Blood & Wine

14 | Eden

"It doesn't have to rhyme," I explained to Dasher as I created a salt circle in the middle of our spell room. At the end of the hallway was a closet door, and anybody else that opened it would see nothing but cleaning supplies—but everybody in the Coven saw the entrance to our abandoned church attic spell room with all our books and supplies. I had wanted something different, something less stereotypical than an abandoned church, but Calla thought it was funny, so we agreed. Plus, it didn't matter where the spell room was. "Sometimes I do spells in Latin or Greek. Sometimes I'll say a sentence."

Dasher stood within the circle, watching me curiously. He had a needle in his hand, ready to prick his finger when the meeting started. "Which one do you prefer?" he asked me, eyes focused as he watched my every move.

He was a good study—he was both observant and quiet. He asked the right questions, unlike Calla, who, at first, was always focused on something else. He also did everything I asked without question or protest—also unlike Calla, who had to know why we did something, and if there could be a shortcut.

"Whichever gets the job done," I answered with a wry smile.

Dasher laughed. "Calla, which do you like?"

She looked up from the corner of the room, where she was combing through a book on werewolves. Ezekiel had come through but in his Ezekiel way—he hadn't bought actual werewolf books, but had went to a local bookstore and bought a bunch of fiction novels about werewolves. When she confronted him about it, he told her to, Piece it together, then she snapped something at him none of us heard, and they disappeared for an hour.

She made a thoughtful noise. "I think this is actually a good book. I haven't learned shit about werewolves, but the sexual tension between the characters is... muah." She kissed her fingers and sent it into the world.

"No, about casting spells?"

"What about casting spells? I think I like when they work." She marked her page with her finger and closed her book to return to the conversation. "Seriously, Eden, you have to read this book."

I did like to read. "What's it called?"

"A Wolf in the Closet."

I filed that to memory. "What's it about?"

"Enemies-to-lovers, which is your favorite," she said with a grin. "Dasher, Eden loves stories where the love interests are at each other's necks, and, then boom, they have sex and they start being woo-woo with each other after."

I did like those types of stories. In theory. In person, though, it was a little different—I couldn't picture falling for someone who had treated me like dirt. "Is it smutty? I like when books are smutty, too."

Dasher's eyebrows furrowed. "Smutty?"

"Sex scenes," Calla clarified. "Kind of. I haven't gotten there yet, but the author is shying away from saying the dirty words."

Perfect. When she was done with it, I'd run me a nice bath and read with some candles lit. I needed to take an hour or two to myself to do something besides work and worry. A good reading session would pull me from my current troubles and thrust me into somebody else's world for an hour or two.

"Oh." Dasher met my eyes with a curious amusement in his. "You read sex scenes?"

Calla laughed. "She also has sex, Dasher."

"Ew."

I frowned. "Ew?"

He shrugged. "Thinking of you having sex is disgusting. It's like thinking of my mom, or my sister." He pulled a Calla and pretended to gag, sticking his finger in the vicinity of his open mouth.