Page 24 of Spit

My hand fluttered to my chest as if I was offended. “Moi?”

Katalina bared her teeth before turning back to the coven. “Come on, ladies! Let’s take our breakfast on the lawn. That way, we don’t have to be aroundunsavorycharacters.”

“Did you learn to speak from watching Bridgerton?” I wondered out loud.

Katalina ignored me as she led the other woman away.

That was okay. I wasn’t here to make friends.

The witches moved as one and filed out of the room, making sure to pass me as they went. Some of them glared, and the others pointedly ignored me. I tried to squash the little niggle inside my belly, making me feel guilty for sapping their magic. It would return in a few hours, like blood pumping through the body, but it never felt good to be powerless.

But I refused to back down.

I knew I was taking the evils of my old coven out on this one. I knew that I was being unreasonable and should have apologized. Still, something inside of me turned my bones to steel and my common sense into soup.

I had been mocked, ostracized, and abused because of my magic. I’d had to turn to a demon for protection, and all of that had happened at the hands of other witches. Women who should have been my kin chose to make a child feel small and worthless.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” A small voice came from behind me. Delicate but masculine.

I turned at the waist, back towards my room, to find a man in the corridor.

Witches were predominantly female, but they didn’t have to be. I hadn’t seen any men in the atrium, but that didn’t mean it was an all-female coven.

I couldn’t sense the man’s magic, but everyone had been sapped by my shadow in the night, so that didn’t mean much.

He was the same height as I was. All together average at 5’8, but that was where our similarities ended. His hair was honey blond, curling around his ears. His eyes were round and blue. His skin was almost poreless, and something unnaturally beautiful about him.

He knitted his hands together, his shoulders hunched as if he was unaware that he could walk into any room and be heralded as the demi-God he looked like.

He should have been put in a meadow picking flowers instead of a demon’s basement among witches. The only thing that marked him as somewhat human were the horn-rimmed glasses on his nose.

It took a moment to realize that he had spoken to me. “I shouldn’t have done what?”

“Antagonize Katalina.” He winced. “She can be most unpleasant when she wants to be, and she has Legion’s ear on most magic-related issues.”

I digested that information. “I can’t help it. I’m a null, which comes with a certain amount of prejudice. Witches don’t like me. I tried to tell Mr. Legion. He didn’t listen.”

The man tilted his head, mulling over my words. “Legion rarely does anything without reason,” He said cryptically. “My name is Arlo. You’re Alexis Boudaire, correct?”

“I am.”

“Fascinating.”

“Why?” I tilted my head to the side.

“Legion told me that you were beholden to Gluttony, so I expected someone…”

“Fatter?” I quirked a brow.

“Oh no.” Arlo waved away my comment. “Gluttony comes in many forms and for many different things. Lust and Gluttony go hand in hand. You can be a Glutton for the physical. I’ve known many a slave to dopamine, as it were.”

I smiled. “Mr. Legion told you about me? I must be very important.”

“Truth be told, I think he sent me down here to make sure the witches hadn’t killed you and buried your body in the woods.” Arlo pushed his glasses into place. “Though perhaps Legion should have been worried about protecting the witches fromyou.”

“I’m harmless.”

Arlo glanced at my shadow on the wall, and though it was acting innocent, I got the impression he knew exactly what it meant. “I very much doubt that.”

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