I give her a small smile. “I can’t. Not until I know it isn’t the hex.”
“If that’s what you need,” Iris says.
“Do you two have everything handled here?” I ask and they both nod.
“Just to put my two cents in, I think you should ride that ride and then come back and tell me what wolf dick is like,” Ember says and I toss a bag of M&M’s at her, before I pay my great aunt Daisy a visit.
When I enter the home, she’s where she always is, at the window reading a book. I grab one of the red velvet chairs with gold filigree decor and slide it next to her. She pauses on her page, touching my face gently with a smile.
“Hey, Aunt Daisy,” I tell her and she smiles.
Her face is wrinkled with time, but her pale blue eyes are always expressive.
“I’m hoping you have a particular spell. One that would… um… make someone…” I didn’t think about how exactly I was going to ask her for a spell or ritual on how to not be horny before I got here.
She taps my hand twice, and two books come flying at her small oak table at once. They both look ancient as the top one opens, the cover slapping as the pages turn on their own accord.
I read the pages it lands on.
The Ritual of Virtue.
I skim the pages, not really liking the solution, but it’s better than nothing.
“How did you know?” I ask her in embarrassment.
She cups my face and for the first time it looks like she wants to talk, but can’t. My great aunt sighs, and just taps on the page twice. I collect the book, but she smacks her cane twice against the wooden floor. I glance back at her and she holds the second book.
I don’t know why she wants me to have it, but I take it, placing a kiss against her white, thinning hair. She touches my face one more time as I leave the house.
As soon as I’m out of her wards I teleport home, working on everything I need to build a fire. Thankfully, my dear husband chopped me plenty of wood.
Tonight is not going to be fun.
Chapter 31
Ididn’t expect to spend my night building a fire.
Thank goodness for magic, because without it I probably would have given up after carrying one log. But with feather light spells I’m able to bring everything I want into the woods.
It’s still technically my property, but it’s deep enough you won’t be able to see the fire from my back porch. At least I hope.
It just so happens that I’m in luck with the waning moon. The new moon starts tomorrow, which means this spell has a three-day window, and today happens to be that day.
I scatter the cymbidiums into the growing fire as night takes over. I’ll be able to perform the ceremony in about fifteen minutes. Until then, I stare at the flames and consider everything I’m going to have to do.
Going behind my coven's back isn’t something I would have considered a month ago. But it has to be done.
The truth needs to come out, no matter what it is.
Part of that is denying myself this one thing I want. I’ve waited thirty years for this. What’s a little bit more time?
I groan, hating that I’m being impatient, hating that I want him so badly.
The idea of desiring a man before felt frivolous and kind of disgusting. Men as a whole are rather irrelevant, but Silas is something else. Now here I am performing a ritual on Halloween night to prevent myself from climbing that giant man and experiencing how good he can make me feel. Just like he rationalized the night we kissed, I need to know this is real.
Just as much as Silas can’t let me walk away again, neither can I.
I look up at the stars and the moonless sky and sigh—it’s showtime. I take off my nightgown, tossing it to the side before placing the white pedal of a carnation on my tongue as I hold my hands in the sky and begin the ritual.
