Chapter 34 Seeking Answers
SEEKING ANSWERS
RAE
After leaving work, I headed straight for the bookstore. I hadn’t sought out the woman who’d given me the summoning book because I didn’t want the cops called on me for insane ramblings, but now I regretted it.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the sign for Dreamweaver Books. The bookstore’s existence hadn’t been all in my head after all.
When I reached the dimly lit store, I noticed Shane striding down the corridor in my direction. Before I could duck inside and pretend not to see him, he called my name and waved.
I turned, plastering on my customer service smile. “Hey, Mr. Chasteen. Something wrong?” I’d seen him when I clocked out and thought I’d avoided his notice. I ignored his narrowed eyes; he didn’t appreciate the use of his surname.
Too bad.
“Raelynn, I wanted to speak to you about an idea Diane had before you left. I’m glad I caught you.”
I curled my fingers around my purse strap, waiting for him to get to the point while sneaking glances into the bookstore.
“Can this wait until my next shift?” I looked at the time on my phone. “I wanna finish my shopping before the bus comes.”
“I can give you a ride home.”
“I appreciate that, sir,” I said, adding emphasis to the honorific to reinforce our professional relationship. “But I’d prefer to be on the clock when we discuss work.”
“Raelynn, you don’t have to be like this,” he said, reaching for my arm.
I stepped away.
He frowned. “Why are you acting like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t like me. I thought we got along.”
I blew out a breath. “Mr. Chasteen, I have no problem with you as my boss, but that is the extent of our relationship.”
“Raelynn.” He sighed and shook his head, putting his hands on his hips, exasperated like I was an unruly child. He looked down at his sleek loafers. After a breath, he looked up, narrowed eyes meeting mine. “I think it’d benefit you to reconsider that position.”
I squinted. “Excuse me?”
“You might want to reconsider rejecting me.”
“I don’t think I like your tone.” I stepped back, flinching when he seized my arm. “Sir. You need to let me go. Right. Now.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Raelynn,” he said, softening his hold but not releasing me. “I need you to listen to me.”
“I can listen without you touching me.” I yanked my arm away, shaking out the wrinkled sleeve of my oversized dress shirt. “Diane will hear about this.”
“Now wait a minute.”
“No. You wait a minute. I’ve tried to be cordial and do my job, but you clearly can’t take no for an answer.”
A shiver went down my spine when his upper lip curled into a sneer. “You’re making a mistake.”
“No, sir. You’re the one making the mistake. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I turned, nearly running into the sweet old lady who ran the maternity boutique two doors down from our store. “Jesus! I’m so sorry, Ms. Gallagher.”
She waved a hand. “Aw, don’t you worry about that.” Her smile dropped the longer she studied me. “You doin’ alright, Rae dear? You’re sweatin’ an awful mess.”
“Of course,” I said with a smile, hoping to appease her suspicions. “This shirt is a little warm, is all.” I plucked at the front of my shirt to fan myself.
Shane’s stare pressed against me like a physical weight on my back.
As if she sensed him, she peered around me and frowned. “Well, if it isn’t the man I’ve been needin’ to talk to! Go on now, Rae, let me have a word with your boss here.”
I didn’t question her. She knew Shane paid more attention to me than necessary. She’d caught him leering at me once when she came into the store, and ever since, she acted like a mother hen for Maya, Trudy, and me.
Taking the diversion, I disappeared into the bookstore, ignoring Shane calling my name. If he followed and made a scene, the bookstore clerk would call security, and I’d have Ms. Gallagher as a witness.
“Well, that was quite the display.”
I looked up at the shopkeeper. “You saw that?”
She closed the book in front of her and smiled. “I had inventory to put on shelves near the entrance.”
“Ah.” My cheeks warmed. “Sorry you had to see that.”
“If you need a witness statement for whoever this Diane is, I’m happy to provide it.”
My gaze lifted to hers in surprise.
“What? Do you think you should be sorry for that? Hardly.”
“Diane’s the owner of the store I work at upstairs,” I said, tightening my grip on my purse strap as I inhaled the soothing scent of lavender from the bushels overhead. “He’s my manager.”
“I’m aware of who he is. It doesn’t give him the right to place his hands on you or say what he said.” She’d heard it all. “But if you don’t want me to interfere, I can do that too.”
“No, if you don’t mind.”
“I can do that for you before you leave and provide my number for Diane.” She sat upright on her stool and placed both hands on the book in front of her. The colorful gemstones of her rings sparkled in the warm candlelight. “But you’re not here for that. What can I do for you?”
I needed answers. Maybe I could ask questions that wouldn’t make me sound like I was cuckoo bananas.
“I wanna ask about that book you gave me. The black one, not the ones I paid for.”
She propped her elbows on the book, interlacing her fingers beneath her chin as she sat forward. “Did it bring you luck?”
I couldn’t stop my laugh if I tried.
Her brows lifted.
The book brought me everything except luck.
While I wanted to tell someone everything I’d experienced—from infernal princes and the attacks to the strange pull that grew beyond physical attraction into affection for a couple of them—I couldn’t dump it all on this woman, even if she wouldn’t think me crazy.
“No, it didn’t bring a lot of luck.” I motioned toward the entrance. “I mean, you see what I’m dealing with for a boss?”
She nodded in understanding.
“I wanted to ask where the book came from.”
Maybe if I established a source, it’d give the guys somewhere to look.
At first, I wanted to help them so they wouldn’t hurt me. Now, I wanted them home so the attacks would end, and they could be where they belonged instead of stuck with me.
It would hurt in the short term, but I’d recover in time and get back to my life.
“Why would you need to know that?”
I blinked in response to her calm redirect. “Um… I just need to know. Can you tell me where you got it?”
“It is a bit of a long story. I think the better question is, what does the book do?”
“What?” I rubbed my temple. Why ask me that?
“Do you remember what I told you about the book? Or anything inside?”
I shook my head.
I couldn’t remember anything on the page with the ritual. I struggled to recall the conversation we had the day she gave me the book. Everything around that time felt foggy. But I blamed it on the events that followed and Grandma’s death.
She smiled, angling her head. The candlelight flickered, reflecting off her peridot eyes, making them glow. “If you spun the wheel of destiny, then whatever happened gave you the answer to your soul’s need and heart’s call.”
My lips parted and my brows bunched. Wheel? All I remembered was playing a game that turned my life upside down.
Her head tilted. “Was it wrong?”
Something cracked inside me, and a sudden, sharp pain unleashed a flood of words I couldn’t contain. I’d had enough.
“My soul’s need? Heart’s call? The night I played that stupid game, I invited four men into my home out of nowhere. And they weren’t normal men either. Oh no, not at all!” My laugh sounded unhinged as my voice rose. “Demons! Infernals! Shyrlivi! Whatever the hell they are!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped my head back.
“And my god—which isn’t even real, by the way—I’ve gone stupid by letting them stay with me.
Now, I’m starting to fall… No. I’m losing my mind.
For real this time.” Opening my eyes, I threw my hand out to the side.
“And while I played that game? My grandma was dying. Dying! Since then, it’s been one thing after another, and I’m so damn tired. ”
When I finished, it felt like a thousand pounds lifted off my shoulders—until I realized what I’d said.
I met the woman’s eyes, expecting the worst.
She didn’t appear the least bit surprised. She wasn’t reaching for her phone to call security.
I blinked several times.
Why was she smiling at me?
Her smile fell as she breathed a soft sigh. “I’m sorry about your grandmother.” She sat upright. “But you aren’t losing your mind. You know that.”
“Do I?”
“Of course you do.” She pulled a lighter from beneath the counter. “Now, I fail to see the issue with the book. It delivered what you asked for.”
“I didn’t ask for four men.”
“If that’s what the book sent to you, then you did.”
The lighter clicked. A tiny spark caught the incense, and cinnamon filled the air as the flame grew.
My eyes stung when I remembered the way Ash had held me last night. His cinnamon and bay rum scent both comforted me and broke my heart.
Something existed between us. But I needed to help the guys before the distance Ash wanted hurt us more.
“You fail to…” I covered my face with my hand. “Lady, these…”
“Shyrlivi?”
I dropped my hand. “Yes,” I whispered.
Placing the lighter beneath the counter, she asked, “What about them?”
“They don’t belong here.”
“Who says?”
“They aren’t from here,” I said, trying to cling to a sliver of rationality.
This woman spoke like she understood. If I didn’t say Earth, Niemna, or Elyrdin, maybe I wouldn’t seem insane. Even that logic sounded insane.
“No, I suppose not. But dear Raelynn, they’re where they need to be right now.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, turning away from her intense gaze. “I don’t understand. They wanna go home.”
“Do they?”
“Yes, and I want them to go home.”
“Do you?”
I whirled around to look at her. “What? Well, yes. I mean, it’s not fair they can’t go home when they want to.”
“Home is where you make it,” the woman said, tapping her pale gold fingernails on the cover of the book in front of her. “But if we were to speak in technicalities, then I suppose you would be right.”
Movement near the shelves to my left caught my attention. When I sidestepped for a better look, no one was there.
“The only issue you have is their inability to go home?”
I turned back to the woman, recalling the moments I’d shared with Ash and Zeke, laughing and growing more attached to them with every day that passed. Even the intense night with Cyn crossed my mind. I shook my head, forcing the distracting thought away. I couldn’t think of that.
They needed to go home, or the target on my back wouldn’t disappear.
“I’m in danger,” I said, throat tight with anxiety as I watched her. “Since they came… I mean, since I got the book, I’ve been…” I sighed, still not sure if I could trust the woman.
She’d heard enough to warrant a call to security, yet she hadn’t. Why?
“Your fear isn’t worth clinging to,” she said, voice soft. “I’m merely an ear. The only ear for your story.”
I saw the truth in her eyes. She wouldn’t tell anyone else what I said. Even so, a powerful urge to protect the princes swelled inside of me. She didn’t need to know where they came from or their identities as heirs to thrones in another world.
“Infernals have tried to hurt me since they arrived.”
Her brows rose—the first sign since my arrival that I’d said something she hadn’t expected.
“They’ve attacked me, and the sightings are worse when I’m alone outside my home.”
She hummed, hand curling into a fist on the book in front of her. “That’s unexpected.”
“Are you saying any of this other madness is expected?”
“With the book, yes.”
“What is the book? Please tell me something.”
She pulled paper and pen from beneath the counter and started writing. “The book has many purposes, depending on whose hands it falls into.”
I braced myself as she paused, unease washing over me.
“In your case, it brings the one—or ones—meant to find you. Without the book, it wouldn’t have happened, and another generation would lose their birthright until the next cycle.”
I didn’t understand a thing she said, but I had a feeling she wouldn’t clarify if I asked.
“Where does it come from?”
“The same place your soul’s need and heart’s call came from.”
“They’re not my—”
“There. All finished.” She turned the paper toward me. “This should be sufficient for Diane. I put my name and number on the bottom if she wants to follow up with me.”
I glanced down at the paper, thrown off by the sudden change in subject. “Quin?”
“Yes?”
“Oh. No. I was just reading the name.” I looked up at her. “Thank you for this.”
“Of course. I wanted to finish it for you before you missed the bus.”
My eyes went wide as I fumbled for my phone and checked the time. I had ten minutes to reach the bus stop. “Crap. I need to go.”
“Stay safe, Raelynn. Do not leave their side if you can help it.”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks.” I turned, striding across the worn floorboards.
I hadn’t gotten many answers, but I deduced the book came from Elyrdin. I still didn’t see the connection between the princes and my heart and soul. While I felt a growing connection with a couple of them, it didn’t mean I needed them.
“Oh, Raelynn,” the woman said, stopping me short. When I glanced back, her expression was grim. “Beware the one that rules the ruby circle.”
I opened my mouth, but words failed me.
What did all of this mean? I felt like I’d taken five gigantic steps backward instead of gaining ground toward helping the guys—or solving my own infernal woes.