Page 155 of First Ritual

“You’re so fucking stubborn. I’m stubborn, but you are next level.”

“Thanks.”

“Wild is really sick.”

I opened my eyelid again.

Corentin crouched, grimacing at the toilet bowl. “Really sick, Bronte. Started like you last night. Never said anything. We went to find him, and he was like this. We’ve tried everything, and nothing helps. He’s out of it.”

“Let me know if you find a cure.”

Corentin dragged me upright, and it took everything in me not to vomit all over him, though why I held back was anyone’s guess.

The magus glared down at me. “Guess what. My friend, the friend who helped me when no one else had the guts to, is in trouble. Because of you. You’re going to fucking help him.”

“I haven’t done anything,” I said weakly. Black spots interrupted my vision. Oh, fuck. Totally about to pass out.

Corentin’s furious face neared mine. “You’re denying a mating ritual that is unprecedented for magus and apparently as ancient as Nordic runes, if not older. You think that doesn’t come with consequences?”

Well… I hadn’t. Now I could see some parallels. I swallowed several times. “We have to break through this.”

“You don’t break magic of this kind,” he told me in a flat tone. “This magic just breaks you.”

His experiences layered his voice.

I summoned a scowl. “I hate when you get sincere. Makes it hard to detest you.”

Corentin blinked and proceeded to look about as uncertain as I’d ever seen him. He recovered, grabbing my arm. “You’re coming with me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Unlike Wild, I don’t give a shit.”

“You do too. Stop trying to be so invincible all the time.”

He cut me a look. “Don’t mistake me for someone who cares.”

“Don’t mistake me for someone who won’t vomit all over you or pass out in three seconds.”

Corentin rubbed his face with his free hand. “Good to know.”

He picked me up and summoned a portal with impossible speed.

“That’s how you sneak up on people,” I gasped. The fucker was a portal genius.

“Don’t tell,” he said smugly.

When we made it through, he dropped me on the ground, and I emptied the contents of my stomach—of which there weren’t much left—onto the floor.

“Gross,” Huxley said from my left.

“I second that,” Sven spoke from my right.

Wiping my mouth and banishing the mess, I sat on my haunches. “Both of you can get fucked.”

“If you and Wild did that, this might all be over,” Sven replied with a smirk.

Or it wouldn’t be. That was the huge, irreversible risk. “Where is he?”