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OLD FLAMES
Willow Sage sat in the HR office, doing her best not to stare at Smedley O’Tentacle, the HR Director of Dragon’s Den Casino, but he was making it very difficult.
Every time O’Tentacle picked up a pen, his fingers became sinuous and grew suckers on the pads.
She’d never met a squid shifter before, and when his hand squished moistly over the computer mouse, she resolved not to look away from his eyes, which were almost colorless, but for the dark, horizontal bar of a pupil across the center.
O’Tentacle frowned at her, his lips pursing out and looking decidedly beaky. “Is something the matter?”
“Oh, no! Not at all,” Willow stammered, trying not to sound stupid. “Everything’s fine.”
Smedley squinted at her but went back to typing her information into the computer. “Hiring someone without a thorough vetting process is very irregular. Usually, we post a job opening, collect applications, and then rank resumes using a rubric. I’ve never even heard of the,” he squinted at the paper, too, “Sorcière Université Potions Program.”
It was the Sorcière UniversitéRemedialPotions Program, but Willow wasn’t going to admit that. “The program is very selective.”
Selective,in that they only admitted the most hopeless potion witches who couldn’t cook to save their lives.
Which she still was.
Willow was the culinary school dropout who was still desperately trying to make buttercream roses even though her cakes always fell and her racks of lamb were always burnt to charcoal.
But she was going to keep trying.
And she was good with animals.
Which was why her bestie Bethany Aura had gotten her this job at the Dragon’s Den Casino as a professional sea monster zookeeper.
That, and because Willow was running out of money. She hadn’t been able to find a job. If she didn’t get something by the end of the week, she was going to have to move back in with her parents in Desert Stars, a town that lay an hour outside of Las Vegas.
This short-term cash infusion would keep her afloat for another month or two.
Evidently, the apparitional sea serpents were looking sickly, and they thought a potions witch might be able to whip up a vitamin cocktail to make their scales glossy and their tentacles more . . . tentacly.
Like Smedley’s undulating fingers.
Willow snapped her attention back up to his face.
Smedley licked his lips. His tongue had suckers on it, too. “This is most irregular.”
“I’m very sorry about that, but Bethany did say that they were in need of urgent care. The CFO, Mr. Draco, approved hiring me. At the very least, I can fill in and help the serpents until you can get a proper marine magicobiologist. You don’t want a half-dozen deceased sea serpents bloating and stinking up the casino fountain like six tons of dead fish, rotting in the sun.”
Smedley’s upper lip curled in what must be a squidly snarl. “Fine. But I’m marking this as atemporaryposition. The casino’s Head of Security, Mr. Arawn Tiamat, is on his way down. I must warn you, he’s one of the most by-the-book dragon shifters I’ve ever met. Mr. Tiamat will never approve your hire, even if Mr. Draco did.”
“We’ll leave it up to Mr. Tiamat, then,” she said.
The office door opened, and a man walked in. He didn’t notice Willow sitting in the applicant’s chair but rounded on Smedley, saying in a low, bass voice, “Those sea serpents look ghastly. When will the potions witch get here?”
The man was very tall, blond, and excessively broad-shouldered under that expensive suit he wore. He was movie-star handsome with cut cheekbones and a square jaw.
She knew he would have amazing blue eyes when he turned to look at her.
He also had a dragon tattoo on his ribs that Willow had licked many times.
Her breath rushed into her.
She had dated Aaron Timmit for just over a year and lived with him for the last six months of their relationship, before he had come back to their apartment one day and quietly told her that he was moving to Los Angeles and wouldn’t be able to be with her anymore.
Tears pricked her eyes.
