by Lily Cahill
I handed the necklaces back to each couple and instructed them to fasten the stone they had chosen around their mate's neck. More than one couple took the opportunity to kiss. The stones hung around their necks, glowing softly in the setting sun.
Next, I handed out glasses of champagne. "Each of you shall take the glass to your mate's lips, and let them sip from your glass. Ladies first," I said, gesturing for the men to put down their glasses for the moment. "Please repeat after me. This drink is my joy. I share it freely with you, knowing it grows through our love for each other."
It was harder than it looked to drink from a glass that another person was holding. SOMETHING CUTE ABOUT THE GLASSES WITH COUPLE FROM BOOK 4
"Now, pour the remainder into the chalice," I instructed, gesturing at the goblet in the center of the table.
"Seems a shame to waste this," Skye Sinclair said, looking at the champagne still in her glass. "It's delicious."
I inclined my head. The champagne was the finest in the world. "It is an essential element of the ceremony."
"You'll have more later," her husband Marcus promised her. "Don't you know by now I'll give you anything you want?"
Skye smiled at him in a way that made my heart ache with envy. One by one, they poured the champagne into the chalice. "Please repeat after me. This drink is my joy. I share my joy with the Brotherhood, so that our good fortune may grow and expand."
They repeated after me and slowly filled the chalice. The facets of the crystal caught in the fading rays of the sun, seeming to turn the goblet gold.
"Now, gentlemen, gather some rose petals. You only need a few. Now, cup your hands together gently. Offer the petals to your mate and repeat after me. These petals are my sorrows. I give them willingly to you, knowing that you will treat them gently and share my burdens."
I instructed them to transfer the petals to their mate's hands, then repeated the vow as they passed the petals the opposite direction. Next, I instructed them to feed the petals into the goblet. "Repeat after me. These petals are my sorrows. I give them to the Brotherhood, and thus diffuse their weight from my heart. The Brotherhood is strong enough to bear any burden, and will support all members and their mates for life."
One by one, they dropped their petals into the goblet. Just in time, I thought, looking at the sun as it settled beyond the horizon. "Now, take your mate's hand."
It happened in an instant. As soon as each couple had joined hands, the last light of the sun hit the crystal goblet. Gold beams shot in four directions, bathing each couple in light. It glowed especially bright around their joined hands, as if the connection attracted the greatest energy.
I will not know what they are feeling until I experience it myself, but I assume from their expressions that it must be an exquisite sensation. Each couple seemed to have in that moment all they had ever wished for, all they had ever dreamed could be.
The yearning in me to share that moment with someone, to feel the power and beauty of that gold light, was enough to bring me to my knees. But happiness for these couples kept me on my feet. They had found true love in their fated mates. I could only believe that someday I would be standing in their place.
Then the sun disappeared, and the gold light was gone. That was my cue. "You are now bonded together as mates, with the blessing of the Billionaire Bear Brotherhood. May your years be long and joyous. You may kiss your mate."
As if shocked into motion, all four couples fell into each other's arms. I let them indulge for a moment before I cleared my throat. "In an hour, there will be a celebratory supper. In the meantime, if you would like to retire to your rooms ...."
I trailed off, leaving the implication clear. All four couples barely glanced at me as they left for their rooms. It was always that way. I could only conclude that intense sexual desire was a side effect of the ceremony.
Someday, I told myself as I watched each pair disappear. Someday, it will be me.
Then I began to clean up in the dark.
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Part Six: Sneak Peak
If you liked the Billionaire Bear Brotherhood , you'll love Lily Cahill's next series, Kings of the Fire.
Read on for a sneak peek!
Kings of the Fire:
THE DRAGON'S TEMPTATION
Chapter One
Felicity
Felicity heard the crash of the back door as someone slammed it shut, followed by a muffled curse. Her eyes moved to the digital clock above the stove, which turned to 11:37 a.m. under her gaze. Well, at least Joy was finally home, even if it was twelve hours after she'd been expected.
All calls to Joy's cell phone had gone ignored. Only a tragically misspelled text message in the middle of the night--srtop casling im fiiiiiiine--had kept Felicity from marching over to Tania Maxwell's house at three in morning, demanding to know her little sister's whereabouts.
Felicity was too old for this. Hell, Joy was too old for this. They'd moved away from New York City to get away from that lifestyle--the partying, the temptation, the clubs where they only had to give their last name to be let behind the velvet ropes. When their maternal aunt, Mable Morningstar, had passed away and left her home to Felicity, she'd thought it was the perfect answer. Augustus had the perfect balance of magical and mortal culture, and while not exactly a metropolis, it had a healthy population and was less than an hour drive from Philadelphia.
Naturally, the first thing Joy had done once they'd settled in was find a pixie with too much time and mead on her hands.
It was true, that old saying. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Joy's footsteps echoed on the tile floor--at least she was wearing her heels inside the kitchen. Last time Joy had come home hungover she'd tried to walk through without shoes on, and Felicity had had to chase her back outside. The running had made Joy puke in the grass of their backyard.
Felicity would have thought that wearing shoes in an industrial kitchen would have been obvious, but apparently Joy needed to have it spelled out for her. If a customer had seen that--or worse, an inspector found out, then their jointly owned coffee shop, The Witch's Brew, would have been shut down in seconds flat. Sure, they ran it out of the bottom level of their two story home. That didn't mean they could treat the business portion of it like they did the apartment they shared upstairs.
Her sister's hair was a tangled mess of a bun on the top of her head, her tights ripped up her long legs. There was a mysterious stain on the front of her sparkly red mini-dress.
"Did you make coffee yet?" Joy's voice came out in a groggy whisper, and she coughed and rubbed at her temple.
Felicity glanced back up at the clock. 11:38. "I made it five hours ago. You know, just before I opened the shop for you. Because you weren't here to open it yourself."
Joy groaned. "Oh God, seriously? But I don't work until Friday!"
"It is Friday."
"I'm so sorry, Lis." Joy straightened up and tugged her hair out of its holder, letting it tumble down her back. She fiddled with it, trying to smooth it into a more professional-looking pony tail. "I'll run upstairs and change right now. Ten minutes, and then you can be done for the day."
A small sliver of guilt wheedled its way inside Felicity's heart. The nickname, the willingness to step up despite the massive hangover--it was tough to be angry at Joy when she was like this. Penitent, sincere. Her sister was spontaneous and silly; usually, it was part of what made her charming. Sometimes, though, it made everything in Felicity's life that much harder.
The timer went off on the oven, signaling the fresh batch of scones were finished baking. The morning rush had killed the normal pastry supply, and Felicity had used the lull before lunch to whip up another dozen. Joy grabbed her head
at the sound and turned a shade of green.
Felicity sighed. "Don't worry about it. You can cover for me tomorrow. I'll get the rest of the day, you just go take a nap or something."
"That's a twelve hour shift. When are you planning to eat?"
"I'll find time!" She shooed her sister away. "Now go. Nap. Be free!"
Joy took a few halting steps back. She looked between the back door and her sister, chewing on her lip as she thought, before turning and clunking out of the kitchen in her too-high heels. There were only two ways to the upstairs apartment the pair of them shared--through a small, locked door in the main dining room that neither of them ever used, and the outside entrance, right next to the kitchen door. Joy's footsteps were so heavy that, despite the wall separating them, Felicity could hear her clomping up the steps.
It would be hours before she emerged again. Joy was an adult--well, in age, at least. She'd turned twenty-four three months earlier, but she still showed no signs of self-sufficiency. For a long time, Felicity had blamed the city. New York never slept, and neither did its many temptations. All night vampire bars, the secret parties the fae held in Central Park--invisible to mortals, but not to Others. Fae magic was strong.
The pair of them had fought constantly, about the partying, the drinking, the recreational drug use that Joy swore was not a habit.
The guys.
Felicity frowned at her scones and tried to pick one up off the baking sheet. A sizzle of heat scorched her fingertips, and she dropped the pastry. It broke open, still oven-hot, crumbling into pieces. She glared at the bits scattered across the tray. Now even the food was betraying her!
It wasn't that Felicity cared that Joy had been with lots of men. Her sister was young and beautiful, with a pouty mouth and legs that seemed to go on forever. She was the slimmer of the two of them, but not stick thin. Her curves were subtler, and her skin was a perfect, natural dark tan. She was a striking girl, and Felicity loved her.
But she also envied her, just a little. Sure, they'd always made it into the same clubs, but she wasn't under any illusions as to why she'd been admitted into the VIP section every time. The Valdez name carried a lot of weight, even now, when her family wasn't in favor with most of the magical community.
Without even realizing she was doing it, Felicity picked up a piece of scone and began to nibble. Whenever Joy had convinced Felicity that they ought to go out together, it had been an awkward exercise in holding up the wall, drinking watered-down liquor, and watching her younger sister dance with seemingly every available man in the room.
Felicity didn't want every man in the room. But one, maybe--one would have been nice.
She munched down on a blueberry, the flavor bursting across her tongue, and she caught on to what was happening. She was eating. Again. This was why Joy was constantly surrounded by men and Felicity was constantly on the sidelines, watching. She dropped the bite of scone into the trash, frowning at herself. Food wasn't so much an issue as a source of comfort, and she knew she relied on it to improve her mood. She knew that was why her hips were wide, her thighs thick. Her mother had always told her that she'd never find a man if the only place she ever looked was the pantry. The insult still stung, even though it had been years.
She put thoughts of her mother at the back of her mind. Lots of people didn't get along with their mothers; it wasn't exactly an uncommon problem. Sarah Morningstar Valdez was probably doing just fine in New York City, shopping and living her life and definitely not dwelling on her relationship with her daughters. If she didn't worry about it, why should Felicity?
Holding her hand over the baking sheet, Felicity murmured, "Frio."
The steam rising from the scones dissipated, and she smiled to herself. A little cooling spell, nothing tricky, but few people could control their magic without the use of some sort of channel--a wand, a ring, a familiar. Felicity had never needed one; even for a Valdez, she was powerful. Especially considering her mother's side of the family, the Morningstars, were as mortal as they came.
She could control her magic without thinking; it was a part of her, like her heart and her lungs. When she breathed in deep, she could feel it working inside of her, coursing through her veins.
For all that Joy had gotten the body and the beauty, Felicity had gotten the power, and whenever she heard her mother's voice a little too loudly in her head, she liked to remind herself that that was the better end of the deal.
The faint tinkling of a bell signaled someone coming in the front door. Felicity turned to flick off the oven, and moved around the island in the middle of the room to the sink. She washed and dried her hands and then stepped back out front.
The Witch's Brew was her pride and joy, her baby, her everything. When she and Joy had moved to Augustus--or, as Joy liked to call it, the middle-of-nowhere--Felicity had fallen in love with the space. She'd sold Auntie Mabel's house and used the profits for a down payment. The family would have given them money for something bigger, something grander, but she'd sworn to herself she wouldn't go back to them again, wouldn't request their help. Not after what had happened last year, after Joy's accident. She and Joy could make it on their own. They were going to be Morningstars now.
The dining room windows faced the east, catching the last rays of the morning light before the sun moved completely overhead. The room was bathed in yellow and pleasantly warm, with the front door standing open for air circulation. While the décor was nothing special--assorted tables and chairs that they'd found in thrift stores, old antiques that they'd scavenged from Auntie Mabel's basement before they'd sold it--but there was something charming and cozy about how mismatched everything looked.
The front counter was cluttered with display cases full of baked goodies and potions, and Joy's immaculate handwriting on the wall-mounted chalkboard proclaimed yesterday's specials. Felicity had kept them, rather than face an endless day of everyone asking her what the board said. She always meant to take her time and write neatly, but she didn't have the patience for it, and no one could ever read anything she wrote--except for Joy, who claimed that it was only because she'd been exposed to her sister's messy scrawl at a young age.
The place was neat and clean and hers, and Felicity loved it more than anything. She'd come by it honestly, unlike the powerful position she was set to inherit.
Felicity liked many things: she liked good coffee, she liked good food, and she liked good spells and potions. The Witch's Brew provided all of that plus a cheerful ambiance.
A man approached the counter, tapping at the screen of his smart phone with his thumb. His suit was well-tailored, and he was holding a briefcase. Maybe someone from the law office down the street?
Augustus had all sorts of businesses on the main street that catered to both mortals and Others. The town had been established by the fae in the late 18th century and had acted as a haven for the magically inclined since then. Nowadays, though, the way the mortal world and the Others' world were so intertwined--history had proved again and again that magic was too big a secret to keep, and when people had fled religious persecution in the old world for the relative freedom of the new, magical freedom had ensued.
The man glanced at the board, frowning. "Pumpkin spice latte?"
The way he said it implied that he was not ordering a pumpkin spice latte. Felicity resisted the urge to drum her fingers on the countertop. Now that he was closer, she could see that he was mortal and handsome, but in a way that was cold, hard. He was pushing forty--not too old, and his body was lean and fit, so he kept himself in good shape. His face was just a bit too tan to be natural, but he didn't seem the type of person who saw a lot of sunlight. He probably had a tanning potion; the better ones were flawless, but if the witch who made it cut any corners at all, then they tended to make the user look a bit orange.
Felicity cleared her throat. She wasn't sure how to answer him. "Yes," she said, shifting her weight on her feet. The door opened and the bell jangled again, but she wasn't able
to look at this new customer. Whoever they were, she hoped they were less annoying than the person in front of her.
"It's May, not October." He gave her an impatient look before turning back to his phone and typing something furiously.
"I'm aware," she said, her voice just edging past polite. She took a deep breath. It wasn't good business to alienate customers, even mortals who insisted on dyeing themselves Oompa Loompa orange. "I've always thought the marketing used on pumpkin-related products to be kind of silly. The idea that scarcity and seasonal coding are the keys to popularity--"
The man snorted. "Sure, sweetheart. Tell me everything you learned in your online business class."
Shock made her mouth drop open, and for a moment she was too surprised to do anything at all--and then, suddenly, anger flooded her. She snapped her mouth shut, leveling a glare at the man. He didn't even notice, still staring at the screen of his phone.
"I'll have you know," Felicity started.
"Whatever," the businessman cut her off. "Can I get an Americano to go?"
"No."
Finally, he looked away from his cell, staring at her in shock. "Excuse me?"
"I will not serve you. Get out of my shop."
He shoved his phone into his pocket, face going red with rage. Combined with his orange coloring, he looked strange and inhuman. "Now, listen here, you little--"
Felicity flinched, awaiting the rude word, but it never came. Instead, there was a strange kind of growl, and then suddenly the businessman was floating. No, not floating--he had been hauled into the air. His feet were kicking uselessly as he scrabbled with the collar of his button-up shirt, coughing uselessly.
This wasn't magic--this wasn't her doing. What was happening?
The man fell to the ground in a heap, taking in deep, ragged breaths as he clutched at his throat. And then she understood. There was someone else behind him--someone who had lifted this man up by the back of his suit like he weighed nothing at all.
