“I’ve got your poison right here,” I grumbled, though I doubted he could hear me.
“You make me bleed,” he belted out, “a little more for every kiss. But baby don’t you know by now I’d bleed myself dry for one last hit?”
Goosebumps rose on my arms.
I yelled at them.
“Can’t you hear me?” he sang, louder and more passionately with each word. “I’m out here in the cold, banging down your gate. I’ll never leave you, darlin’, I’m just begging for my dose of fate. ‘Cause oh-oh-oh, your love is my poison, and I’m falling out for—”
The kettle whistled, muffling his next words. I whisked it away from the flame and tried to catch another note, but it was too late. Asher’s serenade had stopped.
“Thank God,” I said, though my voice lacked conviction.
I pictured Sophie teasing me with a hearty laugh and a swift roll of her eyes.
You are soooo crushing on him, Gray…
I poured the hot water over a sachet of chocolate pu-erh tea, letting its sweet scent calm me as the image of Sophie’s smile faded.
Asher started up a new tune, but I knew better than to give him any more attention. Leaving him to it, I headed into the living room with my tea and my book and an unflappable resolve to carve out some peace, even if therewasa sexy-as-sin incubus tormenting me from behind the bathroom door.
Where he was currently in the shower. Naked.
Dripping wet over all those muscles and tattoos.
Singing rock ballads that gave me goosebumps.
Figures he can actually sing, too…
I caught myself before I got sucked into another pointless fantasy, refocusing on the task at hand.
Which was…?
Oh, right.
Peace and quiet in the living room.
While the kitchen was a sleek affair with vast granite countertops, glass-front maple cabinets, a big island in the center, and stainless steel appliances, the living room was much homier, featuring huge bay windows, a vaulted timber-framed ceiling, lived-in leather furniture, and a massive stone fireplace that took up almost an entire wall.
Setting my stuff on the coffee table, I knelt before the hearth and loaded in some crumpled newspapers and a few logs, kindling new flames to life.
Asher’s voice dimmed to background noise as the fire popped and hissed, and I grabbed the butter-colored afghan from the back of the worn leather couch, curling up in what was quickly becoming my favorite spot.
I’d left Sophie’s tarot cards on the coffee table, and I reached for them now, thinking as always about my best friend. Lately, her presence had been a constant in my life; real or imagined, memory or vision or magic or plain old pie-in-the-sky hope, she’d been with me, making me laugh and cry, offering advice, and keeping me company through the loneliest hours of the night.
I’d always felt especially close to her when I read with her cards, but tonight, something seemed to shove my thoughts in a different direction. The instant my fingers touched the deck, a fresh image appeared in my mind: Haley and the other witches from Bay Coven.
Someone was sending me a message.
I centered myself, tuning out everything but the warm glow of the fire on my face, letting my intuition take the wheel. I shuffled quickly and pulled six cards, placing them face down in two columns of three cards each.
“Tell me what I need to know,” I said softly.
I flipped the first two cards at the top of each column, revealing a four-handed Magician performing for an audience of shadows, followed by the reversed King of Swords. The same cards had turned up in Sophie’s last tarot reading—the one she’d shown me in my magical realm after I’d discovered her book of shadows.
“Hunters,” I said, eyeing the King’s massive sword. But unlike that day with Sophie’s reading, I now realized the cards were speaking about one hunter in particular.
One whose lips had turned words of love into weapons and curses the day he vowed to burn me alive.
