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I’m Rachel’s Alpha. It’s up to me to keep her safe.
She gets hurt, that means I’m not doing my job.
I need to do better, and I will.
Chapter Three
Silas
Ilockupthebar when the last customer finally decides to leave a little after midnight. The Wolf and Witch is Adrian’s inheritance, and it’s finally starting to make a profit since Rachel showed up and helped him to see where things were going wrong, which is great and all, but sometimes I wish we didn’t have to worry about keeping the doors open.
Rachel should be getting home soon. I don’t want to be stuck here when she arrives.
“Are we done?” Carter asks, giving me a hopeful look from the kitchen doorway.
His short on the sides, long on the top haircut hides his left eye from sight when he bends forward, the deep blue dyed swath of hair making him look even more like an emo band member than he usually does. He isn’t wearing nail polish today, but the guy-liner is a permanent fixture, as are the leather wrist cuffs.
“Depends. Did you finish cleaning?”
He pulls a face as he pushes his hair back. “Can’t we start hiring someone for that?”
“If you want us to stop paying you, we can,” I tell him as I go back behind the bar.
“Very funny,” he says, clearly reconsidering his suggestion on the spot.
He likes having date nights out at the fair with Rachel, so there’s no way in hell he’s turning down a paycheck just because he’d rather not have to clean the frier and scrub down the countertop. Our girl’s parents might be loaded, and she’s quick to break out her seemingly limitless credit card, but we still like to treat her whenever the chance comes along.
Carter slips back into the kitchen, and I hear him sighing dramatically before the door swings shut.
Omegas are ruled by their emotions. He can’t help how theatrical he is about everything.
Still, sometimes I think he puts a little extra effort in just to bug the crap out of me.
“Oh yeah, he definitely does,” a female voice vehemently agrees with my thoughts from the other side of the bar.
A shudder crawls down my spine at the sudden sound and I jump back, bumping against bottles on the shelf behind me and shoving the drawer back into the till instead of taking the tray out like I was about to.
Damn it. I hate being snuck up on by spirits.
I look up and fix a frown on the blonde girl who’s standing across from me. With her dark eye-makeup and clothes, she could be in the same emo band as Carter, if she were alive. She offers a halfway apologetic smile, waving at me shyly, as if making herself seem timid makes up for the fright she just gave me.
It’s Sara, of course. Why wouldn’t it be?The girl who warned us about Dark Arts witches a few months ago has been lingering near the house ever since I confirmed we’d given the cops the information they needed to tell her father what had actually happened to his daughter.
It turns my stomach that she’s still around.
I already did what she asked. There’s no reason she should still be here.
Unless, of course, she wants something more than she let on.
Dread rolls over me. I should have known her original request was too good to be true.
This is why I used to take pills to mute spirits. To avoid getting involved in conversations like the one we’re headed toward right now. I’ve been off those tablets for months now, and I’m safe when I’m inside my house where my mate maintains wards to keep spirits out, but they can get to me anywhere else. I seriously need to remember and ask Rachel to put wards in the bar.
I clear my throat. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t do that.”
“Sorry. It’s kind of hard not to sneak up on you, Si,” she admits. “I mean, I’m dead and you’re almost always lost in thought.”
I fight off a shiver, opening the till drawer again and placing the tray on the bar top. Concentrating on what I was doing before she appeared helps settle my nerves over why she’s here. I find the daily sales record book under the counter and put it next to the tray. I swipe my hand over the shelf, but I can’t find the pen. It must have rolled away.
