Chapter 5: Cordella
1855 Words
Cordella
The sun was trying to murder me.
I groaned, yanking the sheet over my head as a sharp, angry beam of light pierced through the curtains of my apartment. My skull felt like it had been hexed by a particularly bitter priestess, and my mouth was dry enough to qualify as a fire hazard.
From beside me, Piper groaned like she’d just been resurrected.
“You alive?” I croaked.
“No,” she mumbled into the pillow. “I’ve died. This is hell. And you’re here because you had a s****l standoff with a werewolf.”
I dragged the blanket down just enough to glare at her. “It was not sexual.”
She rolled over, her space buns completely lopsided, grinning like the devil. “Please. If I hadn’t dragged you away, I think he might’ve bent you over the bar. And honestly? I would’ve cheered.”
I grabbed the nearest throw pillow and chucked it at her face. She shrieked, then cackled, curling into a ball of hungover smugness.
I hated how not disgusted I was at the image.
Because dammit, Heston Blue was hot.
Those cold, glacial eyes. That dark hair. The kind of sharp jaw that looked like it could cut stone—or grind his teeth over every word I said. And the size of him?
Massive.
Typical Alpha. Broad. Built. Dangerous. I barely came up to his chest, and that should’ve made me feel insulted. Diminished.
But it didn’t. It made me feel… hot.
Flushed.
“Okay,” I grumbled, flopping back down, “maybe it was fun toying with him. Wolves are just so easy to rile up.”
Piper stretched like a cat, groaning. “Something was definitely up.”
“Don’t.”
She grinned wider.
I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom, glaring at my reflection as I splashed water on my face. I had a couple hours before the shop opened, and I needed coffee, a cleansing spell, and maybe to scrub the scent of cedarwood and testosterone off my skin.
Of course, that’s when my phone rang.
Calliope.
I cursed under my breath and answered on the third ring. “Yeah, Calliope?”
“I’m your mother,” she snapped immediately.
“You never let me forget it.”
“You have dinner tonight. With the High Ten. To finalize Solstice ceremony details.”
My stomach clenched. “Right. Of course.”
“Don’t be late. And don’t come in looking like you rolled out of bed with a whiskey-soaked hedge witch.”
“I won’t.”
She hung up.
I stared at the screen for a moment longer, resisting the urge to chuck it into my sink.
The High Ten were the coven’s inner circle. Mostly old, powerful women with sticks up their asses and opinions about how I should walk, talk, and carry on the Blackwood legacy.
Tonight was going to suck.
Piper poked her head around the bathroom door, holding up a mug of coffee like an offering. “Your high priestessness demands caffeine?”
“Goddess bless you.”
She grinned. “So. Are you going to be a good little witch tonight or sneak off and have another magical slap-fight with your favorite Alpha?”
“I am going to open my shop,” I muttered, snatching the mug. “Sell overpriced crystals to humans with commitment issues. Then survive dinner without committing matricide.”
“Boring,” Piper singsonged. “But fine. I’ll just sit here and manifest your next run-in with Heston Blue. Hopefully one where shirts are optional.”
I slammed the bathroom door in her face. But I didn’t deny the image her words conjured.
Unfortunately.
-----
“I just want him to, like… fall in love with me, you know?” the girl said, clutching the rose quartz like it was a golden ticket to her MRS degree.
I smiled and nodded like I hadn’t heard the exact same line four times already this week. “Just cleanse it under moonlight and set your intention clearly.”
She beamed like I’d handed her the answers to the universe, then bounced out of the shop, heels clacking and energy trailing behind her like glitter.
I turned back to the counter, exhaling a long sigh as I tucked the cash into the register. My fingers went through the motion on autopilot, but my mind?
Nowhere near here.
I told myself it was the hangover. The headache. The leftover tequila vibrating through my blood. But that was a lie.
Because all I could think about was Heston Blue.
The way he glared. The gravel of his voice. The scent of him—woodsmoke and authority. That look in his eye, like he was seconds from snapping.
And the worst part?
His wolf surfaced. I felt it. Felt the energy shift, the air go heavy, and instead of fear?
I felt exhilarated.
My power surged. Really surged. That hadn’t happened since I was sixteen and screaming at my mom in the middle of the moonlit garden. That time, I shattered a stained glass window. This time? A whiskey glass and, maybe, my sanity.
It was… odd. Unsettling. Intoxicating.
I told myself it was nothing. Just hormones. Piper would say I needed to get laid, and maybe she wasn’t wrong. The guy who tried to dance with me last night? Nothing. Not even a spark. But with Heston?
Fire.
Which meant one thing: I needed to stay the hell away from the Borderline—and from him.
Solstice was tomorrow. My role assisting the Alter wasn’t just ceremonial. It was historic. Reverent. And with only three months until I turned twenty-six—the age when the title could be passed—I needed to focus.
Even if, deep down, I knew I didn’t want it.
Even if stepping into my mother’s role felt like putting on a crown of thorns.
But that was a dilemma for Future Della. Just like Heston Blue was.
I glanced at the clock. Midday. The shop had gone quiet. I exhaled and turned to water the succulents in the window—
And froze.
A group of men in suits stood across the street, pointing up at my building. Not tourists. Not college kids.
Developers.
And standing with them, in a fitted t-shirt, work boots, and a backwards ball cap, was a familiar 6'4" wall of Alpha audacity.
Oh, f**k no.
The succulents could wait.
I stormed toward the door, waving my hand at the crosswalk. The traffic light changed instantly—red for cars, green for my righteous fury.
Every step across the street shredded what little restraint I had left. Stay away, I told myself. Don’t get distracted.
And then I was standing in front of him, staring up at all his broody, broad-shouldered smugness.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped.
Heston turned slowly, that unreadable mask already sliding over his face. “Gentlemen,” he said to the suits, “give me one second.”
And then, again, like he had any right, he grabbed my wrist.
Not hard.
But firm.
And just like last time, everything I told myself about staying away went flying out the window as he dragged me out of earshot.
My pulse thundered.
My magic stirred.
And my mouth?
Locked. Loaded. Ready to ruin him.
The nerve of this man.
The Alpha audacity.
I yanked my arm the second we were out of earshot, but he didn’t let go—just enough pressure to keep me close, his palm hot around my wrist like he knew exactly what it did to me.
“Let. Me. Go.”
His gaze pinned me, icy and infuriating. “Keep your voice down.”
“Or what?” I hissed. “You’ll growl at me again?”
His jaw flexed. “You’re causing a scene.”
“You’re on my street,” I snapped. “In front of my building.”
He let go then, but only because I’d said the quiet part loud. I stepped back, rubbing the spot on my wrist like I could erase the echo of his touch. Goddess, my skin was buzzing. I hated that it was buzzing.
“What the hell are you doing with a bunch of suits pointing at my shop?”
“It’s not your shop,” he said coolly. “You rent. It’s part of a historical block Blue Co. has a development proposal on.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
He didn’t even flinch. “It’s been in review for months. Nothing final.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that when you were breathing down my neck the other night?” My voice was rising. I didn’t care.
He looked down at me—because of course he did, the man was built like a brick house—and something sharp flickered behind those too-blue eyes.
“I wasn’t aware it was your shop,” he said, voice tight. “I didn’t connect the address until I saw you storming across the street like a banshee.”
“Glad I made an impression.”
He stepped in closer.
Too close.
The space between us shrank to a breath, and the world narrowed to the scent of his skin and the heat radiating off him like a furnace. His wolf wasn’t just close to the surface—it was practically snarling. I could feel it in the air, electric and alive.
“You’re playing with fire, witch,” he growled.
“And you’re acting like you won’t get burned.”
He stared at me, unmoving. Unshaking. Unrelenting.
So I smiled.
A slow, dangerous, Cordella Blackwood kind of smile.
“I don’t scare easy, Alpha.”
“You should,” he said, voice like gravel and thunder.
I laughed. Laughed. “Oh, you think you’re the scary one in this conversation?”
His eyes flicked down, just once, to my mouth. And there it was—the moment. The split-second where the tension shifted from threat to temptation.
And that’s when my magic sparked.
Not much. Just a flicker. A ripple in the air that made the hairs on both our arms stand up.
His jaw clenched. “You’re surging again.”
“I’m under a lot of stress.”
“Then maybe stay out of my business.”
“You made it my business when you started pointing at my front door like it was a teardown project.”
We stood like that, toe to toe, breath to breath.
Goddesss, he was—
Nope. Not finishing that thought.
“I have a ceremony tomorrow,” I muttered, dragging my gaze away. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Then stop picking fights you don’t want to finish.”
“Who says I don’t want to finish?”
Before he could answer, before he could do something reckless and delicious and entirely unprofessional, I turned on my heel.
I walked away, skirts swaying, pulse pounding, magic humming.
But I didn’t look back.
Because I already knew he was watching.
- Writer
