Page 73 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
My lip quivered as I dropped my fork and used my free hand to pluck up my wine glass. And I pulled a Jackson, downing the whole glass in three gulping swallows. It didn’t help the headache situation, but it soothed my blistered emotions. So much so, that I grinned from ear to ear when Jackson came back to the table, and then I gave him a big, noisy kiss on the cheek when he reached over to take his cigar back.
His eyes brightened, and an impish grin cocked up one side of his mouth as he bent and kissed me. Deeply.Obscenely.Suckling and nibbling until I strained against him, seeking more.
“You seem to be in a better mood, huh?” He drew away, caressing my bottom lip with his thumb. “Were those magical ‘shrooms?”
“Might’ve been.”
More like magical wine, chugged on a mostly empty stomach.
I nibbled on his thumb, sighing when he laughed and popped another warm kiss to my temple.
This is what itshould’vebeen, with us on vacation: happy and playful and mischievous and enjoyingeach other’s company.
So why didn’t Ifeelany of that?
Why didn’t he?
Because when I reached for him, trying to find a ribbon of his warmth or affection to cling to, there was nothing. Excitement, sure. For the food and the party and the presence of the Sorcerers who were seated at the round pub tables bythe windows—all of whom he knew by name and happily rattled those names off to me as he scooched his chair into the table and dug into his steak. But it was all superficial stuff. I couldn’t find anything deeper.
Maybe this island was breaking him as much as it was breaking me, and we were both doing our best to hold ourselves together.
Vacation of a lifetime,I thought bitterly.
The music screeched to a halt—as though offended by my despondence.
As silence swaddled the room—with people sputtering out in mid-conversation and peering around, trying to figure out why the music had stopped—Rune Bloodworth sauntered past the buffet bar and clapped his hands.
“I know, I know.” He rocked on the balls of his feet. “That was incredibly rude of me to kill that lovely music. It’s only temporary, I promise. I just wanted to take a moment of your time to thank you, sincerely, for being here. When Onyx—I’m sure you all know my business partner, Onyx.” He swept his hand out, gesturing to the windows behind me.
I twisted in my seat.
Onyx sat by herself on a stool at a round pub table at the end of the row. And while the other Sorcerers were sitting a little sloppy, with most shifted sideways or swinging their legs or leaning, Onyx was as straight as an arrow. No slouch curved her back, and she had her legs elegantly crossed at the ankle, with her feet resting on the lower rung of the stool. She wore a deep ocean-blue gown that sparkled beneath the candlelight and spilled to the floor like a glistering waterfall.
She stared out the window, a glass of red wine sitting untouched in front of her. When Rune called her name, she didn’t look at him. Didn’t react when all heads in the restaurant turned toward her.
“When Onyx came to me with an idea to open a resort on a remote island…Well, anyone who knows me knows I love to take risks.” Rune’s smile shone brighter than all the candles in the room. And it was infectious. I smiled back at him when he panned that grin over me. Everyone did. How could we not? “Without risk, there is no reward. I firmly believe that. But this was by far the biggest and most ambitious leap I’d ever taken. You all should have seen this island six years ago. It wassavage. Cold and rainy 350 days of the year, and muggy the other fifteen. The ocean was beating the rocks down to dust, and the creatures…Well, let’s just say they weren’tglammed upand ready to take center stage.”
A laughter trickled around the room.
“Just being here for a day would send anyone spiraling into a depression,” Rune continued. “But Onyx had a vision. And she believed in it, and I believed in her, and now here we are”—he raised his whiskey glass—“feasting with one hundred and twenty-seven of the finest people in the world. Celebrating the five-year anniversary of Niverwick Isle’s opening. So I am proposing a toast, one of many I’ll propose tonight, I’m sure. Iamfond of my toasts.” He laughed. “To Onyx and her vision.”
“Hear, hear!” someone said. A few other people clapped. And, one by one, glasses were thrust into the air.
Onyx still hadn’t moved. Still hadn’t touched her wine or acknowledged the toast.
“Oh, shit.” Jackson laughed as he raised his empty beer glass. “We should’ve gotten a second round, huh?”
I peeled my gaze away from Onyx and lifted my also-empty wine glass. “Guess so. We were both lushes tonight.”
“And to all of you,” Rune concluded in his resonant voice, “for joining us.” He turned, clinked his glass with a tall, balding man at a nearby table, and then declared, “Drink up!”
The gentle tinkling of glasses knocking against each other filled the room.
Jackson and I looked at each other, tapped our glasses together, and mimed drinking them down. And I laughed after, caught up in the playfulness, but Jackson had already slid his eyes back to Rune.
“Now then, Onyx…” Rune downed the rest of his whiskey and motioned for a waiter to come fill his glass. “Why don’t you tell us how you discovered this place? It’s quite a story.” He gave the small, blonde waitress a gentle pat on the arm when she reached his side and refilled his glass. “And I certainly don’t want to steal your thunder.”
Onyx moved then, fixing Rune with a look that said, quite plainly, if he even attemptedto steal anything from her, she would hit him with the force of a thousand lightning bolts.
