I Regret Nothing - JB Trepagnier Page 0,22

if I had my gargoyle, but these fucking cuffs had taken him away from me.

Speaking of that fucking witch, she came flouncing into our mailroom and started hitting on Dakarys and me. She wasn’t my type, and she wasn’t Dakarys’s either. She would have been pretty if I didn’t know so much about her already. She was all up in my face stroking my arm.

“I’ve never met a gargoyle before,” she purred.

I caught her wrist before she could run her fingers over my scalp.

“Then perhaps you don’t know that you shouldn’t piss them off. What do you want, Venus?”

“Exactly. Why are you in our mailroom?” Dakarys said.

“I hear you can get things. Things they don’t sell at the commissary.”

Things we’d never get her no matter how much she hit on us or begged. We knew what she would use them for. She was already breaking Astrid’s rules, and that didn’t bode well for us.

“Why? What do you want?” Dakarys asked.

What the fuck was he doing? Everything we got for the witches went through a warlock named Darius. It was just how things went. Darius brought us a list when he picked up the mail, and we delivered it when we dropped off the mail. Witches didn’t approach us directly. It was against the rules. It was Astrid’s rules and our rules. It gave us less of a chance to get caught. Venus wouldn’t have had a job yet, just like Rei, so she had free time on her hands. Did she not know Rei was with us, or did she think we were stupid?

Venus slid a piece of paper into his hands.

“Everything on this list.”

Dakarys slid the list into this jumpsuit pocket and winked at her. He was up to something. He usually was.

“We’ll see what we can do.”

“Thanks! Maybe we can hang out. I’m bored.”

I hoped she would go be bored somewhere else. This woman was vile.

“You can’t be in here unless you are working. Maybe later,” I said.

“Great. Bye, sexy.”

Venus swayed her hips like she thought she was sexy as she left the mailroom. Like anyone could make our prison jumpsuits sexy. Venus certainly thought she could. As soon as the door closed, we went back to scanning packages. Dakarys hadn’t even looked at the list.

“What are you playing at?”

“Witch games. Isn’t it fun?”

“Not with our thief on the line.”

The door opened again, and Darius slipped in. Now it made sense. Darius always brought the list from the witches nowadays. We were getting pretty good at figuring out what all the ingredients they asked us to get were meant for. We could even brew some poisons ourselves after chatting with Darius.

“What’s the shit on this list for?” Dakarys said, shoving the list at Darius.

Darius looked over the list and frowned.

“A really nasty poison that not even Astrid will let us use. Who gave you this?”

“Your new witch is causing problems with our new friend Rei. We had an arrangement with Astrid.”

Darius sighed.

“I don’t like her. Astrid called a meeting, and we all agreed to leave Rei alone. Venus agreed too. What do I need to do to get these items?”

We weren’t going to ask him to rat. We’d never do that. But this needed to be handled because Venus was out of control. She was defying the orders of her high priestess and asking us to help her kill Rei.

“You’d better get Astrid out of laundry and into the mailroom, Darius. We had this handled,” I said.

“I’m Astrid’s third. Are you sure you don’t want me to handle this?”

Dakarys looked down at Darius’s list.

“I know what these ingredients are for. Astrid wants a potion to bind a new witch to the coven. That can only be Venus. How would you handle this, Darius?”

Darius sagged.

“I have no idea. If I snapped her neck, I’d just make her a martyr. Several witches agreed with Astrid not to come at Rei, but they didn’t want to. They thought your fox had anything Venus wanted to throw at her coming her way. Your fox is bringing a lot of drama into my coven.”

I let out a little growl. This was not Rei’s fault.

“Blame your witch for that. Astrid gave her an order, and she’s the one that can’t drop it.”

“Your fox bit her.”

“You’ve met Venus. Can you blame her?”

“No, I guess not. I don’t like her either, and I don’t particularly appreciate that she’s disobeying Astrid. I’ll get Astrid. She’s not going to like this.”

The witches had a monopoly on laundry duty.