Chapter 14
As James left with the other two vampires in tow, I tried to examine the spellbook. Yet again, it slammed shut.
I shoved the book into the top drawer of James’s desk in disgust. I didn’t have time to wonder why I couldn’t open my own family’s damn spellbook. Tucking Victoria’s information in my pocket, I slumped back into his chair.
Shi knocked once, quietly, before easing the door open and slipping into the room—with an espresso martini in their hand. “You okay?” they asked. “James said you could use some comforting.”
I didn’t bother to hide the smile on my face. I couldn’t even be mad at James for suggesting that I wasn’t always the smooth, confident persona that I put on in front of Shi. “Yeah,” I said, patting my thigh. “Come here.”
Sheepishly, they crossed the room and stretched across my lap, handing over my drink. They sighed in relief. “My legs are killing me.”
“It’s all these long hours. Maybe it’s time to give yourself a break.”
“Break? What’s that?” They snickered, resting their head on my shoulder.
I took a sip of the drink, delighting in the taste of it. Bitter espresso and sharp vodka burst onto my tongue, soothed instantly by the Kahlua and a sweet, creamy flavor chasing the burn. “Damn this is good. Did you add strawberries?”
Shi peered up at me from beneath their lashes. “Strawberries and cream Bailey’s.”
“It’s amazing.”
“Who were those people that just left here?” Shi asked.
“Just some friends,” I said, and I cringed at how easily the lie rolled off my tongue.
But Shiloh was no fool. They sat up, staying in my lap but meeting my eyes. “The girl, Rebecca.”
“What about her?”
“She’s been in here before. I had to cut her off actually.” Shiloh stole my drink, and I squirmed when their lips curled around the rim of the glass.
“Are you driving?” I asked cautiously.
“Yes.” Their tongue darted out to catch a drop of espresso foam below their lip—before I could move to do it myself. “Which is why that’s all I’m going to have. Rebecca, though? She started saying some wild shit.”
“Like what?”
“Like trying to convince me that James is a vampire. She was pretty adamant about it.”
I choked. “That is wild. How much did she have to drink?”
“I lost count,” Shi laughed, leaning against my shoulder again. Good—they couldn’t see my face that way. “New bar rule: It’s time to cut someone off when they think they’re in the next edition of Twilight.”
I forced a laugh, feeling awful. Shiloh had made James and I swear not to lie to them, but I couldn’t tell them the truth, could I? It was James’s secret to tell. At the very least, this was definitely a conversation he needed to be a part of.
And outside of that, we had a new issue: Rebecca. What did she have to gain by telling Shiloh about James?
Thankfully, the conversation moved on and I let myself relax. A few minutes later, James returned to the room, and Shiloh disentangled themself from me. “You can have your fiancé back,” they told him.
“You can stay,” James told them.
Shiloh shook their head. “It’s okay. I want to go to bed—and not be starfished out of it.” They threw me a wink, and I couldn’t find it in me to argue.
“Let us know when you make it home,” I said instead.
They leaned down, giving me a gentle kiss before stretching up to James to give him the same attention. “Finish your drink. I worked hard on that.”
James uttered a “goodnight, Shiloh,” and they left.
He stayed quiet for a long moment, letting the slam of the back door ring through the hallway before he spoke again. “You didn’t tell them.”
I sighed and grabbed my martini. Of course he’d overheard. “Should I have?”
“You were only protecting me.”
“That’s not an answer,” I said, glaring at him.
His mouth quirked at the corner. “You noticed.” He sobered. “If I’d been here, I’d like to think I would have told them, but if I’m being honest, I can’t say I wouldn’t have dodged it either. It’s more of an omission than a lie.”
That sounded like something I would say. “That’s what I told myself too. But I regretted it the second it happened. The one thing Shiloh asked of us was open communication.”
James nodded gravely. “I know, love. So we will tell them. We’ll have to. Sooner rather than later, if you’re going to turn.”
“Hopefully,” I muttered, glaring at the drawer that housed the spellbook. Victoria’s number was burning a hole in my pocket. Maybe she would have some insight as to why I couldn’t get the book to open.
James indicated the glass in my hand. “Looks like you got that drink after all.”
“Try it.” I handed it over.
The noise that came out of my fiancé’s mouth when he tried it was sinful. He looked up at me again, and his eyes showed emotion he couldn’t form with words. “It tastes like… you. Do I taste strawberries?”
I squirmed, butterflies kicking up in my belly. “Yeah. Shiloh’s idea.” I let James finish off the martini, and as I caught sight of his engagement ring glowing in the dim light of the office, I had an idea.
To my surprise, James said, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Coffee and booze,” I said. “Perfect on their own—”
“Even better together,” James finished.
His words echoed in my head. “Better together.”
My mind flashed back to his proposal, and the twangy country song that played through the speakers as he knelt in front of me and asked me to marry him.
“I think we’ve just found our wedding cocktail.”
The next morning, I decided to start picking through the things from the beach house.
I still couldn’t open that damn spellbook, so it currently sat in timeout in my backseat until I met with Victoria that evening.
James was at the bar, and Shi dozed with their head in my lap.
I fished through pictures with one hand, winding Shi’s thick curls around my fingers with the other.
As it turned out, my mom was ridiculously fascinated with witches.
More specifically, the witches of Salem.
One of the albums we’d taken was filled with articles and sketches from the witch trials.
Halfway through, I turned the page and a single sheet of loose paper slipped free. I caught it before it fell.
“Deaths Caused by the Salem Witch Trials.”
I glanced down at Shi, making sure they were well and truly asleep. I didn’t need them to see the way my hands shook. After all, it was nothing more than a generic death notice. It was easy to find on Google. In fact, that was probably where Mom had found and printed the list.
But that was hard to believe upon taking in the condition of the page. It was aged—very aged, yellowed around the edges like it had seen better days. Most alarmingly of all, one of the names was highlighted—one that I recognized.
I had to dig deep to remember, but the faint memory of a bedtime story my mom used to tell me as a kid came to the surface.
Unsurprisingly, I had quite the imagination. Mom had to get pretty creative to find something to settle me down, and it turned out the trick lay in a woman named Suzannah Martin—a witch. Mom spent hours telling me about the kinds of spells and magick that Suzannah cast on the people of Salem.
Staring down at that highlighted name, those stories took on a whole new meaning.
Heart pounding, I set everything aside and wrapped my arm tighter around Shiloh. They stirred, grumbling sleepily at me for disturbing their nap before they shuffled closer. “Five more minutes.”
I glanced between them and the death notice, and it was an easy decision. I closed my eyes, rested my head against the back of the couch, and tried like hell to relax.
I had insisted on meeting Victoria alone that evening. James wasn’t partial to the idea, but I needed to be able to take in what she told me without him being all protective.
Victoria had given me the address of a coffee shop on the other side of Salem, near a park that overlooked the North River.
Hours later, the winter wind whipped off the water, cutting through every layer of protection I had and chilling me to the bone.
I missed the warmth of this morning, of Shiloh’s warm body snuggled against mine.
I’d brought both the spellbook and the old list with me, hoping that Victoria could give me some insight.
The cafe was nestled into the corner of a shopping center. The sign was flipped to “closed,” but Victoria had told me to let myself inside. The knob turned easily, and I stepped into the warmth of the building.
A woman stood behind the counter, wiping up the last evidence of her day.
“You must be Ryder,” she said. She smiled, pearly white teeth and pale skin striking against lips and eyes painted black and smoky.
A silver hoop nestled in the middle of her bottom lip, matching the one through her septum. “I’m Victoria. Please, come in.”
“Thanks.” As nervous as I was, I welcomed the heat inside, even shrugging out of my jacket. “I’m sorry—I didn’t realize you’d be closed.”
Victoria waved away my concern. “I shut down early to give us some privacy.” She bustled around the cafe, her long lace skirt swishing around her legs.
She stood barely tall enough to reach my shoulder, and her curves were accented by a corset cinched tight over a flowy top. Every article of clothing was black.
She disappeared behind the counter, tying her dark dreads back with an elastic from her wrist. “Sit down. What are you drinking?”
“Um…” I was less concerned with the menu and more with the jars of herbs and god-knows-what-else lining the wall behind her. The entire place seemed as Gothic as Victoria herself, with mood lighting and cherry-stained oak on the tables. Incense burned somewhere, and the scent tickled my nose.
“Relax,” she said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I may be a witch, but I’m not going to poison your coffee. Besides, my apothecary is through that door.”
She gestured off to the side, and I followed her hand.
On the surface, it looked like any other door in the place, but dating a vampire had made me entirely too perceptive.
I noticed the subtle things that someone else wouldn’t have: the pentagram etched lightly into the wood, the elaborate crystal frame around the small window, and the line of salt across the bottom. “I thought salt was bad for witches.”
“Ah, a common misconception.” Victoria took two cups down, moving around with the same ease that I did behind the bar. “Salt wards off evil spirits—of any species.”
I took a deep breath. “So everything I’ve ever learned about the supernatural is a lie.”
“Not necessarily. Cliches are cliche for a reason. You still haven’t told me what you’re drinking.”
“Oh, uh, sorry.” I shook my head to clear it. “Cappuccino?”
“Cow’s milk?”
“Fine.”
The espresso machine whirred to life, obliterating any hope of conversation.
I slid into a seat at a nearby table while Victoria finished off our drinks.
After cleaning up after herself, she set my coffee on the table and took the seat across from me with her tea.
The crystal charm of a tea infuser hung over the side, a floral scent mingling with the bite of my cappuccino.
“So,” she said, toying with the crystal moon, “you just found out that true witches exist.”
“You think I’d be less surprised considering I’m mated to a vampire.” I laughed at myself, licking a drop of foam from my lip. “That feels strange to say out loud.”
“Refreshing, though, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“How many people in your life know?”
“Only a few: My closest friends, my daughter, and her husband.”
“How old is she?”
“Nineteen.”
“Which means she’s got a few years before her powers set in.”
That was like a bucket of ice water over my head. I couldn’t ignore how my ancestry would affect Hannah after a statement like that. “She’s definitely going to be a witch?”
Victoria nodded. “She already is. When witches are born, our powers lie dormant until a number of cycles have been completed.”
“Cycles?”
Victoria’s nod was amused. “As in menstrual cycles. It varies, but typically a witch has bled enough to develop powers around her twenty-first birthday. Those who don’t bleed on a regular basis might never earn powers during the average human lifespan—unless something else activates them.”
Ah. So that’s why male witches weren’t common. But what did she mean by that last remark? “Something like…?”
Victoria’s dark eyes pointedly sank to my neck. “Like turning into a vampire. How many times has he tried?”
“Twice; three times if you count the two bites on the second attempt. We couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t turning.”
She connected the dots. “Until you did some digging into your family tree. What did you learn?”
That I’m descended from witches, obviously. I didn’t say it out loud. Wordlessly, I dug into my pocket and handed over the piece of paper I’d found in the album, sliding it across the table along with the spellbook. Victoria’s eyes widened when they landed on the highlighted name.
“Which side of the family is this?”
“Maternal.”
“What is it?” I asked. “Do you know the name?”
“Oh, yeah. Most witches do. This woman was very powerful.” Victoria handed the clipping back and rose from her seat, leaving the book where it sat. “Wait here.”