Chapter 1
Callan
Areckless, foolish, brilliant woman. With a pink twinge to her cheeks and a wicked glimmer in her hazel eyes, boldly stealing all the air from the room.
Wild tendrils of Lucina’s hair frame her face, dark in contrast to the glorious Solian warmth of her olive-toned skin. Her lips are still parted from the words she’s just spilled into the room. She said them so simply. So confidently. That no one is quite sure what to do next.
I want to be his.
She’s untouchable when she’s like this. The most devastating thing I’ve ever seen.
I’m going to kill her.
“Cin…” I warn, but she waves me off.
Delia lets out a panicked laugh, but Lucina isn’t laughing, not even a little.
“You can’t be serious,” Her Grace breathes in disbelief.
When I look over, Laverna’s jaw is practically unhinged, and Ceres’s moonlit skin has blanched four shades lighter.
“Why not?” Lucina folds her arms across her chest, serious as ever.
This was the very, very last thing I expected out of today. Sure, she’s spent a lot of time with us. She’s gotten close to Pax and even Hunter has a soft spot for her. But Lucina? In my coven? Is this really what she wants? Does she even know what she’s asking for?
Normally, I can read her. Right now, I can’t.
Ever since she stepped out of the pile of Fenton’s blood that had pooled at her feet, she’s been different. Actually, ever since she woke up in the infirmary after the Ashvine, she’s been different. And with all she’s been through in the last twelve hours, who could blame her?
I just don’t know what her angle is.
“Because you’re a female,” Ceres spits as if the idea isn’t just absurd… It’s appalling. “The Disciple-Born covens have been separated by sex since the original Disciples deemed it so.”
And to my knowledge, no one has ever challenged that rule.
I exhale a heavy breath at the mock look of surprise that passes over Lucina’s features. If she wasn’t already dead set on my coven, she is now. I can guarantee it. There is nothing she loves more than a challenge, and Ceres just waved a red flag in front of her face.
“Because I’m a woman?” Lucina repeats, dark brows rising impossibly further.
“Lucina,” Delia grits out, voice strained. “That’s not how we do things. We have traditions to uphold, and you…you must—” She fumbles over her words, something I don’t think I’ve ever seen her do. “You will join our coven next week; it is not a request.”
The lights in the room flicker, and I don’t have to look up to know who is responsible for it—Lucina’s magic is as familiar to me as my own.
“With all due respect,” she starts, and I calculate how long it will take to grab her and run, “you three have sat here for twenty years while your people have sat in cages.”
Her delivery is swift. Brutal.
And she isn’t finished.
“Callan and his coven seem to be the only ones here who care, and I think I’d like to be on that side of history,” Lucina bites out, sweeping her certain gaze over the furious faces staring back at her. When she lands on the Dame, she straightens. “Not yours.”
Silence.
If it were anyone else, Delia would have ripped out their tongue right then and there. Usually, she wouldn’t be able to stomach such disrespect, but Lucina isn’t everyone else, and Delia knows it.
“It is tradition,” Delia snips, her jaw clenched tight. Beside her, Laverna is wide-eyed, unsure of where to look. “We will not break it for you.”
Teacups rattle, and the lights overhead continue to flicker. Ceres turns her nose up, back stiff as if it makes her any taller.
Lucina stares daggers at the Dame.
“Your Grace,” Laverna says softly, but Delia doesn’t break her furious stare.
Not until her third whispers, “I’m afraid it’s not up to you.”
Fuck. Me.
All eyes swing in my direction.
I look at Lucina. Reading. Assessing. Searching for any explanation in her determined stare. There’s something on her face that I so badly want to understand, but maybe I don’t need to understand it right now.
I trust her. Implicitly. The same way she’s trusted me. Not when it was involuntary, but when it was a choice. She’d made that choice.
So I will too.
“Callan,” Delia’s voice is sharp, slicing through my thoughts. “Having her in your coven would be entirely inappropriate and—”
“Breaking tradition?” I ask Lucina, meeting those fiery eyes head-on. They flicker, a burst of fire that settles my decision. We might as well be the only two people in the room. The only two people in the world. I exhale a swift breath. “Are you ready for that, Chaos?”
She shrugs, as if it’s that casual—what she’s asking of me. “It sounds refreshing.”
I feel Delia’s stare, hot on the side of my face. I feel Laverna’s too, and Ceres. Never has anyone come into their space and told them how it was going to be.
But there’s a first for everything, I suppose.
“It does, doesn’t it?” I ponder the word—refreshing. It isn’t exactly how I’d describe the feeling. There’s a lot of uncertainty, confusion, and a wild kind of thrill behind it.
She’s brilliant, strong, and a force to be reckon with. It sure as shit isn’t what I’d planned for, but somehow…it works.
Before I can talk myself out it, I roll back my shoulders and nod. “I think it’s a great idea.”
The Dame chokes, and Ceres stares off, unblinking.
A slow smile spreads across Lucina’s face. “Does that mean I’m done with these meetings, Captain?” she asks, and my heart thumps wildly against my ribcage, an attempt to break free and run to her.
I pull my hands out of my pockets. “As far as I’m concerned.”
“Great.” Lucina turns to face Delia, bowing the lowest she ever has. “Your Grace.” She straightens, dusting off her hands as if she’d gotten them dirty, and I give up on fighting my own grin as I follow her to the door.
The second we’re out into the mid-afternoon sun, I grab her wrist, spinning her back to face me.
“I’m sorry—” she starts.
I take her face in my hands and kiss her, the taste of static and smoke warm on my lips. Lucina presses her palms into my chest, pulses of heat seeping through the fabric of my clothes, straight to my skin.
It takes effort to pull away but I keep my face close to hers. “Why?” I brush hair out of her face. “Where did any of that come from?”
She forces down a deep breath, bright eyes darting between my own. “Are you mad?” she asks. “I know I put you on the spot in there. I’m sorry. I just—”
“I’m not mad, Lucina.” She releases a breath. “I’m just trying to understand. You never mentioned wanting to be in my coven before?”
Something like hesitance flashes across her sun-drenched features, and I instantly regret what I said. She’s been through it. Who am I to fault her for being hard to read? I doubt she’s even able to gather her own thoughts right now, much less put them into words.
It’s not important right now.
“You’re okay,” I remind her, planting a kiss on her temple. “That’s all that matters.”
We’d talk about whatever’s going on in that head of hers later. Not now.
“I know I asked you inside,” I shift the subject, “but are you sure about this? You are without a doubt more than capable of being in my coven, but I don’t want to throw you into anything you aren’t ready for.”
She shakes her head, and for a moment it looks like her eyes are watering, streams of golden honey swimming brighter through her irises. Then she blinks, and the glassy sheen is gone.
“I know what I asked for,” Lucina assures me. “I want to help.”
Of course she does. She said she wanted to be on the right side of history. She wants to help us get our people back, to save the Sol trapped in Streatham, and if anyone can make that sort of impact, it would be her.
Lucina Van Reenan is going to be the first woman to ever join the Ajax coven. She’s going to be bound to us all for life, and it suits her—this kind of upheaval.
Though I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it.
Can she do it? Absolutely. Am I proud to have her?
More than she knows. But can I be her Captain, her boss, without the feelings I have for her skewing my judgement?
My ability to let her do this the right way?
The way all of us had to endure it…I’m not sure.
Tucking a loose curl behind her ear, I force on a smile. “Okay, Chaos. Let’s do it.”
“You did what?” Devon grits out.
I glare back at him, a silent warning to mind his tone.
Pax’s jaw drops, and then he’s smiling wide, jumping from the table and snatching Lucina up in a tight hug. She lets out a laugh as he spins her around, and the sound is so refreshing that I pause to just admire it for a moment, how carefree it is. How it bursts out of her unrestricted.
Heads turn at the spectacle he’s creating in the Tavern, but Pax doesn’t care.
“Gods,” Hunter exhales when he finally sets her on the ground. Lucina tilts her head at him, brows raised. “Making history, are we?” He asks.
She smiles, bright and unreserved.
Hunter shifts his attention to me, a question in his skeptical stare.
I shrug. “It was her idea.”
Hunter shakes his head as Phoenix prowls around the table, long arms swinging at his sides.
Nix is our wild card; we never really know what he’ll do or say. He feels more intensely than anyone I know, and he can flip in a fraction of a second. When he’s sad, he’s devastated, and when he’s angry, he’s… volatile.
For that reason, I move closer to Cin. For all I know, he’ll snap her neck then mourn over her dead body a second after she hits the ground. That’s just how he is. But he’s our brother, and if Lucina really wants to be in this coven, she’ll have to learn how to navigate him just like we do.
And I’ll have to learn to quiet this primal instinct to protect her. I’ll have to let her hold her own. Which is…easier said than done.
I’m haunted by all the times she’s nearly died in my arms. The poison, the fire…even that day I’d found her on the beach. The image of her lifelessness is burned into my memory. I’ve seen it too many times.
Phoenix lowers his head to look her directly in the eyes, and Lucina, smart as ever, stands straighter.
Atta girl.