When I reached the hallway and dashed down to the second floor to my room, the guys all kept pace with me.Cass and Dray followed close behind, since obviously they couldn’t get more than a few feet from me with how passionately we were connected.But when I turned to go into my room, I noticed the Wizard of Weird trailing behind us, his thick brows drawn together and a calculating look on his face.He muttered darkly as he swept past us to his own prison—uh, I mean, guest room.
Something about the look on his face made me uneasy.But I had more important things to deal with.“Quick, Cass,” I said as I rushed into the room.“I need a file and some topcoat!”
Chapter 7
Melvinsatatthebig, ostentatious dining room table with the two cardboard man-cutouts.Apparently, even Beefcake One and Beefcake Two weren’t enough to distract Mary Sue from a nail polish emergency.His instincts had been right.But it took more magic than it should have to chip one little nail.
He felt the groove between his brows deepening.He had a hunch he knew exactly what was keeping this stupid illusion in place.The old Marehatedthe color pink.And he’d seen her paint her nails maybe a grand total of three times in all the years he’d known her—each time a deep, blood red.Ofcourseit was the damned pink nail polish.Had to be.
Their nemesis would find it ironic—she’d think it downright fucking hilarious to see Mare acting like the ditzy, clueless females she’d always scoffed at before.
Damn it.
Melvin had managed to engage the two boneheads in conversation.They didn’t give a fuck if he was ugly or his clothes weren’t fashionable.As Cass had so eloquently put it, Melvin didn’t have tits, so they couldn’t care less.
Any other time, Melvin would laugh his ass off, since Cassius and Dray both happened to be bisexual.And he meantreallybisexual.But this place was getting to Melvin more than he wanted to admit.It was bad enough that the people he cared for—his only real family—didn’t even recognize him and treated him like some weird, repulsive stranger.But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst part was seeing how well and truly trapped they were.It was looking in Cassius’s sky-blue eyes expecting ready humor and quick, keen wit, but instead finding only bovine stereotypical meathead.If the sharp-minded, restless problem-solver had any awareness of what was going on, it had to be hell to be trapped inside there.
Not that Draven was much better.Melvin’s oldest friend shoveled a sandwich in his mouth in between his bouts of commentary about the football game that played on the TV on the sideboard.No awareness showed on his weirdly symmetrical chiseled features, nothing to hint at the fact that he hated sports with a passion.Normally, he’d have some dry comment about people’s obsession with overt displays of toxic masculinity.
Melvin put his head in his hands.It was up to him to figure this out alone.They were all depending on him, they’d put their trust in him—even if they didn’t remember.When Mare had called him, her rich voice strained and clipped with fear, he’d nearly lost his mind.Bad shitalwayshappened when they were separated, but he’d had research to do at the time, so he’d stayed home while they were out on the town.He wanted to beat himself up for staying behind.But…ithadgiven him just enough time and distance to get Mare’s warning that Belinda was after them, spell himself, and find his family just as the world closed around them.
Mare had trusted him to save them all.He couldn’t let her down now.
“Shouldn’t the two of you be busy planning on how to woo your…queen…right now, instead of watching sports and stuffing your faces?”He said calmly, picking up his own sandwich like he had not a care in the world.They were both males.By the logic of this place, that should mean they only thought with their dicks.
The idiots glanced at him, confused.It was like they were only partially sentient these days.“What do you mean?”Cass said with a frown, flexing his perfect pecs for no apparent reason.
“Yeah,” Dray added as he set his food down and dusted off his hands, preparing to beat the hell out of Melvin for even suggesting they weren’t good little knights.“Are you saying we don’t know how to take care of our mate?”
Melvin arched a brow at the man.“Not at all.But…you keep using that word…mate.Only animals have mates, Dray.Are you implying that…you aren’t human?”
The poor guy’s face turned a weird shade of purple under his brown skin.“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he finally muttered.“Weirdo.”
Melvin sighed.So much for that idea.Dropping hints didn’t seem to get him anywhere.“I know we got off on the wrong foot,” he said in his most friendly and not-at-all-strained-because-they-needed-to-get-the-hell-out-of-here voice.“But maybe I can make it up to you.I noticed there’s a pool down here on the lower floor.I could…use my magic to make some pretty lights and bubbles.”He gave a nonchalant shrug.“Maybe once your queenie is done with her nails, you can convince her to put on a cute little bikini and splash around with you.You know, classic ‘oh, darn, we’re allwetandslippery’ moment.”
Melvin watched as two sets of wheels very slowly began to spin.Thank fuck for the dumb, horny male stereotype in this place.It made it easier to get them to do what he needed them to do—distract Mary.
It grated on his nerves, having to sit there while they finished lunch and went to wrangle Mary out of her room and away from her precious nail polish.Then they wanted Melvin where they could keep an eye on him.It took some convincing, but thankfully the ridiculously gushing pheromones made the three morons more than willing to swallow his excuse of wanting to do some experiments while they fucked around.He said it was to figure out how the house worked, so Mary could find her hidden kingdom and all that bullshit.But that was onlyslightlytrue.Hedidneed to do some magic.And hedidneed to figure out how the house worked—so he could destroy it.
At least one good thing had come out of their explorations of the mansion.He pulled the opaque crystal out of his pocket and set it on the countertop.He’d found the damned thing in one of the inner rooms he hadn’t let Mare and her idiot followers explore.He had been right to be suspicious too, the magic had damned near caught him, even with his personal protection charms working at full force.Only Hedwig opening the closet door had let him break free and return to the main house.It didn’t escape his notice that the butler hadn’t actuallyusedthe duster he was carrying at the time.
Hedwig had always been sharper than he let on.Thank fuck.
Melvin painstakingly set up a make-shift alchemy set in the dining room.Then, once he heard splashing and mind-numbingly flowery flirting coming from the vicinity of the massive pool, he crept out of the room and hurried up the stairs.
He almost did a jig when he found Mary Sue’s bedroom unlocked.He flung open the door and put a hand over his eyes, taking a bracing breath and blinking a few times to clear the shock to the system.There was alotof fucking pink.
Like…alot.Christ on a cracker, that fucking hurt to look at.
He slipped into the room and pulled the door shut, then began his search.The magic was stronger here, in Mary’s personal space.No doubt because she was the main target for the whole damned spell.He rummaged around on her nightstand and her dressers and was just heading toward the bathroom when the hallway door opened, and the damned butler stepped in.
The older guy stood there, blinking at him, his bushy eyebrows twitching, the deep wrinkles on his face getting worse while his mouth worked like he was chewing on a lemon.He gripped the pile of towels he held like they were a life vest.
“Hedwig,” Melvin said on a sigh.“I know it’s hard, but please fight it.You know why I’m here.Where’s the damned nail polish?”He dropped his hands loose at his sides, fingers limber and ready for casting if he had to.
“You’re not supposed to be in my queen’s quarters,” the man finally got out, but he didn’t call out in alarm.Instead, he kicked the door shut behind him with his foot.Spectacular.Some people were just too strong willed for binding spells to fully take.And he was pretty sure Hedwig was one of those people.“Did you come to fetch something for our mistress?”
