Chapter 5 #3
I gave one resolute nod in tandem with Sylvia.
“And you?” Delilah asked Cliff.
His jaw ticked, eyes never leaving me. “Guess I’m in.”
Lee rose suddenly from his seat, breaking the tension before it could settle. “Wonderful. Now that that’s settled, I’ll see what I can do about altering the suits our previous recruits were going to wear.”
“In the meantime, there’s a walk-in shower in the guest bathroom.” Delilah stood too, toying with my collar as she walked by. “I suggest you take advantage of it. You smell like a wet dog.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to find my clothes clean and folded on the bathroom counter after I left the shower, but the miraculous sight still gave me chills. Given how watchful my paranoia made me, I was certain no one had come in and touched my clothes.
Fucking witchcraft.
At least my t-shirt wasn’t enchanted to strangle me as I pulled it over my head.
As I entered the room, a glint of wings flitted behind one of the nightstands.
I suppressed a chuckle. Even though this guest room would serve as our lodgings for only one day, Sylvia was giving it the same treatment as any other motel we stayed in, searching top to bottom for trinkets to add to her stash.
My heart tugged, recalling my first glimpse of her collection under the floorboards of the Dottage Mansion back in North Carolina.
Months had passed, yet sometimes it felt like a lifetime since I had stepped foot into that withering beauty of a haunted house.
Meanwhile, Cliff waited his turn for the shower, seated at the edge of the bed and toying with one of the bottles he’d brought into the room.
The distance between him and Sylvia crackled with uncomfortable silence.
He threw me a sullen look as I entered. I sensed the fight coming—and Cliff certainly had drunk enough to not mince words.
I sighed. “Look, before you—”
“What the fuck was that?” he demanded, standing. “You just said yes? Just like that?”
“Of course I did. Since when do we turn away from saving lives?”
“Since when do we negotiate with terrorists?”
“Come on, Cliff. They’re not terrorists, they’re just…”
“Dabbling in blood magic?” Cliff finished for me, gesturing a hand vaguely toward the main suite. Toward Delilah. I worked my jaw uncomfortably. “We have our own shit to worry about, or did that slip your mind?”
“You saw that invitation. You think it’s any coincidence that Tammy sent us here?
This Crimson Gala has to be what’s got her in over her head.
Thanks to them, we literally have a ticket to infiltrate this event and dismantle it from the inside.
This brings us closer to finding her. Shouldn’t we be grateful for one freakish stroke of luck? ”
“Luck?” Cliff gave a cold laugh. “We’re only standing here because their other meat shields decided to turn on them.”
“They could have killed us,” I said evenly. “But they didn’t.”
Cliff growled in his throat, glancing away. “We should’ve talked first.”
“What other option do we have? Tammy obviously couldn’t handle this on her own,” I said, my voice rising despite my best attempts to tether the emotion out of my voice. But I couldn’t help it. My head was aching, exhaustion pounding my entire body.
“Is that even a question? How about—get the fuck out of here, find Tammy ourselves, and go from there.”
“These people handed our asses to us, and even they claim they can’t break into this gathering to do this on their own,” I said. “This is how we find Tammy.”
He narrowed his eyes with a particular viciousness he hadn’t aimed at me in a long while.
Cliff stalked closer—aggressively close.
“That’s just your way of justifying it after the fact.
Face it, you were too fucking giddy about getting what you wanted to think straight.
You could barely keep it together when Delilah said she’d puppet a spell for you. ”
“Stop it!” Sylvia darted to block Cliff’s path, making us both stagger back a step. Although she wore a stern mask of calm, her eyes told a different story—wide and overwhelmed. And so, so tired. “Please, stop getting at each other’s throats. We’re lucky to be alive as it is.”
She turned to Cliff, her shoulders bunching with tension.
“I can still feel the power radiating through the hotel. We’ve never crossed so much at once—ever.
You heard what they said about the acquisitions being overwhelming.
We don’t stand a chance if we try to tackle this on our own.
We can at least listen to what they have in mind, can’t we? ”
Cliff fixed a scorching glare on her, but she wasn’t cowed. As the seconds passed, he softened and dragged a hand over his face.
“Yeah, fine. Like I have a choice,” he muttered.
He turned for the bathroom, snatching a clean towel off the bed.
“Wait, I have something for you!” Sylvia called after him.
Cliff stopped short, and I found myself marveling at the pull Sylvia had developed over him in the last months.
When we’d first crossed paths with Sylvia, I was fairly certain Cliff had come close to tossing her out the car window more than once just to get her to stop talking.
Now, it was like seeing her hurt made him falter, made him question even his most base instincts.
She flitted toward one of the nightstands, rummaging through the few personal effects deposited there.
She took hold of a glossy fountain pen emblazoned with the hotel’s name on the side, hefting it into her arms. I stifled a smile, knowing how she loathed being deemed cute too often.
But at her size, the pen was like a thick javelin, nearly a quarter of her weight if I wagered a guess.
She flew back to offer it to Cliff with a shy smile.
“You want me to draw something for you?” Cliff asked, giving her an utterly what the fuck look as he held out his hand for her to drop the offering.
“It’s a thank you,” Sylvia corrected, wilting slightly. “In return for the charm you gifted me for my birthday. I thought it might be nice to have a new one for your sketchbook. You don’t like it?”
“Sylv, you don’t need to return the favor with…” Cliff trailed off, apparently deciding against the explanation of human birthday exchanges. He shot her a crooked smile instead, tucking the pen securely into his jeans pocket. “I love it. Thanks, kiddo.”
The warmth in his face was apparently reserved solely for her. He pointed at me as he reached for the bathroom door. “For the record, I’m still pissed at you.”
The lock clicked behind him, followed shortly by the shower running.
Sylvia released a heavy sigh into the silence that followed. Her eyes carefully traveled me up and down, undoubtedly looking for something to heal.
“The snake bite,” she murmured.
“You’re tired—” I started.
“Please, Jon.”
The vulnerability made her sound like she might shatter if I denied her. Reluctantly, I sank to the floor and leaned against the bed. She perched on my shoulder and started the healing spell. Shutting my eyes, I allowed the now-familiar relief of her healing magic to wash over me.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“Thank you for bargaining a spell from her.” She touched my neck gently. “Clearly, she’s an expert in transformation magic. Jon, this… This may really be the answer we’ve been searching for. I know it won’t be easy, but the stars finally seem to be paving a real path this time.”
“Are you sure I’m worth it?” I asked with a wry chuckle.
I knew it wasn’t just me she was changing for, but the insecurity was unshakable.
She wanted the freedom that came with being human—no longer tethered to reclusive villages scattered in hiding.
Branded a traitor to her own kind for the rest of her life because of the swirling runes etched onto her face.
But what if she traded life among her own kind, only to realize how damaged I truly was?
To feel like she made a horrible, irrevocable mistake ever entangling herself with me in the first place?
Sylvia’s wings buzzed to life, and she pressed a kiss to my jaw. “You never cease to amaze me with how little of yourself you truly see. I mean, where would I be without you?”
“Safe, for one thing.”
“Stop that,” she grumbled, perching on my bent knee and sitting with her legs folded to the side. Jesus, she was cute. She frowned, tilting her head at me. “You’re still worried about the risks with the gem?”
I swallowed, offering a small nod. “That’s putting it lightly. If anything were to go wrong… I just wish I could shoulder some of this for you.”
“We’ll be more careful than my father ever was.
He searched and clawed for the gemstones alone.
That’s where I’ve got the advantage. I’ve got you.
And now, a very powerful witch who looks great in formalwear.
” She flashed a grin up at me—the one that made me weak in the knees.
I conceded a snort of laughter at her attempt to inject levity between us.
Her voice softened, though losing none of its intensity as she held my stare.
“I know what I want, and it’s right in front of me.
I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you understand that, if I must.”
The rest of my life. Me. She wanted me.
“That’s a long time.” I offered a lopsided smirk.
Pink crawled onto her face as though just now realizing the weight of her admission. She stammered, trying to backtrack into something more fitting of the hazy grays that composed our bond.
I let her squirm for a few heartbeats, enjoying the blush that flooded her freckled cheeks—bright even under the traitor mark’s black swirling runes. A beast purred in my chest that I had made that happen.
Finally, I brushed the back of my fingers along her delicate arm, grounding her. I allowed her to see every ounce of longing I so often chained down inside myself.
“It’s hard to behave when you look at me like that,” she said with playful accusation.
“Oh, yeah?”