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All in all, I felt safe, considering the circumstances.
“’Scuse me, do you carry any tonics that can help with a hangover?”
I looked up, seeing a raven-haired woman. Both her eyes glittered pink as if the iris had been replaced with shimmering rose quartz. Heavy bags shadowed underneath them, proving how badly she needed that hangover cure.
“We have these revitalization tonics over here.” I walked around the counter and led the fae to a refrigerator set inside the smooth wooden walls of the shop. “It has peach, banana, star fruit, enhanced water, and plenty of sodium and electrolytes.” I handed the bottle of swirling pink-and-orange juice. I couldn’t attest to how good it was at curing hangovers, but I could say that it tasted like pure sex.
“Thank you,” she said, as if I’d just offered her the cure to cancer. She already looked much more bushy-tailed and bright-eyed. I wondered if that had to do with the fact that she was silently feeding off the tumultuous current of emotions flooding out of me. Fae could still eat and drink regular food, but they sustained their long and youth-filled lives by occasionally leaching off the emotions of someone close by, although touch helped them feed faster. They had to be within a couple of feet of their feast and could slowly siphon off emotions—the more heightened, the more filling—which didn’t even alert the person they were feeding from. Or they could be greedier than that and binge on someone’s deep depression or raging anger, sucking out all their emotions in one go and leaving the person feeling like an empty shell for the next week or so. In some cases, those people might never feel any emotions again.
It was strictly forbidden by the Iron Treaty, but that didn’t stop certain fae from going rogue. Some fae became so addicted to a certain emotion they’d stop at nothing to keep feeding. A fae addicted to terror was not one you wanted to cross paths with.
And I had a feeling this fae was looking at me like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
I bagged up her hangover cure and grabbed her card. She gave me another thank-you and snatched her bag, taking the tonic out and uncapping it. She had guzzled it down before she’d even left the store.
The door dinged as she exited, but thankfully, I wasn’t left alone to simmer in my thoughts for long. Claire came out of the back room, bracelets jingling. Her onyx robe, lined with sparkling gold thread, flowed behind her like a shadow made of fabric. Underneath, she wore one of the official store shirts, a soft blue color the same as the outside walls with the name of the shop written across the front.
“How’s it going up here?” she asked, sipping from her latte, the spicy scent of pumpkin and autumn drifting from it.
“Good. Pretty quiet so far.”
“It’s a Thursday; that’s usually how it goes.” Claire walked over and straightened up a display of books that talked about best practices to manipulate mana. “I’m thinking of closing up early today, actually. That okay with you?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m going to need you to stay for your full shift. And clock in another five hours’ overtime,” I said in my most authoritative voice before I started to laugh. “Yeah, of course that’s okay with me. You’re the boss.”
Claire laughed a bubbly laugh. She came to the counter, smiling. “I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun working before. The last shop assistant I had was a moody wolf shifter that kept snapping at me whenever I made a joke. Literally, he’d bare his teeth and snap. So bizarre.”
“Wolf shifters are always pretty uptight, huh?”
“Not always. I dated one once. He had the biggest—hands. Huge hands. And a great smile that he flashed pretty often. And he also had a huge dick.”
That got me cracking up. “I don’t think I’ve ever dated a shifter.”
“Oh, you’ve got to. Best sex of my life.” She winked, smiled. I’d only known Claire for a few weeks, but if you told me we had been best friends since preschool, I would have believed it. There was something about her that just clicked with me. It was nice, especially with all the shit going on in my life. I had some good friends I could vent to, but none of them were local, and phone calls just weren’t enough. But having Claire around to distract me with silly jokes and conversations really helped me not sink into a pit of my own despair.
“How has your dating life been?” Claire asked innocently, head cocked, long lashes blinking up a storm.
“Not as great as yours, I can guarantee you that. I had a couple serious boyfriends, but neither of them had jobs or even knew how to do laundry properly, so I dumped them. I get nervous with hookups too, so it’s not like I’m constantly meeting up with guys. So yeah, pretty much a barren wasteland down there.”
