Unblessed Witch (Phases of the Moon #4)

Epilogue 1

EPILOGUE 1

OSBORN

Two years later…

“I promise it won’t be too bad,” Deva said with a little amused smile. She was curled up in the armchair of the treasure room that held the collectibles that the Nyx family had acquired over the past few centuries. Grim’s estate never failed to interest me, and I hoped that one day we would have as many interesting artifacts in our own home.

Considering the amount of boxes it had taken to move our belongings from campus and back to the estate, I had a feeling we were well on our way.

Turning toward her, I knelt down and put my hands on either side of her hips. “I hear you, starlight, but there’s a lot I’d rather be doing than socializing with these fuckers.”

“ Fuckers who care a lot about us,” Deva pointed out, tilting her head and running a hand through my hair. “It’s a graduation party, not a death sentence.”

“I think I would prefer that,” I muttered. I didn’t love attention on me as it was, let alone in a celebratory manner.

Deva laughed, and I found myself captivated by her smile. While my rage may have quieted somewhat in the past couple years at DIA, something settling in me at Deva’s mere presence, I could never suppress my surprise at the way my starlight affected me. Just her smile was enough to make me hard, and I put my head down to take a deep breath.

“Oz.”

I caught her hand as she smoothed it through my hair once more, brushing my lips over her ring. Well, rings . But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? I knew what this graduation party was actually about.

“This is less of a graduation party and more of a punishment,” I complained. “The parents”—the mothers, more specifically—“are pissed at us.”

“Well, we sort of knew that would happen,” Deva sighed. The six of us had eloped days after graduation, ruining the parents’ plans for a big wedding. So now we were pretty much being forced to endure as many events as they wanted—including a big wedding.

“You’re already our wife,” I argued as if we hadn’t already been through this multiple times.

“My favorite title,” Deva agreed. “We’ll get a break soon.”

She was right, and I was looking forward to our honeymoon. Traveling outside of Carmina was one experience Deva and I hadn’t had compared to the others, so I was looking forward to exploring the many territories of this realm and crossing into a different plane to visit Hell.

“I know.” I stood up and brought her up with me, tilting her jaw back and kissing her lightly. “But that doesn’t make the wedding shit any easier.”

“I mean, I get to wear a black dress, so I’m not all that upset,” she mused. “It matches my necklace.”

I’d improved the necklace in the past couple of years, adding handcrafted moonstone beads between the pieces of bone. “I love seeing my mark on you,” I murmured, rubbing my thumb over one of the bones.

“And I love having it on me.” She winked before pulling away. “Come on, we need to grab the others.”

I grunted and followed after her, noticing that the dress she wore was particularly short. Something I both loved and hated.

The black sundress swung with each step she took, highlighting the length of her legs. I wanted to bend Deva over the table we passed and push up that damn dress so I could bury my mouth against her pussy. I wanted to feel her legs wrapped around me as I slid into her tight warmth. Both would be fucking perfect.

It was going to be hell watching her walk around all night in the thing, but at the same time I loved seeing her in it. I loved the confidence she carried herself with.

“There you two are,” Cage called out from down the hall. “Why the fuck do you look so upset, Oz?”

“He’s mad about having to go to the party,” Deva said, and Cage nodded in understanding.

“Think about it this way—we only have to make it through a wedding after our trip, and then our house should be ready. So only a few more months , at most, before we get some space.”

That did make me feel a bit better, especially since I knew the wait for our estate would be worth it.

We had decided to reside outside of Carmina’s city boundaries, but we would still be close. Only a few miles outside of the urban area in a large section of open acreage, our home was being built from the ruins of a castle that hadn’t been in use for a few hundred years, reviving it to its former glory. Something that was fairly easy, my random knowledge of Carmina’s history finally coming in handy.

“I’m just glad we’ll have our own space,” Deva admitted, “and the commute won’t be too bad.” Something that was very important to Deva.

I had never understood what I wanted to do with my life outside of being with Deva, but our woman hadn’t faced the same issue. After only a few months of a regular schedule at DIA, she had decided exactly what she wanted to do when we graduated.

Teaching.

There had never been a formal educational system for children in the territory, private tutors being the only way to prepare for life or a higher institute of learning. Because of that, the non-wealthy stayed uneducated and the wealthy continued to flourish. One of Deva’s first ideas, approved immediately by the Society of Shadows, was the creation of a territory-run school.

Not only a school, but a place where children who didn’t have families could live year-round, which would be especially helpful for those recovering from Astaroth’s brainwashing.

A place that even I would be teaching at, deciding to make use of all this information in my head. It was also probably a good idea to keep me occupied to some extent, or else this obsession with Deva would only grow more feral.

As if I had the ability to stop it.

Her idea had started a cascading effect that had begun to change Carmina as a whole, the entire society making a massive shift over the course of the past two years. While it was still a work in progress, praise for the accomplishment landed heavily on Deva…and maybe slightly on us as well.

Deva had been the one to push for a formal structure of government and expansion of infrastructure, including public services and large housing complexes. That effort was being led by Cage’s family, alongside some representatives of small communities that had existed in Carmina before the war.

Deva had been the one to advocate for the development of Astaroth’s old land, building a thriving community that focused mainly on farming and rural development. One that Alek had been overseeing, having used his father’s extensive wealth—after he had died under ‘mysterious’ circumstances—to fund the endeavor.

Deva had been the one to suggest the creation of a military and trade institution for people who didn’t want to attend DIA. Something that Lazaro and his family were working on expanding, the creation of large-scale institutions appealing to him.

Deva had even been the one to suggest the demolition of old and the creation of new commercial buildings, as well as startup grants for small businesses. From restaurants to centers of journalism, the development of Carmina rapidly turned into something that none of us could have expected.

Last but not least, Deva had been the one to push for a switch in nomenclature for ‘unblessed’ witches to be called ‘naturalistic’ witches. It was something I’d never thought about, but it certainly was the first step to changing the public’s perception of us. It would take some time to catch on, but already many texts were being updated, and some of the more formal lines of journalism had made the decision to adapt their language.

The gothic city that had once been in ruins was turning into a metropolis of success. All because of Deva—my starlight.

Needless to say, with how busy we’d been between school and our new responsibilities, we had little time to relax. This honeymoon was exactly what we needed, especially for Deva. Her mind was always moving so incredibly fast, and while she loved the societal changes taking place, it didn’t mean she didn’t need a break.

“You good?” Cage asked as I was pulled from my thoughts.

“Yeah, just trapped in my head.”

Over the course of the past few years, probably because of my starlight, I had become increasingly open about my feelings with the others. Even if I wanted to kill all of them at least once a fucking day. Especially when they stole my starlight away for a bit.

But I wouldn’t because I knew that would upset Deva.

My lips pressed up as we walked down the stairs towards the large dining hall where the party was being held, thinking about a fight the two of us had gotten into only six months ago. Probably one of the only big fights we had legitimately experienced, and thinking back on it, I felt stupid but also somewhat amused. It was less about the fight and more about how busy we’d been.

“Starlight.” A low rumble caught in my throat. “Don’t.”

Deva narrowed her eyes on me as she slipped on her jacket and strode toward the door. Grimshaw chuckled, and I narrowed my eyes at him as I tugged on my own jacket, following after her.

“Oz, you are not stopping me,” she bit out.

“I said I would do it.” I caught her hand and tugged her to a stop, and she melted into my body despite the scowl on her face.

“But I want to do it,” she growled, the sound almost cute as she stared up at me. Snow was sprinkling the ground around us, and I found myself loving the angry look on her face purely because it was so damn beautiful. At the same time, I hated that she was mad at me.

“You don’t need to do it—I can get us dinner!” Something I had already told her several times now.

“No, you can’t.” She tugged her body away from me and continued to walk toward the dining hall. “You are busy — you’ve been busy all week. Too busy to eat dinner with us, too busy to come to bed. Busy, busy, busy. So don’t worry, Oz. I’ve got it.”

Shit.

Snatching her around the waist, I backed her up against the wall of the corridor and clasped her jaw, forcing her to look up at me. My stomach dropped at the tears in her eyes. “Is that why you’re mad at me?”

Her only response was to stare up at me, looking sad and angry enough that I felt like a piece of shit. I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead to hers. That made fucking sense. I had been busy this week, caught up in a new spell I’d been developing. Specifically one that would help with the winter season swinging around. I’d noticed that she got a cold at least once or twice a year, so I was trying to prepare.

“It’s fine, I get working on stuff ? —”

Interrupting her, I spoke softly. “No, it’s not fine. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on. I was trying to figure out a preventive health potion for this winter since you always get sick. Turns out there aren’t any, only ones to fix when you’re already sick. So I’ve been trying to create my own. But since I’m developing it mainly for you, I’ve been doing some extra testing to ensure it doesn’t have any side effects. I didn’t mean to act like a bastard and miss out on important shit. I’m sorry, starlight.”

“Oh,” Deva whispered. “I didn’t realize that’s what you were working on. That’s really sweet.”

“I should have told you,” I grunted and shook my head. “Now come on. Let’s get some food and I’ll show you what I’ve got so far.”

I did get her point, because whenever she was particularly busy, I found myself in a bad fucking mood. I had never meant to miss dinner, but sometimes I got obsessively focused on shit—especially when it came to her health.

“Finally,” Grimshaw called out as we drew nearer. “I thought you were going to make us face this nonsense alone.”

“Someone was trying to avoid it,” Cage said, throwing his thumb back at me. It was different for the others—they had families to see here, and while we had created our own family, there was a sense of loneliness that could seep in. Alek had admitted to feeling it as well.

“We don’t have to stay for long,” Lazaro said as we pushed through the door into the massive graduation party being held inside the hall. Candles floated along the ceiling, all six of our names displayed on banners across the walls near a message of ‘congratulations.’ Several long tables of food decorated with balloons filled the space not taken up by the dance floor, and the music never paused as all eyes turned to us.

There was no way we were getting out of this.

“Shit,” Alek grunted, my gaze following his to a table of presents. There was a lot I could handle, but gift giving wasn’t something I was comfortable with. I understood the sentiment, but even on my damn birthday I struggled. Deva had somehow managed to find a way to give me presents without making it a big deal, but she was the only one, and I still didn’t handle it well.

The last thing I wanted to do was come off as an asshole when I didn’t say the correct thing in response to someone giving me a gift. Hopefully most of them would be for Deva.

“Okay, game plan,” Deva whispered. “We do our rounds, say hi to everyone, thank the parents— grab some food —and then get out. We have to grab food though.”

“I have a feeling we won’t get off that easy. They invited everyone,” Grimshaw said on a long sigh.

I grunted as I tugged Deva back into my arms, the others meeting the parents that were walking toward us. Nipping her ear, my voice was rough as I warned, “I’m punishing you for forcing me to go to this.”

Deva turned in my arms and smiled up at me. “Oh no …that sounds horrible. Please don’t.”

Chuckling, I let her go as I tried to put on a brave face. It was going to be a long night, but that was fine—I knew exactly what I would spend my time doing: imagining all the things I would do to Deva the minute I got her alone.