Page 55 of The Magic of Betrayal
"Why three? Why not four, or five?" She laughed.
"Hmm, well, there's potential for more. But I'm not sold yet," I informed her, but it wasn't Laurie I was having this conversation with. It was the asshole in front of me with eyes cold as ice and anger that radiated off of him in waves of heat.
"I see. Well, I have to go. Things to do. Happy Birthday."
The line clicked when she ended the call, not even waiting to see if I had anything else to say. Typical.
"Your mom?" Sloane questioned as I stuffed my phone back in my pocket.
"Obviously," I rolled my eyes and went to spin away from him to head inside, but he gripped my arm and held me in place.
"Everything okay, Red?"
Glancing down at his fingers, which were tightly wrapped around my bicep, I lifted my gaze and narrowed my eyes.
"What the hell do you care, Sloane? You've made it perfectly clear that not only are you not actually interested in me romantically, but you can't seem to even be my friend. I tolerate you because of the others. I've been nothing but nice to you and yet you still act like a pompous asshole. Let go of my arm, now," I snarled, surprised by the nasty tone of my voice. Honestly, I didn't even know I was capable of such venom. It did the trick though when moments later, my arm was released.
Spinning on my heel, I didn't even bother to look back for his reaction.You're a bad bitch, Saige Wildes. Keep walking and don't fucking turn around.Before I could even register what I was doing, I fired a burst of magic at the door of the shop and it opened forcefully just in time for me to stride right through and with a flick of my wrist, it slammed shut behind me.
Fuck Sloane Sullivan.
* * *
After an hourof isolating myself in the back room, I felt calm enough to come back out and face customers, and Frank and Arlo, who I had practically ignored in my haze of agitation and fury. I'd actually felt pretty light headed once I'd gotten inside the building and my body temperature was doing a lot of weird shit again. At least I haven't been being pulled into another realm...no, the demon prince just decided to hunt me down, break into my home, and taunt me.
The guys were going to be furious when they found out. Why hadn't I told them yet? When I'd first woken up from my time in Besmet with Bram the last time, I'd told them about him briefly. Not that he was borderline psychotic and had serious delusions regarding our 'relationship'. At the time, I never thought I'd see him again, but then there he was in my freaking bathroom while I was naked as a jaybird. Groaning in my head, I knew I'd fucked up. Cam for sure was going to be really livid.
But Bram wasn't a threat to me, for some strange reason, he just wanted me.Did I want him like that?The whole thing sounded so messy, I shut it down in my brain. There was enough shit going on that I didn't need to add to it by considering adding another boyfriend.Would they get along?
"You doing okay today, sweet thing?" Frank's question snapped me out of my thoughts.
"Oh yeah, I'm sorry, just have a lot on my mind this afternoon. Everything going okay here? I popped in to do some admin stuff," I explained, moving behind the bar to mix up an elixir for myself.
"Yeah, doing great. Miranda and her girl stopped in a few hours ago. Annie dropped off a couple of drawings for you, I put them by the register. We're probably going to need to harvest some crystals soon, they've been selling like hotcakes. Oh, and quite a few people were asking about the next Witching Hour event, it's been close to a month now since the last one," Arlo rattled off all of the important information and I followed along as I poured some water into a glass, a drop of azure spirit, a pinch of pink salt, and a dash of fairy sprinkle, which as soon as it touched the liquid, the whole concoction changed to a beautiful teal blue with pink smoke rolling off the rim.
"What are you mixing up?" Frank asked, peering over my shoulder.
"Hmm? Oh, I have this hellish headache, so it’s just something to relax me a little bit and hopefully help stabilize this pounding in my head," I explained, reaching for the glass and frowning when he batted my hand out of the way.
"Here, let me add a few things to this, I know just the trick." Frank snapped his fingers, as if a brilliant idea had just come to him and he started grabbing different ingredients as Arlo directed me to a barstool. I sank down onto it with a sigh of relief, because damn, my head really was starting to hurt.
The doorbell alerted me that someone had come in but I didn't have the desire to look and see who it was, luckily, or maybe not so luckily, they made themselves known quickly.
"Saige, we must speak with you at once. The stars have been loud in our heads the past several hours and we have things to share with you," Roberta announced as she sat down beside me in a flourish of color and old lady perfume.
"Yes, yes, it is of utmost urgency, dear girl. When the stars speak, we listen," Matilda added, nodding her head so fast, I almost thought she was tripping on some damn fine drugs.
"Back off ladies, Saige has a headache. Let her drink this first before you make it any worse with your ramblings!" Frank ordered. The two women had the good sense to look slightly apologetic, even though I could still feel their excitement from the way their bodies were trembling which was causing their gaudy, dangling earrings to clink together like some sort of miniature wind chimes.
Frank slid the glass tumbler to me, the color now a glowing purple with blue steam rising from the top. Shit, at this point, I'd drink a jar of pickle juice if I thought it would cure this hell. I downed the whole thing in three swallows, it was delicious. Surprisingly, it had a raspberry taste with a cut of citrus.
Arlo stood on the other side of the counter watching me closely to see if the concoction was going to provide me with any relief.
"Well? How do you feel?" Frank hedged, his hands clasped over his rounded belly.
"These things don't work immedi- oh. Ohhh, gods, that's some good shit, Frank." I sighed, a bright smile taking over my face. Whatever he'd whipped up had done the trick because not only was the headache gone, but I felt wide awake and more alert than I had all day. "What the hell did you put in there? I need that spell, that's almost better than coffee."
The men chuckled, but Frank pulled out a notepad and scribbled down the spell. "This isn't something you can use daily though. If your headaches continue to be a problem, you'll need to see the healer. Magic only goes so far."
