There were many beautiful women in my coven.
Mother nature shaped us all in unique ways.
And since there was no competition for men, there was no reason to feel anything about another woman's beauty.
Standing here, though, I couldn't help but wonder if Lycus and Red were ever an item, if he touched her the way he'd touched me, if he liked it more.
Envy was an ugly trait, one of the few emotions that the coven actively discouraged. All the others, from the positive ones like joy and hope to the negative like sadness and anger, were all accepted expressions of our inner world.
Envy was something unnatural, something born of resentment and feelings of lacking.
There was no denying that was the feeling curling its ugly fingers around my heart, though.
"The Sacrifice," I supplied, lifting my chin a bit as her eyes moved over me. Whether she found me lacking or not was beyond me, though.
"Oh, is it that time again?" she mused, perfectly arched brows pinching. "I'm a little rusty, Lycus, but since when do the witches roam around the house?"
"Since they make it rain when they're sad," he grumbled at her.
"Oh, oh that's rich," Red said, smiling. "Ace must love that."
"Exactly. That is why she gets to gather food and fuck around in the garden. Keeps the rain at bay."
"Well, what's her name?" Red asked, glancing at me, then Ly.
"My name is Lenore," I supplied. "Though everyone here seems to enjoy calling me witch, as though it is my name."
"Oh, I like her," she said to Ly. "I like you," she added to me. "That spirit. That has to be a good sign."
"A good sign of what?" I asked, feeling a sizzle of electricity at the base of my spine, an omen of sorts, my intuition telling me Red didn't like my spirit because she would enjoy conversation with me. Rather, my spirit might be useful to them all in some way.
But what way?
That was the question.
That was what my mind needed to be on, not ridiculous fantasies about Lycus and his hands and his mouth and, well, other things about him.
What did they want to do with me?
What was my purpose?
Why only one Sacrifice per generation?
"Of things," Red supplied, a guard going down over her face, making it clear that I wouldn't be getting anything out of her. "Ace wants us ready in ten," she added, giving Ly her attention again. "Lock up the witch, find your cut, and let's go."
With that, she was gone, heels clicking down the hall then up the stairs.
"Are you leaving for long? Should I find more food before you lock me downstairs?" I asked, angling my head to the side.
"Seeing as you willfully didn't eat for nearly three days, you should be fine," he said, yanking the door open.
The words bubbled up, angry and childish, but ultimately unstoppable.
"I hate you."
"Good," he agreed, slamming the door in my face.
He stormed off after, completely forgetting to lock the door.
I sat there on the steps, waiting, listening.
Ace, ever the whip-bearing and punctual leader, called the lingering Drex and Seven. A moment later, the rumble of their motorcycles droned off into the distance.
I waited half an hour, maybe more, before I put down my snacks and opened the door.
I made my way through the first level, then the second, making sure there was no one around.
Then, heart hammering, I went back into Ace's room.
The house, as a whole, was kept orderly. For a bunch of demons who likely didn't know how to use a broom and mop, that is. But Ace's bedroom was a mess. Not of discarded food or dirty clothing, but rather books and notebooks, scraps of paper full of cryptic phrases, charts, and maps.
He wasn't crazy, surely, but there was a lot to suggest he was obsessed.
With what, was the question.
The maps seemed to be of this general area, with certain spaces circled in red marker.
A path through the woods, following a river to what seemed like a massive rock formation had a red circle was the map closest to the top, all the others beneath had x's drawn through the circles, places investigated before.
Looking for what, though?
I shifted the maps to the side, reaching instead for the other pages.
Pages in books, notes scribbled in the margins.
About witches.
About powers.
About spells.
That was why they wanted us.
They wanted to use our powers.
To what? Find something? Tracking things wasn't exactly a strength of ours. Unless, perhaps, it was something that had belonged to us in the first place.
To sense places of power?
We could do that.
But to what end?
Demons couldn't harness power.
Their only power lay in persuasion on the human realm and eternal torture in hell.
I had more questions than answers, but my fate lay in the discovery of those conclusions.
What did they mean to do with me?
I sorted through the rest of the pages, finding nothing of significance, but took the map with me as I made my way back through the house, grabbing my cloak as well as the shoes I had worn on the trip from my coven.