First Ritual (Supernatural Battle: Coven Caves, #1)

by Kelly St. Clare

“Because I’ve tickled pickles before. I know what a pickle that’s been tickled looks like.” My gaze lowered to his lap. “That pickle… ain’t tickled.”

“My queen,” he growled.

“Do you know much about the hungry-female phenomenon?” He paused, green eyes glinting. Typical grimoire, say a big word like phenomenon and they couldn’t help themselves. The magus released me to push his glasses up. “What’s that?” “It’s a thing where if a woman doesn’t eat, she is overcome by an unfathomable rage. Her rage gets uglier and uglier the longer she doesn’t eat. In my experience, by the end stages of hanger, the female will devour anyone in her path on the quest for sustenance. Picture a T-rex storming down a narrow crevice eating small animals. That’s what happens.”

“I’ll go, but don’t skimp on the food. You’ll be the first animal I eat!”

I’m not an open book, but I am a regular book. For a magus. You’re a special edition.”

“Don’t get angry at me just because you have a hard dick,” I replied in a sweet voice. “That’s not why I’m angry,” he returned. “I’m angry because I want to sink so deep inside you that your screams bring down this cave.”

If people kept pushing, then what did they expect when someone cracked?

“Then tell me why you’re under my skin,” he demanded, rearing to his feet. “Tell me why I can’t stop thinking about you. Every moment. Tell me why, when I touch you, I feel like anything is possible. Why do our minds and bodies mold to one another’s?”

“You’re not a demon, darling.” He hooked a finger in the chain around my waist. “What you are is beautiful and hurt and it’s fucking painful to look at you because I can’t decide if I should soothe away every hurt before it touches you or make the hurt worse for acting like I don’t mean anything to you.”

“All I know is that I want you constantly. If someone else could help with that, then I’d select some nameless woman out in the meadow. But it’s you I crave. That body that drives me fucking insane on the daily and has since I first saw you. That unpredictable mouth of yours that I can’t decide what best to do with. I lay awake at night dreaming of the ways I’d fuck you. I want you to come and come and come for me, because of me, so I can be satisfied that as much as you’re pushing me away, your body will never forget my touch.”