Page 153 of Blue Moon Mistress

“Yeah. I’ve missed you guys.”

“Good. We’ve missed you too. Last week was pretty amazing.”

I hum in agreement. “But if I ask you to move in, we’ll never get anything done.”

His eyes get brighter. “I, for one, am willing to live with that.”

I’d be willing, too.

“Bathroom?” I ask, because the other question can’t be asked now, or with only one of them.

He nods toward a hallway. “Last door on your left.”

“Thanks.”

Sliding off the stool, I disappear into the back. If nothing else, I need the space to keep from making promises.

But the moment before I touch the bathroom doorknob, something sharp tugs at me.

The door at the very end of the hallway has a “Do Not Enter” sign on it but that’s not the warning I feel creeping from it like thick smoke seeping through the cracks.

I shake off the slick dread that covers my skin and reach for that doorknob instead.

It’s unlocked… and after a short landing, stairs descend into darkness.

I shut the door behind me before I snap a flame to light in my palm. It casts a pale glow in front of me, enough to safely navigate the steps, without accidentally setting a cobweb alight.

The basement has been abandoned.

It’s a dusty and dark space and while there’s another bar along the far wall, it’s clear that no one’s drank down here for at least a decade.

But that pulsing feeling vibrates to me and makes my skin crawl even more sharply.

I toggle on a dusty light switch, and old fixtures flicker to life, casting a dim, yellow glow over sheet-covered tables.

The empty room makes it easy to find.

The warnaway is nestled into the corner, resting on a bed of cobwebs.

This one isn’t tied with the same grass it’s made of, or twine, or anything else so benign. This one is tied with a leather strap.

A leather strap that looks suspiciously like the one Chase stopped wearing around his wrist two weeks ago.

I need to figure out what’s going on and I need to do it fast. Aphrodite knows they’re mine. If she’s spoken to her mother at all, she knows they’re werewolves.

So what is she playing at?

“Arde.” I snap another flame to life, letting the fire lick at the dry tendrils of the skirt and the thing bursts into flames, turning to ash a few moments later. I should have used a lighter and burned it without magic. She’ll know I found it, know that I was the one who destroyed it.

But I’m done pretending I don’t know she’s up to something.

Twenty-Eight

With the lastchair turned over on the last table, Chase tells the kid—who hasn’t looked at me without blushing since the first time he came out after everyone else was gone—to head home and watches me as the door closes.

“Well now, Miss Mathis. What do you say to going back to my place and settling the tab?”

“It’s not quite as sexy when you put it like that.”

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