After parking in our garage, I ran up the stairs to the thick alloy door that was both fire- and bulletproof and looked into the little security scanner beside it. Red light swept across my eyes, and a second later the locks tumbled and the door slid silently open.
The huge industrial fans that dominated the vaulted ceiling were on full, creating such a breeze that it whipped my hair out of its ponytail—although it didn’t do a lot to erase the two voices harmonizing, or the sharp scent of roses, honey, and rum.
I knew that scent and stopped cold. Ilianna and Mirri were making love potions in the kitchen again, and there were certain moments in the creation of such potions that you really didn’t want to walk in on. Not unless you wanted to fall hard for the next male—or female, if your tastes ran that way—that you met.
Although a lot of people might still mock anything connected to witches and magic, Ilianna’s potions and charms were extremely popular simply because the damn things worked. Ilianna was a witch in the truest sense of the word, and she’d been trained in magic since she was very young. I might not have tried a love potion—and had never actually wanted to—but I’d always relied heavily on the charms she made to keep me safe while walking the gray fields.
Of course, these days I supposedly had the Dušan to do that, but the dragon had so far been untested. And even if it had been proven, I think I’d still wear Ilianna’s charms. In my opinion, you could never have enough protection when walking a place as potentially dangerous as the fields between life and death.
Even now the simple charm—which consisted of a piece of petrified wood to connect me to the earth, and small pieces of agate and serpentine for protection—was nestled between my breasts. And right beside it was the gold filigree droplet that my father had given to my mother on the night of my conception. It was shaped like two wings, and very much represented my heritage.
"Hey, ladies," I yelled. "Is it safe for me to come in?"
Mirri’s head popped into view as she leaned around the kitchen doorway. "Totally," she said, her smile bright against the richness of her skin. "Or at least, it is for you. We’re brewing potions aimed at men seeking men."
"I didn’t know you could make gender-specific potions, let alone preference-specific." My boots echoed on the wooden floors as I walked toward the kitchen. "And I hope you’ve forewarned Tao. He’ll be totally pissed if he gets caught in the backlash."
Mirri made a face then disappeared, her voice floating back to me from the depths of the kitchen. "I doubt there’s a potion alive that would turn him away from the ladies."
I laughed and leaned a shoulder against the door frame; the rich scents were just too strong to go any farther.
"So," Ilianna said, her green gaze meeting mine as she glanced over her shoulder. Like Mirri, she was a horse shifter, but she was a rich palomino where Mirri was a mahogany bay. "How’d it go today?"
"Good and bad." I updated them briefly on my father’s visit and Hunter’s mission. Mirri frowned. "If your father wishes your cooperation, why would he do that to you?"
Ilianna studied me for a moment, then said, "Because you refused, didn’t you?"
"Well, yeah. Kinda."