After Midnight by Shari Nichols

Author:Shari Nichols
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781648982880
Publisher: City Owl Press

A few hours later, Brooke stood in the greenhouse with Arabella, Delilah, and Gillian on one side of her. Ellen, Saje and Willow stood on the other. Seven anointed white candles surrounded them.

Moonlight spilled into the room from the wall of windows and cast an eerie glow above their heads. A tattered ancient grimoire from their library sat in the center on a book stand next to a hand mirror and a smoking cauldron.

“Are you ready, ladies?” Willow asked, trading glances with each of the women. She cleansed the area using salt and a ritual broom. After she finished, she set pink and green votive candles on the flat surface of the mirror.

Ellen, the high priestess of their coven, flicked her wrist and all the candles flamed to life. Lifting her hands, she waved them over the leather-bound tome. “Show me curses.” The locks on the ruby encrusted book clicked open. The pages flipped and then stopped on a page filled with flames and hearts. Her gaze moved to Brooke. “You’re up, my dear.”

Brooke walked around the other ladies pointing the tip of her wand in a clockwise direction until she formed a circle. “I long to be with a man like Nico who understands my mind and fulfills my passions.” She silently repeated the words and kept them at the forefront of her mind until she completed the circle.

“Potion time.” Saje picked up a copper bowl filled with herbs, then sprinkled them into the cauldron. “Basil for banishment and rose petals for love.” She glanced at Brooke. “Do you have your offering?”

Pulling out the blonde and black braid of her and Nico’s hair from her pocket brought a smile to Brooke’s lips. The contrast made her think of their personalities and filled her heart with warmth.

“I snipped it while he was asleep. I’m not proud of myself.” Guilt slid in her belly. “I hate keeping secrets from him.” But it was the only way to invoke the counter-spell to break the curse once and for all. Closing her fingers over the braid, images of Nico kissing her and making her laugh filled her head. She held on tighter. What if it didn’t work? Her head spun. She found it hard to breathe.

“Easy there.” Gillian pried the braid from her white-knuckled grip.

Brooke swallowed hard and tossed the braid into the cauldron. Flames shot in the air. “He's the first guy that made me feel like I’m enough.”

“Of course you’re enough. But even if you did tell him, do you think he’d believe you?” Gillian’s concerned gaze narrowed in her direction. “It’s not every day you find out the woman you’re dating has been hexed with a generational curse.”

A sigh of frustration fell from Brooke’s lips. Her past now reared up to haunt her and destroy her relationship. “Thanks for the reminder, cuz.”

“Why don’t you start us off, Brooke?” Willow asked, breaking through the heaviness in the room.

“Right.” Her stomach twisted into knots. Pulling out the copy of the spell she’d written from the inside of her bra, she kept the slip of paper close to her heart.

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