AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Anabel shook her head. “How do you do that?” It was more of a complaint than a question. She let a little of the liquid drip from the spoon into the test bowl. There was a distinct bang as smoke billowed into the air, thick and charcoal gray.
Hattie looked up from her paperback and frowned at Anabel. “Will you shush, this book is finally getting good.”
Xavier smiled. “I’m guessing that means the heroine is getting it good.”
The old woman sniffed, her mouth curved. “Her partner certainly knows what he’s doing. I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”
“Oh no,” said Anabel, lifting her now-cracked test bowl.
Delilah huffed. “If the potion did that to the bowl, think what it would have done to your system.”
Anabel bristled and jabbed her spoon at the Latina. “You don’t get to pull out the high and mighty school principal tone when you’re in no position to judge me.”
“Of course I do,” said Delilah with a snort. “I judge everyone. I can’t act as scales of justice for karma if I don’t assess people and weigh up their—”
“Stop,” said Wynter, tired. “Just stop.”
Delilah merely chuckled. See, she loved screwing with people.
Anabel cast the Latina a quick look. “Only you would be laughing mere minutes after almost getting killed by a basilisk shifter. Well, let me tell you, you would not have been laughing if he bit you. Nu-uh. One once attacked and then sank his fangs into me. Freaking asshole. Historical records say I died from a rampant illness. Nope. The venom leached the life right out of me.”
“Why did he kill you?” asked Xavier.
“My brother pissed him off by killing his sister. It was an eye for an eye thing.” Anabel let out a weary sigh. “Truth be told, my brother pissed off a lot of people. He was a good emperor, in the beginning. The people of Rome loved him back then. But he did some harsh, crazy shit later on. Slaughtered family members. Executed people on a whim, especially if bored. Threw people into arenas to get torn apart by lions. He even insisted on being worshipped as a God at one point. Neos Helios he called himself.”
The term tickled Wynter’s memory.
“Thankfully my nephew, Nero, made a better ruler . . . though he was sadly the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty,” Anabel continued. “But, yeah, it was so sad that my brother hopped aboard the insanity train like that. One thing I can say for him is that he did not have an incestuous relationship with me or my two sisters. That was just a sleazy rumor.”
Wynter frowned. “Hold up, are you talking about Caligula? He was your brother?”
“Yes. We were so close once.”
Delilah snorted. “Of course you were. Neurotic calls to neurotic. And just to say, I cannot believe you called the basilisk an asshole. That’s damn harsh.”
The blonde blinked. “Harsh? He killed me. Did you miss that part?”
“You had it coming,” Delilah told her. “I mean, did you do anything to stop your nutcase of a brother? Uh, no. You sat back while he slaughtered and executed and made lion-food out of innocent people.”
“I didn’t sit back, I—”
“Let him do filthy things to you at night like a heathen.”
“That was a rumor! It wasn’t true!”
“I’m supposed to believe the sister of a deranged psychopath when she’s equally deranged?”
Wynter sighed. “Ignore her, Anabel, she doesn’t mean what she says; she’s just trying to get you all wound up.”
Delilah let out another snort. “As it happens, I—”
A blaring alarm boomed to life outside the cottage, loud and piercing enough to carry around the entire city.
Anabel froze. “Am I hearing things again?”
“No, the alarm has been sounded,” said Wynter, anticipation trickling through her system, slick and warm. “Someone on patrol must have spotted the Aeons approaching.”
Cursing, Anabel switched off the stove and turned back to Wynter, all business. “Then we’d better get moving.”
