We each had a part to play. Nobody is in trouble and everybody is a hero in my book.”

Georgia is just staring at me. Tacy scrapes her chair against the patio as she returns to her seat, settling in next to Jared (currently immersed in his phone). Fernanda is snuggling Hoax. Brooks is stoic. Tanner is smirking. Marlowe is glaring. Talia is twirling her hair.

“I had to truly let myself believe that I was going to be alone forever in order to break the curse, Georgia!” I throw up my arms for emphasis, not just for her but because of my stubborn coven, too. We are not done with this argument.

“Two covens casting a spell together is fucking blasphemy,” Brooks murmurs under his breath. “It’s a curse, Kate. In order to open that gate, we had to cast a curse. Lots of bodies in that well. I wouldn’t go anywhere near that place at night until we’ve exorcised every last angry ghost.”

I just stare at him, my arms still straight up in the air. I think my hat is gaping, but I manage to keep my own mouth shut. Oh. Um. So. They maybe killed a lot of people to open a new gate into the Witchwoods?

Yep. It’s hell. The Witchwoods is hell.

“There are so many metaphors,” I groan, dragging my hat brim down on either side of my face. “Witchcraft is so fucked-up.”

“Yes, well. Sacrifices sometimes have to be made.” Georgia sniffles, and I see her floating quill pen scribbling maniacally away. We only killed assholes that had it coming, it writes on the white silk of her tiny top hat. Aww. My best friend is as psycho as my husbands. I love it. “We were a full coven, so we did the dirty work. Your fuckboys provided, um, spell ingredient support.” She nods her head at my husbands, and her hat writes: they rounded up the bad guys, obviously, is what I’m trying to say.

“I wish I could’ve looked through a magic mirror or something and been able to see you guys working together in real time.” I grin and give Georgia’s hand another squeeze.

“You’d have been bored as shit, kitten. Life was crap without you.” Tanner gets up from the table to take the breakfast plates from the confused looking server. Yeah, the Witchwoods isn’t trending anymore, but my guys are hot celebrities. It’s fucking annoying. I had a bran muffin posing as a cumcake on my way out the door this morning. All of the semen, none of the sugar. What’s next? Oatmeal-raisin cockies? Yuck.

“You’re all suckers for me, aren’t you?” I ask, lifting my chin proudly. “You’re only pretending to be mad. By next week, everything will be back to normal.”

“Huh?” Jared asks, taking out one earbud. Tacy just quietly shushes him, and he goes back to jamming. He said “noice” when he saw me in the front yard and gave a thumbs-up. No questions about where I’d been for six months.

Because Talia is right: time never passed differently in the Witchwoods. The Hag Wytch sang everyone and everything to sleep—including plants and bacteria and even yeast—and they woke up only on a new moon. One day a month awake, the rest asleep, never growing old or rotting or changing. That’s why the men’s understanding of time in the woods was short, but the passage of time in the world was long.

Thank fuck that didn’t happen to me.

Like Sleeping Beauty. I snort softly and clamp my hand over my mouth. Hah. Heh. Like the Brothers Grimm version? Yep. Check. Georgia was right. My life is a fairy tale, but it comes with a much happier ending. Even though Marlowe sort of … like the original Sleeping Beauty where … Never mind.

Life is messy. My goal is to keep moving forward. Because in real life, happily-ever-after isn’t a still frame. It’s a song that keeps playing long after the last page is turned.

“Are you alive?” Georgia asks me, waving her hand in front of my face. “Three fucking paragraphs of introspective bullshit, and who cares? You’re home. Everyone is okay. The world wasn’t destroyed by the Hag Wytch. However it happened, it worked out. Stop overthinking it.”

“Four,” I whisper, trying not to laugh. “It was four fucking paragraphs of bullshit!” I yell, and she rolls her eyes at me. I tilt my head back, cool fog kissing my cheeks. Above us, redwoods loom and forest spirits wave. I wave back.

Across the street, the bell at the elementary school rings.

Next on my list: make nice with the Waverleys, and finally meet up with my siblings.

Hag Wytch, check. Curse, check. Reunited at last, check.

Checkmate.