Chapter 7 #3
That was me? Sweet and silly? I guess it could be worse. He didn’t talk about my virginity. Richard’s face was turning blue. I grabbed the plate of dough and ran an analyzer spell to check the contents. Curing Richard was the priority, however horrible I personally found him.
The dough turned the color of moldy cheese and I knew.
“Death knell,” I whispered, then stared in horror at the angel.
Lines of purple-black were running down his neck towards his heart.
I grabbed his throat, pricking his veins with my claws, bleeding out the poison everywhere I saw the lines of death.
Richard looked at me, pretty blue eyes wide, like he was more shocked to find us in such close proximity than that he’d been poisoned.
His poisoned blood ran over my hands and onto my pretty pink skirt. Another one ruined.
Mitt came out of the shadows and tied Banus’s hands shoving him onto the couch while the incubus looked smoldering, seductive, and confused.
Rafe looked amused, the Fairy looked vaguely horrified, and the elf…
He was looking at me with something in his eyes that made me realize that he’d never quite met my gaze before. I inhaled deeply and smelled the deathknell on him. Left breast pocket. And he’d been right next to Banus.
“Mitt, you have the wrong one,” I whispered, still bleeding the angel all over my skirt.
Zander Spinnera moved like smoke on water, an echo of movement that ended with a poisoned dagger through my chest. Happily, Mitt had a heads up this time and managed to turn the knife aside and push back the elf. Not an elf. Elves didn’t move like that with too many joints and too many claws.
“Pardon me, but I’d hate to singe you,” Richard said, frowning at me before he stepped back and then whorls of heavenly fire swirled under and over his skin, leaving him naked, but wearing fire from the waist down.
He’d burned the poison. Right. You could do that if you were an angel with extremely potent blood.
The flames went out while he grabbed the assassin, holding him while Mitt struggled to disarm him.
We needed to take someone live so we could torture the truth out of them.
I felt nauseous and fell back into my chair, knocking the poisoned dish onto the floor where it shattered. I didn’t want to torture the elf who wasn’t an elf. What had happened to the real Zander Spinnera? Was he dead just so this shape-shifting monster could get close enough to kill me?
Richard and Mitt finally got the monster under control, and then with a snarl at me, the creature snapped its teeth, and almost instantly died.
The glamour or whatever magic hid his true self melted away, leaving him a mess of shadows and angles, like he’d been carved from glass, translucent skin, and no hair.
The silver wig was on the floor next to the molten lava cake like a swathe of seaweed mixed with glass and mud.
“Well!” Pearly White said, moving so the camera had to follow him and not focus on the body on the floor. “The path of love never did run smooth. We’ll be back after this message to declare the winner of the big bake off!”
The camera turned off and Pearly White scowled at the body. “Can you move him before he messes up the rug?”
“How can we have a winner when one of the contestants was a murderer?” Monterose demanded, wings fluttering in visible distress.
He’d never tried to help stop the killer or identify the poison.
Fairies were supposed to be pretty good healers, but he hadn’t even tried.
I was starting to seriously dislike him.
“And the angel didn’t get to have his turn,” Rafe said, glancing at Richard who was still wearing flame pants and looking like…
He looked like a golden statue brought to life, gleaming, glowing, freshly washed in heavenly flames.
And I’d tried to drain his blood like a medieval doctor.
I just needed some leeches to be really legit.
I took the plate off the side table where Richard had put his cupcake. Strawberry froth was on top of the cute little thing. It didn’t look like the most amazing thing in the world, but every swirl of frosting was perfectly peaked, and it smelled edible.
I peeled back the wrapper. Maybe it would kill me, but I was feeling like that was my best option.
I froze as the flavors spilled over my tongue.
Not just vanilla and fresh strawberry with something else that made my toes curl, but the texture was so delectable, moist crumb, and creamy cream cheese strawberry swirl, melting and fresh.
I moaned and then straightened up, putting the cupcake back on the plate with that bite out of it, feeling guilty.
“I need to lie down,” I announced. “I’m broken-hearted about Zander’s betrayal.
Or maybe it was never Zander. What happened to my sweet elf?
” I tried to look dramatic and delicate as I hurried out, taking a page from the fairy.
Pearly White could wrap up that disaster all by himself.
I had poisoned angel blood to wash out of my dress.