Craved (2 page)

Fiona smelled one of those perfume
samples you find in magazines, when she looked over the top of it
and smiled at me.

“What?” I asked curiously.

“You got a package today. Something
you want to tell me?”

“No,” I said in confusion. “What’d I
get?”

“It’s in your bedroom.”

I turned to walk down the small
hallway that led to my bedroom on one side and Fiona’s on the other
and gasped when I opened my door. My room was filled with flowers
and a white garment box sat on my bed, as if silently waiting for
me to open it.

My bedroom barely contained my
queen-sized bed but I had refused to downsize to a twin when I
moved in. My bed took up one wall, while my closet with mirrored
doors occupied the other wall. I painted the walls a warm tan and
laid an area rug to cover a large stain on the carpet.

“What the…?”

Tall black vases with long stem white
and red roses decorated almost every square inch of my floor while
small bowls of pink and red roses sat on my dresser and desk. I
looked back at Fiona as if she were responsible for my room being
turned into a rose garden.

“
There’s a card,” she
happily remarked, pointing to the box. In a state of extreme
confusion, I walked over to retrieve the card. I wasn’t currently
dating anyone and hadn’t been for at least eight months. There was
only one guy, one sexy vampire, who’d been making advances on me.
My suspicions were confirmed when I flipped open the
card.

Gwen,

Thought you should know I
was thinking about you and that I’m very much looking forward to
having the most beautiful woman on my arm at the Founders Gala this
weekend. See you Saturday at 8 p.m.

Love Aiden

A blush rushed to my cheeks as I
thought about Aiden’s maddening methods. I was almost afraid to see
what was in the box, although I had a pretty good idea. I untied
the red satin bow and lifted the lid to reveal a royal blue,
strapless dress. The bodice was intricately detailed with Swarovski
crystals, and it looked like it would outline every inch of my
curves.

“When did you start dating Aiden?”
Fiona asked, after swiping the card out of my hand. She sounded
hurt that I hadn’t gushed about my new beau to her.

“I’m
not
dating Aiden, this is just a
ploy to get me to go to the Founders Gala with him,” I explained.
Damn him, he knew how to tempt a girl. I was dangerously close to
falling for his white knight tactics.

“So why don’t you? I mean he’s
gorgeous and he’s loaded, what’s not to love?” Fiona said
flippantly, while reading the label on the dress. I shook my head
at how shallow she could sometimes be.

After deciding not to answer her
question, because honestly, she wouldn’t get why I wanted to avoid
someone as charming and sexy as Aiden, I changed the subject. “When
did all this arrive?”

“Fifteen minutes before you
got home. Grace Parker stopped by to set it up.” Grace Parker owned
Vines, a floral shop on Main Street. She’s an elf, so must have
used her nature magic to arrange all the roses so quickly. That
meant that Aiden set this up even after I had told him no. Like I
said, he’s
infuriating
.

“Who are you going to the Founder’s
Gala with?” I asked. Flora was a small town, with a population of
only a thousand, all strictly otherworldly residents. The humans
had accepted us, but still demanded segregation. Flora sat in the
countryside of Missouri where magic permitted anyone human from
entering, except during the Founder’s Gala, once a year. The humans
thought of it as a tourist attraction.

Most humans had come to terms with us,
but some were still threatened by our differences. We opened our
boundaries to humans who filled out applications prior to visiting.
This year, we had a whopping two hundred human tourists planning to
visit this special weekend.

“Liam,” Fiona said with a satisfied
smile. I should have known, Liam Fawns, a bigwig warlock that works
with the board of Flora trustees. He and four other people were the
creators of our little sanctuary, and he’d be one of the guests of
honor this weekend.

“I didn’t know you were on that good
of speaking terms with Liam,” I told her. She grabbed a hanger out
of my closet and hung the dress Aiden had gotten me, as if she
couldn’t stand for it to sit for one more minute in that cramped
box.

“Daddy set it up,” she said
nonchalantly, but I knew the relationship with her parents bothered
her. Hearing her mention her father was more surprising than
hearing that she was taking one of the founders to the
Gala.

“Oh, you talked to your dad?” I tried
to sound indifferent but my eyes betrayed me.

“Yeah, he called yesterday. Gave me
some crap about how I’m too old to still be living with a roommate
and that I should have a husband. You know how he is,” she said
with a shake of her head.

Boy did I ever! Old money and
old-fashioned, that was Fiona’s father. Fiona and I were both
twenty-six, not exactly spinsters, but in his eyes, she should have
been married and settled down already? What did that say about me?
He had blown a gasket when he found out his daughter was living in
my apartment, being that it was only nine hundred square feet and
needed some repairs. But Fiona insisted and decided to move in with
me anyway. Sure she was shallow sometimes, okay most of the time,
but she was also a great friend and wouldn’t take crap from anyone,
including her overbearing parents.

“This isn’t like…an arranged marriage
is it?” I asked.

Fiona turned to look at me as if I’d
lost the last of my marbles and instantly began laughing
hysterically.

“Okay, okay, but it’s not
that far of a stretch, I mean we are talking about
your
father,” I said,
defending my comment. Fiona was still laughing as she left my
bedroom and returned to the living room.

Now what was I going to do with a room
buried in flowers?

I decided that I’d surprise Aiden,
like he’d done to me. I sent my magic to each one of the flowers
and imagined Aiden’s home. I imagined his posh two-story house that
sat atop a hill ten minutes from mine and willed the roses to
return to sender. One by one, the flowers popped out of my bedroom
and hopefully showed up at Aiden’s. I wasn’t the best at
transporting objects, but I assumed most would make the
trip.

I kept just one of the
small bowls of roses and the dress, sending the rest back. Then I
sent a text message that read, “
Thanx 4
respecting my decision to NOT go W/U 2 the Gala. It was generous of
u 2 get me such a beautiful dress, I’m sure my date will appreciate
it.”
He didn’t need to know that I was
going to the Gala solo; I’d let him stew over my imaginary
date.

WITCH FOUND DRAINED,
the newspaper headline announced. I read the
article three times, hoping my eyes were playing tricks on me.
Unfortunately, they weren’t. Amy Harper’s body was found yesterday
night in a ditch, all of her blood drained. The FPD (Flora Police
Department) was currently investigating and hadn’t found any clues
as to who was behind the grisly murder. They made a point to say
that the citizens of Flora should not jump to conclusions, they
hadn’t determined if this was a single case or if they had a serial
killer on their hands.

I threw the paper on my desk,
disgusted. Of course, the FPD’s collective mind wouldn’t be made up
until another death occurred. Why was it that no one ever took
precautions until the body count started piling up?

I had been living in Flora since I was
nineteen and had only known of eight murders. You would think with
all of the otherworldly creatures living together, there would be
more violence, but surprisingly, there wasn’t. The murder of Amy
Harper though, left my blood frozen in my veins. The other murders
in the past seven years had been normal, if there was such a thing.
They’d occurred between scorned lovers or rivaling thugs. The death
of Amy Harper seemed different. I didn’t think this was a lover’s
quarrel or had anything to do with the crowd she hung
around.

I really hated what I was about to do,
but knew I had to. I picked up the phone and hesitated, my fingers
positioned over the numbers. Overcoming my unease, I dialed the
FPD’s phone number.

“FPD,” a woman’s voice answered. I had
a quick impulse to hang up but I knew that would be pointless; they
would have logged my phone number as soon as the call went
through.

“Hello?” the woman asked again,
annoyed.

“Um, hi. My name is Gwen Sparks. I’m
calling for Micah Reynolds please,” I told the woman.

“Hold please.” She transferred the
call and, I swore, my heart sped up with each ring that went
unanswered. Micah and I had dated a year earlier, but he broke up
with me because I wasn’t the right species. His father, the alpha
of the Flora weres, had been pressuring him to find a were woman,
and advised him not to waste his time on someone who couldn’t give
him purebred were children. The last I heard, he was dating a
beautiful were woman and there was talk of them getting married. I
really hated having to talk to him again.

“Micah Reynolds,” his masculine voice
answered.

I took a deep breath to calm my
nerves, “Hi Micah, it’s Gwen.” There was a moment of silence,
finally breaking when he cleared his throat.

“What can I do for you, Gwen?” he
asked, clearly uncomfortable.

“I saw the paper and I want to help,”
I confessed. Back when Micah and I were dating, I worked on a
couple cases as a consultant. I could use my magic to see glimpses
of a victim’s last thoughts, with the help of Aura, she’s my link
to the spirit world. I had

helped Micah close two
cases.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,
Gwen,” Micah said tentatively.

“Whatever. I’m the only one who might
be able to find out who and why Amy Harper was killed. Don’t let
our personal history get in the way of finding this
asshole.”

“I’ll have to get it approved by
Wyatt,” he said, seemingly giving in to my demands. A smile slowly
formed on my lips, Wyatt was Micah’s brother and always liked
me.

“You know he’ll agree to it; he loves
me. What time should I meet you at the morgue?” I said
smugly.

Micah took a deep breath, “An hour.
Don’t be late.” He hung up the phone and I did the same. I loved
when things went my way.

****************

I was fifteen minutes early, but I
didn’t want to give Micah a reason to deny my help on the case. I
had Aura in her pet carrier, a pink and black bag that was meant
for a spoiled, ankle-biting dog, but it worked perfectly for my
finicky cat.

I hate morgues, talk about
depressing
. I walked down the long,
sterile hallway that led to where they kept the bodies. My heels
clicked against the white tile and echoed in the otherwise quiet
hall.

I was more nervous about seeing Micah
than a dead body. We hadn’t dated long, only eight months, but I
loved him. When he told me that he had to prepare for the future of
his pack and that nothing serious could ever exist between us, it
created an unfixable crack through my otherwise protected heart. I
almost wished he had cheated on me; that would have eradicated him
from my mind, like he was just a cheating slime ball. But having
Micah tell me that I couldn’t give him what he needed was a huge
blow to my self-esteem. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t my fault. I
hadn’t chosen to be born a witch, but it didn’t hurt any
less.

I paused outside the door to the
morgue and pulled out a small mirror to check my reflection. My
dark hair was down, coming to the middle of my back. I had full
makeup on and magically switched my clothes to skinny jeans, black
pumps, and a red eyelet lace blouse that fit like the proverbial
glove. Call me crazy, but I wanted to rub how hot I looked into
Micah’s prejudiced face.

When I pushed through the double
doors, however, Micah wasn’t there. Instead Wyatt was waiting for
me. I rolled my eyes at the thought of Micah’s cowardly absence and
made my way to where Wyatt stood next to the sheet-covered
body.