“So, dish, girly! You’re not getting out of it by changing the subject to my ill-fated hookups.”
“I might have to kill myself.”
“Why? What did he do?” Tally sat up straight and started looking for her book of hexes on the coffee table. She found the proof of the latest copy of her magazine,
Witches
Waxing Wicked
.
Tally could craft amazingly diabolical hexes. In fact, she had a disclaimer on every issue that stated her hexes were just novelty items and for entertainment only since she’d been sued four times in the first year of her magazine’s publication.
“No, he didn’t do anything. Except call me Cherry-Would-If-She-Could.” Middy rolled her eyes.
“Maybe Cherry should.” Tally raised her eyebrows and then, at Middy’s scowl, said, “Come on! It’s Dred Shadowins. Are you seriously going to tell me that you haven’t thought about just throwing yourself on his wand in wild abandon? What witch hasn’t?”
“Exactly. What witch hasn’t?” She looked at her friend pointedly.
“You. That’s who. And me.” Tally sighed.
“I was kind enough to bring up his reputation,” Middy offered.
Tally gasped. “What did he say?”
“Not so much. I mentioned unpleasantries and he said if I thought murdering a whole village for a Hand of Glory was ‘unpleasant,’ he’d hate to see what I thought was evil.”
“Don’t stop there. Then what?”
“Um, he asked me to the Masque,” Middy said quietly, dreading what was coming next.
“So, he’s going to donate the funds? Have you called Martin? He’ll be thrilled! He was so worried you’d . . . Oh, my Goddess! Wait, why are you making that face? What did you do?”
Middy shrugged and turned her mouth into awkward little moue as she struggled with the words. Tally grabbed her shoulders and shook her, as if the action would rattle the words out of her friend’s mouth.
“I tried to assassinate him with a cranberry.”
“How did you do that?” Tally squealed at a decibel that made dogs everywhere cringe.
“I choked on it.”
“I still don’t understand.” Tally’s hands moved to her hips.
“It flew out of my nose and hit him in the eye over lunch.”
“Shitballs.”
“Exactly. And he still wants me to go to the Masque with him.”
Tally was screaming now and still shaking Middy like a maraca. “You are getting laid like tile, baby!”
“Hold on, I said yes because he offered to double his donation. I’m not sleeping with him. That would be too much like hookery.”
“Oh, yes, you are! But I bet there won’t be any sleeping.”
Tally smirked. “He’s just what you need. It will be a great experience. You’re going to lose your virginity to a sex god.
Not only that, but you won’t have all of those uncomfortable attachments. You know what the deal is going in and given that you don’t even like him, hell, it couldn’t be more perfect.”
“No! Absolutely not.”
“Well, Middy. What else are you going to do with it?”
“Fall in love maybe?”
“You’ve been reading too much again. Fall in love later after you’ve gotten this complication out of the way.”
“Maybe.”
“No, there is no ‘maybe.’ You’re going to ride him like a mechanical bull. He uses witches as nothing more than a means to an end. Why not give him a dose of his own medicine for all of womankind? It’s just a stupid bit of flesh anyway and it’s in the way.”
Middy had to say that her friend’s argument did make sense. She wouldn’t have to worry about looking Dred in the face again after the Masque. Maybe this was the answer she was looking for? She knew better than to fall in love and, like Tally said, she didn’t even like him anyway. Of course, there was the fact that she’d had his likeness dancing like a Chippendale in her bedroom in the dark of the night.
Even better, maybe she’d get over this obsession with him. She could just work it right out of her system. Her pride wouldn’t let her keep thinking about someone who’d put his proverbial sword in her sheath and never call again, and she knew he wouldn’t if things progressed that far.
What a hell of a way to decide to lose it.
She wasn’t sure if she meant her mind or her cherry.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cranberry Crush
Having a cranberry pried from his ocular orifice was not exactly how Dred Shadowins had envisioned the rest of his day after lunch with Midnight Cherrywood. It had plenty to do with orifices, but not so much this one and certainly not his own.
Unless she was really into that kind of thing? Then maybe there could be negotiations of a certain— He wasn’t going to think about that now.
Explaining to Magick Medic staff how he’d gotten the damn cranberry stuck in his eye to start with hadn’t been easy. Neither had it been easy to summon a look intimidat-ing enough to quell their snorts of laughter with one freak-ing eye.
He’d done it though and they’d gone about their work silently. Of course, he was sure that he’d be the topic of discussion over dinner for many weeks to come. It wasn’t anything new that he’d be the topic of discussion, but it was usually about how rich or handsome he was. Not how this idiot had strolled into Urgent Care with a cranberry sticking out of his eye. Especially when the debutante witches all seemed to titter on about his “penetrating gaze” or “piercing eyes. Not so engaging as a cyclops, he was sure.
It had taken a very expensive potion, three charms, and a cleric’s prayer to get the swelling to go down and he’d have to wear an eye patch for a week. If he’d been a mortal with that kind of super allergy, his throat would have promptly closed and he would have been dead.
Damned cranberries!
At this point, it was impossible not to notice that disaster followed Middy Cherrywood wherever she went. She was a right little mess, that one. Yet, Dred was intrigued. She’d not acted like the other skirts he’d hunted. Again, he had to suppose it was good that she was going to be a challenge because after he was done with her, he’d have to start over.
He’d shagged every witch known to the magickal world.
Or so the tabloids said.
Which brought him back to Midnight Cherrywood—a witch who needed a good pounding if there ever was one.
Dred decided that he was just the warlock to give it to her.
His Witchberry started buzzing and he looked at the screen for a moment. It was High Chancellor Godrickle.
Fuck.
“Shadowins.” Hubert Godrickle’s face appeared pinched and pale on the screen.
“What’s happened?” Dred knew that the High Chancellor wouldn’t be calling him unless something serious had happened. They avoided each other like the plague, but for the appearances at social functions that were expected.
They didn’t want to give away Dred’s secret.
Dred Shadowins wasn’t just a billionaire playboy. He was a war hero, the kind that no one ever hears about. Not like that pompous cock, Tristan Belledare, who’d convinced the Magickal Senate that he’d saved the world from certain doom, et cetera and so forth. Dred moved in shadows and mystery; he was a secret operative, a spy. Not for the Magickal Senate either, but for his people, specifically for High Chancellor Godrickle.
Witches and warlocks, gargoyles, fairies, dragons, and other magickal kin had their own governments, whose leaders met monthly in the Magickal Senate, which was much like the days of Rome and just as corrupt. Right now, from the look on Godrickle’s face, Rome was burning.
“You look like someone shat in your Eye of Newt.”
Dred raised a brow, uncertain if he even wanted to hear about this latest installment of fuckery.
“The Gargoyle Council did. Twice,” Hubert said. “What do you know about cursed or dark objects?”
Dred shrugged in response. What didn’t he know?
Cursed and dark objects were items crafted in pain and suffering that often led to more of the same. They could be used to channel immense power—though that power often came with a blood price—sometimes even a life price. He’d trafficked in them briefly as a young warlock, when he’d still had his head up his own ass. Nothing too serious had crossed his palm, and for that, he was thankful. The junky rush of power that came along with the cursed and dark objects was too much to resist and many a witch and warlock had met horrible fates.
“Someone is moving some major merchandise through the U.S. and we’re not sure how they are getting it in or out.”
“We knew that, Hubert. Why do the gargoyles care?”
“Their national museum was plundered and, if that’s not the worst of it, they’re sure that whoever did this is trying to resurrect a lamia.” Hubert inhaled a shaky breath.
“They’re using hatchling gargoyles as sacrifices.”
Dred almost dropped his Witchberry. “A lamia? What evidence did they find that would point anything so foul?
Hatchlings? I know that their breeding numbers have been down since the war, but how is that automatically linked to dark magick or a cursed item? I suppose they are blaming us because of the war.” The Gargoyle War had been over for five years, but that wasn’t long enough for either side to forgive or forget the atrocities they’d committed against each other, all in the name of amassing more magick.
If someone actually managed to raise a lamia in the filthy flesh . . . He shuddered to think of it. Those bitches were nasty. They had the torsos of women, the sex organs of women, but with the lower body of a bird, and teeth more like an alligator’s than a human’s. They lived off the meat of the innocent.
“I’ve met with Moonfire Glee this morning. She’s says that they’re not accusing us, but would like our help.
Moonfire thinks that there is someone else to blame who is trying to implicate the warlocks. A broken wand was found at the museum break-in.”
“We don’t even use wands anymore, for the most part. It’s like putting bunny ears on your spelltop for better In-ternet reception.”
“Dred, there was something else.”
Dred knew from his tone that this was definitely something he didn’t want to hear. He’d seen some atrocities in the war and he’d even done things that he wasn’t proud of: killing, maiming, sometimes even torturing prisoners for information, but they were things that had to be done.
“Just get on with it. All of this dramatic buildup does nothing for my attitude.”
“Or your complexion,” Hubert attempted a joke.
“Now you’re joking? This must be like deep-sea shit diving if you’re trying to be funny.”
“I’ll just send you the file.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it, after I see this great horror?” Dred felt something akin to trepidation coiling like a snake in his belly, even though he spoke casually.
“You need to find out who is doing this and stop them.
Before anything happens to more hatchlings, or this bastard succeeds and manages to raise a lamia. I know you run in certain circles, but you’re going to need to expand your horizons to the calmer set. This guy isn’t going to do anything that’s going to draw attention to himself. He’s going to be living in the suburbs with a yard and a dog. He’s going to be married and they will be well-to-do. Your normal playboy broom-set party folk are not going to cut it.”
“Okay, not a problem.”
“You say that now.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dred furrowed his brow.
“Dred, you need to become a part of that group. Intrin-sically. You can’t just show up and blasé your way through this like you do everything else. They are naturally wary of those that aren’t their kind.”
“Their kind? Are they another breed of warlock I’ve yet to hear about?”
“Yes. Actually, I think they are,” Godrickle said thoughtfully.
“What kind is that?” Dred said, unimpressed.
“Married.”
If Dred had been imbibing, he would have shot it out of his nose like Middy Cherrywood’s cranberry. “Look, I’ll do a lot for my people, but marriage?”
“You’re escorting Middy Cherrywood to the Gargoyle Masque, aren’t you? She would be the perfect witch for your cover. Innocent. Sweet. You don’t have to marry her.
Just get engaged. Do the rounds of parties and social functions that will be required when a warlock of your station gets engaged. Present it before the Chancellors’ Council. It will be approved. It will allow you to move in circles that you didn’t even know you wanted to move in.”
“That’s for damn sure.”
“We believe that a member of the Witches’ Auxiliary and of the Warlocks’ Club are involved. It could be a spousal team. Only married folk are allowed to join. Look at the file. Then tell me you’re not going to do it,” Hubert said with a sigh.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I’m just not happy about it.”
“Just look at the file, Dred. Look at the file.” Hubert’s image went dark.
Dred’s Witchberry beeped to notify him of the file he’d received. His stomach turned and he took a breath to steady himself before he opened the file.
What he saw was indeed horrible. The file was full of pictures that were nothing but carnage. Dred Shadowins had seen death; he’d dealt her cold kiss and even felt it himself upon his cheek in the bleak hours before dawn. He’d never seen anything like this.
There had to be hundreds of gargoyle hatchlings, all broken and bloody. Dead before they’d had a chance to experience the world. Some lay entwined with one another, trying to protect the smaller ones. Wings and limbs had been torn off, presumable to feed the lamia. Or an army of them.
Dred couldn’t look at those little faces frozen in horror, the wide innocence of those dark eyes forever open. . . . He could feel his stomach revolt and he managed to make it to the bathroom before he threw up. Those images burned themselves into his brain; he kept closing his eyes, but they were still there. He’d seen horrors in the war, yes. But never anything like this.
Dred knew that he was going to do as Godrickle had asked. He knew that he’d do anything to keep such an atrocity from ever happening again. All of those hatchlings were babies, they were someone’s children.
During the war, they’d been told that gargoyles didn’t have the same emotions as warlocks and witches. They were told that because gargoyles hatched their young, they were cold-blooded in every sense of the word. Dred knew otherwise; he’d seen mothers and fathers weeping over fallen warriors, he’d seen . . .