Page 43 of Star-Crossed
“Liz said you might.” Another woman with long, frizzy gray hair streaked with purple flowed rather than walked over to the “reading area,” a corner where cushions and pillows were tossed in a colorful chaos that usually made Lyra’s eye twitch. “She told us to just show up on the full moon because you’re a ‘more forgiveness than permission’ kinda gal.”
Welp. Liz wasn’t wrong.
“I’m Raven.” The lone male extended his hand to shake. “While Liz is gone, I’m de facto Shaman for this Sabat.”
“Cool. Listen…Raven.” It almost choked her to say it. If his name wasn’t something like Jake or Brian on his driver’s license, she’d hang up her tarot cards forever. “I don’t know what you’ve got going on here, but I have a pregnant cat about to give birth upstairs—yet another thing Liz didn’t prepare me for—and no time for…” She flapped her hands at the crowd that’d somehow added four new members since she got there. “Whatever this is.”
“Sabat,” he said with the infinite patience of someone who didn’t need to worry about showering to get up for a job. “We’ll stay out of your hair. We just gather beneath the full moon to charge our crystals and moon water, sing and chant, and discuss the mysteries of the cosmos. Maybe do a few rituals.”
“Can’t you do that at your house?” she whined, doing her best to tamp down on her infamous irritability. She was recognizing some regular customers joining the group, and she’d tank the business if she got too out of line.
“Nope,” he said apologetically. “The ley lines are here, and the circle is cast. But if you’d like to join us later, we’ll be discussing the emerging sciences, such as the effects of solar flares on inner quantum mechanics.”
“That’s not a thing.” Lyra shook her head.
“Numerology.”
“You mean math?”
“Astrology.”
“Not a science.”
When so many would be offended, Raven looked over at her with a look she despised.
Pity.
“You’re a Gemini, aren’t you,” he asked.
Fuck him for a lucky guess. “That’s irrelevant.”
“Of course it is.” He patted her forearm before wandering toward where people were claiming their cushions.
Lyra’s entire operating system crashed into blue screen for a full ten seconds as the emergency alert system droned one long note in her ears. Oh, so she was today years old when she found out she was probably going to prison for murder.
And her victim’s name was Raven.
Or Brian or whatever.
Shaking her head, she let her temper spur her forward. “Hey, Raven, we have a no-bag policy, so you should probably—”
“Since when?”
It wasn’t the words that pinned her feet to the floor.
It was the voice that spoke them. A smooth baritone threaded with hints of midnight and the slippery things he did to her with that mouth.
Her gaze snapped toward the doorway, where Cy was standing, his silhouette encompassing the whole threshold as if crafted by God to be framed like this.
He wore a t-shirt that hugged every contour of his muscular torso. His jeans were snug around his lean hips, making her heart pound in her chest. Those full lips that seemed to always be on the verge of a smile. His eyes were pools of midnight, so dark they reflected the silver light of the moon. His blue/black hair cascaded over his forehead, and her fingers itched to brush it aside.
“What areyoudoing here?” she asked instead. They’d silently agreed through polite texts and avoidant behavior to ignore each other and their stupid, sizzling chemistry until the tree-removal permit went through.
They’d been doing so well.
“I come to Sabat every month.” His explanation only served to pose more questions. “How have you been?”
“Fine. Busy.” She looked away, fiddling with the hem of her shirt.
