Forbidden Sensations: A Dark Romance Savannah Rose (readnow TXT) 📖

I shook my head, trying to get Adam to put a halt on it, but he wasn’t paying attention.

Pissing Julianne off was a terrible idea, but Adam liked to stir the pot—whether it needed stirring or not. Better him than me, I decided.

The truth was, I agreed with him, but I wasn’t stupid enough to say so. Julianne had a temper. A hot temper, a quick and vicious temper—but also the kind that could burn slowly for years.

Macy, clearly aware of the tension, but choosing to ignore it, sighed heavily and flopped backwards on her bunk. “I’m bored,” she moaned. “Who are we still waiting for?”

Julianne rolled her eyes before shooting her an irritated look. Adam didn’t pull his eyes away from Julianne when he answered for her. “Stew and Renard,” he said. “They both decided to shower first.”

Julianne raised a perfect eyebrow at Adam, and he grinned like the cat who caught the gossip canary.

Nodding, Adam fed Julianne enough juiciness to temper her down. “Guess they thought the séance was an excuse to get friendly,” he added, which was bullshit, of course.

Julianne, though, she was ready to eat this shit up like buttered pancakes. “No chance in hell,” she squeaked, her jaw inches from her ankles. She didn’t rub her hands together and scream for more, but she didn’t need to because we all saw it. Joan, on the other hand, looked like she swallowed a hundred lemons.

Adam shrugged, his easy grin still growing across his face. “I’m just fucking with you. Honestly, I think Stew’s just dragging his feet. This whole thing kinda creeps him the fuck out.”

I avoided looking at Julianne, but I couldn’t quite hide my smile as she groaned in annoyance at Adam.

It wasn’t long before hurried footfalls outside the cabin caught our attention.

Joan opened the door before the boys even had the chance to knock, which didn’t faze Renard at all. He took the room in with the cool, regal gaze he used on everything.

Stew stared at his feet, his fine, shaggy black hair still wet from his shower. Renard’s wasn’t, but expensive scents wafted off of his bright aristocratically sculpted hair.

“Ladies,” Renard said formally. “Our apologies for being late.”

“No apologies necessary,” Joan crooned, gazing at Stew from under her eyelashes.

He pretended he didn’t notice, but the tips of his ears blushed bright.

Renard nudged him with his elbow as if to say, “I told you so.”

Stew shrugged away from him irritably.

“So how do we do this?” Stew asked, sounding desperate to get the attention off of them.

Julianne pulled a velvet draw-string bag out of her backpack. She untied it slowly and precisely, humming low in her throat. The sound did something to the atmosphere. Sucked all of the humor, the hormones, the lightness right out of it.

A solemn silence fell over us as we watched her pull the Ouija board out of the purple velvet. It was closed and locked, an expensive self-contained case that looked older than the cabin we sat in.

It was intricately carved, its corners and edges worn smooth with years—maybe decades—of use. The way the dark wood absorbed and reflected the light made it look like it was moving somehow, like the wood was liquid under the glaze, and it carried scents of sage and sandalwood. Its presence alone was enough to make me believe in real magic.

Julianne set it in the middle of the floor and opened it with ceremonial precision.

“Sit in a circle around it,” she said in the same low, ominous tone that she’d been humming in. “I’ll light the lanterns.”

“Why do we need lanterns?” Adam asked, frowning at the ceiling. “We’ve got light.”

Julianne huffed at him impatiently, then smiled in a way that was both creepy and patronizing.

“Artificial light repels spirits,” she said, as if she were explaining to a toddler why he can’t run in the street. “If we want the spirits to talk to us, we can’t have the lights on, can we?”

Adam’s face darkened, his lids lowered, but he returned her smile with interest. “Whatever you say,” he said. “You’re the witch.”

I don’t know if anyone else saw her shoulders stiffen. It was a small movement, almost imperceptible, and didn’t last long—but it was enough to tell me that Adam was going to pay for that comment. Maybe not now, but someday.

Julianne considered the word “witch” to be a slur against her and her family and wouldn’t soon forget about his casual slight.

We took our places on the big pentagram she’d drawn on the floor in chalk before the boys got there, carefully not to blur the markings with our movements.

Julianne lit the candles in five lanterns, which she placed on the points of the star. When she turned out the lights, crazy shadows fought for dominance over the little wooden board.

“Now,” Julianne said, her voice low and solemn. “Each of you place a finger on the pointer. Swear that you will not interfere with the spirits; that you will allow them to control the pointer.”

“I swear it,” Macy and Joan said together in the same solemn tone Julianne was using.

“I swear it,” I said, feeling silly, albeit a little uncomfortable.

“I swear it,” the boys agreed, one after the other, with varying levels of conviction.

Stew seemed freaked out already, but it could just be because Joan had taken the spot next to him and was subtly encroaching on his personal space however she could. Poor kid.

“What do we do now?” Stew asked, trying to shuffle away from Joan without moving the pointer.

“We need to warm it up,” Julianne said firmly. “Give it some easy questions first, just to open the connection to the spirit world. There’s one very important rule you should know.” She met each of our eyes, one by one. “Do not, under any circumstances, tell it your name. Don’t even ask it to name you. Spirits can harness the power of your true name and use it