Page 23 of Dark Witch Resurrection

"Nope," Margo said. "Haven't seen him."

Jasmine wondered where he had gone. His things were still in the bedroom they had shared before the mission, so she knew he was coming back to collect them, and he had also promised her that he would be back for the party.

The prospect of not seeing him again triggered a pang of regret. Letting him go had been the right thing to do, but that didn't make the separation any easier. She still craved his company.

The prince was an unknown, and things might not take off between them, while with Edgar, she knew where she stood. If she were smart or a little less principled, she would have stayed with Edgar until she knew whether the prince was an option. As the saying went, it was better to have one bird in the hand than two up on the branch or something like that.

She smiled as her mind conjured an image of Edgar and the recovered prince sitting in a tree with their feet dangling below. Maybe they could be friends, but she doubted that.

The doorbell ringing startled Jasmine out of her reverie, and as she turned to see who was at the door, she expected it to be Edgar, but Margo's squeal of happiness indicated otherwise. Margo liked Edgar, but not that much.

Curiosity getting the better of her, Jasmine put down the glasses she was carrying to the table and walked over to the entryway to see what all the fuss was about.

Her jaw nearly hit the floor when she saw Mia, standing on her own two feet with Toven beside her. He was holding a large bag in one hand and extending the other towards his mate, ready to catch her if she stumbled.

"Your legs," she murmured like an idiot. "You are standing."

Mia's small feet were encased in a soft pair of slippers, and she walked inside with a hesitant but determined gait.

The regeneration process of her legs had been long and arduous, taking many months, but it was finally complete, and Mia was walking on her own two feet.

It was a miracle. Possible only because she had turned immortal.

Frankie started crying, and Margo quickly followed suit. Then, the three friends clutched each other in a fierce embrace, all of them shedding happy tears.

Jasmine felt her eyes well up as she watched them sharing this incredibly happy moment with Mia, celebrating her victory. The trio were more than just friends; they were more like sisters, and Jasmine envied their closeness.

All she had were two hostile stepbrothers, her manager, and her friendship with Margo. The rest of her so-called friends were fellow actors she'd met during the various productions she had participated in over the years. Those relationships could not compare with that of the three childhood friends.

Gabi came up beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist. "I love happy endings, don't you?"

Jasmine nodded, a lump forming in her throat. "Who doesn't?"

18

EDGAR

Edgar clutched a shopping bag full of books as he stepped out of the elevator on the penthouse level. It was his parting gift to Jasmine, and he hoped she would appreciate the gesture and the effort he'd put into thinking about it and acquiring it.

There should be a guide for clueless guys about what gift fit which occasion. Females seemed to know stuff like that intuitively, but most guys needed help.

At first, Edgar had thought of getting her some perfume, which most women liked, but it was too generic and meaningless. The same was true for chocolate or wine. Then it dawned on him. Jasmine had complained about having only two paperbacks with her, and somehow, they had never found the time to stop by a bookstore before heading out to Tibet. It had been mostly his fault for always finding other things to do that had been more important than that, and in retrospect, he realized that he had been too selfish, and Jasmine had been too accommodating. She should have insisted.

He'd spent hours at the bookstore, going numb while leafing through the most popular romance novels of the day.

Ultimately, he'd chosen the ones that had more going on than just he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not. Jasmine was an intelligent woman, and he was certain that she needed more than such simplistic plots to fulfill her. But then, women were a mystery, and he might be totally off.

She'd said that she read to relax and forget about all the crap that was going on in the world, so maybe those simplistic storylines were precisely what she needed.

Well, she wasn't getting that. He'd taken a gamble and bought her one book with dragon riders that was pretty cool and appealed to the pilot in him, a couple about vampires, and a whole series based on fairy tale retelling. The saleslady assured him that it was trending and that he couldn't go wrong.

He tried to muster a smile as he walked in, but it felt forced. "Hello, everyone." He waved.

Jasmine looked up as he approached and cast him a smile that melted some of the ice around his heart. "You are just in time. Mia and Toven got here a few minutes before you, and we haven't started yet."

He glanced at Mia, noting that something was missing.

Her wheelchair wasn't there. She was sitting on the couch with Toven on one side and Margo on the other, and as Edgar's gaze drifted down, he saw that she wasn't wearing one of her long skirts or covering her legs with a blanket. She had on form-fitting pants, and her small feet were on full display, clad in shoes resembling slippers.

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