Page 16 of Wicked Curses
“We would like that. Thank you.”
Lexi turned and held out her hand to Cole, who clasped it in his. She kept a smile on her face while worry churned inside her.
“Sahira should be back by now,” she whispered as they walked toward the stairs together.
“I’ll send some guards to look for her and everyone who went with her. We’ll find her.”
She hoped he was right but couldn’t shake the growing pit of dread in her belly. When she met her father’s eyes, she saw her distress reflected in them.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Orin driedthe glass and set it carefully behind the bar with the others. The crowd in the pub was abnormally subdued today, but according to the clock on the wall, it was only ten in the morning.
He studied the clock as he dried another glass. It was the only one in the Cursed Realm, and he had no way of knowing if it was right, but judging by the rise and fall of the sun, he assumed it was.
This wasn’t his shift, but the bar was packed last night, and those working it fell behind on the cleanup. Belda asked him to help this morning, and with little else to do, he agreed.
Normally, that wasn’t a thing he would do. He didn’thelpothers; he was a dark fae. He found it more amusing to watch people sink than swim, but she’d promised him that he could have his afternoon shift off if he helped clean up the mess this morning.
His agreement also allowed him to keep an eye on Sahira and discover what she would do once the full reality of this realm sank in. He was curious how the little witch would handle it because he suspected that if anyone could get them out of this, it would be her or him.
The only problem was that he’d talked to everyone in this realm over the past month and still had no answers on how to leave it. And neither did any of those who had been here for decades and centuries.
Orin refused to think that would also be his fate. He was not a man meant to be tied down or trapped anywhere. He was a free spirit, a wanderer who briefly had his wings clipped, but he was determined to break free of this cage.
Preferably before The Reaping, but he wasn’t sure that would be possible. Last night was the busiest he’d ever seen the pub. And it wasn’t because there was a new witch in town for them to pump full of questions.
Sure, they came out to see Sahira, who politely answered their questions before excusing herself and going to bed, but the realm had been active lately with new arrivals, so they weren’t as excited about her as they were for him. But some of those who rushed out to greet him also had plans to kill him.
They’d failed, and no one was eager to take up their cause. Some immortals still eyed him warily, but no one had the balls to fight him after he beat that berserker into a bloody mess before killing him.
Normally such violent, bloody deaths weren’t his way—that was more how Cole took care of his enemies—but Orin had sought to make a point with the berserker, and it worked.
Unlike when he arrived, the witches and warlocks crowded the pub to see Sahira. A few of them turned up after his arrival, but they all came last night. Most hung back as they watched her.
The warlock Radagast was the only one who went up to introduce himself. He and Sahira shook hands before Radagast retreated.
Another witch hung farther back from the others; he believed she was the one who lived in the log cabin down the road but couldn’t be sure. She rarely came to the pub, so he didn’t know her, and she was often alone instead of with the pack of witches and warlocks who lived near the lake.
Orin set another glass down as he studied the pub’s occupants. Most muttered to each other or tossed cards on the table.
Over the past month, the tension in town had steadily increased as the imminent arrival of The Reaping drew closer with the end of the year approaching. He imagined during the years when The Reaping occurred in January or February, the rest of the year was much more relaxed, as they didn’t have to worry about the scarogs arriving.
But the end of the year was approaching, and no scarogs had arrived yet. So that meant the beetles could arrive any day now.
Instead of remaining sober and keeping their heads, many immortals started packing the pub. They sought to distract from the impending certainty that one of them, if not more, would die.
He finished drying another glass and set it with the others. Carmella, the witch tending bar, scrambled to fill drinks as Orin washed and dried the glasses.
The small crowd was still demanding, and nothing had been clean when Orin first came downstairs. He was in no rush to finish washing the glasses, even if she kept telling him to hurry. The more she did, the slower he went.
Carmella snatched away his freshly dried glass and filled it with whiskey. The founders of this town had established a brewery in the pub’s basement.
Belda said, when she first arrived, the storage room was full of barrels and bottles of alcohol. They now used their crops to make more of the liquid, something everyone in this realm was happy to have happen. This place would be much worse if they couldn’t drown their sorrows in booze.
“Oh great, the abomination has arrived.”
Orin had been so focused on his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed the witch had returned to his side. Carmella’s words pulled him from his musings, and he followed the direction of her glare to Sahira as she closed the door to her room.
