Page 103 of Bright Soul

The second time it happened, I felt the heat of Ben’s arousal and the way Phaeron tried to resist feeling the same way. “I can’t help it,” Ben said, swiping at the shadows before he could get pinched again.

“Think about something else, then.”

“Something unsexy,” I suggested, picking up on the problem. “Like Myuna.”

Phaeron’s flare of hatred was strong enough that we all felt it. There was an echo amongst us, a shared distaste for the goddess who’d tortured him and threatened the lives of those we loved. I thought of Carly’s uncertain future, worried for her continued absence, and Phaeron and Geo tensed.

This seemed to dampen Ben for a while, but it wasn’t long until I felt his attention running up and down my form in appreciation. I was no longer holding on to a portion of Geo’s steadiness, and my skin tingled with awareness.

All three men were focused on me within a breath.Here we go again,I thought, sure we were going tumbling back into bed for who knew how long.

The next moment, Phaeron and Ben disappeared in a swirl of shadows. Some time passed without them, during which I kissed Geo and then pushed at his chest when he tried to draw me in closer, murmuring, “We really shouldn’t.”

He rumbled an “indeed” with great reluctance.

The dimensional returned sans Ben. “He’ll rejoin us shortly, once he’s cooled down,” he said. I felt him tug on my magic in request, bit by bit trying to learn more about modern culture from what I knew. I sent him memes, and his nose wrinkled at what was a bunch of nonsense out of context.

“Where’d you put him?” I asked.

Phaeron shrugged. “A cleaning closet.”

I had a hearty laugh before explaining what a horny jail was to both of them. “It’s not usually a literal place, but I guess we’ve got to make an exception,” I said.

It was a lot less funny when I got distracted by the flex of Geo’s muscles that evening while we were still practicing and ended up the second member of the circle to go to horny jail. At least I knew where Phaeron had found a janitor’s closet—on floor negative one behind a door that’d been locked earlier.

I spent maybe ten minutes breathing in the cleaning product fumes before deciding I was definitely, most assuredly not horny anymore. The guys had called it quits without me and greeted me with a scavenged dinner and their caressing hands and…yup, we were in bed again.

Madigan arrived the next morning with her own mating circle in tow, and our real training began. “We gave you guys a couple days to get used to it. Sorry it couldn’t be longer,” she’d said.

With their arrival started the clock on four last days of practice before we would help escort a crowd of survivors to the ocean gate. The knowledge was like a bucket of ice water over my head. As much as I wanted my men, we were using up precious time.

The first thing they did was separate us into different containment rooms for a one-on-one talk. I was with Madigan, face flaming when the first question out of my mouth was if it would always be like this. She’d barked a laugh and hugged me, knowing exactly what I meant.

“Yes and no. It takes a while to get used to sharing strong emotions. But men outside of your circle will be entirely unappealing. And vice versa for your men. The stability of your shared relationships becomes quite comforting.”

“That’s a relief,” I said.

She patted my shoulder reassuringly. “When I was just coming into my power and circle, another woman took me aside to teach me everything I could do as the core of a mating circle. If you think I got to grow my reputation as Mad Ash without a significant amount of my men’s help, you’d be wrong,” she said.

“Every circle is different, of course. The secret to my success is that the members of my circle specialize in similar magic. We all manipulate earth, stone, and crystal with strength-based runes,” she explained. “Over time, we’ve figured out how mymen can send me three different pieces of their magic and muscles so I seem unusually gifted in guardian witch spells.

“What I see in your circle is that you have one man specializing in each of the three measures of power level. If you can take something from each of them, it would boost your own power level significantly, to the point where you could hold off someone as strong as Myuna for a short time. It would take a lot out of all of you to maintain it for a prolonged battle, but we’ll work up your endurance as much as we can.”

We ended up chatting for hours, with my handbook floating nearby, recording every piece of knowledge Madigan shared. Milo curled up in her lap, purring, while my other two familiars spied on happenings around the library.

Bella had ended up in the room with Phaeron and Orthus, projecting happiness from all the belly rubs she was getting from the dimensional. I’d almost forgotten he liked cats and Bella in particular. There wasn’t an equivalent pet from Soiluire, as far as I could tell.

Meanwhile, Jin had avoided the ongoing conversations and was watching the powercore ripple with shadows and the points of purple-black claws. She was fairly sure Braza was practicing with her shadowborn magic within the confines of her living space.

Armed with the knowledge of those who’d gone through this before, we rejoined one another in a large room on floor negative five, fully equipped with weapons and armor. Phaeron had acquired a new leather chest piece from his nightly wanderings, though it remained free of the runic etchings of his original.

One of his gifts had been from the same store, and I wore it to get used to the weight and movement of the celestial witch robe partnered with a pair of dark pants built for my heavy librarian witch belt. It was an expensive ensemble due to the magic woven into the cloth, a concept that immediately fascinated the side ofme that’d wanted to go into fashion design before meeting my men had set me on another path.

The stars and tiny crescent moons stitched into the robe formed celestial runic shapes, making it resistant to heat and light. With the gloves and hood in place, I’d never get a sunburn again, but more importantly, they’d dampen a fraction of Myuna’s light magic when we finally met to fight.

My men and I squared off against Madigan and her circle. “Hit me as hard as you can,” she invited, fully encased in her red crystal armor and resting the head of her warhammer on the ground. “I guarantee you I won’t break.”

“None of us will,” Orthus agreed.

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