Chapter 14

14

At least most of the coven were trying not to stare.

I sat on the stage with my guests and Wild. Wild was on my right again, though I’d planned to place Andie there. Sascha had inserted himself next to Wild, between him and Andie on the end. Basilia was on my left, and Kyros on her other side.

Wild had yet to feel anything but rage and violent intent since their arrival, aside from the brief flash of humor at Huxley’s expense.

So things were going super well.

We’d gotten through the conversation about Ingenium and Grids with surprising ease. The other supernaturals had listened at least, and I felt the coincidence of these games was something they saw was too large to ignore. Really, talking it over with the other supernaturals had been easier than discussing matters with my coven.

“So describe your magic to me,” Princess Basilia said. “Parts of what Vissimo can do would appear like magic to most humans, but you can control certain elements, is that right?”

I cast my eyes over the coven to make sure Frond’s group was still behaving. “That’s right. There are four affinities of magic that a magus may possess. Some of us have more than one affinity. The affinities are divination, grimoire, apothecary, and battle.”

Basilia’s gray eyes were on me. She wasn’t cold like Kyros, but the woman was just as calculating. Her disarming rich-woman vibe was a good distractor from how dangerous that mind might be. “How many do you possess?”

“Four,” I answered.

“All of them, then.” She glanced at Kyros.

Food was brought out on platters and set before us. “Wait, please,” I said as Sascha reached for a chicken drumstick.

I cast my four affinities over the food. Nothing had been tampered with. Maybe it was paranoia to check, but nothing could be allowed to upset the relationships forming here. To cover the moment, I stood after.

“Mother,” I called, closing my eyes.

I raised my palm to Wild, who also stood. The coven followed suit. I felt this display of our customs was important. We wouldn’t downplay who we were for the sake of others, and I didn’t expect the Vissimo or Luthers to do so either. “From your energy are we born. From your lessons are we taught. By your mercy do we live. By your hammer do we fall. Into your open arms do we slip unto our end. Peer into our hearts and ambitions and guide us from falseness to truth, to oneness, and to prosperity in your world. Mother be.”

“Mother be,” they said solemnly.

The air felt lighter after. The coven was surer of themselves.

“Please.” I gestured to the food. “Prince Kyros and Princess Basilia, we can summon blood for you, if needed.”

Basilia smiled. “Thank you. We brought our own.” She tapped a finger against a goblet.

I loaded my plate and dug in, aware of Sascha and Andie subtly checking their food for anything amiss. Couldn’t blame them. They’d taken a big risk coming here—especially if Sascha’s people had been hurt by magus in the past.

Basilia sipped at her blood. “So you all possess magic, but what do magus do all day?”

I swallowed a bite of potato. “A magus lives to better their coven and hone the magic inherited from their ancestors. This is considered a way to respect what we have been given by the Mother. We spend our days furthering our crafts and adding what we can to our collective knowledge and skill base. We celebrate the passing of the moon and occurrences of special events such as the shifting of seasons or the passing of our ancestors.”

“No one ever leaves?”

I could tell from her tone that magus life sounded completely and utterly boring to the princess. “Yes, but that number is few. Mostly grimoires might venture to answer a curiosity plaguing them. Battle affinities like to stick close to those who need their protection. Apothecary magus are usually content, but may venture afield in pursuit of new species to study. Divination affinities are more driven than most to respect our past and the wishes of our predecessors by fulfilling coven obligations and sticking to home.”

“You have all of those desires pulling at you then? Being the bearer of four affinities?” Kyros asked.

They used to pull. I didn’t feel that anymore, and I got the sinking feeling that my demon’s absence was to thank for that, more so than gaining grimoire. “Our magic does pull at us. A magus must center regularly—what you may see as meditation. This aligns our magic with our mind, body, and spirit.”

Andie spoke from the other end, “A Luther must find and maintain the same kind of unity between their forms, and the spirits of both forms.”

“Your wolf form has a spirit of its own?” Wild asked, his grimoire curiosity overriding his mating weirdness.

That was news to me too.

“Yes, and like any relationship, things can work out or not.” She frowned, and Sascha grabbed her hand.

He said to me after, “How did your meetings with Rhona go?”

Ah, Andie wasn’t solely speaking of her relationship with her wolf. Maybe Rhona’s eagerness to regain trust with Andie and recent success with our coven had caused the leader more confusion than anything else.

“She’s a fierce spirit who is desperate to regain what she’s lost,” I stated. “She has done the hardest part of admitting that she was wrong. I have a feeling her determination could work in her favor, though it has clearly worked against her in the past.”

Andie blinked a few times. “She told you everything?”

“No. Not in such terms. Just that she had a mistake to make up for, and that she hadn’t seen you were the one to deserve her faith, not another.”

The Luther’s throat worked, and she locked gazes with Sascha again. A hum filled the air, and I tilted my head.

“Yeah, they’re talking to each other in their minds. So rude, right?” Basilia said. She glanced at Kyros, who cocked a brow, then passed over his cup. She’d already finished hers.

The Luthers weren’t the only ones in possession of mind speak.

“A mate is a great gift,” I answered, then said to Andie, “As is having a sister. I lost my twin sister five years ago. If there’s something to salvage with Rhona, then salvage it. If there’s not, then I’m certain the situation she put you through was enormous. I hope it works out for you either way.”

Andie was horrified. “You lost your twin?”

I couldn’t immediately answer.

Wild did for me. “Yes, she lost Syera. And her grandmother and mother in the same day.”

They’d cropped up so much lately. I was tired and strung out—that was part of the problem with the strength of my reaction to her words. But my family’s passing hit me at the most unexpected times too.

“Your grandmother,” Basilia echoed, and there was real sorrow in her voice. “I lost my grandmother. She was killed.”

I looked at her. “I’m sorry.”

“So was I for a while. But Grandmother always said that the best time to get a good deal is when people felt sorry for themselves.”

My lips curved. “My grandmother would have tried to bottle the emotion, so she could relax in the midst of other’s misery at her leisure.”

Basilia laughed, and the sound was like chimes. Beautiful. “She sounds delightful.”

That the princess thought so was very telling.

Was it possible that Princess Basilia was as twisted as me?

“I think we’ll do well together,” she announced. “And we have Andie to keep us level. Can you manage both of us, my friend?”

Andie winced. “There’s only room for one princess in this team.”

“Obviously. I’m the judge. You’re the jury.” The Vissimo’s topaz gaze landed on me. “I have a feeling we’ve met our executioner.”

Wild hummed, sipping at his water. “An apt description for my queen.”

I froze, and he froze a second later, realizing his blunder.

None of the other leaders seemed to think much of the comment, but who the hell else just heard? There were definitely magus ears on our conversation.

The Luthers were done inhaling food, and Wild had me on edge. We needed to go. “How about we take this to a more private location?”

“As long as there’s alcohol” was Basilia’s reply.

I smirked. “I can do one better than that.”

“I don’t do drugs that much.”

That much. I grinned. “Not drugs, no. Rooke,” I called.

My cousin looked my way.

“Could we borrow your magic in my quarters soon?”

She dipped her head.

“This way,” I said, and led them from the eating chamber. I was glad to be out of there, if truth be told. Though that went as smoothly as possible from a coven perspective.

I released a breath.

Wild walked beside me, and I cast him a searching look. His contrition floated to me through our bond, and I sent him a reassuring warmth. He was being overtaken in his own body. I knew this wasn’t “him” as much as an uncontrollable response to the threat of the other males. Not that it hadn’t complicated matters today.

We entered my quarters not long after, and Basilia turned in slow circles as she followed me in. “Now this is a better size. Only three levels, though.”

Kyros circled the room in a different way—as a tiger might—then returned partway along the far wall. He cocked his head. “What is here?”

Sascha approached it, too, and sniffed. “There’s something.”

“You can sense the demon gate?” I quickly joined the two males. Wild stuck close by.

Kyros answered, “There is a hum. An ugly pulse.”

“And an ugly smell. Pain and decay,” Sascha added quietly. “There’s a gate in your quarters?”

“The only gate in our caves.”

“And there’s no one else to guard it?” Sascha watched me closely.

“There is. And I won’t put another at risk when I’m the best equipped for such a job.”

“Why are you best equipped?” Andie said next.

“Because she is the most powerful,” Wild answered. “And the only magus here to possess four affinities, one of just a few in the world. Barriers woven of four affinities proved effective against the demons during our recent battle with them.”

Andie hummed. “Barrier?”

I let magic float from my hands toward the demon gate where I formed a shining barrier of four affinities. “There are many jobs a barrier can fulfill. This one is a physical barrier and also a silence barrier. We usually have a physical barrier around our coven territory, for instance, to protect us from attack.”

Kyros was inspecting my magic.

“For some reason, I didn’t think I’d be able to see your magic,” Basilia mused.

“Humans can’t,” I replied. “Supernaturals can. Unless I decide to use a concealing charm.”

Rooke entered as I took an armchair by the fire, then summoned more for my guests.

“So you can make anything you want appear out of thin air?” the princess demanded of me.

“Things I’m familiar with—or things that are close by are easiest. But in essence, yes,” I answered.

She flopped onto the couch. “I wish my staff could do that. They’re so slow sometimes.”

Andie laughed. “You’re super fast. Why don’t you get things for yourself?”

“Image must be upheld” came the reply, followed by a smirk.

“Drinks?” Rooke asked.

“This is my cousin, Rooke,” I announced to my guests. “Her magic is unique, and she is able to detect a person’s perfect drink.”

Basilia gasped. “No way.”

Andie sat next to Basilia. “Cool.”

Rooke shrugged a shoulder. “It’s a nice trick.”

“What’s my perfect drink?” Basilia asked her.

Rooke’s voice gained a hypnotic quality. “A mojito. Today, passionfruit. But I feel some days you may be more aligned with a strawberry mojito.”

Basilia sat back. “That’s incredible. I have a bar in Bluff City. You’re hired.”

Rooke smiled. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m happy here.”

“Divination affinity?” the Vissimo asked her.

“That’s my main affinity, yes.”

Andie leaned forward. “What’s my perfect drink then?”

Rooke regarded her. “Gin cocktail. Lemon and raspberry.”

Sascha grunted. “That’s her favorite. What’s mine?”

“You like Johnnie Walker on the rocks. Tonight, though, you should drink Cragganmore 12. On the rocks also.”

Sascha took a chair close to Andie. He didn’t seem to mind her proximity to Basilia or myself—just to the other males. “I’m willing to try it on for size.”

Kyros was waiting expectantly.

Rooke blinked at him. “You need more blood.”

That was a first.

His lips curved. “I do. Someone drank the rest of mine at dinner.”

Basilia appeared stricken. “You do?”

“You are younger, my beauty. You need it more than I. I can get more later.” He circled away from my barrier and the demon gate to stand behind her.

Rooke summoned our drinks and handed them out. Wild accepted the offered water from her without question.

“Want to hang out?” I asked my cousin.

She tore her focus from Wild to me. “Nah, the greenhouse is free.”

My brows rose.

“For actual project purposes,” she clarified.

Oh. “Good luck.”

“When it comes to poisons, I don’t need luck.”

Andie held up her glass once my cousin had departed. “Should I be worried to drink this?”

“No, my cousin’s apothecary magic tends toward illicit substances. Alcohol falls under that.”

Basilia sipped at hers and groaned. “This might be the best one I’ve ever had. How much for her, seriously?”

“If Rooke wishes to go, she would go for free,” I answered.

The Vissimo pulled a face. “I’ll woo her over in time. Hey, what did she give you?”

“A gunpowder gimlet.” I held the glass up. “Cheers, everyone. Thank you for coming.”

All of us drank, except Kyros.

Andie asked quietly, “You weren’t born in this coven, were you? You have the apartment in Frankton Gorge, but you’re too comfortable with our ways to have been raised here.”

“Rhona may have mentioned that I joined the coven just over two months ago.”

“And now you lead it,” Kyros stated.

I dipped my head. “Our ancestor’s relics chose me—as the new bearer of four affinities—to lead the coven.”

“New bearer,” Sascha prompted.

“I was struck by lightning in the battle against the demons and gained the fourth affinity.”

Basilia’s brows shot up. “Fuck me. Love the drama of that. I just gained an obsessive mate and became a Vissimo to get where I am.”

Andie snorted. “And I realized half of my family were alive and pretty soon I could turn furry.” She glanced at Sascha. “But the obsessive mate part happened to me too.”

Sascha raised his glass to her.

“It would appear you are gaining an obsessive mate too,” Kyros said, looking at Wild.

Wild lifted his head to regard the prince. “Magus don’t have mates.”

“Magus haven’t had mates,” the Vissimo replied. “There was a time when my kind didn’t have mates and Luthers didn’t mate in the same fashion they now do.”

Seemed pointless not to admit the truth when Wild had been acting like an obsessive mate all damn day. “We are in a mating ritual,” I said.

Wild glanced my way, pulsing a warning.

I smiled, then added, “It is not common knowledge to the coven, and we’d prefer it to stay that way for now.”

The other supernaturals nodded.

“It is not yet complete,” Sascha said, then to Wild, “You’re in the worst of it. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s hard to control all that.”

Wild seemed to relax somewhat at the words. “It is. I’m unused to the lack of control.”

Kyros and Sascha both laughed quietly at that.

“And you have nothing on Kyros’s control issues,” Basilia remarked. “He had big tantrums about that.”

Reaching forward, Kyros lightly flicked her ear.

“That’s my good ear,” she complained, rubbing it.

“What happened?” I asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “I was tortured. I was a new Vissimo and didn’t know how to protect my ears from the abuse.”

That was news to Andie and Sascha too.

“I didn’t know,” Andie said sadly. “Who did that?”

“The deceased,” Basilia replied, a savage look upon her beautiful face.

Sascha lifted his glass. “Good.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Wild added. “Even though Rooke only gave me water.”

I shot him a grin. “For the best?”

“Definitely,” he muttered into his glass.

“Do you mind if I take a look at your ear?” I said to the princess. “Magically.”

Kyros narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth.

“Go for it,” she answered.

“I won’t hurt her,” I said to her mate, who closed his mouth. “You may feel a buzzing.” I cast forth my apothecary magic and extended the tendrils to her affected ear. I inhaled as my magic painted a picture of rupture and scarring and pain. My gaze shifted to hers. “There’s a lot of damage.”

She heaved a sigh. “I know, I?—”

“Would you like me to fix it?”

Kyros jerked, and Basilia stilled.

“You can do that?” she asked woodenly.

I shifted my focus to her ear again. “Some of the scar damage may prove stubborn, but if not all, then I can heal most of it.” I looked at her and her mate. “It will hurt.”

Basilia poured what remained of her drink down her throat. When the glass filled with another passionfruit mojito, she drank that too, then one more before Kyros confiscated the glass.

“Can’t hurt as much as when it happened,” she slurred slightly. “Are those drinks human strength?”

Kyros sniffed the glass. “No, my beauty.”

“That bitch needs to work at my bar.” Basilia rested back on the couch. “Hit me with it, witchy.”

Wild chuckled.

I knocked three times on our bond. Can I take magic?

Wild knocked back twice. Yes.

Maybe I wouldn’t need it. But Wild worked as a catalyst for my magic—and mine for his—so I’d expend less magic by being open to his power anyway. “Ready?” I looked up at Kyros, who dipped his head.

“Andie, come here, please,” Sascha asked.

She didn’t deny him, instead walking over to sit on his lap.

“Here goes,” I said calmly and extended my apothecary magic to her again. This job required battle, too, because of the manner in which the injury had been sustained. “This part will hurt the most,” I murmured. “Emotionally.” I had to draw out the torture so to speak.

I latched on to the horror and darkness in her canal and didn’t fuck around trying to ease it out. I ripped it out in one burst.

Basilia screamed. Not in physical pain. She screamed out the brutality of what they’d done to her. There was fear in her scream, and hopelessness, regret. The sound trailed off into acceptance, and it was easy to put together that Basilia had believed she’d die the day this happened.

She’d fallen to her hands and knees on the ground, and Kyros was crouched over her.

He snarled up at me, and I didn’t move and had the sudden inkling not to look him directly in the eyes.

“It’s already fading,” Basilia panted, grabbing his arm. To stop him attacking me? She wiped at her brow and pushed back up onto the couch. “Please tell me that was the only time that happens?”

“It is,” I answered. “I could not heal you physically without removing that.”

“I think you pulled the PTSD out of my ear or something.” She shook her head. “It feels different. Keep going.”

I glanced at Kyros, who straightened and returned to his post behind Basilia.

“This next part will hurt physically.”

“Can’t wait,” she answered. “Don’t hold back.”

I sent my apothecary magic alone this time and started at the outer ear, whispering new beginnings to the scar tissue encountered. In some areas, I had to shove with force to reshape her inner ear to what it had once been. With most of my mind on smoothing out the progressively more stubborn scar tissue, the rest of me was marveling at how little magic I was using.

Wild’s awe reached me too.

This was… the power was insane. We hadn’t tested this part of our connection since Wild helped me to force the demons back through their gate. I was negotiating this alliance with Vissimo and Luthers, and wouldn’t stop negotiating magus help, either, but I’d underestimated our importance in the battle. We were a queen on a chessboard.

I centered my thoughts on the healing, pausing at intervals to give Basilia a chance to recover before the next round.

The eardrum was a pulpy mess, and once I’d pushed and stretched and whispered it back to smoothness, then called my magic back, fury filled me.

I opened my eyes. “I hope they died very painfully.”

Kyros replied with a slight purr, “They did.”

“Basil? You okay?” Andie asked.

Basil. The princess didn’t react strangely to it, so it had to be a nickname. One that suited her not a bit, and so suited her perfectly.

The female Vissimo tilted her head left and right. “This will take a while to get used to.”

“Your balance may be off in the meantime,” I said.

She nodded. “I can feel that.”

Basilia got up and wavered. Kyros hooked his arm around hers as she wobbled over to me. The Vissimo leaned down and hugged me with one arm. “Thank you.”

I returned her hug, feeling an odd connection to the woman. I felt it with Andie, too, for different reasons. “You’re welcome. I hope you are without pain now.”

On all levels.

Her gray eyes were solemn. “I think I will be. And I think it’s best for me to turn in for the night also. Kyros, we planned to return to Bluff City, but perhaps we could stay the night here?”

I had a feeling Kyros would be up all night expecting attack. I didn’t take it personally—the guy just always seemed to expect it. Not a bad quality in an ally.

“Yes, my beauty,” he said.

“We will too,” Andie announced, standing and setting her glass down. “That drink was incredible. Your cousin is talented.”

I smiled. “I think so. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“I did,” she said, a wrinkle between her brows. “And I have a good feeling about you, too, High Esteemed.”

“Me too,” Basilia called from the tunnel.

A knot in my chest loosened, and I observed the sensation like the strange, rare thing it was. I simply didn’t make instant connections with people. Rooke was one of very, very few. Even my relationships with the quad took time to root.

Yet somehow, I had a good feeling about these women too.