Page 141 of Demon's Beauty

The braver half, the more reckless half, the half that wants to dare and challenge and push boundaries.

The half I have missed so, so much.

“Goddess,” I complain, half-jokingly. “When did we become huggers?”

“Since we wasted the last ten years being pissed off at each other,” Seren mutters, then pulls back. “And there’s more where that came from. Even if you become an Ascended priestess.”

She tugs at the end of my braid, then runs her hands over the collar of my dress, fixing it so it lies flat.

It immediately unlocks a memory.

A hundred memories.

How many times did we stand outside Esme’s office or the coven council chambers, waiting to go in for an exam or a private lesson or something equally terrifying? How many times did we fix each other up, wish each other luck, stand by each other because we were the only people we could trust in that goddessforsaken hall?

“Sorry if I took this chance away from Finn,” she murmurs. “But I thought I’d send you off one last time. Feels fitting, doesn’t it? After everything.”

“It does,” I say quietly, then make myself stand up straight, roll my shoulders back, pull myself to my full height like the Crescent Coven priestess I’m supposed to become. “What do you think? Do I look like someone who’s ready to take on Esme Hawthorn?”

One last adjustment of my sleeve so it falls straighter, and she nods. “You look like you could take on any priestess who stands in your way.”

My smile is wobbly, but I swallow past the tears and keep my composure as we both turn to face the Veil.

“Want me to come with you?”

I shake my head. “No. Thank you, but no. I have to do this on my own.”

Seren gives me one last crooked grin as I step up to the swirling ether. “Don’t you know better by now? You’re never on your own, Sol. All you have to do is ask, and you’ll always have help when you need it.”

45

Finn

The silence Soleil leaves behind is total, devastating. The kind of silence that sets itself into my very bones and leaves me feeling entirely hollow.

And entirely useless.

I move from one spot to another in the Nightfall rooms, despondent and pathetic. I hate being here at all, but with nowhere better to go, I wind up slumped in a chair, goblet of wine in hand.

I’d probably have stayed there all evening, getting blindly drunk and feeling sorry for myself, if it weren’t for a knock at my door.

Even then, I’m not particularly inclined to answer it until a familiar voice calls out from the other side.

“I know you’re in there.”

“Piss off, Callum. I’m not in the mood to talk.”

The door swings open anyway, and I groan at my lack of foresight in not locking it after Soleil left.

Perhaps I was just waiting for her to change her mind and come running back.

“You should take better care with security if you’d like to be left alone,” Callum says mildly as he steps into the room andsurveys me where I’m draped across a settee, wallowing in my misery, bottle of wine close at hand.

He sinks into the chair opposite the settee, clearly unimpressed with my current state of devastating heartbreak.

“Already started drinking yourself into oblivion, I see?”

“What’s the point in waiting?”