Page 15 of Twice Bitten

After a massive glass of water and a larger-than-normal dose of pain medicine, I was able to catch up on all the orders. Michael had left me with a warning to stay clear of Beckett, cautioning me about his strange energy.

Even stranger was the calling card he’d left me to contact him if I ever met any other vampire with the same energy. I’d locked the card in the cabinet with the mead before dinner but couldn’t shake it from my thoughts.

Edmund had no clue what I did in the spelling room, though he knew I could work with high magic. He sensed it on me the first time I summoned Michael for the ritual and had aton of questions, few that I could answer. Some ancient magic unfamiliar to either of us blocked him from the basement and rendered him unable to enter. Not my magic. I had nothing to do with whatever spell he was affected by, but I wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth. All it would take was a distraction at a critical time during a ritual, and boom, I would be in pieces all over my pretty Persian rug.

The basement was my one true private space away from Edmund and anyone else. Other places in the house—my bedroom and all the bathrooms—were off limits by tacit agreement, one Edmund occasionally tried to breach. His ideas of an emergency were far different than my own.

Once I threatened to cut the Wi-Fi completely and go back to dial-up, he realized I was serious.

A massive pile of packages lay stacked neatly on my dining room table. Most contained harmless gray spells—glamours for influencers, birth control spells for human women, several chlamydia cures, and one for syphilis, all of them purchased by men.

I was considered a gray witch for a reason, and men were terrible at covering their tracks. If my senses were tingling, I’d type their shipping address and email into a search engine. People had no idea how much this seemingly inconsequential information could reveal.

If those men had a partner and they’d bought only one cure, I would send an unaddressed and untraceable postcard to their partner, notifying them that someone in their household had tested positive for an STD. To my knowledge, I’d been responsible for over fifty breakups.

And also, fifty extra spells sold.

It was cheaper to hire me than it was to use insurance, and many of my customers had realized a green witch could do a lot more than a normal doctor could.

Next came the tricky part of my business. Mailing everything without triggering an audit.

An acquaintance of mine handled this part. I couldn’t call her a friend. We’d never met.

But Cat never let me down, took only two percent of the purchase price for the haul, and her couriers were discreet and fast. I sorted the packages and took them out to the mudroom for tomorrow’s pickup. The couriers would start arriving every hour, beginning at twelve, ending at three p.m.

Once the couriers were finished, the packages were dropped off at their designated posts offices at least one town over.

Rinse and repeat until eternity.

After I locked the door, I trudged right upstairs and collapsed face-first into bed. Every time I went through the cord-cutting ritual, I always slept for twelve to fifteen hours. All my limbs felt heavy and achy, and even with the pain meds I’d taken, a headache still pounded behind my eyes.

But Beckett’s greasy presence was gone.

For now, at least.

SIX

I woke up the next afternoon, so out of it I had to lie there for several minutes to reorient myself to the earth. My headache was gone, but my muscles still felt achy.

I blinked up at the ceiling fan and let out a little groan. Light streamed through the room.

Bright light. I frowned and rolled over to fumble around my nightstand, my hand patting the table as I searched for the phone.

The screen flashed one p.m.

A strangled curse tore from my throat. I sat bolt upright, my heart pounding against my chest, only to remember I didn’t have to work for the next seven days.

I exhaled and flopped back onto my pillow. Making three-quarter pay for a week was a problem, but not one that was insurmountable. I’d run an online sale. That should quickly make up the difference.

When my limbs were fully functional, I rolled over and pushed myself out of bed. It might be one in the afternoon, but that did not mean I’d bypasscoffee.

Ididn’t even like myself when I wasn’t caffeinated.

The moment I stepped out of the bedroom, Edmund’s voice sounded.

“Alex! You slept far longer than usual. Are you alright?”

“Cord-cutting ritual.” I grimaced at the hoarseness in my voice. “It took longer than usual.”