In Astrid's humble opinion, Coven meetings had to be the biggest waste of time ever. Coven meetings, magic, witches. she knew it was supposed to be cool, it was supposed to be a sisterhood, and all wonderful and blah, blah, blah. But Astrid found it was mostly just incredibly boring.

A prime example? Astrid spent the last 2 hours listening to her sister, Ana, argue with Lola - the Coven's enforcer. Ever since Ana come into her power as Coven Mother a few months ago, the two had been going head to head arguing about how things were to be run in the coven constantly. It was enough to drive a witch mad. And Astrid felt that there are definitely better things she could be doing at that very moment instead of listening to the fiftieth argument about Putris Root versus Lizard Lotus for treating magic inflicted wounds.

Like who cared?

They both did the same thing. So one of them was possibly slightly toxic to humans. There were a lot of things that could be slightly toxic to humans and it didn't seem to bother them much.

The fights were always about the magic shop. And quite frankly Astrid didn't think she should be forced to attend the meetings because unlike most of the coven, including her sisters, she didn't actually work in the Coven shop.

Most days of the week Astrid was busy being amazing and doing a top job working providing her magical expertise with the team at Marche Enterprises, the business which provided security to The Underground. She knew she wasn't much good at potions and prayers, but she was pretty damn good with enchantments and hexes. As it turned out that made her pretty valuable to a security company.

And working at The Underground was something else, it was an absolute dream. The Underground was a series of rooms and tunnels underneath Sydney which housed the city's preternatural denizens and kept them safe. And boy-o did they need to keep themselves safe. While supernaturals had co-existed with humans for centuries it wasn't really until around seventy years ago that they all started living in integrated society so openly.

Despite this, things were still tense between the two communities and that meant that it was vital to keep supernaturals safe from zealots and others who don't like the idea of a supernatural/human integrated society (And un- suprisingly there were a lot of those).

So, while it made things tense and unpredictable, Astrid actually loved her job. Much more than she love attending annoying Coven meetings at any rate.

Times like these made her wish she was back in Italy living with the vampires there. She had spent the last three months there helping some of the supernatural from Sydney settle down and only just returned home that very morning (Which was another reason she really hated today's coven meeting, because it was boring and she had jet -lag). Suffice to say when the meeting was over she was going to enjoy settling back into her room at The Underground.

For a moment a glint of gold caught her eye, and Astrid looked over to see her younger sister, Lena. Like her, Lena was a junior priestess in the coven. Although she was far more gifted in the arts of healing and potions than Astrid was. Lena was also sweet and kind - the sweetest and kindest witch in the Coven, actually. Although she was also kind of vague and distracted a lot of the time too. It'd been worse lately. While Astrid was away in Italy, something terrible had happened to Lena. She hasn't been the same since. Every time Astrid see her sweet face, it remind herself that there was a reason she came to the stupid coven meetings.

Just when the argument seemed like it was about to end, it started up again. Round Fifty -one of Ana vs. Lola was about to begin and Astrid was counting down the seconds until she was able to back to The Underground.

----

When the meeting finally finished, Astrid ran out of there as fast as she could manage - Ana had tried to convince her to stay the night, but she managed to get out of it by promising her she'd be over on Friday for Coven dinner. Ana wasn't super happy about the compromise, but she was too busy to even bother arguing. As it turned out being Coven Mother was exhausting, time consuming and didn't leave much room for an actual life. Which was sad, because Ana was barely twenty-nine and Astrid couldn't remember the last time Ana actually did something slightly selfish, even before she ascended to the leader of the Coven.

As soon as she could Astrid raced across town, when she stepped into the tunnels she could physically feel my body relax. Although the relaxation was short lived because soon after she stepped through and got my bags into her room, Lachlan a very excitable and hyperactive werewolf - bombarded her.

Lachlan was best described as Astrid's best friend. Or would be if she weren't twenty-one and kind of passed the whole 'best friend' age. She'd known him since she started working in The Underground - like Astrid, he also worked in the security team. Lachlan was a sweet if slightly overbearing person. He also had a massive crush on the Coven's enforcer, Lola. It was hilarious watching him flirt with Lola when she came down to visit because she was a no-nonsense, tough bitch and Lachlan was just about the nicest guy Astrid had ever met.

The other good thing about Lachlan was that he was also a beacon for gossip, and the best person for up to date information on the runnings of The Underground. Which was why, at precisely 9.30pm as Astrid was walking through the tunnels, She was also getting up to date on all the gossip that had happened since She had been in Italy.