He pops the lollipop in his mouth and licks it obnoxiously. I want to shove it down his throat, even though I know it won’t kill him.
“Well, none of what the old bird said made any fucking sense.”Lick.
“No, but it’s more information than what I had before.”
“Did she ask you to help?”Lick.
“No,” I say.
“Pussy whipppped.”Lick.
“Fucking, give me that.” I rip the lollipop from his mouth and toss it to the middle of the street, where a car dramatically drives over the hard candy.
“Hey! You’re more on edge than normal. You owe me a lollipop.”
“You stole it,” I say, looking at him incredulously as we continue walking to an area where we can portal undetected.
“It was still mine.”
I ignore him until we get out of the public eye so we can portal. Annoyed with him, we both portal separately to the bungalow. The only thing worse than having to come home and deal with Asmo is coming home and finding Kas sitting on our couch unexpectedly.
I groan as I pass her and Kas clicks her tongue in annoyance. “You really should work on your manners, Dax. You’ve been alive long enough to know how to treat a house guest.”
“I was just saying the same thing,” Asmo says, sitting next to Kas and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. I don’t trust her, and the amount of time it took her to get Asmo wrapped around her finger is disconcerting.
“Why are you here?”
“Rude,” she says, picking her long black nails. “I was here to tell you both that I got us an invitation to Inferno two nights from now. But seeing how you act like an animal in public, maybe Asmo, and I should just go. You don’t even have a date, anyway.”
“I’ll have a date.”
“You haven’t even asked her,” Asmo reminds me.
“I’ll go to Hex and talk to her about it. Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself.”
“Oh, and pray tell, who will be this date?” Kas asks.
“This mean witch he met the other night,” Asmo says.
“Don’t worry your evil little heart about it. Just know I’ll be there.”
Kas arches her eyebrow but slides two invitations to me. “I suggest you read their policies before we go. We can’t fuck this up. We need to go in there, hope this is the mortal Mara decided to possess, get the job done and get out.”
“I think I know how to do my fucking job,” I snap back, grabbing the invitations and heading back to my room. I have a fucking headache, and now I need to figure out how to ask Blair if she will come with me.
I guess I’m taking a trip to Hex tonight, no matter how pathetic it makes me look.
Chapter 14
Steviedidn’twanttocome to Hex with me tonight, and I don’t blame her. While I was always the black sheep of the coven, Stevie was more widely accepted. The betrayal to her cuts deeper than what they did to me.
I always wonder if there was anything I could have done to fit in better, but I can’t figure it out. Why was I always so different? I didn’t like the nature aspect of being a witch. I like verbal magic, not potions, which is mainly what my coven specializes in, unless it’s group based incantation rituals.
Ever since I was little, I was always a little off. A little too rough around the edges, the other witches were directed to not associate with me. The only reason I have Stevie is because her parents passed and she came to live with me and my mother. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have anyone. Even my mother never seemed to accept me, and I wasn’t sure why.
I remember one birthday when my father came to visit. I asked him why I couldn’t live with him. He told me one day when I was older I could, but for now I had to stay with my mom. At first I believed him until I got older and realized that he was probably just doing what adults do, lie to their children so they stop asking questions.
At least he didn’t look at me like something was wrong with me. If I’m being honest, every time I saw my father, he looked at me with awe. But nonetheless his involvement was limited, and it was something I accepted a long time ago. I accepted the fact that it was me and my mother. She never abused me physically, but she was very clear in letting me know what a disappointment I was. She treated Stevie more like a daughter than me. I should have grown up hating Stevie for it, but it didn’t work out that way. Stevie put me over my mother, and I’ve always been loyal to her because of it.
