“Holy fuck, I felt you!” I gawked at him, not because he was being an asshole, because I’d felt him against my breasts, and it hadn’t repulsed me. In fact, they’d responded to the electricity of his touch the same as they had for Knox.
“Keep gawking at me with an open mouth, and I’ll use that tight throat of yours.”
“I just might let you,” I laughed, smirking before my eyes held Knox’s briefly, dismissing him while Brander stared at me as if I was off my rocker. “Come on, big boy. Don’t keep ladies waiting, it’s rude.”
Chapter 22
Inside Knox’s house, they had set drinks out. We were being watched by the men who had been instructed to do so, yet they didn’t seem to mind us getting drunk. Music played quietly in the background while my sisters spoke in soft voices, discussing the issue and what to do about it.
The blessing had to be done on the house, that was a given. The real problem was Amara, and what she’d done—if she had really done it. Right now, everything pointed to her, which seemed a little too convenient.
Then there were the words Amara used in her note, which confirmed she had written it. She always told me how prickly I was, and how blocked off I was from the world. I had shields I’d placed, but they were more to protect the damage within me, rather than to keep people out. I was standoffish with strangers, not quick to trust people or their motives. I protected my family, which I didn’t think was a bad thing.
“You need this.” Kinvara sat beside me, offering a bottle of tequila. “You think she did this, don’t you?”
“I think everything points to it, yes. It makes little sense, though. Nothing makes sense right now. What the hell did she even mean? You are given? I mean, it feels like we stepped into a mess, and she lured us into it. Then there’s the fact that everything is way too conveniently pointing to her. Amara isn’t stupid. She’s borderline genius, so if she did this, why didn’t she cover her tracks?”
“Maybe she didn’t care if it did? She’s gone, and we’re left to deal with the aftermath. Amara could be anywhere by now, hell, even on a beach in Fiji with her lover, sucking down mojitos and laughing in the sun for all we know.” Kinvara shrugged, watching me.
“It’s still way too expedient to just brush it under the rug,” I replied, unscrewing the lid on the tequila and taking a shot before passing it back to her. I rested my head against her shoulder, watching as the others drank and began to loosen up. Aine was talking to one of the men, her hand brushing seductively over his chest.
“I bet she has him naked within the hour, riding that pony,” Kinvara chuckled, tipping back the bottle.
“Knox forbids it. He loathes witches, y’know.”
“Oh, he took that back. We’re free to fuck whoever we want now.” She smiled while I narrowed my gaze on her, watching her chugging the agave nectar down.
“When?” I asked carefully.
“After you left to go to the house,” she explained, telling me what he’d said and what the rules were. “No breeding though, apparently. Not that any of us want to ruin our hips soon. Guess he assumes we’re all the same, in search of a baby daddy.”
“Oh,” I frowned, accepting the bottle to watch Aine. “I can feel him, Kin. When he touches me, I don’t get sick.”
“Shut the fuck up,” she laughed, leveling me with a serious look. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“No, unfortunately, he seems to have some invisible pull on my string, and he can unravel me. Tonight though, Brander pulled me against him, and I felt him too,” I said, watching the male in question who sat away from the group, glaring at them all.
“Aria, this means you can finally get dick,” she stated loudly, which caused the others to turn in our direction.
“Shut up, asshole,” I laughed, taking another drink. I hadn’t eaten today, which probably meant I shouldn’t be drinking, but I missed this part of being away from the house we’d lived in before coming back here.
When we moved away from Haven Falls, we’d become closer than we’d been here. Instead of being separated to learn magic, we’d started practicing it together. We’d gone to an ordinary high school and lived normal lives with actual jobs to hone our crafts. We got drunk together, got into fights like normal kids, and while we lived in a house together, we gave each other room when we felt the others needed to have it.
It also allowed us to grow and mature in a way that Haven Falls had been preventing. I almost felt the need to thank Freya for being such a bitch, and for being so harsh on us that Aurora had taken us away from her, sheltering us while also letting us flourish.
The last time Freya had tried to murder me, we’d fled with nothing. No spellbooks, no grimoires, or anything, so we’d begun making our own. We used the internet to pull spells from the dark web, utilizing connotations to perfect them.
I started buying crystals, infusing them with magic, and selling them online until the money in my account had vanished, being added to the trust. I’d been living, though, surviving on my own with no need for this place or my mother.
It’s what made this so confusing for me since Amara had been the one to point out how much happier we were away from Haven Falls. Yet she’d volunteered to come back, which I’d figured was due to our fighting. I was tired of her talking about the guy she’d been meeting in the Nine Realms, and upset she kept that secret from everyone else. I had also been angry that she’d hurt us to make sure she was the one that got to go back.
Amara had broken my leg the day before I was scheduled to take my turn, traveling to the Nine Realms, and while I’d known she’d done it on purpose, I hidden it from the others. I also told her if she did it again, after physically hurting Reign, I’d tell the others. It drove a wedge between us I’d ignored, assuming she’d get over it.
To maintain the pact between the original bloodlines, once a year, one descendant of our bloodline had to go to the court we silently ruled. It had become a massive thing once we hit the age we could begin visiting our lands. Sabine had been the first, and when she’d come back to tell us about it, we’d all craved the adventure to visit the land whence we’d come.
Amara, though, when she went for her first time had been terrified, and cried on my shoulder about leaving me alone for the few months she’d be gone. It was our first time being separated since I’d been quarantined due to infection and sepsis the hemlock had caused in my system.
She’d been inconsolable and demanded she stay. It wasn’t possible to miss the rotation, and so she’d been forced to go by Aurora. She returned and told me about the man she’d met and what he’d been like. She never mentioned his name or where he was from within the Nine Realms, only that she couldn’t wait to go back.
I was next, but she took my place when she cast a minor spell that had broken my leg. It happened again after that, and again until I’d warned her of what would happen should she continue to cast magic on us. She’d almost killed Reign with a spell she had no business casting, and if I hadn’t been there to reverse it, she would have. She’d cast magic on Aurora to be chosen to enter the Nine Realms in our places, and I knew our aunt had figured it out but held her tongue.