Page 26 of Chaos
“I’d never break your library, my witch.”
I just had this feeling deep in my gut that as much as he didn’t want to, Reyson was eventually going to break my shit.
Chapter 23
Gabriel
W
hat the actual fuck had I gotten myself into? And why did I feel like I’d come home with these people? It was always drilled into me at a young age to leave demons the fuck alone. I had never even summoned one for information, which was considered normal among witches and warlocks. It was only frowned upon if you made a blood deal for favors.
I would never give my blood to one of those fuckers after what went down with my ancestor but there were times I almost wished I could summon one to trade information. I never did. My ancestor that made the deal got precisely what they asked for, and it was a horrible power that no one person should have. The payment came due, and they didn’t want to pay up. They did horrific things trying to avoid the demon trying to collect payment.
I didn’t know Dorian or Bram, but I didn’t trust either of them. Why was Dorian Gray this famous playboy who got a book written about him and fangirls on this library board when everyone knew about his deal? Most everyone else kept that a secret because it was an instant shunning. I didn’t trust Bram because he came from Hell. The demon who made a deal with my ancestor should have told him no when he heard what he was asking for. Some things shouldn’t be gifted.
I should have been noping right out of this library because it reeked of demons. So, why wasn’t I?
I guess because even if it wouldn’t change the entire world’s opinion of my family, none of these people cared about the whole demon thing in my family or that we were descendants of Lucifer. They never brought it up once even if they all had opinions on deals with demons. It was like they understood what the entire world couldn’t. My ancestor made that deal. I didn’t.
And I liked these people. Ripley was sweet to me as long as I didn’t break any rules in her library. I had no idea how her familiar could change like that, but he was very grumpy and snarky. Felix was brutally honest, and I respected that.
I couldn’t believe I was in the company of a fucking god, and Reyson was a little weird. He’d pretty much decided as soon as he laid eyes on her that Ripley was going to be his wife. Who did that, anyway? She must have the patience of a saint because she allowed him to stay here, even with the whole wife thing and the weird shit he said. He also seemed to have a steady diet of Frappuccino’s and weird flavored Oreos.
Balthazar was the newest addition, and he just seemed like a horny fuck. He was continually staring at both Ripley and Reyson like he wanted to eat them or fuck them. Or do both at the same time. Ripley just ignored it, but Reyson was eating up every minute of it.
Researching how to hack a magical library without breaking it was going to take a lot of work. I wasn’t afraid of it. This is what I was meant to be doing. I always knew I could do great things with my magic if given a chance. No one ever wanted to give me one until I set foot in this library.
It meant a lot to me. I was putting all the education they allowed me to have to good use. I didn’t want this to end if we won. I wanted to stay here in this library with all these strange people that accepted me.
I was officially off tarot research. We figured out just a smidge of it but figuring out if someone cheated their way into the library was the top priority. I couldn’t figure it out either.
A board member could have totally cheated the system to get Dorian in, and I was pretty sure anything out of Hell could have figured it out too. Reyson put some magic into the air to draw anyone involved in this to the library.
We needed to figure this out before Hell felt the call.
Chapter 24
Felix
T
his was bollocks. I was with Ripley for the entire application process. I was watching her back in the warehouse when applicants were killing each other. Fuck, some of those people were trying to kill familiars to get to the witch or warlock. I was there for her entire training on the magical system and different sections. The training was rigorous, and we both could have died in that warehouse.
They drilled it into her to trust the system. It was supposed to be flawless and unable to be cheated. Yet someone had, and they hadn’t taught us a single thing about what to do when that happened. She could have called the board and asked, but the board was possibly compromised now.
Silvaria would have been instrumental in getting the painting stored here. Still, if she gamed the system to get Dorian in here, Ripley would have been blamed for it, even if Silvaria was the one that cheated and used her key to sneak in here when she knew Ripley was sleeping. I had to protect Ripley, which meant trying to figure out how to magically hack a library.
We were all sitting at Ripley’s desk in the library. No one else touched by Reyson’s magic had appeared just yet, so we didn’t even get the chance to use the truth potion. The library had been pretty quiet, to be honest.
People came here when they needed information, or they preferred to get their werewolf porn here. They came when they had a need for information or smut.
A few people came in for information and the system was working like it was supposed to. Ripley sent them off. Thankfully no one needed her to do any magic. As the librarian, she assisted in spells and necromancy, and she read tarot cards for anyone who asked. People were here for the books today, so we were all at work.
Ripley and Gabriel had their grimoires out. I had the one I just started with spells I remembered. Gabriel had a ton of dark spells in his and a lot of useful information on blood magic. Balthazar had a ton of information on blood that I didn’t know because I didn’t bite people like a savage and drink it from them. Still, I was grateful he was here contributing.
Reyson was just glaring at the bowl like he could figure it out without breaking it. Honestly, I wished he could because our magical library training didn’t cover this, and I didn’t know where to start.
“Blood is blood,” Balthazar said. “You can’t change the properties of it, but you can pollute it with drugs and a shitty diet. Those people don’t taste good, and I avoid eating them. That wouldn’t trick this place. There used to be a time where vampires were serious apex predators. When we fed, we did it to the death. Supernaturals are good eating because you get the extra hit of magic. People tried all sorts of shit to make their blood less appealing, including magic. It didn’t save them because you can’t change the innate magic in your blood.”
