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That’s when Derry’s laugh boomed through the alleyway. Loud, deep and sounding vaguely like a braying donkey. She didn’t have to look around the side of the Dumpster to confirm it was him.
“So,” Derry said. “She’s been tied to this guy for two days now thinking that a love spell could actually work when everyone knows it’s a bunch of mumbo jumbo.”
“I don’t know, my Grams swears they can work.” This from someone whose voice she didn’t recognize.
“Oh yeah, they work about as well as using a Wiffle ball as a goldfish bowl. I minored in spellcraft and witchery, I know what I’m talking about,” Derry rambled on. “At most it’s a lust inducer and those expire after a few days. I’m telling you, without me helping her out, Red’s operation will fold. It’s only a matter of time.”
Derry’s voice faded away as the two men passed through the gate. He was full of shit, telling lies to make him seem more important than he was. What an asshole. Shaking her head, she turned back toward the dragon, which smelled like cinnamon jelly beans, and Liam.
The guilty look on his face cracked her chest in half. She’d trusted him. Let him in. Imagined the possibilities. All things she’d never done with anyone before. Ever. And the whole time he’d been just another lying bastard. After the way she’d grown up, she didn’t think she could break emotionally. She was wrong. The phantom pain squeezing her lungs and threatening to snap her bones in two defied description or comparison. It was pure agony and she’d done it to herself.
“Red,” Liam whispered.
“Don’t you even.” She fought the urge to run at him and slap the horrified look off his face.
Liam gulped, but didn’t look away. He was a shitbag liar, but he wasn’t a chicken, she’d give him that. “As far as I know, it’s a love spell—that’s what the family lore said”
“But... ”
“But... ” Liam finally looked away from her. “According to the family stories, it expires after three days.”
She laughed. The only other choice was dropping to the litter-covered concrete in an aching heap. He didn’t deserve to see that he’d broken her. So she pushed out the hollow, empty sound until there wasn’t any air left in her lungs.
“Red, please... ”
She held up her hand, thanking the fates that it didn’t shake. “This is an idiotic plan. The King is going to find you, torture you and then, after you turn into a full-time wolf, keep you on a chain in his backyard. And if you ever break free, you better not even cast a shadow on my doorstep. If you do, I’m going to chop off your fuzzy head and mount it on my wall with all of the other trophies.”
Turning on her heel, she forced her feet forward, away from him and what could have been. The farther she got, the more the spell’s thumping in her head grew from a dull ache to a full-on knee-knocking beating that made her wish her skull would go ahead and explode already. She didn’t really care anymore.
Chapter Eight
Most of the time spells expired at either sundown or sunrise, and Red had spent the day cradling her aching head and hoping that this one ended when the sun went down. No such luck. She’d watched the sun set hours ago while downing enough painkillers to knock a unicorn on its butt and nothing changed.
Lying on her bed back in her apartment above Granny’s Pub and imagining all the brilliantly mean things she wanted to say to Liam, it took Red a second to realize the pounding wasn’t only in her head. Someone was at her door. Liam? The sound stoked an ember of hope that she’d done her best to stomp out. If it was Liam, her head wouldn’t feel as if she’d just gone three rounds with a band of sledgehammer-wielding goblins.
“I’m coming,” she yelled and immediately regretted it as the effort to make the sound slammed her already throbbing brain against her skull.
Hunched over and shuffling, she made her way across her spartan apartment to the door. She flipped the peephole cover and reared back from the visual assault of plaids and polka dots, glitter and gauze that could only be one person: Granny. Red rested her clammy forehead against the wood door. Fates preserve her, she did not have the strength for this right now.
“I know you’re there, chickadee, so you might as well let me in,” Granny said through the door.
“I don’t feel good.” And she wouldn’t until the spell wore off and her life returned to normal. Sunrise couldn’t get here fast enough.
“Don’t I know it, so does everyone in The Woods. Hell, I heard all about it while in the middle of the floor show at the cutest little drag club in Atlanta. You’re lucky I had my travel-sized flying carpet with me or you’d be screwed six ways to Sunday. Open up.”
There really wasn’t a point in trying to resist. Granny had been the closest thing Red had ever had to family and she wasn’t going to stop knocking until Red opened the door.
“It’s about time.” Granny swept into the room, still wearing her stage clothes, exaggerated makeup and sky-high heels that completed her ultimate drag queen ensemble. She strolled across the room like she owned the joint—which technically she did—and sat down on the well-worn couch with the all the grace and regal bearing of someone born into royalty. “I came as soon as I heard. Tell me everything.”
Joining her on the couch and curling up into a ball with her head on Granny’s lap, Red told her surrogate parent the whole story.
“Chickadee,” Granny cooed. “When all of this is over you are going to have to scrub down that booth with disinfectant. No offense.”
Sitting up, Red took in a deep breath and reached for the bottle of painkillers. “None taken.”
Granny snatched the bottle and dropped it down the deep valley of her impressive cleavage. “There’re only a few more hours until dawn. Once that sun comes up, your head will feel better but it’s gonna take a while for your heart. Trust me, first heartbreaks are rough.”
Desperate to end the throbbing in her head, Red considered going after the painkillers, but one look at Granny’s I-don’t-think-so expression and she put her hands back in her lap. “It wasn’t a real love spell.”
