Page 26 of In Her Own Rite

“Girl, are you stupid? The man is so in love with you it practically hurts to look at.”

I chew my lip. If that were true, he wouldn’t be going out with a new girl three nights a week. He would have stayed all those years ago, instead of leaving for his training on Keist. He would have come back forme, not Seb’s rite.

Butkiyyuni, he said.

“Wait, hang on,” Maren says. “You said he doesn’t see you that way. Do you seehimthat way?”

“No.”

She grins. “Admit it. You’re in love with him.”

“Ilovehim. Like a friend. Like how I love you and Seb.”

“You’dbetternot love Seb the way you love Kieran, or we’re gonna have some stuff to talk about.” She laughs again.

“I don’t have feelings for him.” Somewhere deep inside me, under a hundred layers I use to keep her away, I can feel my inner wolf yip at me in irritation.Liar. “But he is…”

Everything to me. The person I love most. The most beautiful man I know.

“Attractive,” I settle on. “I need to get out of the house. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be near him when I’m like this.”

“‘Cause you’re gonna jump his bones the second you see him again.”

I laugh. “Stop. Because I’m hormonal, and I don’t want the rest of thefikato have to think about that. And yes, because hormones make you stupid and I don’t want to make a dumb decision.”

She grins. “Not gonna lie, I kinda want you to make a dumb decision.Again.”

I get up and start making coffee for myself. Maren already has her personal vat beside her, giant French press almost completely empty. I lift the bag of coffee grounds in her direction, my eyes questioning, and she nods yes.

“Kier and I are real people, Maren,” I say, starting on coffee for both of us. “Not a soap opera to keep you entertained. And if we mess this up, it’s gonna ruin everything. Not just for me and him, but for the wholefika.”

“Oh please. How?”

I sigh, filling the water kettle. “Like, if things ended badly. Imagine if he left—it would be way harder for you, me, Seb, and Gabe to get afikarigwithout him.” I put the kettle back and turn it on. “Either you or I would need to do the rite to make up for the lost council seat, or we’d have to ask Seb’s cousin Quinn or something. We can’t risk what we’ve been working for just because I’m...” I gesture in the air.

“Horny.” She grins.

“Hormonal.”

“Girl, you’re future-tripping. There’s no way Kieran would leave us.Especiallynot you.”

I swallow. Not true. She just wasn’t here last time.

“Besides, we could do the rite,” she says. “I believe in us.”

I snort. “You, maybe—you box, at least. I don’t think I’ve exercised on purpose since I was in school.”

“Come on!” She claps her hands in front of her. “It would be fun. We could train together.”

“Who’s future-tripping now?” The water finishes boiling, and I stamp down the grounds I’ve scooped into the top half of the Fakari-style coffee pot. I reach for Saga’s spices and add some cinnamon on top, then pour the water over the mix. “Neither of us have to do the rite because we already have two seats, and Gabe agreed to do his rite in March for the third.”

I bring the pot over to the kitchen table, setting it between us.

“Anyway, the details don’t matter. I just meant, the stakes are too high for me and Kieran to mess around and see what happens. Which means I need to figure out where I’m gonna hunker down for the next few days.”

“So you don’t jump him.”

“So I don’t jump him,” I say, my tone resigned.

---