Magic Misled (Lizzie Grace #7) - Keri Arthur Page 0,61
so fucking badly you won’t even be able to scratch your balls without help. Understand?”
He nodded. He couldn’t actually do anything else given the fierce grip Belle currently had on his mind. And while she was perfectly able to simply delve into his thoughts and get every bit of information she needed, doing it this way not only saved her some energy but also ramped up his fear levels—and given how pissed off she was, that was something she was quite enjoying.
“Shall we try that question again?” Her tone was saccharine sweet. “What dealings have you had with the professor?”
She eased her grip on him, and he immediately tried to stand. Whether he was intending to run or it was simply an attempt to use his greater bulk to intimidate, I couldn’t say. He didn’t succeed either way.
He swallowed heavily and then said, “I haven’t been in contact with her. I don’t know her. I only know her name.”
“And how do you know her name?”
“Belle, please, I never meant any harm—”
“Then answer the goddamn question and you won’t come to any harm.”
His expression suggested he was seriously regretting ever getting involved. I knew that went both ways.
“I was talking to a friend in Melbourne about the conversions we were doing, and he mentioned that maybe we could contact the professor to see if the books were valuable.”
“When was this?”
He shrugged. “Before we broke up.”
Meaning before Belle had placed her restrictions in his mind, which might explain why they apparently hadn’t stopped him talking to the friend about the books. They’d been aimed at preventing discussions with new people.
“To what aim?” she asked.
“I wasn’t intending—”
“To rip me off? To sell books you had no entitlement to and no understanding of?” She paused, her gaze narrowing as she dove a little deeper. “Fuck me, you’re already selling e-copies? Do you know how dangerous these books could be in the wrong hands?”
Not to mention the possibility of the High Council getting wind of the copies and wondering where the hell someone like Kash got hold of them, I said.
I can order him to pull them down and erase all reference of them from his mind, Belle said. But I can’t do much about the copies that are already out there.
“Oh, come on,” Kash was saying. “Two were mythology books, and the other three simple spell books—there’s no great harm in any of them.”
“And you say this as an expert in magic, do you?” She paused again, gaze narrowing. “Ah, so the friend is a witch.”
“Half-blood—”
“And can he perform magic?”
“Not really—”
“How does this Roland know the professor then?”
“They went to school together.”
“Was it Roland or you who arranged the break-in attempts on our storage unit and premises?”
“What break-ins?” He sounded genuinely confused. “Why would we do that when it’s simply easier to keep playing the game as we were—”
“And get the rest with us being none the wiser?” Belle finished for him.
He sighed. “Yes.”
“So when I suddenly stopped giving you the books to transcribe, you and Roland hatched this other plan?”
“No. I thought the lull was temporary.” His lips twisted. “You did have trouble keeping away from this gorgeous bod. At least until very recently, anyway.”
The surge of her anger blistered through my mind, though she somehow resisted the urge to smite him. “Is Roland currently in the reservation?”
“Yes. But I don’t—”
“Are you really going to push that lie out there?” Belle said. “Because no one’s buying it.”
He grimaced. “Fine. But I really didn’t know he’d go as far as robbery to get the rest of the books.”
“While that isn’t actually a lie, you certainly did suspect he’d take direct action if the seduction method kept failing. He is the brawn to your brain, right?”
He didn’t say anything to that, which was probably just as well.
Belle sighed. “Ring him. Tell him you need to meet him urgently.”
“My phone’s in the locker.”
“Then let’s go get it, shall we?”
He didn’t have any choice in the matter, and in very little time, he’d retrieved his phone and was making the call.
“On loudspeaker,” Belle added.
He obeyed. The call was answered after a couple of rings. “Kash? What’s up?”
“Plenty,” Kash replied, his words courtesy of Belle’s control over him. “We need to meet. Urgently.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“I can’t speak here. Can you meet me at Morrison’s?”
Morrison’s was a pub not that far away from his place, if I remembered rightly. Belle had mentioned it once or twice.