Page 46 of Witchy Chick

“No!” I crossed my arms and really soaked in the anger I felt.

He tilted his head as he studied me then shrugged and closed his eyes, returning to his meditation.

Sage elbowed me. “Stop being a stubborn idiot. Where’s the practical person who takes care of problems no matter the difficult people you have to deal with?” she muttered at me and then louder, fluttering her lashes, she said, “Yes, Mr. Sorcerer. We’d like you to help us deal with this sealed room.”

He stood up and walked towards us while James trotted after him. He flung his pale blond hair back and water slid off so when he stepped onto the porch, he was completely dry. “Lead the way,” he said to Sage like I wasn’t there.

I crossed my arms and glowered at him. “Don’t you think that you, experienced psychopathic sorcerer, should lead the way?”

He glanced at me. “If you hold my hand and lead me in, then the house won’t protest my presence.”

Like I was ever going to hold his hand. My touch made him happy enough to float? Just another lie I’d be a complete idiot to believe.

Sage grabbed my hand and shoved it into his. Before I could yank it out, he’d grasped me, and he was dragging me into the house, his other hand raised and making a complex pattern while his eyes glowed pale blue.

The neon green smoke hissed when it met his flickering pale lines of light then swirled around, curled up, before it struck out at his head and legs, this smoke monster focused on destroying the sorcerer with his lightning attack.

The smoke attacks went faster and faster while the sorcerer struggled, lightning flickers missing a few defenses so he took the hits, wincing with each one. Was the green smoke going to win here?

I took a deep breath and stepped in front of him, taking the smoke attack, but blocking it with this wave of darkness that slammed the smoke down to the floor, crushed and trapped while I breathed hard, aware of the muscular body against my back. It was my darkness, my loneliness, my hurt and betrayal, and apparently, I had a lot of it.

“Now what?” the sorcerer asked in my ear, breath a whisper of warmth that sent goosebumps through me.

Because I hated it. Obviously. “I don’t know. I was just done with it being so annoying. I don’t like smoking in the house.”

He chuckled, the reverberation going through me. “Of course. It’s not healthy for the children.”

“Or anyone. House, could you please get rid of the smoke?”

“Oh, asking nicely? Does that work?”

“I don’t know. I don’t usually talk to houses.” I elbowed him, but he only leaned closer into me. “I could think better if you weren’t crowding me.”

“You didn’t summon darkness by thinking. No, that is definitely anger-based evil.”

“It’s not evil, just dark. And I’m more annoyance-based than anger-based.”

“Such a fine distinction.” He inhaled deeply. Was he smelling my hair? Weirdo.

“Sage, open the door, and kids, get out of the way,” I said, stepping to the side and turning, the sorcerer sticking with me, like this was a bizarre new dance position. I focused on the darkness, on the squirming green smoke that was so desperate to get to my husband and kill him. Why did it hate him so much?

I leaned closer, inhaling, and then I saw it. The scene. A beautiful room with a gorgeous grand piano in one alcove, a telescope in another, the floor inset wood, all the different kinds of wood you can find, to make an enormous globe with constellations and other designs on the floor that meant something.

In the room, three people turned to face the intruder, dark magic spreading out of them in a magic battle that the attackers defeated with the scent of burnt hair and maraschino cherries. The attackers were all pale-haired, blue-eyed monsters, a woman with a sword of lightning, a man with nails of lightning, like that one woman in the bar. He’d called her Claire.

More and more blonde sorcerers poured in, binding the three with lines of light, and then the lines pulled tight, and the bodies went in all different directions, cut into pieces.

The blood. So much blood rolling over the floor, staining the paler wood. The green smoke was their caught rage, their anger, their betrayal, and the man behind me had the same blood as those monsters.

I took a deep breath and stretched a hand out towards the darkness, the rage, the hate. I hated him, too. He’d lied to me. He’d killed Ray of Sunshine’s parents. He’d refused to apologize for making my life nothing more than a bet.

He was in my house. And that green rage was there for me to use to hurt him the way he’d hurt me. He was in my power. I could rip him apart. Because he couldn’t hurt me, not when I was the wife he loved.

“If anyone kills him, it’ll be me,” I said and then soaked up the hatred and anger until the smoke was nothing but smoke that drifted out the open door.

I throbbed with those negative emotions, but I had a bubble inside me where I could contain it. I’d spent my whole life dealing with anger. Letting anger devour you never helped. All it did was take whatever good you had and turned it into misery.

I walked into the room, Clark close behind me. The floor was still slick with fresh blood, like the moment of their death had been trapped here. I stood there with blood soaking into my bare feet.