Page 50 of Witches and Wine
“In Arcane Cove, Chelsea, you’ll quickly learnanythingis possible here.” Dion stood and held out his hand for me to take.
Riley bounded from his tower, hurrying up my body in frantic swirls before resting on my shoulder.
“Are we paying the Crone a visit then?” Slipping my hand into his, our palms buzzing once they made contact, I grinnedat him, ready to take on the Crone, the world, and damn near anything else life tossed at us.
“You’re damn right we are.”
Chelsea’s touchstill left an imprint on my horns, the way she’d grabbed, yanked, and rubbed them. If I had known she would grow such a fascination for them, I would’ve shown them to her a long time ago—hindsight and all that bullshit. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that someone was impersonating the High Priestess. She was never one to meddle, especially with her own kind. Whoever itreallywas enjoyed watching others in emotional pain. The fact Chelsea had gone for days thinking her magic was manipulating me must have been torturous, and it killed me inside. I never wanted her to hurt or feel anguish of any kind. Even if my godly powers could do nothing to spare her, perhaps once we accepted the bond, her being my mate would help somehow.
I’d ported us to the Crone’s cottage, making no motion to knock or announce our presence. I recalled Chelsea trying to pretend as if she hadn’t wanted to see me break down a door with brute force. Grinning to myself with Chelsea close behindme, I slammed my shoulder into the door, cracking the frame and making it swing open.
“Oh, Crone,” I called out, unleashing my claws and scraping them together.
I’d have thought her gone were it not for the bubbling pot of stew on the hearth or the freshly lit candles that had yet to spend even half their wax.
“Do you think they knew we were coming?” Chelsea asked, peering into the steaming pot on the fire with Riley propped on her shoulder, glaring at its contents.
“Of course, I knew you were coming,” the being pretending to be the High Priestess croaked, shuffling into the space from a back room. “How else would I be the Priestess if I couldn’t see into the future, hm?”
The horns itched against my skull, the beast begging to attack, to protect. If I wasn’t so focused on the potentially dangerous fraud in front of me, I might have put more thought into forgetting the horns weren’t hidden.
“The Crone is a witch, not a seer,” I countered, my shoulders tensing from the unpredictability hanging chaotically in the air.
Cressida pressed a hand to her chest in a feigned insult. “You talk to me as if I’m not the Priestess. Whoever would I be if not?”
Chelsea slid closer to me, her hand finding one of my belt loops and hanging her finger from it. Riley, halfway hidden behind Chelsea’s neck, hissed at the impostor.
“Why don’t you tell us and save me from forcing it out of you?” I snarled my words, turning my claws so they’d catch the firelight, aiming the glint in the impostor’s direction.
The Priestess bit back a smile and wiggled a withering finger at me. “Oh, now Dionysus, since when did you fight with your claws? Whatever happened to your thyrsus?”
Chelsea tilted her head at me as if she had no idea what a thyrsus was, and why would she?
Out-stretching my arm, I produced the golden staff of giant fennel covered with ivy vines and leaves, winding the rod and topped with a pine cone. “I’ll most certainly beat it out of you if you prefer.”
The Crone’s maniacal laughter gradually morphed into a horrendous cackle.
“Wait a minute,” I started, pointing the pine cone at the fraudster. “I recognize that fucking cackle.”
“Who is it?” Chelsea asked.
“Yes, yes, wine god, pray tell,whoamI?” The impostor widely grinned and pressed their fingertips together.
“Rumpelstiltskin,” I mumbled, annoyed that the infamous trickster somehow wound up in the Cove.
He let out another cackle before spinning on his heel and transforming himself back into his true form. A pair of golden eyes peered beneath two grey, bushy, and high-arched brows. His deathly white skin was textured and grooved, with long pointed ears with several hoop and bauble earrings that poked from the sides of his head, a large, slanted nose drooping so far it almost touched his paper-thin upper lip. Rumpelstiltskin dusted himself and picked lint from his feathered cloak before acknowledging our presence. “You know, for a party god, you really can be such a buzzkill, Dion.”
“What the Tartarus are you doing here, Stilts?” I hadn’t lowered my staff yet, keeping the pine cone tip pointed at him in case he tried any funny business.
Rumpelstiltskin paraded the room, picking up random objects to shove in his pockets like he was selecting souvenirs. “By here, I’m going to assume you mean Arcane Cove and not the Crone’s cottage and to answer that, I’m not here ofmychoosing, I assure you. A sorceress banished me here, and hexed me so I can’t leave. I got bored, and such a lovely distraction plopped itself in my lap.” He leaned to the side so he could seeChelsea and gave her a fluttery wave with his gnarled twig-like fingers, black pointed nails forming the tips.
“Why would you say all those things to me?” Chelsea spat, venom lacing her tone.
Rumpelstiltskin tapped a finger over his thin lips and sauntered toward us, extending a hand to Chelsea. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced, love.”
Growling, I shoved the butt end of my staff to Rumpel’s sternum. “Don’t you come any closer to her.”
“Hush, hush,” Rumpel mused with a toss of his long grey hair, motioning for me to remove my staff, which I didn’t. “Put your knot away, frenzy god. I’ve already had my fun with her. I promise to behave.”
