Chapter 1

1

I rolled off the panting male, breathing just as heavily.

Inhaling through my nose, I smirked at the ceiling of my esteemed rooms. “Now that was a Wild time.”

Wild snorted. “I had ground to recover after you called me Tame in front of the entire coven.”

He’d recovered that ground too many times to count this week. Since the last step in the ritual, we’d… Well, rabbits would be scared of the frequency of our bedroom activities. I was filing it under Stress Relief,because to say that life had imploded was an understatement.

I stretched on the bed, dreading pulling on my clothes. My attire felt like more of a uniform these days. “Please tell me we have a few more hours.”

Wild kissed my temple. “We have a few more hours.”

The green strand in our four-part tether panged. I could only describe the sensation as a slight ugliness or murkiness reaching to me from his direction. He’d lied. “No, we don’t.”

“No, we don’t,” he agreed.

I groaned. “Remind me why I’m doing this again.”

A portal opened midway through my question. Huxley stepped out, followed by Corentin and Sven.

Wild’s snarl sounded in my left ear. A blanket was thrown over me, concealing my nudity from Wild’s three best friends.

Huxley answered, “Because we don’t want the demons to eat us.”

I pursed my lips. “Demons don’t eat people.” Though, according to Endex’s journals, their diet was protein-heavy—and the creatures they ate weren’t found on Earth.

“Metaphorically eat us,” he snapped.

Corentin patted Huxley’s back, while Sven rolled his eyes and strode to the only seat in the room, a hard, wooden chair in the corner.

Wild murmured in my ear, “He’s had another fight with Spyne.”

“Yes, I have,” Huxley spat. “He’s being totally unreasonable.”

The rest of us stood or sat in quiet disbelief after that ballsy statement.

“He is,” Huxley said louder.

I chose my words with care. “He might be. But Spyne is who I want to be when I’m older, so if you fuck this up, and he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore, I’ll be pissed.”

Huxley glared. “Thanks. That helps.”

“Did you do something along the lines of keeping him at an emotional distance or rejecting his importance to you around other coven members?” I asked.

Huxley’s defiant demeanor cracked.

Corentin patted his back again. “You’ll find your way, friend.”

Sven choked back laughter, and I could feel Wild shaking beside me. Since I’d sorted out the mess of Corey’s magic, he’d been… different.

We called him Positive Patrick behind his back.

Huxley wrinkled his nose. “Leave me with my negativity. Enough fucking patting.”

Corentin pulled back his hand, humming in sympathy.

I needed that sympathy. The coronation was soon. My coronation. Though the coven called the process an accession,the result was the same. My ass would end up on the magus equivalent of a throne.

I scowled at the floor at the four relics I’d discarded there. They’d chosen me during the battle against the demons. Turned out that Varden, my old friend, was right. The mating ritual between me and Wild had been integral to saving the coven. When we gained the fourth strand to our tether, and I was gifted with a grimoire affinity, Ryzika’s relics decided I was leadership material. One pendant, gemstone, robe, and dagger later, and a centuries-old game was suddenly over, and everyone was gaping at me like a beam of sunshine out of a unicorn’s butt.

I swallowed, closing my eyes. “I don’t want this.”

Wild could feel what I felt. Our power was like a dam we could open at any time, and our bodies were so in tune. The last step in the ritual had fused us tightly, and hiding anything from him was pointless—and not at all a desire of mine any longer.

He rolled to face me on the bed. “I wish you didn’t need to.”

Need.

That was the issue. Without a leader, the coven would resume Caves. If they resumed Caves, they wouldn’t give the demon army on their doorstep the total attention it required. Which may sound so bizarre because they’d seen the threat with their own eyes, but this game—man, was it under people’s skins. You’d think a hundred demons on their doorstep would band magus together and make them rethink their priorities, but a three-hundred-year-old tradition and routine was hard to erase overnight, and the demons’ magic was designed to keep the divide between Vero and Fertim wide and deep.

With a leader, the game was done. With a leader, this coven may survive.

Iwanted a leader.

I just didn’t want that to be me. How about Varden or Winona or Delta? I’d take Barrow or maybe Opal. Wild would be the perfect candidate.

“Stop being selfish,” Huxley told me.

Ass.

“Even though we see her potential clearly, Tempest may feel backed into a corner,” Corentin gently rebuked him.

I’d known from the start that the quad would kill me one day, and Positive Patrick may be the guy to finally do it. “I’ll do what’s needed. Don’t worry.”

Until the war is won.

I felt Wild’s gaze on me, then received his understanding through our green strand a second later. This queen of the coven shit wasn’t me. I’d stand in during the danger, but this gal?

She had secrets. And I didn’t mind having secrets, as such. Wasn’t like I’d asked to be half demon and never have knowledge of it. What I didn’t like were hypocrites. Standing before the coven, wearing precious relics, and telling them what to do to kill demons when they had no idea I was one just didn’t sit right.

“What’s the plan?” I asked Sven.

Kind of surprising to see him away from my cousin’s side. Maybe that was why he was so quiet, though he otherwise appeared normal. Still hulking and tall. Still dressed in his token button-up shirt. Perhaps with less of a playful glint in his eyes than when we’d first met, but that was true of us all. “My whispers are working around the clock on damage control.”

During the fight with the demons, our group and Varden had revealed a curious lack of surprise and more than was usual knowledge on how to protect the coven against the demons. That didn’t go unnoticed. “Are they managing things?”

“My parents are using their power against me.” He sighed and ran his hands through his short hair. “I don’t believe they’re trying to prevent your accession. More like they want to know what’s happened. They’re digging when I want to smooth the soil over.”

“It’s taking a lot from you?” Wild asked his friend.

Sven lifted a shoulder. “Nothing I can’t handle. It’s important to play the accession right, though. That will help my magic. Tempest, I considered going with the open and smiling route. The welcoming, nurturing path. But that’s just not you.”

Huxley laughed, and I pondered whether to be insulted.

Was Sven right?

Yes.

Not that I had a resting bitch face as such. I gave off a slight maiming vibe. People didn’t always like that.

“So we’re going with the untouchable route,” Sven continued. “You’re a mystery. You’re someone people want to emulate—like copying you with dawn walks. You know stuff because you’re from the outside. Your connection to the Mother is something the rest of us can only dream of. She struck you with lightning and gave you grimoire to defeat the demons. Un-touch-able.”

Pretty sure Wild sexed grimoire into me—though he’d conversed with the Mother while she held him in a deep sleep. She’d told him that his waking needed to occur at the right time. What else she may have said, Wild hadn’t yet shared.

“The lightning holder,” Sven boomed, then nodded. “The Mother’s Chosen. Magus Elite. Possessor of All Affinities.”

My nausea mounted with every title. Talk about blowing smoke up my ass.

“That’s a better fit,” Wild said, finding my hand under the blanket.

We were still naked, and it struck me that I’d been naked so many times around the quad, that conversations undertaken in this manner weren’t unusual. If a woman couldn’t go through the storm, she went around it, and that was how I viewed this band of males. Best to get the conversation done and over while naked, and then I’d be dressed sooner. Every friendship had a compromise.

“Do I call myself those things?” I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t know if I can pull off calling myself Possessor of All Affinities.” What kind of jackass announced themselves as the Mother’s Chosen or Magus Elite?

Probably Frond. Maybe Bedwyr.

Sven shook his head. “No, not you. None of it can come from you. I’ll set more whispers, and I’ll loop Varden in before the accession. All you need to do is play the part. Be yourself.”

I fixed him with a dry look. “None of those things are me.”

“Every damn one of those things is you,” he said in such a serious manner that I didn’t scoff. “Just be you.”

“A half demon.”

He grimaced. “As much as you shouldn’t feel ashamed of that, we need to keep your heritage under wraps at all costs.”

Nothing I didn’t know. “I hate double standards.”

Huxley pushed up his thick-rimmed glasses. “You saved the coven a week ago. And me. You took on the leader of the demon army in one-on-one battle and figured out how to kill her. Then you were struck with lightning, gained an affinity through Wild’s penis, and forced an entire army back to their realm. Pretty sure you don’t owe this coven an explanation. They can take you as you are or fuck off.”

I appreciated that coming from Huxley. He and Corentin were two coven members who’d contended with being different in the Buried Knolls. Not something easily done in an isolated and tight-knit community. They’d developed thick skins in the process.

I didn’t often let people’s comments bother me, but I hadn’t processed my demon heritage yet, so the uncertainty and insecurity tied to what I was remained an opening in my armor. One that I had to eventually close. If that was possible.

“I’ll just be myself,” I said, trying the comment out for size.

Sven grimaced. “Try saying that again without looking constipated.”

I smiled brightly. “I’ll just be myself!”

The three quad members stared at me, and I felt Wild’s internal grimace.

I dropped my smile faster than a burning bag of shit. “We’re fucked.”