Free Blood Moon by Angela Roquet

recall when it had
begun, but it was starting to split his skull in two. He ground his
teeth together and pressed his hands over his ears.
    When he looked back up, blue smoke drifted
from the bronze bowl. And Zelda was gone.

Chapter
Sixteen
     
     
    Zelda hadn’t counted on the grand jury of
the goddess. She should have known better. The cut on her hand
stung, and her blood dripped and disappeared into the glowing
nothingness that surrounded her.
    “ You dare to call on us
again, oath breaker?” a million voices asked at once, making her
head throb.
    Zelda swallowed. “Not for myself,” she
answered meekly.
    “ Always for yourself,” the
voices replied. “Have you not learned that yet?”
    Zelda wanted to refute them, but she
couldn’t. In their presence, she saw the truth for what it was.
Everything she did was for herself. Even the wolves she helped—it
was all done in penance, to pacify her guilt.
    “ Tell me what to do,” she
begged, her eyes burning in the divine light.
    “ Sacrifice. It is the only
way to right your path.”
    Zelda took a trembling breath. “I’m yours to
do with as you please.”
    “ You are your own, and
time will reveal your altar soon enough. Make peace with it, or
never call on us again, Zelda Mae Fulmen.”
    “ I will,” she
promised.
    “ Then let it be done.
Blessed be.”
    The voices faded off, and Zelda felt the
pull of her ritual circle tugging at her aura. The spell surged
forward more easily than she expected.
    First, her connection with Hazel released.
It was an easy, comfortable detachment, as if the witch had been
anticipating her psychic visit and had prepared for it. Then
Maggie’s tangle of blond curls flashed through Zelda’s mind,
accompanied by a sharp gasp.
    Sarah was last. She felt Zelda coming, and
she resisted. Steely gray eyes pierced into Zelda’s as Sarah’s hot
anger boiled over. A scream echoed through the void that separated
them. Zelda’s final tie to the coven broke like a rubber band, and
she dropped to the center of the ritual circle, panting until her
chest and throat burned.
    Her eyes watered and a sob slipped past her
lips. Two years, yet the severance ritual left her feeling raw and
vulnerable, as if she was really, truly alone now, without a soul
in the world to lean on.
    “ Zee, are you all right?”
Logan paced nervously around the circle, looking frazzled and
confused. “Do you need help?”
    “ No,” she wheezed, pulling
herself into a sitting position. “I’m almost done here.” She wiped
a hand across her face and picked at the grass clinging to her
dreadlocks.
    “ You sure?” Logan pressed
a fist into his opposite palm and squeezed it anxiously.
    She nodded and used the altar to steady
herself as she stood. “Give me five minutes.”
    Zelda walked counterclockwise around the
circle, thanking the elements and snubbing the candles out. When
the circle was open, she invited Logan in, but he refused to enter
the formerly sacred space. Zelda rolled her eyes and handed the
altar slabs to him. Then she packed up the rest of her supplies,
and they headed back to the pub.
    The Crimson Moon was closed on Mondays, but
it was almost lunch time, and her wolves liked to gather in the big
back kitchen to eat together on their day off. Logan never joined
them, and Zelda wondered if he even knew about their weekly
potluck. He was in for a surprise.

Chapter
Seventeen
     
     
    The kitchen was warm with the aroma of
smoked meat and barbeque marinades, making Logan’s stomach growl.
He was used to a big breakfast, and the coffee had been a poor
substitute, especially so close to a full moon. He envisioned
taking down a fat deer later that night, and his mouth watered.
    Country music seeped from a beat-up radio on
the counter, sputtering static when Zelda walked past it to peek
inside the big oven built into the wall. She closed her eyes and
breathed in the smells rolling out to greet her.
    Violet stood at the stove,
wearing a frilly apron