Death's Primordial Kiss (The Silvered Moon Diaries Book 1)

by Romarin Demetri

  “Then hope that candle stays lit long enough for you to return them,” Stan answered.

  “This could also decrease my popularity,” I said, “and that’s a risk as an initiate during my first two years.”

  “It is, Avereis, and it’s time you learn risk. You’re far too calculated for a fire element, and even though your control is why we picked you, they’ll be risks not only in this room but outside this door.” He stopped to pointedly look me in the eye, “and as long as Maddi still likes you, she controls popular opinion, and I doubt she likes you in that sexy way when she has Tomas over almost every night.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So take the feelings and return them to their proper owners afterward?”

  “You understand. This is a large scale spell. Deflect their attention first so no one notices you. That should be easy for you, as you had no idea that it’s Imbolc tonight.”

  “Imbolc?” I asked. “It’s February second already? I guess I’ve been consumed by training and…”

  “No excuses. You forgot.”

  I nodded.

  “Here it goes.”

  Everyone in the room was my target, and I was guiltily pleased at my popularity when I realized it glowed pink in about a quarter of them. I’d show Stan exactly what I had done at auditions to get into the Coven.

  I lifted the light, the pink color, out of them. It gathered overhead and became a giant cloud, much like the cloud of fire I had made at auditions. I’d show him. I glanced at Stan to confirm I was on the right track, but then I realized that I was the only one who could see the energy signature as color.

  I kept the pink cloud far enough over everyone’s heads so it wouldn’t transfer to anyone else, directing the mass of astral energy towards the unlit white candle on the bar top.

  “I’ve got it,” I said, glancing at Stan with a satisfied grin, and when my eyes returned to my path, someone had walked into it.

  I gasped as I watched the light engulf and glow around the person who had gotten in my way. I left eye contact with it for just a second, and it crashed.

  The guy near the bar turned around.

  It was Jameson Juliet.

  “Don’t tell me that you just…” Stan said.

  “Everyone’s feelings in this room are now in him,” I said, horrified.

  “You shouldn’t have taken your eyes away, Avereis. What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m getting rid of it,” I said.

  But I couldn’t. The whirling mist of emotions was stuck inside of him, and those feelings of lust wouldn’t budge, despite the control I had from being able to see their pathways as colors.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Too much energy,” Stan said. “We can only displace it using a spell book and we can’t do it here. We risk infecting others.”

  “Infecting?” I said, hurt, “Oh no, he’s seen me!”

  “You can’t do a counterspell here,” Stan said. “We have to go back to the house to minimize risking any more civilians.”

  I couldn’t stop Jaime with my empath powers. He was walking over here no matter what—and for me.

  With his disregard for authority, Jaime was probably one of the worst people who could have caught my energy. It probably would have lifted over him as planned if he wasn’t as tall as he was.

  “Good evening, Rose,” He said.

  “Hello,” I said back. “Um, Avereis is my name,” I told him.

  “Rose is more beautiful,” Jaime told me.

  You’ll have to play along if you want to reverse the spell, Stan thought to me.

  No! I yelled back so loudly that Stan grimaced. But he was right. I had to get Jaime away from these people and back home—something I never planned on doing a minute ago.

  “Thank you,” I said. “What kind of name is Jameson?”

  “I’m named after whiskey,” he laughed shortly and slowly. It was honestly infectious and authentic. It was his real laugh and he was showing it to me. His emotions were authentic too, but not his own, at least not the majority of them. I wasn’t looking for anyone in particular when I pulled the energy, and I wasn’t sure if any of these feelings had originally come from Jaime.

  “What you’re feeling right now is a spell,” I tried to explain.

  “You put a spell on me, Rose?” Jaime flirted, looking me dead in the eye and standing far too close for comfort. No, this wasn’t flirting. It was what Helaine called “chirpsing.” He smelled faintly of expensive cologne that I paused a moment to take in. I caught a rich bergamot and bourbon scent from him, with a subtle tobacco note hanging loosely over his clothes. “What did I do to deserve such an honor from the most desirable witch in the Coven?”

  “You walked right into my trap,” I said quietly.

  It was impossible for me not to flirt a little bit. I had to admit that he was doing a wonderful job, and I had given him a lot to work with. His jacket had been discarded on the back of a chair somewhere, and his confidence owned how his muscles tensed against his short sleeves and across his chest. Lusions were naturally muscular, and everything about Jaime Juliet was effortless.

  Focus, Stan lectured.

  But I couldn’t. I took the little bit of his energy that I could into me, hoping that it would help him think more clearly and listen. I felt how thick, warm, and enticing the desire was, and to think I was desirable as he had suggested aroused my passion. It was nearly too much to take, and it still wouldn’t budge from him. I wanted to immerse myself in it, but I wanted to slow down and take everything in. It was intoxicating. It was better than the first night I met Kenny, and far better than the day I did this same exact thing at auditions.

  “Avereis,” Stan said out loud. “Is everything okay?”

  “Who are you?” Jaime barked. “Is he bothering you?”

  “No,” I said out loud.

  Yes, you are, I told Stan, lost to my fuzz of pink. Unlike the smirk he was wearing, Jaime’s closed mouth smile was incredibly genuine, and his mouth was full and soft-looking. I thought about kissing him.

  Don’t do this Avereis, Stan thought louder. Do you know if one of those emotions was originally Jaime’s to begin with? You could be manipulating him, and the witch I know would never stand for that.

  Witch. I was a witch. It took Stan’s questioning of my integrity for me to back down and attempt to push Jaime’s fake feelings away. By then, Helaine had reached me, and she pushed Jaime backward with her open hands, which meant she was exercising restraint.

  “What are you doing?” he yelled to Helaine, shocked she had laid a hand on him.

  “Leave her alone,” Helaine said.

  “I can’t,” Jaime confessed.

  “Listen to me, Jaime,” I said, “you are really under a spell. Try and see through it.”

  “I want you,” he said to me. Helaine’s eyes flashed over to me in panic. “It’s like you’re all I ever wanted and I can’t stop thinking about you. I like just being near you.”

  “Why does he sound serious?” Helaine asked me.

  “It’s Stan’s fault,” I said. I was going down swinging at him.

  “So he is bothering you,” Jaime asked of Stan again. I saw anger rise from him now, a deep and jealous mix of green and pink, turning into a murky brown.

  “NO,” the three of us said back.

  “Come with us,” I told Jaime, before giving him a smile. “Let’s go,” I beckoned to Helaine and Stan.

  “Where are we going?” Jaime asked, the fuzzy feeling still apparent in his eyes.

  “Home,” I said.

  “Your house? You didn’t seem like the type but okay. Only if you want, I’ll go with you.”

  He looked thankful, that was the best way I could describe it, humbled by me asking him back, and a little lost for words. Part of me thought maybe he was one of the good guys, but that part of me was the pinkish energy that had backfired from the candle.

  We left the bar to walk home, and I was still feeling and s
eeing his energy, getting mixed up in its strength.

  “You,” Helaine said, forcing space in between me and Jaime, “that side.”

  “You’ll have to kill me to keep us apart,” Jaime said seriously. The spell seemed to be growing, and I would probably have to take some of the energy back into myself to avoid things getting super weird.

  “Luckily, I know a few different ways,” Helaine challenged.

  “That’s what I love about Rose, her training. She’s so determined.”

  “Love?” I accidentally said out loud, gawking.

  But there it was, a pink yet coppery red, something I hadn’t seen before. My spell had tricked Jaime into being in love with me. What the fuck had I done?

  Don’t, Stan cautioned, knowing what I was about to do.

  He could hurt you or Helaine. He’s jealous, I can tell. I can channel some of it into me, the little bit I can, but I’m leaving myself completely vulnerable in your hands. I trust you.

  Rose!

  But Stan’s last thought was sucked out of my head as I let the pink flood back into me, eliciting the most wonderful sensation.

  I was floating on a warm, comforting coppery cloud.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Blessed Brigid

  Helaine

  I stood in our living room with my arms crossed, glaring at Stan, but knowing that it didn’t really faze him. It was better than staring at the two of them, but the scene before me in the living room was as engrossing as watching a train wreck. The past ten minutes had been a bloody freak show. Just when I thought he’d gone comatose, Stan spoke.

  “I think Brigid has been invoked,” Stan mused to me.

  “The Celtic goddess of fire?” I asked, tearing myself away from the sight of Rose and Jaime snogging on the couch, laughing like they had been together for months. I had never seen her kiss anyone over and over again before, let alone look at someone the way she was looking at him now. Their hands intertwined as they sat next to each other.

  “The signs that a goddess has been invoked are there. The warm glow of her skin—”

  “Definitely not the surge of hormones or anything,” I said sarcastically.

  “The ethereal quality to her voice.”

  “Now that you mention it… oh ma déesse…”

  I had noticed her voice was different (higher, maybe?) and when I looked back to her to try and listen to it again, I saw Jaime’s hand sneaking up her shirt, creeping up her ribcage ever so slightly. I remembered how wonderfully that tickled but snapped myself out of it when the shirt got above her navel, making Stan and I exchange glances as to who would interject first.

  “Hey, Rose, you want to open a bottle of wine for me?” I forced a smile.

  “Sure,” she said leaping up from the couch. When Jaime went to follow her to the kitchen, I had to interrupt his progress. I hoped Stan didn’t notice how wide my eyes grew as they traveled down Jaime’s body.

  “Jaime, you stay here okay. OKAY?” He sat back down, the hazy look still on his face. “And for the love of—e-verything—do not stand up!”

  All I needed was another an eyeful of that.

  You mean, all you wanted was—

  You breathe a word of this to anyone, Stan, and I will murder you in your sleep and make it look like an accident.

  It’s only natural—

  I glared at Stan. He was exceptionally good at reading the angry body language of women. So help me, the next (first) time I saw him check a girl out, I would berate that boy faster than my hook-roundhouse combination kick.

  If it wasn’t the absolute weirdest night since I had been in the Coven, maybe it would have been cute (how much Jaime liked Rose, I mean). Instead, it was heinous.

  “She can’t use a corkscrew for shit,” I told Stan quietly. “I bought us a few moments. So what you’re telling me is that you made Rose perform a love spell on Imbolc, when Brigid, the gaelic goddess of fertility and saint to others, is visiting our houses and spreading the beginnings of spring? When Rose is IRISH and FIRE?”

  “I thought she’d be okay but her attention slipped.”

  “I’ll slip you in front of a train if you don’t fix this,” I said angrily. “Are we doing a counterspell or what? Because we need a plan before the fire goddess of fertility takes things too far. Rose is not going to be kicked off of the Coven for a Brigid possession baby.”

  “Relax. The night is salvageable. As long as we don’t leave them alone, it’ll be fine.”

  “Well, I’m not watching it happen. Get a book, any book.”

  “I poured it in a white wine glass if that’s okay,” Rose told me, having returned from the kitchen. Maybe Brigid was the goddess of uncorking merlots too.

  “It’s fine, love, oh, but you know, I forgot Stan wanted a glass too. Would you mind?”

  “No.” Rose smiled.

  “Stan can leave,” Jaime said.

  “Stan lives here,” Stan fired back.

  “Come on, I want us all to know each other and be friends, is that so hard?” Rose asked Jaime.

  Except it wasn’t Rose, it was Rose plus Brigid, and I could see what Stan was talking about. Rose was glowy and I swore her blue hair was fuller somehow. I feared that she would spontaneously combust if I didn’t do something.

  Maddi and Gregory walked in the door, fifteen minutes behind us, and stopped mid-conversation.

  “Stanley…” they both said.

  “Are you aware that Brigid is in the room?” Maddi asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Who?” asked Jaime, as Rose smittenly grabbed his hand, taking a sip of red wine.

  “So this is why you left the pub early. These are your plans for Imbolc then?” Gregory asked. “If so, I’m fine finishing my own ritual, by myself, and you can… well… I don’t want to know.”

  “I told you, Stanley…” Maddi lectured.

  “These aren’t exactly the intended plans,” Stan told them. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Rose took on the goddess herself, not realizing that I set the altar for when we got home and…”

  “Well have fun with that,” Maddi said. “I’m going to sleep. This is your initiate mess.”

  “Please, Maddi, I need your Imbolc candle. You too, Gregory.”

  “Alright,” they said together.

  “But you need to fix this by yourself,” Gregory warned.

  They brought candles downstairs that resembled Rose’s from the bar, symbols of our failed ritual together. Instead of a surprise ritual, the candles made a Brigid trap for Rose. It was hard to remember that it was a holiday on a weekend with no lessons.

  “Love you, Stan,” Maddi shot, “but I am not getting anywhere near a goddess of fertility.”

  “Good luck,” Gregory bade us. “My program’s staring. I have to go.”

  As if it were an ordinary night, Maddi turned to Gregory on the stairs and asked, “You still watching the doctor drama?”

  “Helaine, you need to light one too,” Stan told me.

  I grabbed one of the two remaining candles from the altar and lit it. We now had three burning candles. Stan lit his.

  “Rose,” I said, seeing Jaime whisper something in her ear that made her eyebrows raise. “Can you light this for me?”

  She looked at the wick, that hazy gaze of lust still on her face and the flame lit without so much as a flinch from her. Brigid sure gave her powers a boost.

  “You do not what to know what he just said,” Stan muttered.

  “Must be something if it can make you blush,” I retorted.

  “We need to do this now,” Stan said, shaking the image from his mind.

  Stan grabbed all five candles and placed them upright into the cauldron in the fireplace.

  “These are the candles we lit for Imbolc. Gregory and Maddi were going to let me officiate the ritual when we got back, with Rose’s help since she’s Fire, but…”

  “But no one else wants to concern themselves with the goddess of fertility.�
�

  Stan nodded.

  “And don’t touch Avereis, no contact if you can help it. I should have mentioned that. The goddess could transfer to you. Or, other things can happen…”

  “What other things?”

  “It’s speculation. The book says we have to wait for these candles to melt together, dip a new candle from it, and then light and extinguish it. Can you get me a wick from the armoire?”

  “Whatever you need,” I said, going to the left of the piano and into the dining room to get a wick. “This spell is going to take all night.”

  “It could be resolved faster, but we don’t want to go that route.”

  I grabbed the wick and then checked the spell book to see what he meant.

  “There’s a way right here, a release of energy and the spell ends.”

  Stan looked at me as if I didn’t understand.

  “Oh… the ultimate release,” I said softly once it made sense. “The way to end any love spell. You and I do not talk about those things, so… this conversation’s ending.”

  “Yes, it is. Can you shut up?” Stan asked Jaime.

  “You heard that?” Jaime asked him.

  “I read thoughts, and would suggest shortening that list of ‘things you want to do.’”

  I could see Rose’s chest rising and falling as quickly as her heartbeat and I knew I had to do something.

  At the spell cabinet, I poured a powdered sleeping potion into their two glasses of wine. We had an emergency stash of fast working potions, and I wasn’t so happy that I’d have to replace them the next day. I hated potions and herbs and wanted to be in on the action.

  Well, maybe not the action in the living room.

  “This is a private conversation,” Jaime said to Stan. “Love is for two people only.”

  Jaime didn’t even glance my way when I snorted out, wondering if he believed in true love or not. Endearing or not, the place I was growing in my heart for him was as shallow as a hastily dug grave.

  “Jaime, here,” I said, going back over to them and handing them both a glass.

  “To true love,” Jaime said, clanging his glass against Rose’s and taking a sip.