Chapter 20
Seventeen hours since Amelia had awakened, and I was standing at the window with my phone in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.
I was ignoring the ludicrously large bouquet of lilies sent by the House of Hollows, accompanied by a gift basket.
Me counting every second even annoyed me.
Working against the clock to save Amelia had given me a new appreciation for every moment.
The gifts were a reminder of my deception, my bond with Cirrian, and how close I’d come to losing my best friend.
I’d eaten several chocolates from the basket, which just added to the mélange of feelings cycling through me.
The vampires believed I was grieving the loss of my friend, and I hadn’t come up with a reasonable story to explain her recovery.
Unless Amelia went into hiding, it wouldn’t be long before they discovered she had survived.
Amelia left early that morning, recapping our tasks.
Hers involved dealing with her mother—well, Vina.
She’d lost the denotation of mother and may have wandered into the realm of Amelia’s enemy.
I was tasked with finding the kinborn witches and acquiring any information I could.
Neither of our jobs was going to be easy.
Between the missed calls from both houses and the texts I’d left on read, I was assured a visit from one of them and potentially termination. If I were in their position, I’d fire my ass. I was avoiding them, and at this point it was blatantly obvious.
My phone pinged with another message:
Corrine
Keeping secrets, Takara? You never fail to impress me.
Fuck, how did she know already? Staring at the message, I made several attempts to respond, but nothing came to me. I simply sent,
I’ll explain later.
I wanted to add that the spell worked, but I didn’t have the level of gaslighting skill needed to tell her to ignore what she saw with her own eyes. As a former magic practitioner, it was unlikely for her to believe Amelia’s recovery was a delayed response.
Corrine
Save your lies for someone who will believe them, Takara. I’m glad to have you in my employ.
Translation: You have abilities that I plan to exploit later.
The exchange with Corrine had unburdened some of my guilt.
I grabbed a bag of dark chocolate-drizzled caramel popcorn.
Eating it, I scrolled through social media looking for Jamillah, exhausting all possibilities before contacting William.
It wasn’t like there was a coven database, and even if there was, it was highly unlikely the kinborn witches would be on it.
The scratching noise at my sliding door pulled me from my search to the window. “Hey, you!” Quickly moving to the door, I slipped on some shoes to go out, but when I opened the door, the pushy canine bulldozed his way in. Reminding me of a massive dog, he lay down on the landing.
His head lay on his paw, and he closed his eyes. Stroking his back, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought he sighed.
“When you wake, we need to talk, Wolfie.”
He lifted his head enough to show his dissatisfaction with the name before going back to sleep.
I washed my hands, grabbed my popcorn and phone, and sat on the floor next to my new maybe-pet, splitting my attention between him and his heavy breathing and my phone.
Popping a few pieces of popcorn in my mouth, I scrolled through my phone.
Madoc and his interest in the kinborn witches came to mind.
I was surprised he hadn’t pressed me for an introduction.
His impatience may have gotten the best of him, and he’d decided to bypass my introduction and find them himself.
Before I could send him a text to inquire about it, the wolf’s eyes snapped open.
“Hey,” I said. He canted his head while his intense eyes studied me. “Will you change so we can talk?” The earnest intelligence in his eyes had me convinced he was a werewolf. There was also a lingering sharp defiance, but I couldn’t identify the source.
“I get it,” I admitted with an exasperated sigh. “You feel protected in this form. Right now, if I could shift and hide away for a little while, I’d probably do it, too.”
His head tilted up with a look that encouraged me to continue.
Desperate to discuss the situation, I considered telling him.
The comfort that the massive wolf offered was undeniable, but without knowing who he was or his pack affiliation, I was reluctant to disclose anything about Cirrian and my oath with the shadow god, and everything that had transpired with him.
I was reduced to giving my wolf-guest the abridged version I’d given Corrine about Amelia’s recovery.
“Discovering I’m an ashinwa has complicated my life beyond comprehension,” I admitted.
He shifted to standing and was eyeing me with a look that I took as sorrow.
Or empathy. Or something that settled between it.
His massive face inched closer, canting to the side.
It whipped to my phone buzzing next to me, flashing an unknown number, which would typically go unanswered.
When I answered it, Cirrian’s low, sexy drawl asked, “Are you decent?”
Wolfie perked up at the voice on the phone.
I looked at the number again. “You have a phone?” All the times he popped up at my home when he could have just called.
“No. You do tend to enjoy moments of insipidity.”
“First you call me ignorant and now insipid? Your flirting needs work.”
“Kara, you would never say that if I was indeed flirting with you. But neither of those words are cruel when in context.” I welcomed the inane debate and the accompanying annoyance. It took my mind off Amelia, who’d gone MIA. Nothing would come of it. Her final words to me now overshadowed Vina’s.
“I’d never thought I’d be the one who would right my mother’s many wrongs.”
It was sent in a text with no further clarification.
Did righting the wrongs mean releasing the magic that her mother had?
That would require matricide. How would she live with herself after that?
Or was she going to introduce Vina to Cirrian?
Which would lead to the same result. Death by shadow god.
I was starting to spiral, and several minutes had passed since Cirrian or I had spoken.
He didn’t seem to mind silence. Redirecting my attention to the phone, I stood.
Amelia’s words lingered in my thoughts as I paced the length of the kitchen.
“In context or out, there are better words,” I refuted.
“You lacked knowledge of who you are. How would you describe that?”
“Lacking knowledge,” I countered.
“Little minx, I know you have a dictionary at your disposal. Look up—”
“Don’t need to, I already know,” I barked. “What do you need?” His momentary distraction had quickly turned into a source of exasperation.
“To know if you’re decent?”
A low rumble reverberated in my furry guest’s chest. He opened the door and let himself out, craning his head over his shoulder before trotting off. I guess I wasn’t the only one annoyed by Cirrian. I locked the door behind him.
Decent enough. “I don’t walk around my house butt naked so of course I’m decent.”
“Excellent.”
My skin warmed, then grew unbearably hot. Looking down at it, I rubbed it, and then I was in Diehle’s home—more precisely his kitchen.
Cirrian sat at the table, his hands wrapped around a coffee cup.
The rich, fragrant aroma filled the room.
Taking a long sip, he looked at me over the edge of the mug.
His eyes trailed slowly over my legs, to the feather-soft mulberry shorts and tank that complemented my skin color, or at least I assumed it did, by the exceptional amount of attention it garnered from Cirrian.
My fuzzy socks did very little to ward off the chill from the hardwood floor.
Placing the mug on the table, his gaze traveled back to my nipples that had pebbled against the soft fabric.
His teeth grazed over his lips, feasting on the curves of my body, making me feel naked under his gaze. He stood and walked toward me, a deviant, lopsided smirk darkening his eyes. “Decent but not fully clothed,” he teased, his fingers tracing over the thin straps of the tank.
I met his teasing look with defiance, which would have been more menacing without the bright pink bow atop my bonnet. But I still gave it my best effort, which he met with a smirk.
“I was expecting an evening of popcorn and TV.” I looked around Diehle’s house from my vantage point, getting glimpses of the horrors and deceptions that decorated it. I frowned. “This place.”
“This place is a very good start to our beginning,” he said, warmth radiating from his skin as he continued to finger the fabric.
He was silent as he moved from the strap of my tank and teased with the bow atop the bonnet before untying it and sliding the bonnet off, placing it on one of the chairs.
“May I?” he asked, his fingers inches from the end of my hair.
His voice was disarmingly soft. This was usually the moment I would rear back at the idea of people touching my hair.
That, or use one of my well-practiced counterblocks.
I nodded. A smile and his breeze crossed the tips, unraveling the twists.
What usually takes me half an hour or more, he’d completed in a matter of seconds.
I needed magic. Apparently, his brand of magic.
Amelia had magic but hadn’t discovered a way to minimize her hair routine, let alone mine. When he was finished, I did the best I could to tease and shape the curls without a mirror.
A dark glimmer slivered into his expression. “Beautiful,” he said.
The specter of heat from the use of his mark lingered. I lifted my arm, placing it right in his face, pulling his focus from the tank top. Releasing the fabric, he grasped my arm, his fingers moving absently over the invisible binding mark.