Page 145 of First Ritual

He didn’t answer and didn’t move from his knees. Wild just watched me in a way that threatened to undo me. As he’d promised to do.

“This is done,” I blurted. “I’m asking you to respect my wish. My decision is final.”

Giving him a wide berth, I half ran through the trees back to the meadow. Only on the outskirts did I stop to catch my shaking breath and lower my top and skirt back into place. The fucker still had my underwear.

Wild had lost the battle with his creature. That was all I could fathom. They’d merged or… I had no idea what, because Wild was still adamant I wasn’t a demon. Yet if he’d merged with the creature, he had to know otherwise.

Stop. Breathe.

I had to stop and breathe.

One inhale, then the next. I kept up the pattern until I could recall that I only had control of myself. Recently I’d lost that control. The time to realign and recenter had come. Things had been allowed to go too far. I’d drifted out to that dark, endless sea despite my every intention.

Overhead, the skies opened and released a torrent. Thunder. Lightning. Turmoil. This storm could wash sadness and pain from my soul and heart. From my mind. In the morning, at dawn, I would reclaim who I was.

Tempest Bronte Corentine would find herself.

“You lose Wild in there?” It was Josie. A sneering Josie.

Maybe the reclaiming could start now. “He needs a moment. I just broke up with him.”

She blinked, and those with her quietened. Now Josie knew we’d broken up, soon everyone would. Perfect.

I did better alone.

34

The knolls were packed at dawn. Sixty or seventy magus. What the hell? I mean, good they were paying respect and all, but I’d grown accustomed to the solitude.

I headed to the meadow and ventured into the same trees where I’d argued with Wild last night. The moss-covered trees here spoke of centuries, and in their midst, solace touched my heart. Sometimes a dose of insignificance was good when problems seemed otherworldly in their magnitude. I was a blip in the mother’s grand plan. My job was to live as best as I could until my last breath.

Simple. Small.

I breathed in the crisp air of dawn.

From today, you have your shit together.

Closing my eyes, and already barefoot, I walked the ancient forest in solitude, probing the air, ground, and surrounds for power. I stopped at a point where all three balanced and knelt. The moisture from the moss cooled my skin, and first rays of the new day licked my face through a gap in the branches overhead. Trees rustled in welcome.

I extended my arms out, palms up.

This ritual with Wild, this coven, and the journey had jerked me around. I’d been yanked down one path, then the next. My affinities were in a tug-of-war instead of working harmoniously.

Recenter.

Starting with my battle affinity, I called my magic into the space under my ribs. With gentle beckoning waves, I welcomed it home. Despite the affinity blasting the testing vial apart, I still didn’t sense battle was my most powerful channel. I had an inkling, a fearful suspicion, that the unwanted creature within me had something to do with my extra oomph. Glad to know she was contributing while staying rent-free, because I wouldn’t rest until she was evicted.

Moving to my apothecary affinity, I whispered that back to my magical core without issue.

And then there was one left—the main reason I felt so uncentered. I didn’t even feel capable of reeling my divination magic in, so inhaling and exhaling in slow rhythm, I existed with two affinities called into my core. I existed there until my thoughts weighed with stupor and my limbs were warm and heavy.

I peeled away my hesitations and fears and expectations. I considered the coven—the rumors and the council’s pushiness with the affinity test. I touched on the original coven and the interference of Wild’s parents.

While those things may weave with my own path, they didn’t stop me walking my own. I pushed them away.

I contemplated Wild.

Wild.