Supernatural Seduction (Book 2 of the Coffin Girls Series) by Aneesa Price Page B

money, and thus did not engage in
commerce. Magick unashamedly provided them with all they required.
Instead, the hub held buildings designed in and denoting the
purposes of the various fae. Sophie waved to fae in front of a huge
grass mound, colorful flowers pushing up around it. This building
housed the meetings for the fae responsible for growth and earthly
magick. Next to it was a tower, a tube really, that linked to the
nearby river. The building was a long tube of transparent glass
filled with water. The inhabitants of the tower all had gills or
could breathe underwater. This was the house of the water fae.
Sophie realized that as monarch, Sylvain could probably enter the
tower of water and converse inside it easily. He was, despite his
mischievous nature, unassuming, given the sheer amount of power he
held.
    At her thoughts of Sylvain, she glanced
towards the top end of the magickal hub towards his castle, a
sentinel of power and magick. The castle’s location was not only a
strategic one to prevent the rare enemy that gained entry from
infiltrating the fae hollow’s stronghold, but it was there to both
add to, accept from, and ground the magick visibly swirling around
the business district. Sophie wondered where he was and what he was
doing. She wondered if he was still angry or at the very least,
irritated at her. Shaking her head at her own thoughts, she
continued towards the path that led through the hollow towards the
meadow on the outskirts of the hollow’s village.
    She could still feel the residual effects
from her self-exploration exercise in Arianna’s home. Having seen
what the beautiful sorceress was capable of in just one empath
lesson, she thought she’d give the meditation a try and visit one
of her favorite places in the hollow. The meadow was beautiful.
Seas of green grass interspersed with wild flowers in a variety of
colors calmed and soothed as it swayed in the slight breeze. The
sun, a ball of yellow, gleamed in a sky as blue as Sylvain’s
roguish eyes. Horses, wild yet tame, trotted in the lea and
completed the picture of pastoral tranquility.
    Sophie sat under one of the trees punctuating
the expansive green pasture and allowed herself to just breathe.
She had never tried meditation in the formal sense of the art, but
had explained to Arianna that to her, the ultimate relaxation was
to commune with nature and just be, even if it meant literally
sitting under a tree. Arianna had stated that to do so could be
seen as a form of meditation as long as solace and calm was sought.
Empaths, according to her, had always sought out the balancing
effects of enveloping themselves in the natural world. Sophie could
relate to that as she’d instinctively sought out gardens and places
of natural beauty whenever she had been in a state of agitation.
Since her mother’s death, she’d found solace under many different
trees - first at the Ursuline convent in France and then later at
Pierre, her late husband’s, plantation.
    She started to feel relaxed, yet was still
agitated. It was perplexing. On the one hand, she could feel the
knots loosen in her muscles, and her breathing regulate, but there
was still something bothering her. Sighing in resignation, she
closed her eyes and dropped the shield around her, focusing inwards
as Arianna had taught her that morning.
    Looking inside herself, she found her
emotions in a black ball of discontent. Remembering Anais’
descriptions of what she had experienced when her powers were
unbound, she realized that the same could be applied to her
emotions, because her powers were ultimately tied to them. Allowing
the shield to drop, she resolved to ask Arianna on how to deal with
it. Then she allowed herself the pleasure of watching the horses.
They moved towards a solitary white unicorn, not an uncommon site
in the hollow. The unicorn’s continuous efforts to befriend the
horses were rebuffed. To an outsider, it was obvious that the
unicorn intimidated the horses, and