Page 146 of First Ritual

The Wild who thought he had feelings for me. It didn’t matter to me whether he did or not. What mattered was that the feelings were authentic and natural. I could never believe that with the ritual involved, so that quashed anything further with Wild. I’d never trust in us. What I might feel was pointless.

Sadness stirred in my magical core, and I drew my focus there. My two affinities had been swirling happily—lazily. Now they were raised and darting.

“I feel something for him.” They were the first words I’d spoken aloud today. I did feel something for Wild—I cared what happened to him now. I cared what happened to Sven and Huxley, Corentin even, and especially Rooke. With Wild… I felt awe over what we could feel together. Awe that his touch could soothe and incite such emotion. I wanted to take him to bed in the worst way. If the ritual weren’t here, if somehow I’d had some of these experiences with Wild anyway, then yeah—I’d go there.

My magic swirled again, losing its frantic edge now I’d confronted the truth instead of denying it. My point was that all those ritual things I felt with Wild weren’t normal. Magus didn’t mate.

Yet we were.

Why was that?

Because I had a demon in me.

And demons, like werewolves and vampires, did mate.

Shit. I drew in a long breath, feeling slight waves of shock even in my deeply meditative state. That answer was so simple, and so obvious in hindsight. I’d guessed that I’d passed a demon to Wild, but not why this entire ritual had begun.

We couldn’t find anything on magus mating rituals because they didn’t exist until me and Wild—and only existed now because I was possessed by a demon.

There was the real answer at last. My lips curved. The answer to my troubles and the answer to Wild’s troubles were one and the same—try that for the mother’s serendipity.

I wanted to be rid of the creature inside me, and when I was rid of her, then Wild’s suffering would also end. The demon drive for the mating ritual would no longer be present. We would return to mere magus—and to the potential romance we were meant to have had.

A genuine romance.

One I could fall into and trust.

I’d already found how to cut a tether in the notes from the quad that I’d finally gone through last night after the party. I would discover how to be only a magus once again.

Holding to that certainty, I addressed my divination affinity at last. With the crook of a finger, I called the power available to me around the demon block in the channel back to my center to swirl with the rest of my magic. Calm, brave, determined, I hunkered down in the channel after to look at the dark mass residing there.

The fissure I’d pressed on during the test was gone. The demon had fixed it.

I probed the mass with my battle affinity and found nothing. Damn. Not that I was ready to make a move, but the creature had learned. It was sentient.

“Hello,” I murmured.

The dark mass didn’t budge.

Even acknowledging the other supernatural and looking at it felt like a massive step. A completeness settled upon my shoulders, and I withdrew from the channel to bask in the centering of my magic. My thoughts. My purpose and path.

There was a reason Grandmother insisted on recentering each day. I’d grown lax, and I couldn’t allow this to happen again. No one would get in the way of me caring for myself.

Working awareness into my limbs first, I rose to glide through the forest. I’d lost the sense of being adrift, but the sense of being utterly alone remained.

Rooke and the others firmly believed the darkness in me wasn’t a demon.

Maybe they were right. My gut said otherwise. I had more to go off than them. I was me. I didn’t feel I could confide in any of them about this. I didn’t want to bring them into my shit because—call me a coward—while they could deny, then things didn’t need to alter.

I’d had to push them away a little these last few days. We’d become too intertwined. But friendship was still possible after a bit of distance to let the new boundaries sink in and take root. Berry, Ruby, Breese—they were magus I could hang out with regularly and not fear them undoing me. The quad and Rooke… they were on rations until I felt more like myself.

Right now, that was what I could handle, and I didn’t feel shame in admitting a preference for people who I could just be around. That was the shit thing about losing a sibling. A sister or brother just knew you. I’d give a lot for Syera to be here right now. With her by my side, I could have conquered the world—and myself.

I could have been and done anything. I could have been happy.

Mother, I yearned for as a child, wanting their hurts and heartache soothed away. I wanted her kindness and guidance. I wanted her hug. Grandmother would lend me the clarity of age. She’d threaten to injure anyone who’d hurt me because she’d lived her life and didn’t care about the consequences. When I’d refuse, she’d wait until Mother went out to teach me a savage charm to wield against my enemies.

“Bronte, right?”