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Regina cried out as a wet smack came through the phone.
My rage billowed inside me, pouring over into my reality as I stood up and marched to the exit. I threw a few bills onto the vintage counter as Kiara darted after me with both baskets in her hands. She didn’t question my decision. She just went with it. Like old times—only this time, we had to save her best friend.
And my mate.
Chapter 20 - Regina
Silly me was all I could think once I became aware of my surroundings. Wooden shelves sat beyond a satin curtain of indigo with sun and moon designs on it. Incense, smoky and woody, drifted through the air, fluttering up from a cone in the corner of the room. Blurry orbs flickered over my vision as I inhaled the familiar walls.
I snapped to attention when I heard footsteps.
The woodsy scent was unmistakable. Even as a mere witch, I understood how to identify people using all my senses. Though I couldn’t do what a wolf-like Eric could do, I could still recognize people.
That was Destiny. I could tell by the delicate patter of her feet and the oil she wore on her neck and wrists. I wanted to believe she was here to help me, but the way my heart was thundering into my chest told me otherwise. The last thing I could properly remember was opening the door of my safe house trailer.
Every time I tried to think of what I saw, the memory got blocked. Ah, classic jamming spell. It could be unwound with a few hand gestures—but my hands were bound. My ankles were strapped to the legs of a chair. I felt the firmness of the wood beneath me and the slick web of an invisible restraint spell.
She was really pulling out all the stops. But for what?
The footsteps halted at the doorway. Beads clattered as she sighed. It sounded like she was playing with a necklace or a rosary of some kind. I turned my head—the only thing I could move—and glared at the woman who had been a close friend for years.
She gave me a sweet smile. “I know. It’s not where you expected us to be, right?”
“What are you doing, Destiny?”
“Paying the bills.” She casually stepped toward me with the rosary in her right hand and a bottle of water in her left. She raised the tip to my lips. “You’ve been out for a while. That wolf really knocked your skull.”
Without hesitation, I sipped the water. I didn’t sense anything in it that would poison me. Though it was possible that she spelled the water to seem innocent, I didn’t take her for wanting to take my life. Just to accomplish something with my life.
Once I felt satisfied, I stopped drinking. She set the bottle aside and sat across from me on a tattered couch. “You have to understand that I wouldn’t do this without needing to do this.”
“What’s going on?”
“My shop is at risk of foreclosure. I’ll lose everything.”
I frowned. “D, there are resources for that. You could contact the council and—”
“No.”
I took a shaky breath. “No?”
She shook her head. “That’s too formal. It’s too mainstream. It would take too long. You know that, GG. Humans aren’t as understanding about these businesses.”
Her fingers flew over the beads like she was in hyper-prayer mode. I had never seen her like this, so worried and frantic yet calm at the same time. It was unnerving to notice the selfish sheen in her eyes, the desperation of needing to do something specific to achieve a goal.
She was set on this. Entirely. And there was probably nothing I could say or do to make her choose another route.
I had to tread carefully. “I understand that. Humans are unreasonable.”
“We are technically humans.”
I smiled weakly. “Yeah, technically. We’re different than them in so many ways.”
“Not like wolves,” came an all-too-intimate voice I had come to identify without any visual representation. Teresa waltzed into the room, wearing tight black clothes and tall black boots. “We’re superior in so many ways.”
“This isn’t the Pain Olympics,” I said calmly. “We all have our crosses to bear.”
Teresa sneered. “I’m not talking about pain. I’m talking about glory.”
