“I’d like to earn my keep around here, Mr. Wolfsbane, if you’ll let me?” He batted his long eyelashes and pouted his pretty lips, looking younger and more vulnerable than he had last night. I wondered at his age, for the fae were said to live a long time and their faces rarely reflected their true years.
“And how would you do that?” I asked, trying to maintain some semblance of self-control.
“I saw you were having a wet t-shirt contest tonight. I’d like to enter.”
“You’d have to pay your way in or get sponsored.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said with a flirtatious arrogance. There was power in knowing you were a fine piece of ass, and Skyler Larkspur clearly knew it. “Maybe I could even convince you to sponsor me? I promise to show you something you’ve never seen before.” His voice was low andsultry as he placed one finger against my sternum, teasing me again. Everything felt like foreplay with this vexing fae.
“I’ve seen it all, pretty boy,” I assured him. Running a bar that catered to all manner of beasts and magical creatures made it so.
He shot me a wink. “We’ll see about that.”
Grabbing the six-pack of spirits and grocery bag, he sashayed his way toward the door, giving me a saucy look on his way out. My cock was raging all over again, a fiery hot brand in my pants. The Owner pointed to my two buckets of freshly minted ice and said discreetly, “Ice baths are good for cooling one’s passions.”
I grunted and shot him a dirty look before laying my coin on the counter. “If my mechanic finds anything suspicious when he looks at my ice maker tomorrow, I’ll be coming back here to pay you a visit.”
The man gave me a toothsome smile as he collected his coin. “I’ll look forward to it, Mr. Wolfsbane. I hope you have a most enchanting afternoon.”
Chapter five
Skylar
Icould hardly sayI was living my best life. Thriving? Not a chance. After my excursion to The Magic Shop, I took to lazing around in a lawn chair by the motel’s over-chlorinated pool, nursing a Mind Eraser from the bottle while all up in my feelings. As usual when I found myself in these situations, I started to reflect, going over all my mistakes, all the times I’d excused my ex’s bad behavior and convinced myself that his jealousy and controlling tendencies had only meant that the intensity of our love made him insecure.
Needing some reassurances of both my decision to leave him and my sex appeal, I decided to summon my best friend Monica, which I could now do, thanks to the enchanted vintage compact I’d “borrowed” from The Owner of The Magic Shop earlier that day, unbeknownst to him or the handsome but infuriating minotaur. Despite Hiero's bad opinion of me, running into the stern-faced leather daddy from last night had been a sweet little bonus, evidence that the Goddess above favored me.
About damn time.
I popped open the pewter contraption and looked past my reflection in the mirror, imagining my best friend’s full-lipped, heart-shaped face while murmuring her name until she finally answered.
“Skylar,” she said, her brown eyes widening with surprise. “I’ve been looking all over for you.He’sbeen looking all over for you.”
“Cedrych?” I asked, altogether too hopeful and too flattered.
“He came by my place yesterday with the royal guard and practically interrogated me.”
“What did you say?”
“I said thatifyou’d left, it was probably because of him. That he’s been treating you like garbage for as long as you’ve known him and you deserve better.”
Goddess bless my best friend, Monica. If only I’d listened.
"So, where are you?" she asked.
“I’m in the Dragonback Mountains, holed up in a place called the Purple Pegasus."
“Why would you go there?” she asked with a look of horror. According to what we’d been taught, the shifter clans were wild and lawless with their own brand of justice that involved bare-knuckle brawling and feats of strength, not my forte exactly. But everyone I’d met so far had been perfectlypleasant. Even the minotaur who’d tempted then rejected me hadn’t laid a hand on me in harm, though the blow to my ego had smarted aplenty.
“It called to me,” I said. I’d also not had enough coin to go much farther in my journey, and the Pegasus’s proprietor said she’d take my first payment at the end of the week. “I’m safe for now, but I need some reminders,” I said to Monica because my flesh was weak and the urge to take Cedrych back was strong. It wasn’t that I missedhim, exactly, but I missed knowing what to expect, the routine he provided, and the occasional comforts he gave me that I guarded like a dog with a bone.
“Well, aside from the most recent disgrace,getting betrothed to someone else, remember the time he forgot your birthday?”
Both times he’d forgotten actually, which had been hurtful, yes, especially since I’d reminded him. “The first time we’d only just met, and he made up for it the second time with that expensive sapphire bangle,” I said.
“That’s how healwaysmakes up for it, Skylar, by giving you pretty trinkets that cost him nothing. He probably doesn’t even pick them out himself, simply has one of his minions do it for him.”
Cedrychhadlooked surprised when I’d opened some of his gifts, as if he were also seeing them for the first time.
