Page 130 of First Ritual
A glance back revealed Corentin and Wild.
I stopped on the spot as they pressed closer from both directions. “What the fuck is this?”
“You’re talking with us whether you like it or not,” Huxley explained.
Like hell I was. “Not tonight. I have things to do.”
“Like get more books on demons out of the library?” Sven asked.
I froze. “What?”
He smirked. “When you take a book from the library, it’s recorded alongside your name.”
Fuck. My vision swam as nausea swept up through my throat. “Not tonight.”
“Bronte,” Rooke said gently. “We’re so worried about you.”
“You shouldn’t be. None of you.” My knees shook.
Arms swept me up, but the gentleness of the gesture was nothing against the anger coating Wild’s sharp features.
He strode down the tunnel with me in tow, and the fury rolling off him was palpable. Wild kicked open a chamber and tossed me on the enormous bed within.
“What’s up your ass?” I snapped at him.
“What’s up my ass is that you’ve let yourself grow weak,” he blurred to hiss the words in my face. “When did you last eat? And bathe? Have you forgotten about this?” He wrapped a hand around the streak of rust hair.
Shit. I had.
Corentin rested a hand on Wild’s shoulder. “Slow down, man.”
“Look what she’s doing to herself,” he spat.
“I know it’s upsetting. She’s not doing it to hurt you. She just can’t get to those things for the time being.”
My bottom lip wobbled at Corentin’s unexpected words. They weren’t kind, per se, just the pure and utter truth. I bit on my lip until the urge to cry receded.
Wild took another look at me, then whirled away, swearing under his breath.
I shared a long look with Corentin, unsure what the emotion coursing between us was. I wanted to call it a camaraderie, but the emotion lacked that warmth. More like… an acknowledgment. A tip of the hat between sufferers.
“I struggle to resist chaos,” he said. “I have four affinities. I’m proven in two, with divination being the strongest. The events of my past… they altered the balance of my affinities permanently. I can’t recenter. If I have a core, then it’s inaccessible. I’m permanently in some chaos. I can only try to keep as centered as possible to not let it win.”
“For now,” Sven murmured. “We’ll figure it out.”
What weren’t the quad figuring out? They had a running supernatural species project, and they were finding a way to keep Wild from his parents’ overlong reach. Corentin’s chaos was on top of that. What were Sven and Huxley’s issues?
“Some things don’t need to be figured out, they just are,” said Corentin. He moved to sit in the far corner of the room.
Huxley’s fucking notebook appeared next. “We have a list of the books you took from the library. All of them pertain to demons.”
Five magus faced me, and I couldn’t meet their gazes.
How the hell did this happen? I’d made a pact that my secret would never see the light of day.
Fucking. Library. Books were a bunch of bullshit, and I shouldn’t have bent in my views on that front.
Wild returned. “You’re not leaving Sven’s room until we know the truth.”