Page 44 of House of Ruin
Alecto shrugged. “Bitches like Rebecca Moon and Galia Rathone might think they’re too smart to get caught and might brag about it.”
Val laughed, and Alecto smiled at her.
Blaze gave in.
From where the others sat, they couldn’t see Blaze’s hand moving behind Alecto.
At first, he trailed a finger over the top of her black jeans, where a patch of skin was left exposed before her black turtleneck began.
Goose bumps skittered over her skin; there was no mistake there. So Blaze allowed his fingers to travel up her spine.
Alecto dropped one leg over the other, lacing her finger together as she placed her hands over her thigh. Blaze had to bite on the inside of his cheek not to grin.
That would have been too obvious.
“Alecto, you have rehearsals with Norse, right? I want you to be my little spy,” Val instructed after another moment of silence. “He’s fond of you, not that I can blame him. Use that to find out if the Dragons have something to do with this. He’s smart. But he’s also arrogant, which always causes the downfall of men, however great they might consider themselves to be.”
Blaze’s fingers stilled over Alecto’s skin.
He didn’t like that one bit.
Only a blind man couldn’t see the way that dipshit looked at Alecto, his cold eyes aflame, ready to devour.
Blaze was familiar with that look. Any man was. And only they knew what intentions lay beneath it.
“Sure. I’ll see what I can find out without rousing suspicion.”
Val smirked. “Good girl. Jolene and I will find a safe way to track the death magic and see if that leads us somewhere.”
When Val’s eyes drifted to Blaze, there was a challenge burning in them.
17
“Alecto, there is a lot of responsibility resting on your young shoulders,” Madame Raquel mused from the opposite side of the white stone desk. Its lines were smooth, as if someone had carved the thing out of a slab of stone like an Ancient Greek statue. “There are a lot of eyes on you. Watching. Waiting for you to make the wrong move. I know—”
Alecto’s muscles tensed in preparation for the next words before Madame Raquel even fully inhaled a breath. Yet Alecto still winced.
“—you’re a half blood, which might be the reason why you haven’t thought of it this way,” Madame continued, her eyes full of…pity. “But witches are merciless, and they won’t hesitate to make you fall before they snatch what they want right out of your hands.”
Alecto scoffed to herself. As if she didn’t know how cruel and fucking mean witches could be. There really wasn’t a need for a lesson like this, yet there they were.
“Which is why I’ll ask you to not skip another acting class.” Madame Raquel finally got to the point she’d been trying to make for ten minutes. “Or I’m afraid I’ll need to find another student who’s ready to do everything it takes to be Carmen—”
“I’m ready to do whatever it takes,” Alecto blurted.
Madame Raquel leaned back in her cream-colored velvet chair, resting her arms of the armrests, and she pinned Alecto with a glare. The black cat named Rollings, who was rumored to have been Madame Raquel’s lover before the madame turned her into a feline for being unfaithful, rolled over on her side.
Her long tail flickered as it hung over the edge of the desk, and her sharp yellow eyes watched Alecto. Even the fucking cat seemed to doubt Alecto’s ability to be Carmen.
For fuck’s sake.
“I believe you, Ladybug,” the madame said after the dramatic pause was over. She nodded to herself, pouting. “And I’m glad to see that we understand each other.”
Alecto nodded, crossing her legs over the ankles as she shifted in her seat.
It was her fault she had to sit and listen to this humiliating speech. Madame Raquel had every right to be upset because skipping the previous acting class had been a bad move on Alecto’s part.
She should have known better than that, but after having mind-blowing oral sex and overhearing that weird conversation between Val and Galia, Alecto had barely made it home. No way in Hel she could have gotten on that stage and performed.
