Page 28 of First Ritual

I tilted my head. “Did I touch a nerve?”

She swigged at her beer. “Maybe a little. Sorry. You’ll hear soon enough, so I may as well tell you before people decide to gossip.” She took another swig. “I used to be a drug dealer.”

Laughter burst from my lips. Mother be, but I loved it when unexpected things fell from people’s mouths. I wiped tears from my eyes. “I did not see that coming. That’s great.”

A wry smile sat upon her lips. “Not the usual response I get.”

My shoulders shook. “Tell me everything.”

She finished her beer in a few gulps, then burped with monstrous volume behind her hand—a delightful contradiction in itself. “I told you that my apothecary affinity tends toward illicit substances. In my teens, I decided that was a great thing and started to collect and sell various herbs and plants for the personal use of other magus. No one ever got hurt, but someone tattled. Got caught out. Parents were angry. In a coven, there’s good stuff and heaps of it, but shit sticks. Our pasts might as well be stamped on our foreheads.” She spread her arms wide. “So I’m the drug dealer.”

“You showed great entrepreneurial qualities.” I extended my hand, and she shook it, her lips quirking higher.

Maybe she’d recounted her past calmly enough, but I had an inkling the loneliness I’d detected centered around the drug dealer label. I tugged her closer across the bar. “I don’t care if you dealt drugs.”

Our conversation turned to lighter things after that as we waded our way through our drinks. I hadn’t felt this good in a long time. Even when I was with my friends outside of the coven and laughing with them, that dark, untapped corner of my heart always pulsed to remind me of its presence… it’s chaos. With Rooke, that locked-up feeling faded. Not totally, but more than I’d experienced in a long time. Since Syera was alive. I just never felt this comfortable with people.

That made my insides quake because what I’d lost couldn’t be replaced. Replacing any part of Syera felt disrespectful. Impossible. Yet whatever familial connection I had with Rooke, though, my soul found fulfillment in it.

My cousin hooted, and I blinked a few times, swaying on the stool. What did she just say?

“Tempest. A word.”

Rooke’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t her that spoke. Which was good because that voice had been super deep and not like her voice at all.

Squinting, I peered up. Then up some more.

I groaned. “Wild. What do you want?”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Rooke jerk violently. I sighed at the towering magus. “Can you sit at least? You’re hurting my neck.”

“You’re hurting your neck all by yourself.” He took the seat next to me.

I eyed the many other stools at the bar. He couldn’t have left a gap between us?

“You’re slurring your words.”

“My words are slurring all by themselves,” I retorted. Wait. Did that make sense?

He almost smiled.

“I didn’t think you had the muscles in your face to smile,” I said in genuine surprise.

A low laugh joined us, and I squinted at one of the other quads walking past us. The one in the button-up shirt.

“He doesn’t,” the huge magus said, winking at me.

Wild growled. “Fuck off, Sven.”

Sven saluted. “Fucking off.” He paused. “You weren’t kidding, huh?”

The magus beside me stilled. “Enough.”

Sven laughed and walked away, hooking his arm around a woman waiting nearby.

“What’s enough?” I asked Wild.

“Nothing that concerns you.”

---