Craved (5 page)

“You should really watch where you’re
going,” she teased.

“And you should really learn to do
things without magic. It’s too early in the morning to be on the
lookout for flying objects in my own apartment,” I countered.
Luckily the coffee had been dry, so clean up was easy, broom and
dustpan easy. I didn’t like to flaunt my magic like Fiona did.
Maybe I didn’t like taking the easy route all the time.

“Why so grumpy?” Fiona asked, as her
eyes slid back to whatever was on her computer screen.

“Sorry, had a bad night,” I said.
“What’s so interesting?” I walked over to where she sat and peered
at the screen. She had a website pulled up that had a black and red
motif. A black banner with a pair of electric blue eyes decorated
the top of the screen, followed by the words: Experience the
Rush.

“What is this?”

“A new club that’s opening in Hemlock.
Wanna go this weekend?” she asked in an overzealous
tone.

“The Founder’s Gala is this weekend; I
have to work at the shop.” With two hundred humans visiting this
weekend, it was the biggest shopping day of the year in
Flora.

“Founder’s Day doesn’t start until
Saturday; we can go Friday night,” she said, hoping I’d change my
mind. Flora only had one nightclub, Vain, and it was owned by a
certain vamp I desperately needed to avoid. My last conversation
with Aiden hadn’t been the best but then again, none of our
conversations ever went as planned.

“Okay, we’ll check it out but I can’t
stay out all night,” I reluctantly told Fiona. I knew she’d go with
or without me and with Amy Harper’s dead body etched into my brain;
I didn’t want Fiona going to a place like that alone.

“Yes, mother,” Fiona said in a
dramatic tone. I stuck my tongue out at her and headed for the
door. When it came to Fiona and me, I was the more mature one.
Fiona lived her life one day at a time and never thought about
consequences. Being an only child of one of the wealthiest warlocks
in town, she never had to face consequences.

Eleven cardboard boxes were waiting to
be unpacked when I got to my shop. Penny, my part-time associate,
was busy filing the invoices while I eyed the boxes with derision.
There were special companies that produced products for my store
but I hadn’t anticipated getting eleven shipments in one day. They
still needed to be priced, inventoried, and stocked. I could
manipulate and form objects but I’m not a spell caster, so potions
and charmed objects weren’t my forte and had to come from an
outside source, if I wanted to stay in business.

“Good morning, Gwen,” Penny said.
Today she had her chocolate brown hair pulled up into a ponytail
and was outfitted in a black skirt, black V-neck blouse and red and
black striped tights. Penny was only nineteen and still coming to
terms with being a witch. It didn’t matter whether our parents were
witches; the magic had to choose you. Both of my parents were
human, but my grandmother was a spell caster. Penny was currently
going through a Goth stage, not yet knowing that being a witch
didn’t make her a freak, just unique.

“Morning, Penny,” I said, as I took a
box cutter to my new inventory. I was greeted with a flurry of
packing peanuts, as if a Styrofoam snowstorm had suddenly erupted
in the middle of my shop. I watched as little white pieces swirled
into the air and danced their way to the garbage can, where they
fell. I checked the return address and smiled. In glittery purple
ink was Ms. Ozland’s name, one of the most talented spell casters
in Flora. I had been buying her items for the shop since I opened,
a year ago. In true Ozland fashion, she had enchanted the annoying
Styrofoam peanuts to clean up after themselves.

“That was so cool,” Penny gushed, with
amused eyes. I nodded my head in agreement; I hated dealing this
those damned things.

This month, Ms. Ozland sent
enchanted compacts. When opened, the mirror spoke in a sexy male
voice and complimented the person on their beauty, in specific
detail. The one I was holding said,
Beautiful Gwen, is it heaven I see before me? With eyes as
blue as the sea and lips so kissable that dare to taunt my dreams.
A cascade of ebony down thee back, there is nothing this heaven
lacks.

A laugh escaped my lips at the thought
that a compact had just recited a poem in my honor. I caught Penny
watching me, as if I had lost my mind to be swooned by an enchanted
compact. I flipped it shut and said, “These would be great as gag
gifts or for a friend who just got dumped.” Penny didn’t look like
she was jumping onto the smooth talking, compact
bandwagon.

Penny and I were halfway finished with
pricing our entire new inventory when Micah walked in. I was
momentarily shocked. I hadn’t seen him since our breakup and
thought he’d avoid me while I was working as a consultant with the
FPD. His hair was darker than I remembered, almost black. His eyes
were still the same amber hue that was associated with weres. He
wasn’t wearing his usual FPD attire, preferring jeans and a t-shirt
instead.

My feet stayed planted behind the
counter, unable to approach him at first. I wasn’t a shy girl, by
any means, but Micah was the one guy that broke my heart. Seeing
him again was like viewing a wrecking ball that was aimed for the
brick wall I’d built around my heart.

“Gwen,” His deep voice addressed me. I
busied myself with clearing papers and riffraff from around the
register.

“What can I do for you, Micah?” I
asked with faux confidence.

“Wyatt would like to hire you as a
full time consultant. He was very impressed with the work you did
the other day,” he said, leaning closer to the counter so that no
one else would hear him. “We need all the help we can get on this
Amy Harper case; you in?” I considered him for a moment. Despite
his nonchalant attitude that tried to persuade me he was
comfortable, I wasn’t buying it.

“What do you think?” I
asked.

“About what?”

“Me working with the FPD?”

“I know how good you are, Gwen. You
could offer some valuable help towards our cases, that’s the only
thing that matters,” he spoke matter-of-factly. Part of me was
happy that I could continue to help the FPD, but the other half
wasn’t sure I wanted to work with Micah.

Amy Harper’s face suddenly flashed
into my thoughts again and made my mind up for me. “Of course I’ll
do it. I have new information that might help,” I told him,
thinking of my dream the previous night.

“Want to grab a coffee?” He asked,
surprising me again. “So we can go over the case,” he quickly
added, as if I thought he were asking me out purely to spend time
with me.

“Sure,” I said
noncommittally.

I told Penny to hold down
the fort and that I’d be back in a half an hour. There was a cute
little coffee shop, Espresso Self, just up the street from
Broomsticks that we headed toward. We were silent as we walked, but
I could tell Micah was tense being next to me. Good! Served him
right.
I
was
gaining confidence with each step we took.

Espresso Self only had a handful of
customers but Micah and I took our coffees to a table that was
isolated from any eavesdropping patrons. Micah was clearly
uncomfortable and reluctant to start a conversation.

“I had a dream last night,” I
started.

“I should apologize,” Micah said at
the same moment I started to talk. I sealed my lips and waited for
him to elaborate further. I knew it wasn’t mature, but I was
enjoyed his discomfort more than I should have. He exhaled a deep
breath and began again.

“
Gwen, I’m sorry for how I
ended things between us. I know I could have handled it better, and
I’m sorry.” I considered his words, which sounded sincere. He had a
new girlfriend so there was no reason for him to be feeding me a
line.

“I’m not going to lie, I was crushed
when it ended, but I understand your decision and I’m happy you
found someone who can give you what you want,” I told him honestly.
In retrospect I should have known that it wouldn’t last with him,
weres always ended up with each other. Sure they’d date outside
their race when they were young, but those women were only
temporary, mere substitutes until they met a were woman to settle
down with.

“You heard about that, huh?” he asked.
I nodded my head but quickly said, “Fiona told me, she thought I’d
want to know, I guess,” I added so he wouldn’t

think I was stalking him.

“What about you? Seeing
anyone?”

“I’ve gone on dates but nothing
serious yet, not really looking for a relationship right now,” I
said, keeping my expression blank. He didn’t need to know that he
was the reason for the issues I had with men. There was an awkward
silence that settled between us and I wondered if we’d ever get
over our past and act normal around each other. We had ended on a
bad note, but Micah wasn’t a bad guy and if the FPD wanted to hire
me as a consultant, we needed to learn how to function around each
other.

“You said that you had a dream?” Micah
finally asked, “I didn’t think you had psychic dreams?”

“I don’t. This dream was a replay of
what I’d seen in Amy’s memories at the morgue. Except, somehow I
was able to get new information from it. She mentioned an Anthony
and it seemed like she knew her attacker. I don’t know if that will
help but at least we’ve got a name of someone who might know
something,” I said.

Micah looked quizzically at me, “How
do we even know there is an Anthony, maybe it was just a
dream.”

“This is where your handy-dandy
detective skills would come into play,” I said sarcastically,
sending him a wry grin.

“Thanks smartass, I’ll check into it
when we visit Hemlock tomorrow,” he said with amusement. My phone
beeped to tell me I had a text message so I flipped it open and saw
that it was from Aiden.

BE OVER IN AN HOUR, HAVE
INFO

I flipped the phone shut and noticed
Micah watching me curiously.

“Well thanks for meeting with me
today, I really appreciate it. I’ve gotta get going, but please let
me know how your visit to Hemlock goes,” I said, as I got up to
leave.

“Bad news?” Micah asked, nodding
towards the phone I held in my hand.

“No, Aiden is stopping by in an hour
and I need to talk to him,” I said. I couldn’t tell him that Aiden
might have information on the brew rumors; that’d get me kicked off
the case in a heartbeat.

“So Aiden finally wore you down, huh?”
He asked with a less than enthusiastic tone. Micah and Aiden hadn’t
ever gotten along. It might have had something to do with Aiden
trying to steal me away from Micah while we were together. Seeing
how Micah and I didn’t work out, maybe I should have let Aiden
steal me away.

“No, but he’s still trying,” I smiled
at the thought. I turned to leave but Micah stopped me.

“When I said
we’re
going to Hemlock
tomorrow, I meant you and me, partner.” My eyebrows arched up in
surprise. Wyatt had made us partners? He was going to hear an
earful next time I saw him.

“I can’t,” I protested. “Tomorrow
night Fiona and I are going to that new club, Rush. It’s in Hemlock
so I’ll just investigate myself.” Hemlock was almost an hour away.
I didn’t want to spend all day there with Micah, only to come home
and head back down there with Fiona all night.

“That’s the club I planned to
investigate. I have a source that says they serve brew there. And
Anthony most likely lives there. See you tomorrow night,” he said,
winking as he left.

October meant nightfall arrived
earlier. It was only half past five when I got back to my apartment
to meet Aiden. Being as old as he was, Aiden actually woke up a
couple hours before the sun set but he couldn’t set foot outside
until twilight.

When I pulled my Jeep into my parking
spot, he was already waiting for me on the front steps. His dark
hair lay in a tousled mess, as the wind played with it. His
welcoming smile sent the butterflies in my stomach spinning into a
whirlwind of fluttering wings. When he smiled, I couldn’t help but
smile also. I was grinning from ear to ear by the time I stood in
front of him. It didn’t matter that he knew how to touch every last
one of my nerves, to the point of being maddening.