Page 89 of Demon's Beauty

Or, maybe more accurately, it scares me that itdoesn’tscare me so much anymore.

The thought of actually doing it. Leaving the coven. Rejecting the Ascension.

It’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because it’s never felt quite right. Because the little voice in the back of my mind that turned into a scream the last time I was in Esme’s office was trying to tell me something important.

“Is that a bad thing?” Vayla asks. “I like Seren.”

“It’s not… bad. We’re just different people.”

She shrugs and lets it go, and when a runner comes back looking for their next round of vials to take out into the city, we both spring into action.

Goddess, I could do this kind of work every day.

Work that means something. Work that matters. Work that makes the hours fly by and leaves me covered in sweat and grime, but which also gives me so much more satisfaction than my work for the coven has given me in years.

26

Finn

My mate does not notice right away when I walk into the room.

She’s entirely engrossed in her work, bent over a simmering cauldron. Her hair is tied up in a knot on top of her head, with soft tendrils springing free to kiss the nape of her neck. Perched on her nose is the most fetching little pair of half-moon glasses that make her eyes look even larger and more luminous as she focuses on the prepared stellarin blossoms that she adds to her brew.

In addition to the sweet smell of the stellarin essence, her magick sparkles in the air. Rich and metallic, wending its way through the room as she works.

It’s a slightly different sensation than the all-consuming waves of it that emanate from her when she’s healing someone directly, but the stands of her power already feel familiar.

Too familiar, probably.

Too much my own fancy, imagining what it would be like to have her and her magick beside me for the rest of my life.

I must make some sort of sound, or perhaps she can sense my magick just as I can sense hers—more fanciful, ridiculous thinking—because she pauses her work and glances up.

She peers at me over the top of her glasses, looking for a moment so serious and stern that it makes my spine snapstraighter. It makes me want to stand at attention and wait for her orders, to do as I’m told if it’ll please her.

A smile breaks over her face, and the effect is softened somewhat, but the impulse lingers.

I’d do anything my witch told me to do.

Distracting thoughts, those.

Too distracting, and my mind runs away from me, scheming how I might convince her to order me about, to demand exactly what she wants from me, anything that will please her.

“What?” she asks, straightening and pushing the glasses up over her forehead and onto the top of her head. “You look weird. Is something wrong?”

“No.” I give my head a rueful shake. “Nothing wrong at all.”

“We’re almost done here for the day,” she says, nodding to her cauldron. “Just wrapping this batch up and then a couple of local healers are coming to relieve us for the night shift.”

That’s good news, especially considering my mother’s invitation for dinner. I still need to figure out how exactly I’m going to offer that invitation to my mate, but I better figure it out in the next few minutes.

Tucking myself into a seat at the side of the workroom so I can stay out of Soleil and Vayla’s way, I turn the question over and over in my mind as I watch them work.

In the end, it’s my mother’s words that come back to me as Soleil wraps up her brew and the two of us leave the apothecary, headed toward the accommodations I’ve booked us for the evening.

Let her surprise you.

After speaking briefly to the proprietress of the inn I’ve booked for us and getting our keys, we walk up a couple of flights of stairs to our room on the top floor.