Posey
“Well, that takes care of that, I guess.” Willow cuts me a look as she stuffs her clothes in her suitcase, leaning her weight against it. “I did tell you he was interested in you.”
I slouch on the edge of her bed on the second floor of the lake house, the room full of tangerine-hued light from the sunset. “He’s not interested in me. He’s interested in my business. There’s a difference. Aris has always had to know everything about everyone.”
She rolls her eyes and yanks on the zipper several times before it gives and allows her to close the suitcase, which she promptly dumps on the floor with a reverberating thud. “I’m here for one more night, and the one thing I want more than anything is to see you let loose and have fun with me. Can you do that? Your secret is out, so it doesn’t matter.”
My chest tightens. “My-my secret?”
She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Uh, yeah? The fact you’ll forever be a virgin?”
My chest relaxes as relief sweeps through me like a tidal wave. “Oh, I, um. I don’t have to be a virgin to be a priestess. I just have to abstain after taking my vows–”
“So you weren’t keeping the fact you’re going to live at a dusty, haunted temple a secret? Or was it just a secret from Aris?”
“I was under the impression he knew. It’s not a secret. I don’t know why he cares. He shouldn’t have an opinion at all.”
“He has the hots for you, girl.”
“He doesn’t.”
“I say… add him to your list.”
“I don’t have a list.” I rise and walk to the window. This room has a view of the backyard. Aris is nowhere to be seen, but Miles, Tate, and Roman, who hasn’t spoken to me since the market fiasco this morning, are lounging in the grass drinking cans of beer–pregaming for the bonfire tonight.
Willow is heading out tomorrow to continue her grand tour of Eastonia, her next stop being Twin Rivers before she hops over to Tarsian… all in her little blue convertible.
I’m not nearly as brave as her. I never have been. She’s spent her whole summer having new adventures, checking things off a list, before settling into her new life.
I’ve been ignoring the freedoms I’m leaving behind. Ignoring my curiosities. Ignoring the desires I had for a life I’ve been robbed of.
“What’s on your list, exactly?”
Willow, now doing her makeup in the ensuite, pokes her head through the door with a grin. “You really want to know?”
I nod, and she squeals, then disappears from her room entirely, coming back five minutes later with a bottle of wine and two glasses, which she fills to the brim recites the list, which is apparently completely mental, in detail.
Willow, who is convinced her mate is out there, and she’ll meet him when she gets back to Crescent Falls, has decided she’s going to not only visit every major city in Eastonia, but sleep with someone from each one. Her sexual prowess has already made her successful on that front, except for here, because just like I thought, Roman has ignored the bait entirely.
“It doesn’t make me a… well, you know,” she says, halfway through her second glass of wine. “I just know what I like, and I always find it. I’m just… testing all the flavors until I find my favorite.”
“Until you find your mate?” I smirk over the rim of my glass–still nursing my first, but I’m nearly finished. I already feel lightheaded as she grins and rolls her eyes to the ceiling.
“He’s not going to care, I know that much about him because he’s probably just like me… sleeping through every pack until he finds me.”
I laugh, and she follows, both of us pink in the face and so distracted by the faint buzz in our veins to notice Roman in the doorway.
“Am I interrupting?” he asks, and his deep voice slices through me, the buzz turning sour. “We’re leaving for the other side of the island in a few minutes. For the bonfire. If you’re going.” He’s looking at Willow, refusing to make eye contact with me.
Willow picks up the bottle of wine and tops off her glass before looking at me with an arch of her brow.
I think about it for a moment, about how I could, like every night for the past week, go upstairs and study. I could be alone, enjoying the quiet solitude and the shadows that seem to dance around my room, keeping me company.
I tilt my empty glass toward the bottle, and she presses her lips together in an excited, but subdued, grin.
Roman stiffens as the wine pours, but Willow turns her practiced, seductive smile on him. “We’ll be ready in, like, twenty minutes. Posey still needs to get ready.”
“You’re coming?”
I look away from my brother. “Yeah, is that a problem for you?”
Roman just sighs, rolling unsaid words over his tongue, and leaves. Willow jumps into action, exclaiming, “All right, we have work to do!” and rips open her already packed suitcase.
***
My entire body feels loose and unsteady as I walk beside Willow down a wood-lined road. It’s fully dark now, not a single light shining to illuminate our path, but Roman, Miles, and Tate have it covered as they hoot and holler several yards ahead, the backyard beers, apparently, having given way to a bottle of whiskey that Roman finished off.
I’ve never seen him this drunk. I’ve never seen him laugh this freely, but anytime his glazed eyes slide in my direction, they darken, and I eventually refuse to even look at him.
“He’ll forget the fight by morning,” Willow says breezily, soaking in the warm night air. “Trust me. He’s obliterated already, and we’re not even at the party yet.”
“It wasn’t even a fight. He’s just–he’s mad because he knows I’m upset with him. It’s his way.”
“He’s ruining your vibe.” She playfully pinches my arm. “You know what? I still have a night left. I’ll… distract him for you. Maybe I’ll get my way after all!”
“You don’t have to–” Her arm slips from mine, and then she’s flouncing toward him through the darkness, giggling as she comes to a stop, purring like a cat hooking her claws into his forearm. He doesn’t fight it this time.
“She’s a cunning little witch, isn’t she?”
I close my eyes and take a deep, restorative breath as Aris’s voice sounds out behind me.
“How long have you been lurking in the shadows?”
“Long enough to hear the entirety of your conversation with our resident lady of the night.” Aris sidles up beside me, his hands tucked in the pockets of his jeans. His muscled frame is on display in a simple thin white T-shirt. He looks normal, a far cry from the prince he is. I doubt many people will recognize him like this.
“Willow isn’t a witch, and even if she is a lady of the night, she’s proud of it, and I’m proud of her for being so brave.”
“You think sleeping with anyone with a pulse is brave?”
“She’s rather calculating about it, actually. You could learn a thing or two from her seeing as you do exactly what you accused her of.”
“Tell that to the tabloids, Pose. I fear I’ve ruined my reputation past the point of no return, so it doesn’t matter.”
“It is rather bad. Everyone knows you will sleep with anyone with a pulse.”
“I’m rather picky, actually.”
“How so?”
Music wafts toward us when we reach the outskirts of a quiet, lakeside town. Beyond the trees now growing sparse, the moon glimmers over the lake, which is teeming with boats, all of them anchored just off the shoreline where a huge party is taking place. It’s a warm night. A calm one. It’s not enough to thaw the chill between me and Aris after the fight this morning, but he’s obviously trying.
“I tend to lean toward people who want the same thing I do.” His voice drops to a low whisper, the words meant for me and me alone.
“And what’s that?”
He shrugs. “Feeling like… I have someone, even if it’s just for a moment.”
I startle but stifle it. “That’s kind of deep.”
He quickly corrects himself. “It never means anything. It’s casual. Always. No strings attached.”
“You make it sound easy.”
A heavy, speculative silence settles between us for several heartbeats. “Aren’t you going into a convent?”
“I am, I just… Willow mentioned I should make a list of things I want to do and experience before I take my vows, and I think she’s right. There’re things I should know.”
“Are you saying you’re… hunting tonight?” There’s a gleam in his eyes I’m not sure I understand. He’s either impressed or seriously concerned.
“Hunting for what?”
“Posey! Come on!” Willow jumps up and down, waving her arms.
I pick up the pace, walking steadily in her direction. The ground turns to thick sand, but Aris’s touch on my wrist burns through me like a fire heating a forge.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he says, his thumb resting over my pulse. I try to pull out of his grasp, but I meet his gaze, and I feel suddenly, inexplicitly trapped in place. His eyes are a stunning clear silver. A flawless silver. The kind I can so easily bend to my will.
“I wouldn’t do anything you’d do. Don’t worry.”
He lets me go, but I feel his stare following me through the crowd.
Willow and I move across the beach. I’ve never seen anything like this–this many people our age gathered in such a small space. I never went to the college parties Willow was always trying to drag me to. Going to college in the first place had been a miracle because my parents were so incredibly opposed to me leaving Sapphire Ridge, and the idea of messing it up had me in tatters.
I spent the majority of my years at Wellington alone in the library or my dorm room, praying I’d remain under the radar, that no one would catch my eye and vice versa. It was before I knew that I don’t have a wolf. It was also before my secret alchemy gifts had shown up. I’d been raised knowing I’d marry someone someday who’d strengthen my alchemy gifts, and anyone else would soil our carefully crafted bloodline.
Someone in that bloodline lied, however.
And now I’m never going to know what it feels like to dance against the backdrop of an open flame, my mate’s mouth on mine, his hands…
“Damn.” A deep, rolling male voice sounds directly above my head. I look up just as a dark-haired fortress of a man catches my arm, stopping me from tripping over a cooler parked in the sand. His hazel eyes scan mine before mapping the planes of my face, and when they meet mine again, they’re a shade darker than they were before. “I haven’t seen you around. Just visiting?”
“Yeah.” He lets me go, and my arm drops limp at my side. Willow, realizing I’m no longer beside her, whirls to the group of men with me standing precariously at the edge of their semicircle.
“I’m Mason.”
“I’m–I’m Posey.”
“Northern girl. Haven’t heard an accent like that around these parts in a while.” He smiles, and it’s charming, something that exudes heat that makes my stomach pinch. He’s flirting, isn’t he? This is my shot, isn’t it? At affection? At a taste of something Aris and Willow find so easily? “Where are you from, Miss Posey?”
I open my mouth, but Willow latches herself to my side, her smile blinding and immediately entrancing the group. “We’re from Crescent Falls. And… who are you, exactly?”
Mason smirks, giving Willow an appraising once over. “My father’s the Alpha of Ruby. You’re on my property as it stands.” His eyes slide to mine once more. “I have a few rules, especially for tourists as pretty as you two.”
Part of me wants to tell him the truth–I'm also from Veiled Valley–the northern part, yes. He’d been right about my lifted accent, so different from the slow roll of his vowels, but… he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything about me. He doesn’t need to.
“Oh, yeah? What rules?” Willow’s smile is coy like a cat, her eyes gleaming in the firelight.
Mason reaches down and plucks two beers from the cooler. “If you’re going to stand by my fire, you have to drink to it”
“To what?” I manage, my throat suddenly thick with something akin to excitement–or dread. I’m not sure. I fight the urge to turn to look for… Aris, of all people. But this is what normal people my age do, don’t they?
“To new friends,” he says smoothly, cracking open a beer and handing it to me. His touch lingers on my fingers when they meet. “And a long night ahead.”