Chapter Two
Sex on Wheels, Probably a Scorpio
The man who swings off the motorcycle looks like he could punch the moon out of the sky and then write a breakup song about it.
He’s tall, all lean muscle and swagger and black leather, with tattoos climbing up his forearms like smoke. And his jawline?
Illegal. Should be licensed as a weapon. Possibly already is.
For a split second, just one, I forget that he’s currently poisoning the sacred energy of my forest sanctuary with pure gasoline and testosterone. I forget my name. I forget the Five Pillars. I may even forget gravity.
My uterus does a little pirouette. My third eye, however, squints suspiciously.
Because this man? This man smells like trouble. Like anger and hot asphalt and emotional repression.
Also, probably cologne called something like “WOLF BLOOD 2: FERAL BY CHOICE.”
He cuts the engine, kicks the stand down like he’s mad at the ground, and slowly pulls off his helmet. His hair is messy in a way that’s either accidental or costs $300 at a salon in LA.
When his eyes meet mine, dark, sharp, amused in a way that makes my inner goddess immediately try to pack a go-bag, I feel my chakras attempt to hide behind one another.
“Hi,” he says, voice low, rough, and one hundred percent illegal in at least three spiritual communities.
I blink. “You’re early.”
He looks around like he’s already unimpressed. “You’re Bliss?”
He says my name like he doesn’t believe it. Like it’s a dare. Or a euphemism.
“I am,” I say, smoothing down my dress, which of course has a sage smudge on it now. “And you’re...?”
He smirks. “Jax. Riot.”
I stare at him. “That’s not a name. That’s a warning label.”
“Guilty,” he says, and walks past me like he owns the dirt under his boots.
I spin after him. “You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow. I still have, there are, um, sacred preparations happening.”
He stops in front of one of the domes and gestures at it with his helmet. “That the one I’m in?”
“That’s the Moon Dome,” I say, a little breathless. “And it’s not ready. There’s still... energy calibration happening.”
“There’s a bucket in it,” he says, not even looking. “To catch the leak.”
Traitor. “That bucket is part of the Receptivity Ritual.”
He grins like he doesn’t believe me and also wants to see if I’ll double down.
I do. “It represents your subconscious willingness to surrender your internal floodgates to the divine unknown.”
“Right,” he says. “And this whole thing’s about... healing, right?”
“Yes,” I say, lifting my chin. “Through surrender. Through stillness. Through sacred masculine integration.”
He raises an eyebrow. “So does that mean you’re gonna sage my dick, or what?”
I blink. My brain blue-screens. My womb makes a weird sound I’m going to blame on kombucha.
“No,” I say, finally, “But I am going to ask you to take a deep breath, ground your energy, and maybe don’t rev your bike like a demon’s chasing you next time, because you scared the trees.”
He laughs. Not a polite laugh. A full, barking, disbelieving laugh that I feel in places. “Trees,” he repeats, still smiling. “Right.”
He strolls toward the dome, leaving behind tire tracks, scorched sage, and the distinct sensation that my entire spiritual foundation is in serious danger of being jackhammered.
I stare after him, clutching my incense stick like a sword.
It’s fine.
Everything is fine.
This is all going to work out.
I just need to keep my chakras tight and my libido tighter.
I stomp back into the Sacred Intake Office, slam the door dramatically (which is hard because it sticks and kind of just squeaks), and immediately grab my phone.
Because I need a witness.
I open a text thread labeled GREMLIN COVEN 4EVER which is just me and my best friend Callie, who once helped me stage a fake goddess ceremony to get out of jury duty. She’s the only person alive who knows I’m one linen robe away from a federal scam investigation.
ME:
he’s here
like actually here
like physically on the property with a motorcycle and a smirk and testosterone just pouring out of his eyebrows
CALLIE:
pls tell me this is the one with the court-ordered anger management
ME:
yes
and he showed up a full day early
revved his bike like he was trying to scare off my ancestors
i think my tree chakra is bruised
CALLIE:
hot tho?
ME:
disgustingly
like “i fight for custody and win” hot
like “my toxic phase has a cult following” hot
CALLIE:
ooooooh
give him the moon dome
ME:
he already found the bucket
and mocked my “receptivity ritual”
i hate him
(my uterus doesn’t)
CALLIE:
babe you’re gonna sleep with him
he’s going to ruin your spiritual credibility and your back
and you’re gonna say thank you
ME:
i came here to scam rich men with fake crystal science
not catch feelings for a sentient middle finger on a motorcycle
CALLIE:
this is the plot of like 3,000 kindle books and i’ve read every single one
i’m so proud of you
I groan and flop onto the meditation cushion behind me. The room still smells like printer toner and failed boundaries. Outside, I can hear Jax doing something loud, possibly involving wood chopping or soul damage.
This is fine.
I find him behind the Moon Dome, shirtless, of course, chopping wood with a level of aggression usually reserved for action movie montages or bear attacks.
Why is he chopping wood? No one asked him to chop wood. There’s no ceremony that requires wood. I’m 90% sure we don’t even have a working fireplace.
“Jax!” I call out, holding a clipboard like it’s holy. “We need to go over your welcome schedule.”
He stops mid-swing, looks up at me with a glint in his eye like he already knows he’s about to ruin my entire sense of structure, and says, “You made a schedule for... healing?”
“It’s a curated journey,” I say, walking toward him and thrusting the paper into his hand. “Each day is themed. Activities, rituals, intentional stillness. It’s all in there.”
He glances at it, reads silently, then raises one eyebrow.
“Day One: Unclenching.” He smirks. “Sounds like a cult code word for hand stuff.”
I snatch the paper back. “It’s about releasing internal rigidity, mental, emotional, energetic. There’s breathwork and a group intention circle.”
He gestures around. “Where? In that broken dome? Or next to the trauma bucket?”
“It’s an experiential space,” I say through clenched teeth, holding the paper toward him.
He takes it and scans it again. “And this one,” he points to the second day, “Rewilding the Inner Cub... That’s when you make us roll around in the dirt and bark at the moon?”
“No!” I pause. “Okay yes, but it’s symbolic.”
“Sure,” he says. “Symbolic dirt. Got it.”
I stare at him, hands on hips. “You know, for someone who voluntarily signed up for a divine masculinity retreat, you sure seem committed to resisting literally everything divine.”
“Let me guess,” he says, leaning in just a little too close. “Day Three’s all about how I need to cry into a crystal while whispering my father’s name.”
I hold his gaze. “Actually, it’s a mirror meditation. You stare at your own reflection until your ego crumbles.”
“Sounds kinky.”
I roll my eyes so hard I almost enter a higher dimension.
“I am trying to offer you healing,” I say, trying to sound calm and goddess-like, and not like I want to shove a quartz tower into his smirking mouth.
He studies me for a moment, then folds the schedule and tucks it into his back pocket like it’s a challenge.
“I’ll show up,” he says.
“Great.”
“But only if you do too.”
I frown. “I’m literally the one leading the retreat.”
“Then lead,” he says, already turning back to the wood pile. “Just don’t flinch when your inner cub bites back.”
I spin around and march off before my hormones make a scene, muttering under my breath, “Maybe you need a sixth pillar called Shutting the Hell Up.”
There’s nothing quite like the crushing serenity of knowing four rich men are arriving tomorrow for a soul-realignment retreat I invented while high on chocolate moon wine and financial dread.
I’ve got less than twenty-four hours to prepare the remaining domes, design an opening ceremony, spiritually cleanse the compost toilet, and make sure nobody dies from whatever the hell is growing near the pond.
Also, I still haven’t figured out if I need to actually lead the first ritual or just play a singing bowl while looking mysterious and unbothered.
Spoiler: I am not unbothered.
I hustle across the compound, barefoot because my sandals broke in the Lavender Labyrinth (which is not a metaphor), holding a list I wrote on the back of a “5 Easy Steps to Unlocking Your Goddess Frequency” flyer.
Dome Two: half-furnished. Dome Three: smells faintly of despair and feral raccoon energy. Dome Four: missing the entire mattress because I let Toad borrow it for “herbal infusion purposes,” and I do not have time to unpack that.
While I fluff a pillow and aggressively mist a mattress with lavender spray that might be mostly vodka, I try to mentally script tomorrow’s welcome ceremony.
Okay, Bliss, just channel your inner guru. Something gentle. Something grounding. Something that says “healing” and not “help, I’ve made a huge mistake.”
“Welcome, sacred seekers. You have arrived at the threshold of transformation...”
Threshold is good. Threshold sounds powerful. Like a place you enter barefoot and leave weeping.
“Today, we begin the journey of Sacred Softening. A releasing. A remembering. A return to your inner cub’s howl...”
“No. That sounds like a werewolf thing,” I mutter.
I make a note: Less werewolf. More surrender.
I stop mid-spritz.
“No. No, Bliss, no, that’s Day Two. Day One is the unclenching one. The jaw. The fist. The ego. Right.”
I flip the flyer over and stare at my scribbles.
Unclench. Exhale. Ego death with grace.
Okay. That sounds fake deep. We love it.
“Welcome, sacred seekers. You have arrived at the threshold of transformation. Today, we begin the great unclenching...”
I wrinkle my nose. “Okay but that sounds like a butthole thing.”
Note to self: workshop the phrasing. Maybe use “liberation” instead of “unclenching”? Spiritual liberation of the masculine mouth fist aura ego complex. Yeah. That’s probably a thing.
I toss a throw blanket over the bed that I hope says “retreat luxury” and not “flea market panic,” then sprint to Dome Five, where the ceiling is still leaking in a very judgmental way.
As I slap up a “please do not touch the sacred plumbing” sign, I hear the crack-thunk of Jax splitting wood in the background like it personally insulted his ancestors. Every hit reverberates through the trees and my spine like a warning bell.
I can’t tell if he’s avoiding me or showing off. Either way, it’s rude.
I push open the door to the next dome and immediately gag. “Toad!”
He appears like an old woodland curse. “Yeah?”
“Why does this one smell like...fermented patchouli and shame?”
“That’s the old mushroom tea chamber.”
I blink at him.
He shrugs. “Solara was really into bio-spiritual mycology in her later years.”
“You’re just saying words now.”
He holds up a rag. “Want me to wipe down the walls with cedar oil and hope for the best?”
“Do it,” I sigh. “And if the walls start talking, tell them we’re closed.”
As he disappears into the dome of fungal horrors, I pause to take a deep breath. It smells like mildew and ambition.
Okay. I can do this. I’ve made weirder things work. That time I accidentally led a womb-cleansing workshop in a spin class studio? They loved it.
I just need the ceremony to hit the right balance of mystical, profound, and vague enough that no one asks real questions. Maybe throw in a few props. God, I wish I had a gong.
I look up at the sky, which is a perfect pastel pink, like the universe is mocking me with calm.
Tomorrow’s the beginning of the Five Pillars. Day One: Unclenching.
I, Bliss Eden Calloway, am going to guide five emotionally constipated men into surrender. I am going to lead them with grace, power, and exactly zero actual qualifications.
Unless I forget my speech and trip over a crystal. Again.
It’s fine. I’ve got this.
I think.
There’s a sacred art to staging a healing circle. It’s all about intention, energy flow, and making sure the mats don’t show visible mildew stains.
I’m in Dome One, fanning sage smoke toward a pile of crystal-charged river rocks and trying to arrange the circle of meditation cushions in a way that says “I gently guide masculine rebirth,” not “I bought all of this in a panic at TJ Maxx.”
Everything smells like lavender, eucalyptus, and mild desperation. I should feel centered.
Instead, I am ragefully aroused.
Because outside the open dome flap, Jax Riot is shirtless. And chopping wood again.
That’s not a euphemism.
He is literally, for some reason, still chopping wood like he’s preparing for a Viking funeral. Every swing of the axe is loud, muscular, and deeply unnecessary.
“No one asked you to do that!” I hiss, mostly to myself. “There’s no Chopping Ceremony. That’s not a pillar.”
He’s doing it just close enough that I can see him through the dome’s mesh panels. His back glistens. His tattoos flex. His jeans hang in that low, tragic way that says this man ruins lives for sport.
I force myself to turn back to the circle. I place the stress-relief stones (which are really just semi-smooth garden rocks I saged aggressively last night) in a little pile at the center of the cushions.
“Gentlemen,” I whisper to myself, practicing, “Welcome to the sacred circle of Release. Today we begin the holy act of unclenching.”
I pause.
Still sounds like buttholes.
I glance outside again. Jax has taken a break from splitting logs and is now drinking water from a mason jar like it personally betrayed him. He tips it back, throat working, biceps flexing, and for a brief second I forget how to spell the word “chakra.”
“Focus,” I mutter, realigning a cushion like it personally offended me. “You are a goddess. You are the storm. You are a woman who leads men into spiritual awakening, not into... whatever that would be.”
But then he grins at something. Just out of nowhere. Not at me. Not even aware I’m watching.
And I feel my solar plexus do something it shouldn’t. Something soft. Something warm.
“No,” I say out loud, pointing at myself like I’m disciplining a horny cat. “Bad Bliss. You are not spiritually available for a man who thinks deodorant is optional and wears rage like a fashion statement.”
I sit down cross-legged in the center of the circle and try to breathe.
Inhale: inner peace. Exhale: not his fault he’s hot. Inhale: masculine healing. Exhale: muscles are not a personality.
Toad wanders by the dome entrance, chewing on what I hope is a stick of incense.
“You starting the Circle of Unclenching?” he asks, peeking in.
“Yes,” I say, serenely. “And I would like to be unclenched in peace.”
He nods, clearly trying not to laugh, and wanders off.
Outside, Jax drops the axe, stretches his arms above his head, and makes a noise that is definitely illegal in a sacred space.
I close my eyes and whisper, “I am not sexually attracted to rage.” Pause a beat and repeat. “I am not sexually attracted to rage.”
Another beat.
“…I might be sexually attracted to rage.”