The Seven Year Witch: That Old Black Magic, Book 2 (12 page)

Tossing aside the pen, she gave Izzy a reassuring pat with one hand and snatched the phone from its cradle with her other. “Hello?”

“Clarissa? It’s Marabella. I hope I’m not calling too early, but I was too excited to wait. I think I’ve found the perfect place to set up shop. It’s on River Street, with the most fabulous views and location. And it even comes with its own upstairs apartment. Everything is telling me that I’m meant to sign on the dotted red line so I can get the keys and start living my life.”

The sound of Marabella sucking in a deep breath carried across the line and Clarissa used the opportunity to gently nudge into the younger witch’s tidal wave of exuberant chatter. “Yes, that all seems better than wonderful, but do you think maybe you should sit on it for a day or two? At least let someone you trust look over the lease agreement first.”

“Well, now that you mention it, I was sort of hoping you could help me out with that. Pretty please? With cherries on top?”

Clarissa stared at the opened day planner and the endless other things she should be concentrating on at the moment. Giving a resigned exhale, she picked up her pen so she could jot down the address for the River Street shop. “Do me a favor and make sure those cherries are soaked in plenty of brandy.”

Exactly an hour later, Clarissa left Marabella to finish signing the lease agreement on her newly acquired storefront and walked outside. She dug her keys from her purse and swore beneath her breath when they slipped from her fingers and fell on the sidewalk. Stooping, she reached for the key ring, but her attention snagged on the display in the front window of River Front Books, stalling her in her tracks.

Staring back at her was a framed print of a priest in red robes clutching a book. The astonishing part—and what held her complete attention—was the mountain in the distance. It bore a striking resemblance to the one that’d been depicted in all of the paintings in Seven’s mansion.

Her heart pounding, she blindly dropped her keys back into her purse and pushed open the door of the bookstore. An elderly gentleman with kind eyes and snowy white hair offered her a welcoming smile. “What can I do for you, young lady?”

“Your display in the front window. What is it for?”

“Ah, you’re referring to our Dante collection. He’s our featured author and poet of the month. Are you familiar with his works?”

Unconsciously gripping her purse tighter, she shook her head.

“Then I would be honored to give you a brief tutorial.” Behind his thick spectacles, his eyes twinkled. “Don’t worry. I promise not to make this too dull or boring.”

He offered his arm in a gallant, courtly manner, and Clarissa allowed him to lead her toward a section of the store a few aisles back from where they’d stood. The smell of old leather and parchment wafted to her nose, embracing her in a familiar, soothing hug. Her thoughts immediately turned toward the massive volumes of books in her office back at the coven house and the endless hours of enjoyment she’d found between their pages. There’d been numerous times when she’d considered those books her best friends. Particularly during those bleak, painful years prior to her leaving home to live permanently at the coven house. The years that refused to budge from the cobwebbed recesses of her memory, despite her best efforts to exorcise them. Unnerving silence snapped her back to the present and she realized her companion was looking at her expectantly. She dropped her gaze to the book in his hands and read the title.
The Divine Comedy
.

It took several heartbeats for her brain to register the connection. Comedy.
Commedia
.

“Dante’s most famous masterpiece.” The man passed the book to her. “It’s heavy reading, but well worth it.”

Her fingers trembling, she brushed the spine with her thumb. Could it be possible? Did this book hold a connection to the one back at Seven’s mansion? And if it did, was there some clue inside it that could shed some light on Seven? Help her defeat it? Almost afraid to believe any of her hopes could be answered, she peered up at the shopkeeper. “I’ll take it.”

Chapter Eleven

A hard rap on the cottage’s sliding glass doors bolted Logan from a sound snooze. “Wha?” Shaking the sleep gremlins from his head, he stared blearily at the fuzzy outline of Kegan Justice through the pane of glass. The bear shifter had his fist raised, clearly ready to pound the door again. Logan leapt off the couch with an irritated growl. Fucking heads were gonna roll for waking him from a damned good sex dream about Clarissa.

He stalked to the sliding glass door and after springing the lock, rammed it open. Kegan’s gaze immediately veered to the obvious tent pole in Logan’s shorts and he grimaced. “Jesus, could you put that thing away?”

“What the hell are you doin’ here, Justice?”

“Constance bought a new display cabinet.”

Logan scrubbed his forearm across his jaw. “That naturally brought you here why?”

“You own the truck that’s going to haul the old unit to the donation center.”

What a fucking coincidence. He also owned the balls that were undoubtedly gonna be busted in the process of hefting the damn cabinet. He was half tempted to tell Kegan to find another willing chump, but then he remembered that Clarissa was supposed to be helping Constance mind the store today. “Give me a sec to throw on some clothes.”

Sweeping his attention once again to Logan’s groin, Kegan grunted. “Yeah, we don’t need you taking out low-hanging power lines with that fuckin’ thing.”

“Blow me.” Tuning out Kegan’s excessive cursing in reply to that invitation, Logan traipsed to his bedroom and got dressed in record time. Less than five minutes later, he and Kegan were cruising toward Savannah in the pickup.

A companionable silence passed before Kegan cleared his throat. “Do you think it’d be weird if I asked Constance to be my date for Griff and Jemma’s wedding this weekend?”

Gripping the steering wheel with one hand, Logan slid the bear shifter a sidelong glance. He’d wondered how long it’d take Kegan to grow some cojones when it came to his unrequited crush on Constance. “Nope. You should do it.”

“Yeah? You don’t think she’ll laugh in my face?”

“Oh, she’ll definitely laugh in your face. But you should do it anyway.”

“Dickhead.” A chuffing noise came from Kegan as he crooked his arm on the back of the passenger seat. His assessing look made Logan slightly nervous. The one thing he didn’t want was a grizzly bear eyeing him with invisible wolf chops hovering over his head like in those fucking cartoons.

“Have you ever tried hooking up with Clarissa?”

The question was so opposite what he’d been expecting that he nearly choked. “Uh, yeah.” It popped out before he could think twice about it.

“Any luck?”

His mind immediately tracked to last night, when she’d been squirming and gasping and coming beneath him. He instantly got hard again. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

Kegan snorted. “You don’t hafta. We all know the ice mistress wouldn’t let no one in her life, much less her bed.”

Logan slashed his gaze in Kegan’s direction again, an angry growl rolling from his throat. “Fuckin’ call her that again and I’ll rip your tonsils out through your nose.”

Kegan’s sandy blond eyebrows winged upward. “Whoa. Didn’t mean no disrespect.”

“It goddamn
is
disrespectful. And she deserves better than that.”

A hot wash of shame colored Kegan’s cheeks. Hanging his head, he stared at his lap. “You’re right. Clarissa’s good people.” He peeked at Logan before staring out the windshield. “I’m shutting up now.”

“Good.” But the damage was already done. Not only was he pissed at the slight against Clarissa, he couldn’t shake Kegan’s damning words out of his brain. Shit, he knew better than anyone that Clarissa had let someone into her bed. The bruise on his ass where the heel of her foot dug into him while he’d fucked her senseless damn well proved it. But that didn’t mean she was ready to let him into her heart.

She’d stopped him from mating with her. Not only that, she’d panicked over it. True, he’d jumped that gun way too fast. Too soon. But every instinct in him had howled to make the love and devotion that fired his blood a permanent testimony and bond.

Never in his entire life had he come remotely close to giving in to that natural inclination of his species. Hell, before last night he’d half convinced himself the lupine desire to mate for life was only a myth perpetrated by romantics and drunk wolves looking to get laid. But now he knew the awful truth. Worse, he was its newest victim.

He was fuckin’ screwed. And not in a good way.

“Shit, you just missed the exit.”

Logan jerked his focus to the rearview mirror. Sure enough, he’d overshot the cross street that led to the shopping district where the coven’s store was located. He hung a right at the next available intersection and zigzagged back to Broughton Street. Five minutes later, he pulled to a stop in front of Charmed Moon. While Kegan made a call on his cell, Logan climbed from the pickup and took his time rounding the vehicle and striding toward the shop’s entrance in an effort not to appear overly eager. Unfortunately, he ruined his vibe of macho coolness the instant he walked inside the front entrance and didn’t see Clarissa anywhere. “Where is she?”

Constance looked up from the box she was unpacking and frowned. “Where’s who?”

“Clarissa.”

Constance eyed him with a deep, penetrating stare that also left him a tad uncomfortable and sweating from his brow. For shit’s sake, did she and Kegan practice that look together? It was fuckin’ freaky. Finally a crafty grin slipped across her face. “She had to run an errand with Marabella, but she should be showing up any minute now.”

He feigned a casual shrug. “I was just surprised not to see her.”

“Ah, of course.” Constance’s eyes sparkled like she was the soul recipient of an amazing secret. “By the way, your aura is extra bright and
glowy
today.”

His forehead scrunched. “That’s, uh, good to know.”

Gifting him a beaming grin, she rose to her feet and brushed off the knees of her black leggings. “I’ve got to grab the dolly and straps from the stockroom. Be right back.” Whistling a cheery tune, she skipped toward the rear of the store.

The bells dinged behind Logan, announcing Kegan’s arrival. He turned and frowned at the bear shifter. “What the hell does it mean if my aura is bright and glowy?”

Kegan scratched his whisker-shadowed jaw. “Damned if I know. And I don’t think glowy is an actual word.”

Their conversation plowed to an abrupt halt when Constance reappeared with the dolly. She bent and attached one end of the straps, flashing some generous cleavage in the process. Kegan’s tongue damn near dragged on the floor, and Logan shook his head.
Fuckin’ pathetic
.

The loose floorboard near the back hallway creaked, and Logan looked up just as Clarissa walked into the room. A raucous chorus of hosannas exploded inside his heart. Shit yeah. He was definitely one screwed pooch.

“Sorry I’m late, Con—” The rest of Clarissa’s apology seemed to logjam in her mouth as her gaze finally locked with his. She bit her lip, her cheeks slowly going pink. “You…I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

“I’m here to help move some stuff.” And make a total love-struck ass of himself while he was at it. Hell, clearly Kegan wasn’t the only one who deserved a gold star in that department.

Clarissa continued staring at him for a long moment before she broke from whatever trance had held her hostage. “Oh. Well. Thank you for lending a hand. I should probably…uh…do things. Somewhere.” She winced and muttered something beneath her breath that could have passed for a cuss.

A snicker floated from Constance. Shooting her a hard glare, Clarissa pivoted and marched toward the stockroom, her head held high.

“The display unit I want moved is over here.” Constance trotted toward the far wall. “I’ve already cleared it off, so half the work is already done, right?”

Both he and Kegan grunted, earning a sheepish grin from Constance. Inching between them, she slung an arm around their waists and squeezed them in a tight group hug. “Have I told you lately how super awesome you guys are?”

Logan recognized a blatant case of ass kissing when he saw it, but Kegan only gave a sappy grin. Given how he’d nearly worn the same expression two minutes ago when Clarissa walked into the room looking like his every fantasy come to life, he decided not to give Kegan too much crap. Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t silently call him a schmuck. Which he did.

The old display unit actually proved to not be as much of a ball-buster as he’d feared. But the two-ton behemoth that Constance purchased was a whole other matter. In fact, he and Kegan dropped enough F bombs while positioning it that Clarissa came out from hiding to see what all the fuss was about. Having her mere steps away from him, the heat of her gaze like a constant caress across his charged skin, was pure torture. Particularly since he wanted nothing more than to sweep her into his arms and bury his nose in her fiery hair until he was properly drunk on her.

Kegan said something that he didn’t quite catch. He leaned sideways, trying to see around the edge of the unit. “What?”

“You got a good grip on that side, right?”

Before he could reply that he didn’t, the entire cabinet tilted precariously toward him. “
Son of a bitch
.” Moving fast, he slammed his shoulder into the upper shelf, leveraging all his weight against the solid mass of wood. The unit groaned and creaked in protest before tipping safely into place. He stepped back a pace, his hand automatically reaching for his throbbing left shoulder.

Kegan popped his head around the corner of the cabinet, his face mottled with sweat. “I thought you said you had a damn grip.”

He could think of a million responses to Kegan’s stupid-ass assumption, most of them involving the use of more F bombs, but the sudden and unexpected gentle probing of fingers along his aching deltoid muscle stalled him. Clarissa’s fresh spring scent filled his nostrils, and he shivered in unrestrained pleasure while she continued to knead his flesh. The soft intonation of her chanted spell drifted to his ears, flowing in a melodic pattern that wove within the very fibers of his muscles and blossomed into a soothing buffer of warmth. Almost immediately, the ache vanished.