Chapter 33

33

My mate and I sat at our usual table. What was unusual were the stares aimed at my forehead.

It was as if I’d drawn a big penis there.

Maybe I’d drawn the magus mating ritual equivalent.

The rune low on my stomach was a tier of flowers. The rune over the pulse on my neck was a flower with vines. The new rune that ran across my forehead was a tiara of flowers and vines.

A tiara did give a certain queen vibe.

“Arrogant,” Huxley stated—the first to break the stunned silence.

He was one to talk. It wasn’t like I’d chosen the damn rune or appointed myself as magus queen. Huxley would’ve placed a crown on his head after the first step in this ritual. In fact, he probably had a crown that he used in his room.

“Feel free to take a look at Wild’s new rune,” I muttered.

Wild didn’t get a man tiara. No, the Mother decided to give him something more subtle that his tunic almost covered. His rune was much bigger than mine, a huge and intricate piece of joining symbols and swirls that spanned his chest and dipped into a point that ended beneath his ribs. The pattern glowed with a combination of the colors of our magics whenever I touched him.

“It’s covered with pendants,” Sven said, not budging his gaze from my forehead.

Wild hummed. “Good point.”

He reached up and took the strands of his pendants in one handful before lifting them overhead. Wild pulled out the sentry and advisor pendants and wrapped one around each of his wrists.

My eyes widened. “Wild, what are you doing?”

“It’s more important that everyone sees who I’m tied to,” he answered. “Yours is out for all to see, and I like that.”

I had to admit that I liked seeing more of his symbol. “Maybe you could walk around without a tunic too?”

His lips curved. “If you command it.”

Tempting… except then everyone else could look at his hot bod. Maybe I’d settle for seeing half the rune while outside of our private quarters.

“What about your foundation pendants?” Corey asked him.

Wild lifted a shoulder. “Maybe I’ll summon them for use as females do with their minerals.”

Rooke leaned across the bench. “So that’s you guys done and mated.”

I smiled at Wild and took his hand. “Yes. We’re mates now.”

“Gains?” Huxley demanded. His notebook appeared, and he thumbed through the pages to the end. He could’ve just opened it from the back to save time, but whatever. Maybe he liked riffling like that. Book dork.

Should we tell them about the last gift? I thought at Wild.

He glanced at me, and I received his answer loud and clear. We could fuck with them first.

“You’re speaking to him,” Rooke gasped. “In your head.”

“Nothing you guys can’t do, right?” I said to the table.

The four males chuckled.

Sven said, “Not telepathy.”

“You guys can send thoughts.” They’d done it plenty of times in my company.

“We have a charm on our vision that only the four of us can see. We send projections of symbols—a rudimentary language we formed two years ago. Because only we can read the symbols that arrive, it appears that we’re using telepathy.”

Ohh, that made so much sense. The magic required to grant a four-way telepathy really would demand impossible levels of power. Their solution was as ingenious as I’d come to expect from these four magus.

“Your charm is based in Belladona,” Rooke said.

Wild shot her a look. “It is. You noticed?”

“I always notice a poison, and I particularly like when the amounts around me are nearly untraceable.” She shivered. “There’s something exciting about it.”

Sven nuzzled her neck. “Yeah?”

“Mmm, yeah.”

“Concentrate,” Huxley snapped. “What have you figured out?”

Rooke cocked a brow. “The language wasn’t hard to decipher. I kept quiet because it served my purposes to spy on your group.”

The four magus exchanged looks. Just what did they say to each other? Clearly things they hadn’t expected Rooke to know about.

“I agree,” she said to Corey. “Those jeans do make my ass look great. Thanks for letting Sven know so he could pretend to need me for something and spend the entire time checking me out. That suited my goal.”

I grinned around the rim of my mug.

The guys were ingenious. My cousin was smarter.

“Sorry,” Corey said to her. “Positive Patrick isn’t like that.”

Huxley sent him a scathing glare. “There isn’t enough linen in the world to cover that lie. You were telling us all about the hidden attributes of your latest conquest last night.”

“Felt like I have my friend back,” Sven put in.

“A lapse,” Corey muttered, a dark red tinging his jaw.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed about walking the line between different versions of yourself,” I told him.

There had to be room for the old in the new.

I frowned at the thought. Could that be applied to the coven too? For the first time, I was able to grasp how the surrounding magus had embroiled their identity in the game. By stopping all aspects of the game I’d forced them to live in a way they weren’t prepared for, nor wanted. That wasn’t fair.

Though that train of thought led to the same place, really. The game couldn’t be resumed for other reasons.

“I’m not embarrassed, really,” Corey said to me. “The change just came with a lot to rummage through and understand. I can tell getting to know who I am is necessary, though. You know the last of my magic that you’d offered to work on? That’s naturally unwinding and finding its new place in me as I get to know myself again.”

It was. “That’s great news, Corey.”

“There are only a few remaining, so I don’t believe I’ll need your help anymore, but I’ll let you know.”

I smiled. “Of course. You know where I am if you change your mind.” I pushed away my empty mug that had contained lemongrass and vanilla tea. “And now it’s time to get shit done.” First up, I wanted to sit in on one of Sage’s sessions to get a grasp on what strategies were in the works and if the team was up to scratch. The smoke was still in the same position, and Rooke’s ravine domes were operational, but the clock was ticking, and everyone had to be working at their best.

“Could I have a word on the way?” Rooke asked.

She fell into step beside me as I tried to ignore the gaping looks at the rune tiara on my forehead on the way out.

“Private?” I glanced at her.

“Yeah.”

I put up a silence bubble around us. “What’s up?”

“Now the antidote is fine-tuned, and I have esteemed apothecaries working on a range of other weapons containing potent mixes of the antidote, I’ve been looking into the other project you set me.”

The one about using my blood as a weapon.

“And?”

“And nothing. I can’t detect any use for it as a weapon, with my magic anyway. But then it occurred to me… I have a sample from you from before she returned to you. I don’t have a current sample.”

“Of course,” I said, then held out my arm. “That makes total sense. Take one.”

Rooke summoned a vial, then set it to the prominent vein in the crook of my elbow. The vial filled with black blood.

Shit. My blood wasn’t red anymore.

We exchanged a quick grimace, and she banished the vial just as a group of young magus walked by, all of them gaping at my forehead.

Had they never seen a magus queen before?

After they’d moved past, Rooke said, “I can already feel something different in your blood now.”

“You think we can use it?”

“Yes. I need to see whether potency is affected over time. If we can store it easily enough, then we could make any number of weapons with it. I quite like the idea of stabbing a demon with needles filled with your blood.”

I was sure she did.

I glanced back at the magus who’d walked by. One of them was looking back, though he wouldn’t hear anything through our silence charm.

“Do me a favor?” I asked her.

“Poisoning Frond?”

I considered that. “No. Not yet. Thanks, though.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Do you still have the old samples of my blood?”

She nodded. “Under lock and key.”

I smirked. “Let’s not do that today. Leave the old sample out for any ol’ someone to find, would you?”