Accidentally Aphrodite - Dakota Cassidy Page 0,12
Quinn wrinkled her nose. “Now, now. That wasn’t exactly what Nina said.”
Ingrid threw up her arms in frustration, her sigh grating. “Fine. She said the last thing you should be doing is hitting Greece alone because the idiot, romantic, rose-colored-glasses wearer that you are, you’d probably end up shackled to some olive farmer as your rebound. Okay? Happy? Despite her forward nature—insensitive, cranky, sometimes crass…okay, always crass—even she could tell you looked like hell, and Nina never notices anything about anyone unless it’s about her.”
Quinn clucked her tongue with admonishment. “Don’t forget the label suicidal. She said I looked suicidal.” And maybe she had for the first week or so after Igor had told her he wasn’t going to Greece with her at all, but leaving her for Shawna.
Red, swollen eyes and the muttered wish to have a bus run you over didn’t deserve a label as harsh as suicidal.
Everyone deserved a good cry when their bubble of romance was burst by the pin of infidelity. She’d gotten over the sobbing, gulping, four-bags-of-pork-rinds-in-a-row part of it, and she’d thought she was moving on to something much less pathetic when she’d stepped onto the plane to Greece.
“You still look confused.”
“It’s a lot to absorb.” Her head was spinning from the attempt to absorb.
Ingrid suddenly stuck a finger in the air. “Oh! I have the perfect way for you to relate to this. You know all those Molly Harper books you read about werewolves and vampires and love-sweet-love? It’s kind of like that only real.”
Right. This was exactly like that. Quinn frowned. “So back to Katie. Repeat the part about why Nina and company had to save her?”
“Remember the bit where I told you bad people wanted to kill Katie and her husband after they found out she was turned into a cougar?”
Panic seized Quinn from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She gripped Ingrid’s arm. “Are you saying someone’s going to want to kill me because I bit an apple that tastes like donkey’s ass?”
“How do you know what donkey’s ass tastes like?”
“I don’t. I’m just assuming that ass, in particular a donkey’s ass, leaves an aftertaste.”
Ingrid kept her voice low, turning her body away from the Greek goodness of Khristos. “I’m not saying anyone wants to kill you. Not yet. I just know from experience, after knowing Nina, Marty, and Wanda for a few years now and hearing all of their client stories, that there’s always some bad dude who wants whatever it is the client stumbled upon when they have the paranormal accidents. The last case they had, it was dragon scales. Those scales turned not one, but two people into dragons, and the scales belonged to very bad people, and they didn’t like that someone accidentally swallowed them. And then there was baby dragon—”
Quinn’s eyes flew open wide in horror, clapping a hand over her mouth. Okay, she’d been willing to suspend disbelief for the most part, but what was next? Were-bears? “Stop it! Dragons? Now you’ve gone too far, Ingrid. Dragons don’t exist. I was willing to suspend my disbelief with Nina and gang, but a baby dragon is too—”
Ingrid squatted in front of her and shoved her phone in Quinn’s face. “Don’t make me show you, Quinn! I told you I have pictures and everything.”
She blanched, throwing her hand over her eyes. “No! No physical proof. Not yet. Please.”
Ingrid, peeled back Quinn’s fingers from her face, an eyebrow raised. “How could you doubt what I say is true after what’s happened to you?”
Quinn sucked in a breath, yanking her hair over her shoulder and re-braiding it. Okay, so fair enough. Nina really could lift a car, and fly, and Marty was a pretty, petite blonde with impeccable fashion sense one minute, a hairy, snarling, jagged-toothed animal on all fours the next. And Wanda? Well, she was a combo pack of both vampire and werewolf.
Composed once more, she let her hand rest on Ingrid’s arm, squeezing it. “So just because something’s happened to me, you think someone bad is going to want what I have? How many bad guys want bigger boobs, Ingrid?” Ridiculous.
But Ingrid shook her head vehemently. “Oh, no. No, no. That’s not the entire story. I can guarantee you that much. He said you have the power of Aphrodite. That’s huge! And I’ve seen things because of Nina, Quinn Morris. I’ve seen some scary things and I don’t believe this Khristos is telling us the whole truth about that