“Are you going to marry me or what?” he snapped.

  My mouth worked silently for a second, surprised he wasn’t letting the joke drop. Then I snorted and reached for my mostly empty glass. “Well, when you put it that way…”

  Maverick made a little sound of frustration at the back of his throat, almost a growl. “I’m being serious.”

  I looked at him, really looked at him, and tried to read his frown lines.

  “Look,” he continued. “The way I see it—marrying me is the only real way out of your predicament. If you’re already married, then Prince Reynard has no hold on you, right?”

  “I mean… yeah, I guess that’s technically true.”

  “Okay, so there you go.”

  I frowned at him. “But… you seem to be conveniently forgetting the part where you and I would be married, Maverick.”

  He shrugged. “So what? We’re already friends and it’s not like I’m planning on marrying anyone else… ever.”

  “Then you’re serious?”

  He frowned at me. “How many more times do I need to say it?”

  “I need to understand a few things first… if you and I are married—”

  “If we’re talking in title only and not in reality, I’m willing to help you out.”

  “Then you wouldn’t… expect anything of or from me?”

  He shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, we’d just continue living the way we have been, only we’d be married on paper. End of story.”

  “So… the ‘wifely duty’ parts,” I started, holding up my fingers in air quotes.

  He smirked. “Are you telling me you want to have sex with me, Taliyah?”

  I felt myself blushing all the way down to my toes. “No, I’m definitely not.”

  “Well, that’s a disappointment but the answer is: no, I wouldn’t expect anything like that from you. Like I said: we’d be married on paper only. Now, if you wanted to add tumbling in the sheets to the deal, I’m all ears.”

  I looked at him and rolled my eyes. “And I wouldn’t have to live with you?”

  He looked at me and frowned even more deeply. “God, no.”

  That was a relief. I set my glass back on the bar a little too carefully, and the coldly logical part of my brain kicked in. “You’re a warlock,” I pointed out calmly. “Doesn’t your culture kind of frown on the idea of marriage?”

  “My culture also doesn’t give two shits about me. Warlocks are nothing in the eyes of witches.”

  “And your coven?”

  “Don’t abide by the same restrictions as other covens, hence why I’m a member in the first place. We’ll get no issues from them.”

  I nodded. “Okay, so broaching the most obvious issue to this plan: where in the world would we ever find someone to marry us at this time of night?”

  He waved the last point off with a negligent flip of his wrist. “We don’t need to be married by the state of Oregon for it to be a valid marriage.”

  “We don’t?”

  He shook his head. “Have you ever heard of handfasting?”

  “It sounds like some sort of new diet fad.”

  He raised a brow at me. “I’ll take that as a no.” Then he smirked as he shook his head. “Handfasting is the pagan version of marriage, and once the vows are said to each other, the marriage is binding. It might even have more significance in the magical world than a legal marriage would.”

  I thought about it. I really did. But then I shook my head. “I don’t want you binding yourself to me out of pity, Maverick. And saving someone from their own desperate situation is no motive for marriage.”

  I tried to make the last part into something of a joke, offering him a crooked smile. From the way his brows pulled down over his eyes, and his mouth pressed flat, I didn’t succeed.

  His hand tightened on mine. “It’s not pity, Taliyah. You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a friend. I have a family now, and a coven, but that’s different.”

  “How is that different?”

  “Because I bring something to them—power. They need me and I need them. With you—you’re just there.”

  “Thanks for that,” I muttered.

  “That’s not what I meant. I mean—it’s not like we benefit from being friends. We’re friends just because.”

  I cocked my head to the side before I shook it. “That sounds nice and all, but it’s not true. I have benefited from our friendship. You’ve helped me with supernatural creatures that are way above my pay scale.”

  “That’s work. I’m talking about us as friends. We’re friends because we… well, we just are. It’s not like we’ve become friends because it’s of benefit to either of us.”

  “I mean… I guess that’s true. I guess we’re both just miserable and misery loves company.”

  He chuckled. “Something like that.”

  “So?”

  He breathed in deeply. “So…” His eyes were dark, some emotion in them that I couldn’t name. He raked a hand back through his hair, a gesture I’d never seen him make before. “I know what it’s like, to be on the outside looking in,” he said, low and earnest. More serious than I’d ever seen him. “I know what it feels like to be an outlier, a freak. You shouldn’t have to leave the Hollow to marry a fucking prince or become someone you don’t want to be.”

  From what he’d let slip while we were out drinking together one occasion, Maverick’s childhood had been a patchwork cobbled together out of neglect, disdain, and abandonment. It wasn’t easy for a warlock growing up in a coven of witches. No doubt, that was exactly the why he was the way he was now—someone who didn’t form attachments easily. I guessed I could say the same of myself.

  But regarding this subject, I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure I could squeeze the words out even if I knew what they were. There was a lump of tangled emotions knotted up in my throat, and it was painful to swallow around it.

  “Mav,” I started.

  And there was something in his gaze then that warmed—like he liked the fact that I’d just called him by a shortened version of his name. For myself, I was surprised, because I’d never called him ‘Mav’ before.

  “Look,” he said, leaning forward like he was trying to convince me. “Rituals like this tend to lend themselves to… permanence. If you pledge yourself to me, as Taliyah, before you come into your full power, then there’s a chance the oath will help you hold on to yourself.”

  I blinked, confused. I really didn’t understand magic. “What do you mean?” My voice was barely more than a hoarse whisper and my heart was pounding in my throat, and I was fairly sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Mav, er Maverick, had moved within kissing distance to me.

  He paused, like he was trying to find the right words. “You were worried that when the power came to you, that when it claimed you, Taliyah might be wiped out in favor of Olwen. But if I pledge myself in rites to Taliyah, and not to Olwen, then that may anchor the part of you that’s… well, you. Because I can’t be pledged to Taliyah if there’s only Olwen, get it?”

  “Got it.”

  He nodded. “All I’m saying is there’s a chance that me pledging myself to you would help to prevent you from losing yourself and I think we both like Taliyah… Tally,” he grinned at me. “More than we like Olwen.”

  I frowned at him. “You’ve never even met Olwen.”

  “Right, but I’ve met Tally and I’m pretty partial to her.”

  I laughed at that all the while wondering if what he was saying could really work. Was it possible? Could it really be possible? Because if it were possible, it was the best answer to this shit storm I was facing.

  “If we try, and the rites don’t work,” Maverick continued. “Then we’ll know you’re meant to marry Jerkoff Reynard. But isn’t it worth an attempt to get out of it?”

  “Jerkoff Reynard,” I laughed. “I think he’s earned a new nickname.”

  Maverick smiled as he then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Just, consider it. Because as far as I can see, it’s the only way out.”

  I stared down at our joined hands, only now realizing he was still holding my hand. All the while, my thoughts were racing. Maverick’s hands were so big, his fingers almost entirely swallowed up my hand. I tried to focus, to really think about what he’d just offered, but it seemed my thoughts were just transfixed by my hand in his. That was probably just the alcohol speaking...

  I hated to admit it, even to myself, but I couldn’t quite ignore the little frisson of excitement at the idea of it. Marriage seemed like such a huge step, and something I should have had more time to consider, especially with how absolutely pear-shaped my last trip down the aisle ended up.

  Yet Maverick wasn’t Jonathon. Maverick was… well, Maverick. And even though I didn’t know him nearly as well as I should to agree to a proposition like this, I also only had a few hours left before life as I knew it ceased to be. Furthermore, I wouldn’t be able to dodge the increasingly irritated and irritating Fae Prince, otherwise known as Jerkoff Reynard, forever. Besides, it wasn’t like Maverick said we’d really be married. It was a true marriage of convenience—one in title only. I mean, it wouldn’t even be a true ceremony! Just a pagan ritual and I seriously doubted the government would even consider us married. But the main point was—Maverick was right—this was the only way I could escape that damned marriage to Fox.

  And that’s what cinched it for me. Because, at the end of the day, I didn’t want to leave Haven Hollow. I didn’t want to change more than I already had. I didn’t want to be Olwen, Princess of the Fae. I wanted to stay true to the person I was—Taliyah.

  I could feel the minutes ticking down in my head, like a trap waiting to spring shut on me. It was now or never time, and I had to admit, the prospect of being able to stay myself and to remain in the Hollow, that was worth taking almost any chance. And it wasn’t like Maverick was a fate worse than death. The single date we’d managed to go on had been… nice.

  We could always sort the rest out later. We’d actually have time for later if we could pull this off. Not to mention the fact that I’d absolutely love to see the look on Fox Aspen’s face when I told him I was already married.

  I turned my hand in Maverick’s so I could squeeze his fingers as I looked up at him and the hopeful expression on his face.

  “This might just be the alcohol talking,” I started slowly. “But… I’ll marry you.”

  Maverick’s answering grin brought a reluctant one to my face.

  Chapter Three

  My nerves were jangling with an anxious energy that made me want to run all the way home, but I walked beside Maverick as he led me to his car in the Half-Moon’s parking lot.

  As to Maverick and the fact that he was driving, ordinarily I would have insisted I drive my police-issued Ford, but I couldn’t shake the nagging doubt that Prince Reynard would be lurking somewhere nearby, ready to ambush me and drag me to the altar.

  Paranoid? Maybe. But that didn’t mean I was wrong.

  So Maverick’s car it was—a car which happened to be a rusted out BMW from the 1980s. He opened the passenger door for me and made sure I was settled before going around to the driver’s side. Normally, it would have ticked me off, that over-the-top chivalry thing. But with Fox’s shadow hanging over my thoughts, it was actually a little comforting to have Maverick between me and the dark parking lot. I wasn’t entirely sure just how powerful Maverick was, though by the way the rest of the local coven acted around him, he was pretty strong. Possibly even strong enough to make a Faerie Prince rethink a few things, and stay away from me. Or so I hoped.

  At the sound of a squawk I glanced into the back seat and found a cage with an owl in it. It took me a second to recognize the owl as Maverick’s familiar, Isis.

  “So you just drive your familiar around?” I asked once Maverick had seated himself behind the wheel.

  “She likes going in the car,” he answered with a shrug.

  “Speaking of the car,” I started as I tried not to smirk. “This one looks older than you,” I laughed as I glanced around the rusted-out heap. There were splits in the leather upholstery and the lining on the ceiling was completely pooling in the back seat.

  “I made a deal with myself that I’d drive it until it couldn’t drive anymore.”

  I looked over at him and laughed. “It looks like it’s on borrowed time.”

  He downshifted and chuckled. “Are you dogging my ride, Tally?”

  “Let’s just say I think a horse and buggy would be preferable.”

  The ride was an easy one. But then, Maverick had probably been driving since cars were invented, and wasn’t that a trip to think about? Maybe people in the Hollow were used to the idea of living for a few centuries, but I was new to it all, and thinking about such things still broke my brain a little from time to time.

  I tipped my head against the window and closed my eyes, trying not to think about anything in particular before my own nerves caused the death of me. For the first time ever, I didn’t feel safe. Instead, I felt like Fox or Janara, the bitch who had been trying to kill me since I was born, was lurking behind every dark tree. But Janara was still stuck inside the faerie ring in the middle of the woods. She’d come close to escaping last month when Lady Evergreen and her minions had tried to free Janara but, luckily, we’d been able to put a stop to that.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Maverick said and in the otherwise quiet stillness of the air, his voice sounded booming.

  I searched for a plausible answer. “Where are we going?” I asked, when it dawned on me that I had no idea where he was taking me.

  “Why don’t you leave the driving to me and just try to get out of that head of yours?”

  Normally, that sort of answer would have driven me straight up a wall. I would’ve asked not only where we were going, but also the route we’d be taking to get there. But then, years as a cop and now as a Chief of Police had left me with a few control issues. Right then though, I was going to let myself sink back into the disintegrating upholstery and just trust Maverick. He said he was going to help me, and he’d never let me down before.

  It was a lot shorter of a drive than I expected. I’d figured we were headed to a neighboring town, somewhere we could find some kind of new-age-y priestess type, someone in a long peasant skirt who would know whatever the heck it meant when a planet was in retrograde. Instead, we pulled up outside Lorcan Rowe’s house. Or one of his houses. Apparently he owned most of the real estate in Haven Hollow.

  The strange vampire dentist seemed like an odd choice for someone to marry us. Maverick wasn’t thinking about doing some kind of weird blood bond, was he? Because I definitely wasn’t about sharing bodily fluids with him.

  At that thought, I felt my cheeks heat up and forced myself to think about something else.

  “We have arrived,” he said.

  I frowned, squinting through the dark up at the house. “What are we doing here?”

  Maverick, the jerk, just smirked at me. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  I rolled my eyes, too keyed up for our usual banter. “This needs to be quick. Marty is watching the boys and he’s waiting for me to get home.”

  “This is important, Tally,” he said, his expression fading back into more serious lines. “Tell Marty you got called to an emergency and you’ll be back as soon as you can. It isn’t even really a lie.”

  I took a deep breath, but did as he asked. Well, I sent a text anyway. I didn’t want to risk calling and waking the boys if they were, by some miracle, asleep. It seemed Marty was as much a kid as they were and on the occasions he’d watched them when I had to work late, I came home and found they were all awake playing video games.

  While my fingers flew over the keys, trying to keep the message short, but not too brusque, Maverick came around to open my door for me. He stood between me and the night as I got out of the car, and I was so nervous, I didn’t even call him on it.

  “What about Isis?” I asked.

  “What about her?”

  “Aren’t you going to bring her in?”

  He shook his head. “She likes the car, remember?”

  I didn’t respond but just allowed him to close the door behind me and then followed him towards Lorcan’s house. The snow creaked under Maverick’s boots as we walked up the walkway to the house and mounted the stairs to the front porch. My own boots didn’t crunch the snow. In fact, I wasn’t even sure that my feet sank into the snow, I just sort of glided across the top of it, which I was definitely not noticing. And if I did notice it, I was decidedly NOT going to think about it.

  Maverick took hold of the froofy little bronze door knocker and gave it two solid raps. We waited a couple minutes, but there was no answer.

  It was possible Lorcan wasn’t home, but at least I knew he wasn’t asleep. Lorcan Rowe was haven Hollow’s resident vampire, and wasn’t that a hell of a thing? When I’d been told what he was, and that he ate people, I kind of wanted to book him just on principle. But everyone had assured me that Lorcan didn’t kill to eat, and that he, in fact, had people who volunteered to give blood, like he was some night-stalking version of the Red Cross or something. Apparently most recently he only fed from Wanda. Even so, he still made me uneasy, but I tried to ignore the feeling. As far as I knew, he wasn’t hurting anyone, and arresting someone just based on their species was almost certainly profiling, anyway.

  When Maverick’s second attempt to knock didn’t get a response within a couple minutes, I lifted my fist and gave three sharp raps with my knuckles, which for some reason made him chuckle.

  I raised an eyebrow at him, not quite sure what I’d done that was so funny.

  He shook his head. “You knock like a cop.”

  I looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Well, obviously.”

  My attempt at knocking didn’t work any better than his had, though. When I stepped forward to try again, Maverick shook his head. He lifted the knocker again, but this time, little red sparks of energy crackled from his fingers and over the bronze. When he let the knocker fall, a hollow boom rang through the entire house, so loud that the porch underneath our feet trembled.