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“As do all your dead husbands,” Anabel said to Hattie.
“Why did you have to go and bring them up?” Gazing out the kitchen window, the old woman exhaled a nostalgic sigh. “I was always unlucky in love. All I ever wanted was a man who’d stand by me through thick and thin. A man who was faithful. Honest. Caring.”
“Were you faithful?” asked Anabel.
Hattie turned to her, frowning. “Of course. Adultery is a sin, you know.”
“But so is murder and, well, you never really seemed to have a problem with that.”
“Acts of vengeance are condoned by some religions.”
“Yeah, like Satanism,” sassed Delilah.
Wynter snickered so hard she was surprised she didn’t choke on the sound.
Hattie let out a little huff. “Many cultures adopt the eye-for-an-eye philosophy, thank you very much. Justice often carries a high price, and not everyone is prepared to pay it. I am, but that doesn’t make me cruel, cold, or unfeeling. I even read aloud some prayers for my husbands while they were dying.”
“If those prayers came from a black bible that sported an upside down cross, it doesn’t count,” Delilah told her.
A chuckle bubbled out of Wynter. Only in her coven’s company could she so swiftly go from frowning and scowling to smiling and laughing. They were the best, even if they were wacked.
“I don’t think you’re cruel, Hattie,” Xavier told her. “I think you’re a sweetheart.”
The old woman beamed. “Why thanks, darlin’.” She turned back to the bread she was carving.
Delilah threw him a playful snarl. “Suck up,” she mouthed.
His brow creased. “Hey, she’s cooking our dinner,” he whispered. “Do you want her to spit in your food? Or sprinkle hemlock in it, for that matter? Because I don’t.”
Delilah crossed her eyes and then took a slice of bread from the pile. “You know, Wyn, you should invite Cain to eat dinner with us a few times a week. If he’s going to be a permanent fixture in our Priestess’s life, we need to get to know him better.”
Wynter snorted. “I’m not exposing him to our coven’s brand of insanity on a regular basis. No, don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. Or that you don’t take delight in how people believe we’re a bunch of crazies.” Not that said people were entirely wrong.
“It’s good that others fear us,” declared Xavier. “It means they’re less likely to fuck with us. Cain should understand that well—fear is one of the tools that the Ancients use to keep people in line.”
Biting into her bread, Delilah looked up from her black mirror to cast Wynter another look. “Have you admitted to him that you’re totally gone for him yet?”
Wynter emotionally tripped up whenever she even thought about verbalizing all she felt. She’d managed to earlier convey just how important he was to her, but not without getting all flustered. “He knows I care about him. I’ve never hidden it.” She wanted to relay the sweet things he’d said to her that morning, but it felt too much like exposing the soft underbelly that he allowed few people to see. “I believe he feels the same. He’s . . . he’s good to me. Good for me.”
“And he has cool bedroom moves in his closet, right?” Delilah took another bite out of her bread. “Tell me I’m right.”
Wynter sighed. “You know I won’t share any details, so it’s pointless to keep asking for them.”
“I feel I should tell you that the more you refuse to share those deets with me, the more compelled I feel to push you to cough them all up,” said Delilah, once more returning her gaze to the black mirror in her hand. “I’ll bet the male character in Hattie’s smut novella could give Cain a run for his money—Brook’s got some great bedroom skills.”
Hattie scowled. “Don’t call the book smut.”
A line creased Delilah’s brow. “Why?”
The old woman sniffed. “Because I don’t like it, what’s why.”
Delilah stared at her, baffled. “Why do you seem so offended? I’m not using the word ‘smut’ in a derogative fashion. I mean it in a positive way. I love some of that stuff. You know that.”
“I do,” Hattie conceded with a sigh, patting the back of her hair. “I suppose I’m a little touchy about it. But you know how hard it is for a woman to enjoy some erotica without being judged. And I really don’t like when people brand it ‘porn.’ The word implies there’s no plot.”
“As much as some of the stuff you read is the height of graphic, I can agree it is unfair to term it ‘porn,’” said Anabel, again stirring the spaghetti bolognaise with a wooden spoon. “So what’s the novella’s plot?”
Hattie turned to the blonde, her face softening, her eyes lighting up. “Well, a barmaid goes home with a stranger, who then introduces her to BDSM.”
