Page 40 of Kat Bethel

Every nerve felt abused and overused in the best way.

Had he been fucking me all night?

And I hadn’t even woken up?

The blanket came up over me, and I felt his presence settle against my side.

What did I do?

Why did I want to do it again?

He’d ruined me. I couldn’t come back from this.

Chapter 15:

Thelibraryintownwas a gorgeous three-story building right out of an architect’s wet dream. The walls and ceiling were made of gorgeous glass that let in so much natural light that the artistic glasswork of the light covers was pure decoration.

If the library back home looked like this, I might have been tempted to go into the archive careers with my cousins.

Each handcrafted bookshelf was taller than me. Even better, the library had an entire section of books dedicated to Dudleytown on the third floor. Most local legends weren’t usually documented so well. These types of things were spread by word of mouth.

It gave me a lot to work with, but there was a lot of hot garbage mixed in, too. The inconsistent stories and embellishing details made me question what could be trusted and made my eyes glaze over.

“You could give me some information,” I said. Partially because research was tedious and partially because he’d been so quiet, I wasn’t sure if he was with me or not.

He chuckled. “I like watching you obsess over me as much as I obsess over you.”

This asshole.

After hours of research, the overhead lights finally cut on as the sun went down outside.

I called Willow and whispered. “Are you struggling as much as I am to find what’s real and what isn’t?”

“Not really.” She sounded like a smug asshole when she did that. “I specialize in research. I can spot a fake from a mile away.”

I flipped off my phone.“I saw that, bitch.”

“I’ll give you something to see in a minute.” I rolled my eyes. “Do you have anything about which Rinah witch caused this?”

“I’m not sure we did.” Surprise colored her tone. “Not officially, at least.”

The lights flickered overhead in a lazy way. I frowned at the hanging lamp in front of me, but couldn’t tell what his emotion was. But it got a reaction. So it was important.

Poke here to learn more.

“All the signs are there.”

“I agree. It’s got our name all over it. But I don’t have anything about it. All the warnings seem to be true, because we’ve lost a lot of good witches trying to solve it. So we left it to the branch that lives there, since they are the only ones who’ve been able to coexist.”

“Anything on the dandelions?”

“Nothing other than what we already know.”

“Anything?”

“Well, there is reason to believe this has nothing to do with the Dudleys that were deemed traitors in England. I traced the bloodline records to France. So a curse on the family line isn’t valid. Most of them are alive and thriving. Abiel Dudley is the only one who was impacted by this ‘curse’.”

The lights flickered again, but this time it was rapid and sharp. Finally something familiar, irritation. “Assuming that’s what this is.”