The Ritual: Urban Fantasy Suspense FF Romance (The Coven Unleashed Book 1) Read online

  Adelaide Walsh

  THE RITUAL

  Book one of the Coven Unleashed series

  Introduction

  I want to thank you and congratulate you for downloading the novelette “The Ritual”.

  We are all looking for a little magic.

  It was love at first sight for Stella and Camille. Stella finally feels ready to come out of the closet, when she discovers skeletons in Camille’s.

  Camille is a devoted witch who uses an empty grave to communicate with what she calls “the other world.”

  But how much does Camille really know about the coven? Can Stella learn to accept her, or will this romance darken? Find out, in this thrilling urban fantasy FF romance.

  (By the way, when you finish reading“The Ritual”, if you like it, please consider leaving a review for it on Amazon and Goodreads! It will help other people who like urban fantasy and FF romance to discover it).

  Thanks again for downloading this book, I hope you enjoy it!

   Copyright 2017 by Adelaide Walsh - All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Conclusion

  Bonus: Want to know more about the world of The Coven Unleashed?

  More books by Adelaide Walsh

  Chapter 1

  “Welcome to the office, Stella!” Eugene chimed, making sure the new girl had enough pens and sticky notes.

  “Uh, thanks,” she chuckled, clearly eager for him to leave her cubicle. It was a small, breathy chuckle, the kind that you hardly pay attention to when uttered by someone like Eugene. Days like this made me want to give Eugene a massive wedgie, or throw balled up paper at his head. Eugene brought back my inner mean girl.

  But Stella was not Eugene. When Stella chuckled, it was like a soft breeze that I could feel in the pit of my stomach. Her lips curled politely, revealing prominent dimples. She was the kind of beautiful that left you shaken, wondering if dimples had always been your thing, or if she had just thrown you into an alternate universe.

  I didn’t get much work done that day. Isaacs & Rowe was the kind of place where you could get away with things. We sold home décor for young hipsters, and on our floor, we were responsible for dealing with all of their complaints.

  I sat at my cube until lunch, with my chair raised all the way up, pretty much just staring at Stella, watching her foxlike features contort as she thought hard about something, or the adorable grin that snuck across her lips as she figured it out. She seemed too caught up in the newness to notice my staring, and I was grateful, because if I had to look away, it felt like everything inside me would collapse. At 11:59, I was out of my chair and in front of hers.

  “Hey new girl, I’m Camille. Wanna grab lunch?” I leaned against the side of her desk, doing my best to play the part of a gal pal.

  “Oh, I brought a, um,” she looked awkwardly at her lunchbox, still sitting on her desk.

  “Honey, whatever you brought ain’t good anymore. Let’s go grab sandwiches.”

  “Okay,” she blushed.

  I walked her down the hall and we entered an elevator. She was reserved, looking away. I, on the other hand, still couldn’t stop staring. I had to break the silence.

  “So,” I turned to face her, my arm brushing hers. I shivered, but my skin felt warmer. “So you into home décor or just here for the cute coworkers?”

  “I am actually more into customer service than anything else. You know, I just got out of college a year ago and have been living with my parents, so once September hit, I said to myself, ‘you know, normally I’d be going back to school; it’s time to quit working crap jobs and get serious.’ So I moved out, got my own place and took the first decent job I could.”

  “Nice. Well I think you’ll like it. There is certainly no shortage of complaints here. Lots to do.” We laughed. The elevator stopped, opening up to a busy Portland street. We turned the corner and arrived at one of my favorite cafés.

  I insisted Stella let me pay for her lunch, as a first day treat. She reluctantly obliged. We sat at a window table and bonded over sandwiches and lattes. I gently navigated the conversation from friendly compliments to flirting, studying her reactions to see if she understood. I was pretty sure that she did.

  “Thanks so much for lunch,” Stella reached across the table and grabbed my hand. I looked down. Her hand was smooth and fair, like porcelain, in beautiful contrast to my olive skin. I admired our hands for a moment. When she noticed me, she jerked hers back. With that, lunch was over. On my way out, I snuck her used napkin into my purse, suspecting I might need it at some point.

  The following day, some of us decided to go out after work for drinks and karaoke. We had a few favorite spots in rotation around the office but the karaoke bar was my favorite.

  “Hey Stella, are you going to karaoke tonight?” I popped my head into her cubicle.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m just afraid I’ll feel out of place. Still new here.”

  “Come on! It’ll be great. We could sing a song together.”

  “Fine. I’ll go, but it’s going to take a few drinks to get me on stage. Oh God.” Stella buried her face in her hands.

  “Okay. First one’s on me.” I looked her up and down, thoughtfully. “You like whiskey sours.”

  “Oh!” She laughed, “Do I?” She looked at me incredulously.

  “Yeah.” I winked. “It’s obvious.”

  Just before time to punch out, I rushed to the bathroom to freshen up. I pulled my wispy black hair from its messy bun and shook it out. I pulled a compact out of my purse and touched up my makeup. I had chosen brown shadow for work, to compliment my pale hazel eyes. For the evening, I decided to turn it into a smoky eye, with a fuchsia lip. The last touch was a fresh spritz of my favorite honey vanilla perfume. The end result was not half bad. I hurried back to my desk.

  “Alright Stella, ready to go?”

  “Yeah, let’s do it.” She turned around and did a double take. Success.

  We decided to take the bus. The bar was a few stops down, and my house was in the same direction, so on karaoke nights, I would typically just take the bus home at the end of the night. The ride to work in the morning was a little bit slower than driving, but I didn’t mind it now and then. When we got to the bar, several of the others were already there. As we walked in, they were cheering, clearly already having had a few.

  “Why don’t you join them? I’ll get drinks.” I nodded towards the table. A few minutes later, I was by her side, with drinks.

  “Ooh, a whiskey sour?” Stella grabbed a glass and winked. “I heard I love those.”

  I smiled and we clinked our glasses, downing large gulps of the cocktails. Whiskey was my drink of choice. It didn’t really matter how it was served. It just felt right to be drinking it. It felt right to be drinking it with Stella. This thought brought on another set of butterflies. I quickly redirected my thoughts.

  “So who has signed up for a song?” I asked the table.

  “You sign up, Britney,” Carol, a woman who worked on the other s
ide of our floor, shouted, pumping her fist in the air. I burst into laughter.

  “Alright, let’s do it. Stella is helping this time.” I pulled her over to the bar, where they kept songbooks, tiny pieces of paper and pens.

  “Why do they call you that?” Stella grinned, her honey-brown eyes sparkling.

  “Tradition.” I shrugged. “So today, I’m thinking Toxic?”

  “Sounds good,” she buzzed. “I know all the words, and there’s probably room for a dance number.”

  “Fun!” I shimmied my way up to the DJ and slid the slip onto his table. I shimmied my way back, Stella shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

  “You’re ridiculous. The dance number has to contain moves from this century.”

  “True. And your hand has to contain more alcohol.”

  “Also true!”

  I got us another round of cocktails and joined her back at the table. Our officemates were talking about something that they all found hilarious, but I found it terribly boring.

  “I’d honestly go for the weird DJ dude. The gelled hair is a minus, but I dunno, he’s got a great butt. Anyway, your turn, Stella. Who do you think is the hottest guy in the bar?” Tiffany, one of our interior design consultants, chirped. She was sitting to Stella’s right and I was on her left. Tiffany flipped her platinum blonde hair and gazed at Stella, clearly excited to find out what her type was like. They played this game every time we took a new person out. It was pretty obvious that their intention was to figure out which coworker the new person would be most likely to date, but no one ever admitted it. When it had been my first time out, I answered by pointing out a very drunk girl crying at the bar, singing all the wrong words to some 90’s country tune. They all cracked up, and I don’t think that most of them ever were sure whether I was serious.

  “Hmm,” Stella thought for a moment. I hoped that she would give a silly answer, or that just maybe she would say my name. “Eugene!” She pointed at him and winked. Everyone at the table erupted into a fit of ‘ooh’s’ and giggles.

  “It’s Camille’s turn,” Stella interrupted them, clearing her throat and doing her best to avoid looking at me.

  “Who do I think is the hottest person in the room?” I chewed on my cocktail straw, looking around. I considered saying her name, but I knew it would embarrass her. She had chosen gross Eugene, so obviously she was a lesbian and obviously she wasn’t ready to admit it. I scanned the room.

  Just in time, our names were called for karaoke.

  As if nothing had ever happened, we both jumped up excitedly and hurried to the stage together. Stella sounded great. Her voice was pretty, but raspy. I almost wanted to stop singing and listen to her instead.

  The bridge hit, cueing her dance number. It was a combination of cheer moves and hip-hop dance. I smirked, stepping aside a bit and clapping. The crowd, albeit pretty small, erupted into a roar of hoots and cheers. When the song was over, I rushed off stage with her, excited to talk about our little duet.

  “Were you a cheerleader in high school, or something?” I asked immediately.

  “Yep! And we danced to that song my senior year at half-time for homecoming.”

  “No way. I love it. Love that you still know it.”

  “Some things you just don’t forget.”

  By the end of the night, we were all pretty drunk. Stella and I headed for the bus stop. Waiting outside, the air was much cooler than it had been when I chose my work clothes for the morning. Stella was shivering. It was just the two of us waiting at the bus stop, aside from a man napping against a building wall.

  “Aw, are you cold?” I slurred.

  “Freeeezing!” she chattered.

  I rubbed my hands quickly over her biceps, hoping to create enough friction to warm her. The bus pulled up and she quickly turned to face it. We found a seat near the back.

  “So where do you live anyway?” I asked.

  “Rosa Parks.”

  “Oh, no way. Killingsworth. You’re not too far past me. Sorry I won’t be there to walk you to your door, though. I hate leaving you by yourself.”

  “Well, maybe I could walk you to yours. I mean why not? My walk home really isn’t that far from you.”

  “Seriously? Yeah, that would be awesome.”

  When we got to my stop, we both exited the bus and turned the corner to my street. Stella said that her house was in the same general direction we were walking. When we reached my house, we awkwardly stood facing one another at the door. I wasn’t sure what to do. I was clearly falling in love with her, even after only knowing her for two days. I felt as if I had known her for centuries. Every piece of me begged to touch her, to know her. I had fallen in love a time or two, but I had never felt this way before. It was this thought that convinced me to leave the moment hanging, to savor every drop of it. I decided not to kiss her. I wanted us both to linger in the sweet torture of new romance.

  “Well I had a really great time. Thanks so much for coming.” I hugged her.

  “Of course,” she looked at me with wider eyes. It was like she hadn’t been fully awake before. I looked around at the empty street and remembered what it was like when I first let my guard down for a girl. Yes, I had made the right choice. Stella was still figuring it out, and I wanted to help her make that an adventure, not a struggle. I looked back into her eyes, wanting to feel at home for another moment before stepping into my house. Her smile was more genuine than ever, no nerves to tighten it. The inside of my chest warmed.

  “Good night.” I squeezed her arm and turned to go inside.

  “Good night,” she sang, walking down the porch steps. “Wow,” I heard her whisper under her breath. My heart skipped a beat, but I didn’t turn back. I wanted to live in this moment for as long as possible.

  Of course, as soon as I locked myself in my house, I worried for Stella. It wasn’t that the neighborhood was bad or that she wasn’t capable, but I felt a strong sense of protection over her. I hurried to my bedroom and pulled a wooden box out from under my bed. I pulled out the napkin I had taken from the café.

  I rolled out a mat and placed the napkin in the center, shaking a few drops of oil on top. I retrieved my wand, one of my favorite possessions. It was made from one of the largest, oldest trees in the motherland. To be honest, I had no idea where the motherland was. It could have been my back yard, for all I had known. These sorts of details were only given to the elite, but the geography wasn’t important. It was the history behind the wand. Great witches before me had used it, and I could feel their fingerprints each time I grasped it.

  I knelt down and did the spell. Once it was finished, I put everything away and fell back onto my bed, feeling every cell in my body buzzing with desire and with real love.

  Chapter 2

  After that night, it was clear that Stella liked me, and that was enough to fill my heart. I could wait for her to come to me if she needed to process things, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to have any fun with it. I devoted the next week to making Stella want to be with me.

  One day I ordered her flowers and signed them, “secret admirer,” and spent the day watching all of our coworkers tease her about them, and try to figure out who the mystery “guy” was. There was the day I came in early and sprayed my perfume all over her cubicle. Another day brought chocolates. Every time she saw me, she blushed and ran off. That Thursday, I decided to coax her into lunch. I stole her tuna sandwich out of the refrigerator and put it in a locked compartment of Eugene’s desk. Then, just for fun, I stole the key.

  Just past noon, she went to the kitchen to get her lunch. She was back in minutes, sighing. She slouched down into her chair and began working again.

  “Hey, what’s wrong over there?” I asked, doing my best to sound nonchalant.

  “Someone stole my lunch,” she sighed, sounding thoroughly disappointed.

  “Why not just go buy something?”

  “I forgot my whole purse at home today. I don’t even have my driver’s
license, so let’s hope I don’t get pulled over on the way home. Ugh. This day sucks.”

  “Well I can take you to eat.” I appeared next to her desk. She gasped, not having noticed me come into her cube.

  “Oh,” she laughed, “sure. I mean, I can pay you back, it’s really-“

  “Oh don’t worry about it, you.”

  We headed down to the street and decided to walk a few blocks and grab food from some of the carts.

  “You know, these food carts are the second best thing about Portland,” I said before taking a big bite of my vegan Korean barbeque taco.

  “Oh yeah? Well what’s the first best thing?” Stella joined me on a bench and unwrapped her pesto mac and cheese.

  “You,” I smiled and looked away.

  The rest of the day was easy. I was mostly looking forward to leaving. Being around Stella was my favorite, of course, but I had a big night planned. I had been in the coven for nearly a year, and had reached a point in my mentorship where I would get to experience another realm. It was an initiation specific to our coven. Our coven focused its studies on the pleasure of witchcraft. We had the privilege of seeing and feeling things that no others could. So at this stage of my studies, I would be offered the opportunity to learn the other realms. I was positively giddy by the time I punched out. I grabbed my things and bolted out the door.

  “Wait, Camille, can I-“ I heard Stella’s voice from down the hall.

  “Sorry, Stel, gotta run! See you tomorrow.” I waved, beaming.

  I went home and had a light dinner. I poured myself a single glass of mead to calm my nerves. I saw the sun setting through the thin, red curtains in my kitchen. It was a vibrant, color-drenched sunset. I knew that they would be arriving soon. I raced upstairs to change into the proper attire. We each had a special cloak made by one of the elders who specialized in the use of different animal furs and hides.

  Mara would meet with each of us one on one, either when we were new or when we had completed a significant level of training. She would use only magic to read us. We wouldn’t speak to her at all. Then she would go back and create a beautiful, elaborate cloak. Mine was mostly black, with accents of different skins. There was black bear fur around the neck and hood.