and I’m a ticking time bomb for signaling my demise and we sat at a strip club in Texas with the devil.”
Lucas lets out a snort of laughter. “When you say it like that it sounds fucking insane.”
“Right?”
I bring my hand to my head, rubbing my temples. Scarlet runs into the house ahead of us, still all excited from seeing her old owner. “I’ll write Evander a note and send it through the fireplace in the morning. The coven needs to know there’s a pack in our town being dumb-fucking-assholes trying to tap into the Ley line. We’ve protected it for years and I’m not in the mood to be messed with.”
“You need to sleep,” Lucas tells me, shutting the door behind us. I lazily seal it up with a simple spell, take off my boots, and collapse onto the couch.
All that’s left of the fire are several glowing embers, reminding me of our romantic night we were about to have.
“I’ll carry you upstairs,” Lucas says and goes to scoop me up. I’m hungry and still want a pickle.
“Can I get something to eat first?”
“You don’t have to ask,” he chuckles. “What do you want? I’ll bring it to you.”
“Pickles. I’m like ninety percent sure I have some in the fridge. And can you put some mayonnaise in a bowl? I don’t know why but I really want to dip the pickle in mayo.”
Lucas smiles. “Is this another weird craving?”
“Yeah, I think so. But is it weird? People put both mayo and pickles on sandwiches so it’s not like I’m dipping it in soy sauce.”
Lucas kisses me and goes into the kitchen. My familiars keep me company while Lucas finds the pickles and mayo, and I’m almost asleep when he brings me a bowl full of each. I eat my fill, finding it oddly satisfying and so fucking delicious, and then go upstairs. I run a damp washcloth over my face, doing a half-assed job to take my makeup off but too tired to do a more thorough job.
Finally, I crash into bed with Lucas. “If it weren't for this baby,” I start, having a hard time keeping my eyes open. “I’d be too wired to sleep.”
“I know,” Lucas agrees, kissing the back of my neck. “Talk about a long night.”
“Yeah.” I snuggle a little closer and run my nails up and down Lucas’s back. I’m asleep in a matter of minutes.
I wake up a little after nine-thirty, needing to use the bathroom. Lucas isn’t in bed, leading me to believe he’s downstairs making breakfast. I’m a little nauseous and need to take a few more drops of Tabatha’s miracle potion before I can even think about stomaching any food. But before that, I want to go back into bed and pass out for another few hours.
I’m fucking exhausted.
Lucas comes up the stairs as I’m washing my hands. “You’re up,” he says with a smile, stepping into the bathroom and wrapping his arms around my waist.
“I’m going back to bed,” I yawn.
“I’ll come with you.”
I dry my hands and look at Lucas in the mirror. “You didn’t make anything for breakfast?”
“Do you want me to?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I thought that’s why you were downstairs.”
“Your phone was ringing. I went to silence it so it wouldn’t wake you up.”
“Who called?” I asked.
“Ruby.”
“Great,” I grumble. “There’s only one reason she’s calling this early.”
“It’s nine-thirty. It’s not that early for some humans.”
“Hah, for me, though, it is,” I yawn. “I should see what she wants.”
“It can wait a few hours. Go back to sleep.”
I make a face, knowing as soon as I lie down my mind will start racing with everything that could have gone wrong and made her call me. Someone died? Yeah, totally possible. Werewolves are outside the Covenstead door, keeping anyone from getting in or out? Even more possible.
“I’ll just see what she wants and then I’ll go back to bed.” I stand on my toes to give Lucas a quick kiss and then slowly walk downstairs to get my phone. Ruby left a message, and I put it on speaker, listening to it as I walk up the stairs once again.
“Callie, hey, it’s Ruby. We were doing a lesson on detecting negative energy in class this morning and, well, we detected some. Those scrapper demons weren’t here because of some supposed werewolf. I just snuck into my office to try and narrow down exactly what type of evil we’ve detected, and there’s a demon in the woods.”
Chapter 23
“You’re