More grumbles, but I slip out into the hallway and listen again. All quiet, and even quieter as I pad into the living room and peek around the corner.
Heading into the kitchen, I find that it’s empty.
As a matter of fact, the entire apartment seems empty. Silent, with no sounds from Joan and Rhett’s bedroom and no sign they’re still here.
Glancing at the window, the first rays of dawn are just lightening the sky, and my question is answered for me when I see the note on the counter.
Went down to open the shop. Come grab a cup and say goodbye before you go.
I nearly laugh out loud.
Of course they’re already up and gone.
There was absolutely no reason for me and Callum to be quiet, no reason I couldn’t have pulled down those shorts and found out exactly what would make him lose control.
I’m of a mind to do exactly that, damn our hunt or delaying us from getting to wherever we’re going next.
But before I can, he appears in the kitchen door.
Back in his human glamour, hair tousled from sleep, wearing another set of my dad’s clothes, he surveys me where I stand at the counter. His eyes trace a leisurely path up and down my body, leaving a trail of heat burning over every inch of me.
Goddess, I could tackle him right back into that mattress.
I could yank off that ring and get my hands on the real Callum, find out how to make him as crazy as he made me.
But he’s already dressed, ready to get out of here and off to our next stop, so I bottle that feeling up for later.
Because there will absolutely be a later.
Now that I’ve gotten a taste, and despite what might be any better judgment or rational thought, I already know there won’t be any stopping this.
My magick makes me single-minded, obsessed, focused, determined.
And now it’s just found a new prize it absolutely won’t be satisfied until it wins.
“You’ll be careful?”
“I always am.”
Joan scoffs. “Sure, sure. Seren Pendergast, the absolute definition of caution and restraint.”
“The one and only,” I tease, and enfold her in a quick hug. “Yeah, Joan. I’ll be careful. And I’m not alone this time, so that’s gotta increase my odds of making it back here alive.”
She sighs and hugs me back. “I had a demon with me too, and that didn’t stop my ass from almost ending up six feet under.”
It’s a grim reminder, but her tone is light, joking, and after one last squeeze, she lets me go.
Even this early in the morning, there are already a half-dozen patrons sitting in the shop sipping their morning beverages, and a handful more waiting to be served. A few of them I recognize—other witches who’ve left the coven, many of whom never made it past the first tests the Council puts to young witches. The tests decide who receives the coven’s prestigious training. Those who don’t pass wind up with only a rudimentary magickal education and spend the rest of their adolescence in the mundane world going to public school.
I’ve never felt completely comfortable with this crowd.
Joan has always been nice enough to invite me, and sometimes the little gatherings in her tea shop do include other witches who left the coven after they made the cut. But mostly there’s a ton of awkward tension hanging in the air. The recognition of who we are and the different paths we’ve taken. The echoes of the division the coven sows between us from the moment they decide who’s worthy of joining their ranks and who’s not.
Even though it’s been a decade and a half for me, and far longer than that for some of the other witches, resentments like that last for life.
It’s just one more thing to feel guilty about. It’s one more chip on my shoulder, the feeling of being ungrateful, of squandering the chance I’d bet more than a few of them wish they’d gotten.
I know it’s not my fault things shook out the way they did, but I’ll be damned if I can make the guilty lump in the bottom of my stomach believe that whenever I hang out with this crowd.
