Page 31 of The Magic of Betrayal
"Let me give you a lift home. It's dark out now and with your ex being in the area, I'd feel better about giving you a ride. I'm parked out front, do you live close?"
She looked up at me, her big green eyes studying me, trying to determine if I was trustworthy or not.
"It's just a two minute drive, would you mind? I'd really, really appreciate it! I left my bike at the grocery store, but I'm buzzing enough right now that I wouldn't want to drive it home anyway."
This woman, I'd never wanted to punish someone as badly as I did her in this moment. She doesn't even know me and she's going to hop in my car? There's a team of fucking assassins living above her magic shop and she's banging seventy five percent of them, hell, probably one hundred percent for all I knew, her ex is out there causing a scene, and she's just going to accept my good guy vibes? I'm not a good guy. I'm a fucking demonic asshole and my hands were itching to slap the hell out of her ass.
"I'll go start the car. Just come out when you're ready." I had to get some air before I did something unsavory.
* * *
She'd slidinto the front seat of my car with her fox gripped to her chest a few minutes after I'd started the engine. Actually got into my car, a fuckingstranger, but wouldn’t tell me,her mate, her real name or phone number. My forehead was tingling and I knew I was seconds away from ‘demoning out’.
"Thank you, Johnny. I appreciate this, can I give you some money for the trouble?" She looked at me from across the console and I swallowed a growl. She looked so innocent and beautiful, those wide green eyes staring into my soul and I felt myself soften toward her. A little tiny bit. That’s all she was getting.
"It's not a problem. Where are we going?" I squeezed the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles popped.
"Just pull out and follow the road for a few miles, my drive is on the right, I'll give you a heads up before we get there."
Glancing over at her, she was staring out of the window. I looked down and was met with the face of a fox, it's lip curled up in a silent snarl.Ex-fucking-scuse me. Lifting my own lip in return, the fox snapped at me and put his paw on the console, like he was telling me to fuck right off. Ballsy little shit.
We headed down the road and I didn't speak because I didn't trust what might come out of my mouth. She lied to me. Gave me a fake name, a fake phone number... how could she do that to me? How could she deny the pull between us like that? My throat clenched at the thought of her betraying me like that. Did she not realize I would have found her regardless? She was mine and the sooner she accepted that, the sooner I could give her everything she’d ever dreamed of.
I was going to need to drop her off and make a quick exit because if I had to watch the guys pawing at her I really might go nuclear and nobody needed to see that. They didn't know I was a demon either, and it needed to stay that way.
"This is it, on the right," she murmured and I slowed down to take the sharp turn into her driveway.
Immediately, I could see four silhouettes standing near the house and I took a deep breath as they all turned toward us. Here goes nothing.
Why? Why does she pull this shit?
“Yo, boss. You okay?” Kai asked, pulling my focus out of my own head and to where he and Fischer had sat their asses in a couple of chairs on the patio out back. Saige was supposed to have been here twenty minutes ago, and her phone was going straight to voicemail. The house was locked so we were all just anxiously piddling around waiting for her to show up.
"Fine," I grunted, my jaw ticking in anger. But it wasn't anger, not really, it was the fear that something had happened to her. Her phone was always on her, and she knew how worried we'd been lately, so why wouldn't she let us know she was running late?
"Her phone probably just died, you guys need to chill out," Sloane snapped, clearly sick of the abundance of emotions he was having to deal with on the daily. Well, he was just going to have to get over it because I was all in, and Kaito was mated to her, for fuck's sake.
"Hey, we have every right to be worried, asshole," Kai growled, Bagheera clearly in agreement and making his feelings known.
"Ugh, whatever. I'm going on a walk, I can't stand to be around you all when you're like this. Get your heads out of your asses. We're still on a mission here, or have you forgotten we have a job to do?" Sloane's tone was dripping with venom and before I could make a move to grab him by the throat, headlights illuminated the side of the house and we all hopped up, making our way over to the garage.
"Who is she with?" Fischer wondered, squinting his eyes to try and make out the vehicle, but the lights were too damn bright.
The large SUV pulled into the spot in front of the garage and I had to take some deep breaths, she'd gotten a ride home from Johnny. Fucking Johnny, who she had never met before in her life. The man in question rolled down his window as Saige scooted out of the passenger side door, putting Maven down on the grass.
"Found this one in her shop, figured she needed a lift home since it was dark out."
Kai stood there for a moment before stepping up to the car and shaking Johnny's hand, thanking him for looking out for her. Fischer also expressed his thanks, but all I could do was give him a short bro nod before turning to wait by the door. I just... couldn't process this right now.
Sloane was leaning against the house with his arms crossed over his chest, an unreadable expression on his face as he observed the situation.Dear gods, he better keep his smart mouth shut tonight. I am not in the mood.
Johnny backed out and his taillights faded down the driveway, leaving us all standing there. Fischer had Saige in an embrace, but I could feel her eyes on me. Nope, I couldn't bring myself to look at her right now. Sloane made a noise under his breath and I think he'd finally realized how on edge I was.
"Sorry guys, I got held up at the store longer than I thought. Then I headed to the shop to grab some stuff and lost track of time when my phone died," Saige told us, her voice quiet as she walked over to unlock the door, keeping a hand on the house to steady herself.Was she drunk?
"So, I see you met Johnny," Sloane piped up, filling the silence.
The door swung open and all of us filed inside behind her. "Oh, you already met him? He's a nice guy, he stopped at the shop when he saw the lights were on and offered to give me a ride home when I realized how late I was."
