Gypsy Magic - J.R. Rain Page 0,52

town.”

“I know who Ophelia is,” I almost interrupted.

“Right, neither of us dislikes Marty,” Roy finished.

“Why does Ophelia have such a problem with him?” I asked, deciding to get to the bottom of this mystery.

“She just hates that Haven Hollow has become ‘touristy’ and ‘kitschy’,” he started, using air quotes. “And she includes Marty’s ghost exorcisms in that description.”

“Ophelia Ponsobby,” Lorcan spat the words out and then waved them away with an unconcerned, yet well-manicured hand. “That nasty hag can gargle with an old man’s bollocks for all I care,” he spat, draining the last of his drink.

I inhaled my next sip of iced tea and drowned my laugh, because I could tell Roy didn’t appreciate Lorcan’s perspective. Lorcan set his now empty drink on the bar top and leaned over, touching me on the back as he whispered: “Though she’d do well with some male sport in her life, aye?”

“Into the basement,” Roy snapped at Lorcan, shoving a thick, calloused finger into Lorcan’s face as he pushed Lorcan’s hand off me. “Sleep it off and when you’re sober enough, go home, you careless lush.”

There was a frozen split second where I was convinced Lorcan was about to vault the bar and send one of those pale fists into Roy’s handsome face. Lorcan’s full, almost pouty lips pulled slightly off his teeth. I hadn’t quite noticed how prominent his incisors and bicuspids were until he ran his tongue across them absently.

Then Lorcan smiled again. It was just a twitch of his lips, the expression devoid of much warmth. It didn’t stretch up into the deep green of his eyes. They were fathomless, and it wasn’t unlike staring into the gaping dark of the Mariana Trench. Something lurked beneath his stare.

It was then that I decided there was something very wrong with the people of this town.

“Have it your way, Osbourne. Put the libation on my tab, will you?” Lorcan half-turned, caught my eye and the grin turned wicked. After what I’d seen in his eyes for that split second, the lascivious edge to the expression didn’t warm me. I couldn’t conceal a shiver as his eyes raked over me, and my heart threw itself violently at my ribs, attempting a panicked escape.

“Dia dhuit, my lovely,” he said, and blew me a kiss over his shoulder as he sauntered off.

“What a tool,” Roy muttered when Lorcan disappeared into the back, presumably to sleep off his indulgence on a cot somewhere. I was surprised Roy had mentioned his basement because it didn’t seem like these two were friends… so why not just send Lorcan home? Why offer up his basement?

“He was okay,” I answered, not wanting Roy to think too much of it. I wasn’t offended by Lorcan, so I didn’t figure Roy should be… well, not on my account, anyway.

Roy managed to look even more stoic when he frowned. His heavy brows pushed down, shadowing the nimbus gray of his eyes. If he’d been sitting down, with his hand propped under his chin, he’d have been a dead ringer for The Thinker.

“Lorcan is anything but ‘okay’,” Roy responded, shaking his head as he looked at me. “Be careful around him. He’s an infamous womanizer.”

“Well, not to worry. He isn’t my… type,” I answered, even though I inwardly argued with myself that I didn’t even have a type. Well, loser was probably my type, as exemplified by the string of crappy relationships in my past.

“If I were you, I’d invest in some garlic pills and start taking them post haste.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it—the suggestion was just so completely out of left field. Yet, his expression remained serious. “Why on earth would I do that?”

He shrugged, like his statement wasn’t so weird. “Garlic lowers your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Sometimes it can even prevent the common cold. And it’s one hundred percent proven to repel Lorcan Rowe.”

I frowned at him. “And why is that?”

Roy shrugged again, going for casual but not quite getting there. “He has a… garlic allergy.”

I shook my head, a small helpless laugh burbling from me because I didn’t understand how garlic was going to repel a man. Unless…

Oh my God, Poppy! I reprimanded myself. Monsters aren’t real, remember? And that means vampires aren’t real either.

Right.

That was when I remembered Roy’s comment about Ophelia not liking how Haven Hollow was becoming touristy and how she didn’t like Marty for that exact reason. I decided to be a little nosy… “I’ve heard there are rumors about a cult in