Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
Elara was infuriating!
But Tripp would be damned if he let his annoyance show. Teasing her had been a surefire way to rile her and remove the too-tempting desire from her eyes. And thank the ancestors, she’d missed the reference to making love. How such romantic drivel had poured out of his mouth, he’d never know. Sex was sex, and he ran from entanglements. In the future, should he consider a long-term liaison, it couldn’t be with a mortal. That way lay death for said mortal. The Gods enjoyed throwing hurdles in lovers’ paths, and many never survived the trials heaped on them.
Tripp made the mistake of locking eyes with Elara.
She possessed a rare vulnerability. Insecurity and the need to be taken seriously were paramount for her. But beneath those, she desired to be wild and wicked, as she believed her sister was. Payton wasn’t. Oh, she put on a decent act, and it seemed the ignorant people in Witchmere fell for it. Yet Payton Hawthorne was steadfast and equally messed up in her beliefs as Elara. It came down to absentee parents and a grandmother who refused to tell them about their connection.
“Come here, flitter-mouse,” Tripp urged softly. Surprised that she complied, he tucked her against his chest and rested his cheek on her glossy ash-blonde hair. Those shiny locks were as silky as they looked, and he luxuriated in the feel. “Let me tell you the story of the boots.”
“They first showed up as a pair of ankle-tie sandals. I believe you would call them gladiator sandals today,” he said. “They appeared right before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the ancient city of Pompeii.”
“Wait, what?” She drew away and frowned up at him. “There’s no way they can magically transform, but even if they could , they can’t be that old. You can’t be that old.”
“They are. I’m not.”
“Tripp.” Her tone was admonishing and indicated she didn’t believe a word.
Pressing his finger to her pillowy-soft lips and heaving an internal groan at the delightful feel, he shushed her. “Let me finish the story, Elara.”
Although she grimaced, she rested her cheek against his chest. “Fine.”
He fought a grin, lost, and immediately scowled. When he opened his arms to her, he hadn’t considered how right she’d feel or how inviting her spring-meadow scent would be, tempting him to roll about in her garden.
Tripp shook his head to clear it.
Get it together, Tripp!
“Where was I?” he mused aloud.
“Mount Vesuvius.”
“Right.” He kissed her temple, unable to help himself. “They appeared right before the eruption as a gift from a jilted suitor to my mother. He happened to be a Trickster.”
“What’s a Trickster?”
“You’d know them as the Norse God, Loki, and the Greek God, Hermes. The last one is considered the Divine Trickster, but I suspect another created those shoes.”
“Who is your mother, and how did she run afoul of deities?”
“She’s the Goddess Brelenia of Messia,” Tripp confessed.
Elara stiffened in his arms, and he waited for her to process what he’d told her. Expecting protest or, at the very least, a disbelieving scoff, he was somewhat surprised when she relaxed against him and said, “Yeah, it makes sense.”
“What does? That my mother is a deity?” he asked.
“Yes. I mean, look at you.”
Her fingers had found the bare skin underneath his sweater and traced the ridges of his abdomen. His body’s reaction was immediate, and Tripp conjugated verbs to calm his cock’s response. Unfortunately, the ones he’d chosen were all sexual acts, which gave the root of those verbs a different meaning.
“Tell her to stop, Tripp. Tell her to stop right now!” his wiser side counseled.
But her caresses felt divine, and he’d been without a woman’s touch for far too long.
“What was another kiss between friends, Tripp?” his devilish side asked.
Pressing his fingertips to her jaw, he repositioned her head and lowered his. An instant before his mouth claimed hers, a furious, flying furball hit him mid back, yowling loud enough to wake the dead. Or scare the living into an early grave!
“Hex! No!”
Before Tripp could send the evil spawn to Hades, where it belonged, Elara plucked it from his back. When his gaze locked with the cat’s, his gut clenched, and he choked on his outrage.
“Where did you get that thing?” he demanded hoarsely, surging to his feet.
“Hex?”
“Yes,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
“He showed up behind the building one day, looking sad. When I couldn’t find a microchip, I scryed for his home, but it only showed the local graveyard.” Elara rubbed her cheek against the beast’s puffed-up fur. “I figured his previous owner must’ve died recently.”
“Elara, that’s no ordinary cat.”
She drew back and frowned at the faux-animal’s suddenly innocent-looking face. “Yes, he is. He even had a collar. That’s how I knew his name was Hex. Although why anyone would carve his name in the tag but not add a phone number makes no sense to me.”
“Did you keep it? The collar?”
Since Tripp couldn’t see anything but rhinestones glued to black nylon, he assumed not, but he had to ask. He needed to see the symbol on the back of the band if it existed.
After kissing Hex’s head, she set him on the chair and went to the kitchen. He never wanted to rush someone so badly. While she was gone, Tripp knelt beside the beast and leaned in.
“I know what you are, Trickster. If you hurt her in any way, I’ll rip your insides out,” he warned in a low voice. “Excruciatingly slow.”
The furball had the audacity to wink.
“Transform back into your standard human form and show her what you are,” he ordered.
The sour expression on its face gave him pause. Powerful magic was required to trap a Trickster. Yet, now he thought about it more, the spell should’ve been broken the instant the collar was removed, so why wasn’t it? Was it possible the enchantment wasn’t contained in the object but in the animal itself?
Mother might be able to provide insight.
“Here.” Elara handed him the leather band with a gold disc.
Etched in the front was the single word “Hex.” Careful to keep from touching the metal, Tripp turned the band inside out and held it to the light. The symbols were some of the oldest he’d encountered. Removing his phone, he snapped a picture and returned the collar to Elara. If she’d handled it in the past, she was immune.
“Hex isn’t his name, Elara. The word is intended to warn those who come in contact with that beastly thing.”
“Come on, Tripp. I’d know if he was a standard stray.”
She loved the thing and wouldn’t be swayed by the truth. More proof was needed before Tripp removed the Trickster from her home.
“How long have you had the, uh, cat ?” he asked.
“As long as I’ve lived here, three years or so. He’s indoor-outdoor, but he always returns for the night.”
I’ll bet he does. He told himself it wasn’t the cat he was jealous of—it was the Trickster who she cuddled.
Elara tossed the collar onto the table, sending Hex bolting from the room.
“Hm. Maybe we should keep that handy so your bloody cat avoids us during our more intimate moments,” Tripp suggested.
Elara’s comely blush lifted his mood.
“Yeah, it seems we’re cursed,” she muttered. “Or I am, at least.”
“No, flitter-mouse, just those boots.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her delicate ear. “They’ve been responsible for a high percentage of the world’s disasters, natural and man-made.”
“That’s ridiculous, Tripp. No single pair of boots, however pretty, can cause all that.”
“It’s true,” he replied flatly. “Despite their chaos, Mother found her true love—my father. Unfortunately, she believed in passing on her good fortune.”
“You aren’t interested in finding true love?” Elara’s expression was downcast, and she’d be mortified if she knew her feelings were on display. Although his first impulse was to reassure her, Tripp couldn’t. He wasn’t positive he believed in unfailing affection or that it was meant to last forever, as gods—or demigods, in his case—were wont to live.
“No. Whenever I show the slightest interest in someone, Mother adds her fatal footwear into the mix. Disaster follows.”
“You said natural and man-made. How is that possible?” she asked, distancing herself and curling into the chair as if attempting to make herself smaller.
Again, the impulse to comfort her was intense. He hated her withdrawal, but it was for the best. Her air of disbelief annoyed him enough to maintain his space. If the Gods were kind, she’d be tearing those fucking boots off her feet by now, but life was never so easy.
Sighing, he sat across from her.
“The first woman I truly cared for was in London, England. I was twenty-five in mortal years and quite full of myself. It was late summer sixteen-sixty-six when I saw her at the market.” Odd, but he could no longer recall the woman’s name. Elara’s engaging blue eyes, ash-blonde hair, and shy manner were reminiscent of the young maid, though, and the sight of her rapt attention caused his heart to constrict. “After a few weeks of courtship, I made the mistake of telling my mother I wished to remove the girl from her life of drudgery and bring her to Messia.” Tripp shook his head. “Mother forwarded the cursed shoes as silk slippers with ruby rosettes, not realizing they were too rich for a servant to possess and would find her in trouble as a suspected thief. Those shoes sparked the Great London Fire in Thomas Farriner’s bakery that fateful night in September.”
Elara’s mouth hung slightly ajar, and she stared at him in wonder. “How?”
“Her employer, Farriner, discovered the bejeweled slippers and locked her in the pantry, believing the maid had stolen them from one of the upstanding citizens he did business with. His daughter was sent to fetch the constable, but stumbling around in the dark shop, she set it ablaze.”
“What happened to the maid?”
“She perished in the fire, though Farriner, his son, and his flighty daughter made good their escape.”
With her hands pressed to her mouth, Elara released a distressed cry Tripp felt to his soul. Or maybe it was the remembered grief of his loss.
“Oh, Tripp! I’m so sorry.” Reaching across the side table, she gripped his hand. “Truly.”
“It was a long time ago,” he said, brushing aside her kindness.
Once again, the maid’s large, expressive eyes flashed through his mind. She and Elara were so close in appearance that they could be sisters. Was that his attraction for Elara? Had her resemblance to his lover triggered his memory and made him experience a fondness he wouldn’t otherwise feel? It bore further consideration.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly.
Her face superimposed over the maid’s, and recognition struck him. With a nagging suspicion, he lifted her left hand, brushed back her sleeve, and checked inside her elbow. Not expecting to find his lover’s birthmark, Tripp swore when he saw it. Shaped like a kidney bean, it was two shades darker than her regular skin.
Just like…
Elaina.
The name drifted through his mind along with the memory of what he’d called her.
Flitter-mouse.
He dropped Elara’s arm and leaped to his feet. “I must go.”
“Tripp? What’s wrong?”
How did one broach the subject to a potential lover that she was a replica of another woman he’d once held affection for?
They didn’t. Not if he ever expected to spend time in her bed.
The eery feeling of being watched skated along his skin, and Tripp glanced through her bedroom doorway. Hex appeared superior and satisfied by the unfolding events, the little shit.
“Tripp?” Elara rose and placed her hand on his chest. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“Those goddamned boots,” he snarled. “Get rid of them, Elara. The sooner, the better.”
Like the variest coward, he raced for the closest exit. Then, realizing he wasn’t on the first floor, Tripp pivoted away from the deck slider and stalked to the apartment door.
“I mean it.”