Ivy blinked, then busted a gut laughing. “That was the first real conversation we’d had since your arrival. I remember June having the most embarrassing incident in the middle of the hallway for all to see. What did you say to her when we walked by?”
“Who's a shitty witch now?” Rowena giggled, leaving Ivy in stitches. “It was so terrible of me, but I wasn't going to let June talk bad about you, and I'm certainly not going to tolerate you talking bad about yourself now.
“So, you're not one hundred percent witch. What the hell does that matter? Neither is Astrid, and yeah, her parents look completely normal, but I’m not convinced that Chaos itself didn’t birth Juliet.
“You have Fae relatives, but they're not your family. Their blood doesn't define who you are. You're my sister, my friend, and this is our home.”
Ivy leaned over and met Rowena in a tight hug. “I love you, too.”
“We're strong together. Don't forget.”
“I won't.”
“Good. I'm craving peach cobbler tonight. Let's go pick some fruit from the orchard.”
The peach harvest yielded over fifty pounds of fruit, half of it ripe and ready to eat. There were apples too, plums, the berry bushes full to bursting.
Rowena wound up calling the whole coven out to pick fruit. Juliet brought music, Astrid brought sun hats, and they had a little harvest party. There was nothing better than eating sun-warmed fruit fresh off the tree.
The summer solstice was just around the corner, a time of year when Ivy had always felt most centered and happy. The summer solstice was the perfect time for fairy magic, which might explain a few things, such as why the ritual to call in the Goddess always felt so natural and powerful to her during that time.
When Uriah finally came to get her, he found Ivy in the kitchen surrounded by piles of fruit. They stayed to have dinner with the coven, and in a show of defiance for anyone who might be watching them, Rowena insisted on bringing the dining room table out into the back yard, draping it with gauzy white sheets.
The lions who guarded them were invited to join in, drinking sweet peach tea, nibbling on peach salad, apples drizzled in honey and wrapped in prosciutto, and pork chops marinated in blackberry vinaigrette. A summer feast.
Ivy sat at the table with her head resting on Uriah’s shoulder, looking around at the laughing faces of her coven sisters. This was her family, and she belonged here.
*****
At home, Uriah told her neither he nor the lions had been able to pick up the scent of anything irregular in the forest. They'd patrolled both properties and hadn't found so much as a scuff in the dirt to lead them to whoever had been right there on the edge of the protective boundary.
Ivy stood in the living room, chewing on her thumbnail as she stared out into the peaceful landscape of the back yard. So much beauty. Ivy could feel the hum of life, a soft melody that resonated with unbelievable power.
She could sense the birds that nested in the trees; the roots of those trees dug deep down into the soil, the rush of water spilling over the rocky riverbed. The decaying leaves that enriched the soil, the insects churning it all up, little bunnies and lizards, fish and frogs. She could feel the flowing life force of it all, right there beyond the glass.
“Ivy?” Her eyes fell shut, the wild energy of his bear practically glowed golden behind her closed lids. His hands smoothed over her shoulders, his lips cruised across the nape of her neck, drawing her back against him. “You alright?”
She nodded, letting him take her weight. “I am.”
“Something on your mind?” He rubbed his cheek against hers, sharing the view with her.
“I can feel myself getting stronger. The magic in me coming up like a flower through the snow, and I think... no, I know I can help make the house safer.”
“How?”
“I mentioned it this morning. A ritual I learned in school that's basically a claiming of the land.”
Uriah gave a rumbly sound of interest, his hand sliding up under her shirt to cup her breast, his thumb sliding back and forth over her hardening nipple. “A claiming, huh? I would love to participate.”
A breathless laugh left her, arousal flooding her system, dampening her panties. “We'll be getting to that. Sex is definitely part of the equation if I have your permission.”
“Permission for what, exactly?”
“To permeate the ground with my magic. To claim it and make it mine.”
“It is yours, honey,” he told her easily, his fingertips swirling circles over her breast, the scrape of his fingernails over the lace added another layer of erotic sensation.
Ivy's lashes fluttered as she tried to focus. “What's mine?”
“This house, the property, me. It's all yours. Do whatever will make you feel safe and tell me what I can do to help.”
Her heart skipped a beat, his answer falling easily, earnestly from his lips. Ivy turned around and went up on her toes to kiss him, tasting the sweetness of honey and peaches on his tongue.
“Get naked, come outside with me, and do what I say.”
His eyes flashed yellow in the low light, his chest vibrating against hers with a hungry growl. He stripped in record time, taking a step back to watch her slip out of her skirt, her tank, bra, and panties.
Uriah followed with barely a tug when she took his hand and led him out into the grass. She found the spot that felt right and sent a thought down through the soles of her feet, encouraging a thick bed of moss to grow, loving the look of hungry anticipation that twisted Uriah's handsome face into a stark mask of excitement and desire.
Ivy walked a slow circle around him, running her hands over his body, admiring the strength of his muscles and the tight mounds of his ass. He stood perfectly still, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, trembling sporadically as he struggled to give her control.
“Sex magic is some of the most potent there is. Do you know why?”
Uriah made a sound deep in his throat, the muscles in his back flexing as she ran her fingertips down his spine, flirting around the dimpled indentations just above his butt.
“Not a damn clue. Why?”
Ivy smiled at the rich, husky timbre of his voice, touching a kiss to his shoulder as she stepped closer. Pressing herself against his back, closing her eyes to better absorb the heat of his skin, she wrapped her hand around the thickness of his cock.
She could already feel the power rise between them as he shuddered and hissed, his ass cheeks clenching against her belly as she stroked him from root to tip, swirling her thumb in the silky drop of fluid leaking from the tiny slit.
“Because, a single teaspoon of seed has the energy of sixty-thousand people. It's why women feel so energized after sex, and men so easily fall asleep.” Uriah grunted when she gently squeezed, another tremor rocking his enormously powerful body.
“In ancient times, fertility rites were used to gather power to feed the coming harvest. Sometimes, witches used the magic they raised during sacred unions to consecrate a piece of ground and turned the land into a sanctuary for their people. From what I recall, it's not a complicated spell. I think you'll enjoy it.”
“Already am,” he bit out, a fine sheen of sweat breaking out on his skin while she worked him.
“Good.” Keeping her hold on him, Ivy slid back around to his front, brushing kisses across the hard muscles of his chest, flattening her tongue across the flat disks of his nipples, suckling gently, feeling his cock jump in her hand. “All you have to do is stand here. I'll do all the work. Hold out as long as you can and let the energy build.”