Sybil holds her thumb and forefinger close together. “They’re just a teeny tiny bit feral. That’s all. It’s not like it’s the full moon.” Her words slur together a little.

My skin is hot, so hot, and not even the chill in the wind can cool it.

“When I said I wanted to make bad decisions, I didn’t mean that!” I say, shifting again. Damn this throbbing. I want to sob at the coiling sensation growing in me that demands all sorts of friction.

Sybil looks me up and down, her own cheeks flushed. “I think you need to go wolf hunting too, Selene. Or find yourself a pretty witch. You drank a lot of brew.”

I swallow and shake my head, hopping down from the crypt. Only as soon as I’m on my feet, the brew hits me all at once. I sway a little.

“Sacred Seven,” I say, my voice coming out breathier than usual. “The lycans are still observing it. And then there’s that—that fae.” Unless the shifters chased him off, he’s likely still prowling the Everwoods.

“Oh!” Yasmin squeals. “You think he’s close by? I want to see him. Fairies are so pretty.”

“Only look for him if you want to marry him and have lots and lots of kinky fae sex,” Sybil says, smiling salaciously. “Apparently he likes girls wearing white, so your mummy costume will probably do the trick,” she says, tucking Yasmin’s boob back into her linen wrappings.

As Sybil and Yasmin discuss the nuances of becoming a kidnapped bride, I press my eyes together, my need rising. Goddess, but I’ve drank way too much. What was I thinking? The lust is no longer manageable. Nowhere near it. I was a fool to think otherwise. My desire has ratcheted up to a painful need.

Est amage, I feel how you ache…

Memnon, I nearly gasp down our bond. I should be irritated by his voice. Instead, my lust seems to find its target.

My king. My soul mate.

I don’t want to throw myself to the wolves or to the fae. I want him.

I was wrong earlier, I say down our bond. Even my internal voice sounds breathy, wanton. At least I’m thinking a little more clearly. I’m not fine. I need… I want…

Fuck, I’m having trouble saying it. I want him, but I don’t want to beg. Not when he’s supposed to be the penitent one.

Are you all right?

No, I nearly moan as a wave of desire rolls through me.

The other end of our connection is disturbingly quiet. Then⁠—

Gods, little witch. What was that? His tone is all wrong. Deeper and—and surprised.

Another wave crashes into me, and I press my thighs together, but that movement is too much. My pussy seems to have a pulse point of its own, and I can feel it with each beat of my heart.

Around me, the group of witches is splintering apart. Sybil’s hand clasps mine, and she tugs me along with her as I drown in my own desire. As soon as I begin to walk, I let out a soft gasp. Even that small movement is heightening the throb at the juncture of my thighs.

I nearly weep. Going to hex whoever made the brew tonight for being so cruel. I wanted to get smashed, not to smash someone.

Memnon! I call out again. Where did he go?

I’m here, est amage, he reassures me.

Thank the Goddess.

What do you need? he asks.

Can he not tell?

You. I nearly weep the word out. Cursed brew.

He’s quiet for several agonizing seconds.

If you need me, little witch, he finally says, then command it of me.

Command it of him? What in the actual fuck?

The growing ache in my core overwhelms the last of my sense and my pride. Shoving away my embarrassment, I straighten my back and steel my resolve.

Come to me, Memnon. I sound less like Selene and more like fierce, strong-willed Roxilana.

I feel the sorcerer’s mood shift, warmth spreading out from his end of the bond. As you will it, Empress. For you, I will always come.

I pinch my eyes shut. Fuck, he’s being noble—about a booty call no less. I start to laugh but end up moaning.

“Babe, you going to make it?” Sybil asks.

I glance over at my friend, who is pulling me along. Next to her are Mai and Olga. My gaze moves to the trees and the darkened forest around us. I’d been so singularly focused on speaking with Memnon that I tuned out what was happening with my friends.

“Where are we going?” I ask. I can’t tell exactly where we are in the Everwoods, only that a fae rider might be somewhere out here, and at this point, I’m likelier to climb him like a tree than I am to fight him off.

“To get laid!” Mai says, lifting her glass of witch’s brew into the air like she’s making a toast.

Absently, I glance at my own hand, noticing that I too am still carrying my booze. As is Sybil. And Olga, who has now lost her dress and is clad in only a corset and a sheer skirt. Her hair hangs mostly unbound.

“Whoo!” Sybil cheers, raising her glass.

Olga joins in, and all right, guess we are toasting. I lift my own cup and clink it with the others, our brew sloshing about. I hesitate only a moment before I take another drink of it.

Is this irresponsible? Yes.

Is Samhain a celebration that revels in witchy debauchery?

Also yes.

Apparently it’s also a low-key orgy-fest, judging by some of the witches we’re passing. The forest is alive with the sounds of moans and pleasured cries. Each one of them seems to reach inside me and twist me up tighter and tighter.

I have a two-thousand-year-old soul mate who is coming to take care of my needs, I remind myself when I feel like I’m going to burst from the ache of it all. I can probably command him to do kinky shit. Bet he’d be down.

“Bottom’s up, girlies!” Mai shouts.

Another pang of lust hits me, and I covertly pour my drink out. I’m all for being irresponsible, but I have zero desire to black out. That story ends with me waking up in the bed of some douchey fae lord who now thinks I’m his wife because he’s decent at kidnapping drunk girls.

Thank you, no.

“We can leave our glasses here,” Mai says, taking our cups from us and placing them at the base of a nearby fir tree. “They’re spelled to eventually return to the cemetery.”

We leave the glasses behind and resume our drunken march forward. I eye the rest of the group—Sybil with her flushed cheeks and her spelled wings fluttering madly, as though they’re trying to get away, and Mai, who was dressed as a knight but is now dressed as a topless knight, and Olga, who is skipping along and singing some creepy song about corpses.

Oof, we are a ragtag bunch.

“So where are we going again?” I ask Sybil.

“Hmm?” she says, swaying a little.

“Where are we⁠—”

Deeper in the woods, an ominous howl goes up, followed by another and another, the sound raising the hair along my forearms.

Olga decides now is a fantastic time to stop singing creepy songs and howl back like a demented wolf.

“Did you forget already?” Mai says, noticing my shocked expression. “We’re hunting for wolves.”

I release my friend’s hand, even as my skin still throbs. Fuck, all of me throbs. I’m a mass of overstimulated nerve endings. “We cannot be on lycanthrope territory during the Sacred Seven,” I say adamantly. Doing so is essentially consenting to being bitten and turned. Which can happen, especially during the Sacred Seven when a shifter’s animal instincts often overwhelm their human motives.

I back up from the group. “If any of us get bitten⁠—”

Another howl interrupts me, this one much, much closer.

“No one’s turning into a wolf,” Sybil says.

I rotate in a circle, uselessly searching for the faint, luminous blue line that marks the boundary between Henbane Coven and the Marin Pack. Did we pass it already? I place a hand on my head, distressed.

Sybil comes over to me, and she doesn’t look worried. Why isn’t she worried?