I slowly look at her from under my lashes and she visibly gulps. She might not know I’m different, but her basic instinct knows subconsciously I’mfuckingdangerous.
“I’m Layla,” a blonde woman says while she gets up with a friendly smile. “Here, come join us.” She grabs a chair and pulls it closer to her at the end, allowing me to sit. I smooth out my dress—abandoning the contents in my bag—as a waiter quickly brings me over a plate full of fruit with a croissant. I nod my thanks and bring my attention back to the women I came here to see.
“Thank you, Layla. That’s sweet of you,” I say before accepting the drink the server brings me next.
“As you already know, that’s Layla, and Lucy. I’m Lily, and the grumpy one over there is Lanna.” She points to the corresponding girls. After that, it’s as if a dam opens up and we spend the next hour talking. They are a plethora of information, and I’m the sponge that sits back and soaks it all in. It turns out they’ve been friends since grade school and promised to always stay close. How their friendship worked was they would take turns doing what the other enjoyed doing. It’s not until the girls start to remove their jewelry for the mani-pedis that something catches my eye.
Glancing between the women, I notice all of them wearing the same color of stone in their jewelry. The stones themselves are a pretty pink and yellow swirl encased in what looks like gold. If I didn’t know better I would say they looked like Demstones. They were a rare combination of Brimstone and Star Rubies. They were known to hold powerful spells and were extremely hard to acquire.
“Those are lovely trinkets. Where did you get them?” I ask the group, and it’s Layla who lights up.
“Ahh. That was my idea, I’m ashamed to say,” she admits, color rushing to her cheeks as the other women laugh at her. “I have a thing for festivals and tarot card readings.”
“So it was our turn to do what Layla wanted one weekend and sure enough, there was a Zodiac festival we’d never heard of, but she wanted to check it out,” Lanna explains rolling her eyes and picking at her cuticles.
“Sue me,” Layla replies with a chuckle. “Besides, you had fun if I remember correctly.”
“We went into the fortune teller’s tent and as soon as we walked in, we were greeted by this drop-dead gorgeous woman. I mean I’m bi and all, but I was about to drop down on one knee and propose right then and there,” Lily confesses with a blush when we make eye contact.
“I just remember her hypnotic gray eyes and how they seemed to suck you in when she looked at you,” Lanna recounts. She points to the nail polish she wants while Layla picks back up the story.
“I know with most fortune-tellers, they have you pay and they do your fortune one at a time, but this woman insisted that all four of us stay and said she saw something special in us.” Layla grabs her ankle bracelet and hands it to me. “She actually gave us these to wear for good luck. She said we were destined to have them and they would lead us to our true loves. That we would find them in a group of friends that were closer than blood. Our destiny was bigger than what we could ever know.” Her voice trails off as her eyes look off in the distance.
As soon as the bracelet makes contact with my skin, red filters across my vision for a split second before the room goes dark.
CHAPTER17
Bloody Departed
Lilith
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.The constant dripping of liquid landing on my cheek arouses me from another blackout. Without moving, I slowly take in and catalog my surroundings. There’s a hard floor underneath me and I’m lying in something wet. Did I fall in the pedicure tub? That would be disgusting if not embarrassing in front of the women.
During my search for my mates, I found out the hard way that it takes a few minutes to regain full control of my body after a blackout. The first time I tried to stand, I ended up rolling down a hillside and almost drowned in a lake. Thankfully, I was able to move my wings sufficiently to block the water long enough to gain proper control.
Opening my eyes, I find myself plastered to the hardwood floor and facing Daniel’s hallway to the foyer. I feel my tail swish back and forth in irritation, and my eyes go wide in panic.
Fuck! I’m naked and in my Demon form.
What if the girls see me like this? They can’t know I’m a fucking Demon! How in the hell am I going to explain that?
‘Haha. You don’t need to worry about that anymore.’Chew Toy giggles, and lead drops in my stomach.
‘What did you do?’My inner voice comes out an octave higher than normal in my panic.
‘Now where’s the fun in that?’Chew Toy replies.
I will my arms to move, but it’s my wings that respond. They shift me a little bit to the point that I can see back towards the area where I had been sitting and what I see makes me gasp.
There’s a trail of blood from me to the body in front of my chair. I can tell from here that it's one of the technicians that was working to give us a mani-pedi, but that’s all I can see from here.
What happened?
‘Do you like our handy work?’Grumpy asks like a child looking for praise from their parents. ‘I really can’t take all the credit of course. You did all the heavy work, and Rocks had the idea.’
Fear propels me and I pull myself up on wobbly legs as red tissue lands down at my bare feet.
Plop.
