"I grabbed a ton of them on my last trip to Earth." She popped open the bag with a satisfied smile. "They might be a bit out of date by now, but they still taste good."
I ate a couple chips, but all it did was make me nostalgic for home. "You make the magic look so easy."
She took the bag back from me. "I've been doing magic since I could walk, and I have a lot more years on you too."
"I don't have years to learn." I took another sip of water and then started getting up. "I need to get back to work."
Larkin muttered a few words and a chain of moonlight wrapped around me and dragged me back down. "Sit. Your break's not over yet."
I huffed in frustration. "Am I in trouble?"
Larkin laughed. “Not at all. I just hoped that relaxing a bit might make the spell come easier to you. You're so focused on doing it right that you're getting in your own way. But we're not going to think about magic for a while, all right?”
"Fine." I leaned back and tried to relax. I wasn't sure what we could talk about that would take my mind off of my growing frustration with my progress, but I was open to anything right now, no matter how counter-intuitive it seemed.
"You do realize there's no real rush," Larkin said. "You can spend years here learning everything you can and then go back to the exact minute we took you. They won't even know you were gone."
"They won't, but I will." A lump formed in my throat as I thought of that moment when I'd held Kaden for the last time. "Every day without Kaden is torture. I need to get back to him."
Larkin sat up straighter. “Your voice gets softer when you talk about him. Do you love him? Even though he's not your mate?”
"Yes," I said without hesitation. I never got a chance to tell him, and I prayed I'd be able to change that soon. I'd been scared to say it out loud, but now the thought of losing him forever made my chest ache. I couldn't imagine a future without Kaden in it at this point. "As far as I'm concerned, he's my true mate, and I know he feels the same. He named me the alpha female of the Ophiuchus pack.”
“Wow,” Larkin said, practically going starry-eyed. “That's so romantic. I wish I had someone like that."
"You will," I said.
"Not as long as I'm stuck here," she muttered, before turning to me, her cheeks rosy. "I bet Kaden's good in bed too. All the guys in romance novels are."
"Um..." I looked over at her, raising my eyebrows. "You do realize romance novels aren't real, right?"
"Yes, of course." Her face fell. "But they're all I have to go off of. I've never even been in a relationship. Or had sex.”
"Never?" I opened my mouth to ask her why, but closed it just as quickly. One look at her and it was obvious why. “I'm sorry."
She kicked at the sand in front of her. "Any decent man would feel weird about sleeping with me since I still look like a kid, and it's not like there are a ton of available men around here anyway. Luckily I have a whole house full of books to keep me company." She laughed it off, but I could see how much it hurt her.
My heart broke for her, and I grew angry at the Sun Witches all over again. This was their fault—if they hadn't killed Larkin's parents she wouldn't have been forced to hide here as a child, cursed to never age.
She crumpled up the empty bag of chips. "Come on, break time's over."
She started to get up, but I grabbed her arm. “When I go back to Earth, you should come too."
Her eyes widened, making her look the age of her body, but then she shook her head. "You know I can't. It's too dangerous out there for me. For all of us. Until the Sun Witches are defeated, nowhere on Earth is safe for us."
“That's why you're training me, isn't it?” I grinned at her, trying to get that sad, defeated look out of her eyes. “I'll protect you."
Larkin still didn't look convinced, but she gave me a half-hearted smile as she stood. “Better get back to it then. You're not going to be protecting anyone if you can't make a proper moonbeam bolt."
I jumped up and shook my limbs out, feeling a little better after all. Maybe Larkin had been right about taking a break. Besides, now I had even more motivation—I had to save my cousin too.
That night, Celeste invited some of the other witches over for dinner. They spilled into the house with laughter and warmth, bringing various dishes ranging from green bean casseroles to stuffed grape leaves to fruit pies. Each one of them gave me a hug like I was a member of their family, and I diligently tried to remember names—Mariel, who had given me the scarf in town and had the warmest smile; Elsa and Kena, both covered in cat hair, their arms linked together the entire night; Erik, one of the few male witches I'd seen, along with his wife, Patricia, who brought me tea they'd made themselves; and Rowena, known as the oldest witch in Lunatera, with paper-thin skin and eyes that shone with wisdom. To my surprise, Killian came too, and though my wolf kept wanting to growl at him, he only offered me a polite smile that showed only the tips of his fangs.
“You know, you're the first visitor we've had in a long time," he said as we all sat down to eat. "A decade, at least.”
"How long have you all been here?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.
"Some of us have been here for centuries," Mariel said, with a nod to Rowena.
"Aye, I've been here long enough to forget what Earth is like," the elderly woman said with a slow chuckle.
"Most of us came here in 1861," Patricia explained. "That's when Celeste decided it would be safer for Moon Witches to live here than on Earth."
I glanced between all of them, trying to imagine how they'd survived here for over one hundred fifty years without losing their minds. "What happened?"
"The Sun Witches attacked us during one of our coven meetings," Elsa said. "They slaughtered so many of our people..." Her voice faded and she shook her head, while Kena wrapped an arm around her.
"That's when most of the men were killed," Patricia said, clasping onto Erik's hand. "Including Celeste's husband."
My eyes jerked back to Celeste's face. She'd had a husband?
Celeste looked down at her food, and when she spoke her words were laced with pain. "The Sun Witches had been hunting us for some time, and though we tried to fight back, I knew the only way we'd survive was if we went into hiding."
"She saved us," Mariel said, raising her glass of wine in a salute. "And we've been safe here ever since."
I swallowed my bite of food and asked, "How do you stay sane?"
Larkin laughed. "Hobbies. Lots and lots of hobbies."
Then they each told me all about their hobbies—baking, painting, making candles, embroidery, learning new languages, and so many others. They all seemed happy on the surface, but I sensed deep pain and longing inside all of them.
"And you?" I asked, turning to Killian, who had been quiet all this time. "How did a vampire end up here?"
"I fell in love," he said with a charming smile as he swirled his wine. "How else?"