Chapter 25 Alaric
Alaric
The pink-haired witch scraped her purple nails down my chest and pouted. All around us, music pulsed, and from my seat on a red sofa, I saw Arron with his hand down some shifter girl’s pants. Good to know at least one of us was getting laid tonight.
My cock had refused point blank to join the party, even though the witch was exactly the sort of brain-dead bimbo I typically went for.
The witch frowned in consternation when her fingers scraped over my soft cock. It wasn’t the result she’d expected after rubbing her tits all over me and whispering about how she wanted to suck me down like a siren.
I guessed she’d not met a siren. The one and only time I’d gone there, the night my father took me to a sex club on my sixteenth birthday, the experience hadn’t been fun at all. Under instructions from my father, the siren had hypnotized me with her song and fucked me for hours.
As far as my father was concerned, it was another box ticked off his ‘dutiful father’ list.
“I can cast an ever-hard spell if you like?” the witch suggested before screaming when I used my magic to hurl her to the floor.
“I don’t need a fucking spell to get me hard,” I sneered. “Just a female who doesn’t repulse me.” The witch flushed bright red and burst into sobs as she cowered at my feet. A nicer male would have felt guilty for embarrassing her in front of her peers, but that male wasn’t me.
Ignoring the annoyed look Arron shot me, I stalked over to the bar for another glass of shifter moonshine.
The mountain lion shifter manning the bar glared at me. “Get lost. You’re killing the party vibe.”
Someone turned up the music a notch to drown out the sobbing witch surrounded by her friends while the party continued.
“Nobody cares,” I told the shifter, rolling my eyes. “Just give me a fucking drink.”
“No.” He stood his ground while flexing his muscles.
Under different circumstances, I’d have rained hell down on the party, but I couldn’t summon the energy needed to blast the stupid shifter with a bolt of lightning.
“She doesn’t deserve such shoddy treatment, so leave now before I make you.
” His gaze slid over to the witch and lingered.
Oh, I saw how it was: the shifter liked the witch, and he was pissed I’d upset her.
“Whatever,” I said with an eye roll before swiping an open bottle from the bar. “I’m out of here.” I took my stolen booze and headed back to our apartment, where I could drink myself into a coma without being hassled by horny witches.
Only, when I walked in, I found my father waiting on our sofa with a scowl on his face.
“Oh hello, father dearest.” I stumbled over one of Arron’s sneakers and cursed. Father’s lip curled in disgust at seeing how drunk I was.
“You’re supposed to be here learning, not drinking with fucking shifters,” he snarled. With a flick of his hand, he stole my bottle and deposited it out of reach.
“How do you know I was drinking at the shifter party?” I asked, curious despite my irritation.
“Because you stink of wet dog.” I burst out laughing. Okay, so he made a good point. The wolves at the party had stunk of musk and rain. Hell, Arron would stink by the time he got back. That dude loved fucking shifter females. He reckoned they went all night long and never got sore.
“They make strong booze,” I said with a shrug. “So why are you here?” It wasn’t like him to show up on a weekend night. Weekends were when he and my stepmother entertained their friends and business associates.
“Montgomery called me in about the shifter murders.” His lip curled in derision, and I almost smirked.
My father thought shifters were beneath him, so being asked to consult on an investigation into the death of three shifters must have rankled him immensely.
“He knows who did it but can’t prove it. ”
I’d heard the gossip and seen an unauthorized photo taken at the crime scene.
A friend of the two dead shifters found them in their beds.
Both had died with expressions of terror on their faces, but with no physical injuries.
It was clearly the work of an incubus who liked to scare magicals to death.
“Does it matter if they’re dead?” Unlike my father, I didn’t hold extremist views about species segregation, but I knew the two shifters who’d died were nasty pieces of work. Both had had sexual assault allegations leveled against them several times, but the charges never stuck.
Father half smiled. “Not to me, no, but I have to be seen doing my part. And as I’m the most powerful mage in the realm, that means examining the crime scene for evidence the investigators may have missed.”
“What did you find?” From his peeved expression, he gathered nothing useful, but I enjoyed drawing attention to his failure.
“Never mind that,” he said with a dismissive gesture.
“I need you home next weekend. Brianna has invited the Blakes for dinner, and they want to discuss your engagement with Kinara.” Fuck my life.
Kinara might be descended from one of the most powerful witch lineages, but the thought of tying myself to that bitch for the rest of my life made me want to throw myself into the nearest portal.
Even a one-way trip to the demon realm would be better than marrying fucking Kinara.
“And if I’m busy?”
Father grinned. “If you can’t make it, I’ll find time to pay a visit to your mother.”
I swallowed hard. The last time I’d seen my mother, she’d been on the verge of death. Only powerful, and illegal, magic had kept her alive this long. My father refused to let her pass on because he didn’t want to suffer the pain of his soul-bonded mate dying, and also to keep me under his thumb.
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
It wasn’t like I had a choice.