“They must be good dreams.”
“Oh, trust me, they are.”
We both laughed.
I stepped back and stared at my friend. He looked rugged with a dark shadow on his jawline and his longer dark hair. The dark shades made the contrasting blue of his eyes stand out, made him look stunning. Or maybe I just missed him so much my eyes were deceiving me. “Have you heard Sarah is supposedly here?”
His smile fell. “We had an inkling she’d left Paris. No one had caught sight of her for days. But neither of us thought she’d be stupid enough to come here.”
“Bob?” I asked, stepping away from him and shifting to the bar to sit down.
He perched on the stool next to me. “He’s gone to see Marg.”
My stomach churned for what they must be going through. “She must be beside herself.”
“She is.” He reached over and poured himself a vodka and soda and took a sip, swallowing before he spoke. “They both are.” His sadness, his exhaustion, I saw them in his face, felt them in my veins.
“Did you get to speak to her at all or get to pass information on to her?”
“No. We asked around, told people her father was looking for her, but if anyone managed to talk to her, they didn’t let on.”
“Ethan.” Rodney’s voice turned both our heads. I groaned and rested my elbow on the bar, watching him from the corner of my eye. He stalked across the room, his black jacket nipping at the top of his long, black-laced boots. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”
Ethan shook his hand. “I heard you were in town, it’s good to see you too.” The comment seemed to be genuine. For the life of me, I couldn’t work out why anyone would like the guy.
“You two seem well acquainted,” Rodney said. There was a question in the comment.
“We are. Amy lives with me,” Ethan answered casually.
Rodney’s brows lifted. “Lives with you and not Karson?” The accusation was as obvious as a boner at a tea party. “How interesting.”
“Ethan and I are friends,” I stated. It was the truth; he was my friend—my best friend. “I live with him in Church Heights.”
His gaze drifted lazily between us. “I see, a witch living with not one but two vampires. How does that work exactly, especially when one is Karson?”
I sighed. “Cut it out with your suspicious bullshit. You don’t like me, fine. I have a news flash for you—I can’t stand you either.”
Rodney sneered. “You’re a witch to the core, aren’t you.”
“Takes one to know one,” I retorted.
Karson appeared from nowhere. He didn’t greet Ethan. He’d clearly already seen him. He stepped up to my side so I was flanked by him and Ethan. Karson said nothing; he didn’t need to. I felt his annoyance, but whether it was because he wanted to strangle me or Rodney, I couldn’t be sure.
“How very clichéd,” Rodney droned with a bored flick of his hand. “Surely, you can think of something a little more interesting to reply with?”
“Sometimes the parts we despise in others are merely unhealed parts of ourselves dwelling in our own shadows.”
Rodney huffed a laugh. “I don’t hate the witch inside me, it gives me power, it gives me strength.” He leaned closer, so close I could smell whiskey and something sweet on his breath, something rusty. Karson and Ethan both subtly stiffened. Not so subtly that Rodney didn’t notice; a lazy smirk edged his lips. “Tell me, Amelia, why do you hate the witch inside you so much? What is it you’re hiding from?”
I picked up my glass and pretended equal boredom. “I don’t.”
He eased back. “But I think you do.”
I shrugged. “I don’t give a fuck what you think.”
“I can answer that for her.” Monique swanned into the room, her brown-heeled boots clicking on the floor. “She’s in love with Karson and she knows of his torrid history with them, so she prefers to pretend she isn’t the very thing he despises.”
Her comment stung like salt rubbed in a wound. I knew Karson loved me. He protected me. But if I could change anything for him, it would be what I was. I kept my face blank, even as the truth burned.
