Page 55 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

“Okay.” She chewed her bottom lip as she stared at her feet. “I would like to hear please, if you d-don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all. So, you see, what all plants want to do is reproduce. Do you know what reproduce means?”

The girl nodded.

“Great! Different plants reproduce in different ways, and this one does that through its flowers. Eventually, they make seeds, and those seeds get carried away by wild animals to make other plants.

“So, when I cut away some of these flowers, it tells the plant that its chances of reproduction have been reduced, then it sends out a whole bunch of new branches that can create even more flowers to ensure it makes viable seeds to continue its genetic line. Now, you can overdo it, but as long as you pay attention to your plant, occasionally trimming it back will really allow it to flourish.”

“Wow.” A slow, shy smile spread across the girl’s face. If that wasn’t just about the cutest thing I’d seen in a long while. Maybe this whole having-to-interact-with-guests things wasn’t so bad after all. “Are all plants like that?”

“Well, like I mentioned, different plants use different means?—”

“Rosette, there you are!”

I was so genuinely into our conversation that I nearly jumped out of my skin at the shrill voice. Turning around, I saw a well-dressed woman hastily coming toward us as fast as her stiletto heels would take her. She wasn’t alone. A few feet behind her, three men strolled along casually.

“That for you?” I asked.

The girl gave a very belabored sigh. “Yeah. That’s my mom.”

Goodness, there was a whole story and a half in that simple sentence, but we didn’t have time to get into it before the woman whisked up to us and practically crushed her daughter into a hug.

“Rosette, why did you run off like that? I was so worried.”

“I didn’t run off,” the girl objected. “I told you I had to go to the bathroom, and you said I could handle it on my own. I was just walking back when I saw this and I wanted to know what this lady was doing to the pretty bush. What is this, bush, anyway?”

“It’s lavender,” I answered, and it was like the mother realized I was there for the first time. I couldn’t be certain, but I was getting real helicopter mom vibes from her.

“And who are you?” the woman demanded, derision dripping from every word out of her mouth. Yeah, that was pretty much what I expected.

I understood that it was alarming to find your daughter having a conversation with a total stranger at a sketchy party, but it never hurt to have some tact when talking to service people. I’d met plenty of people like her in my life. People who thought that because they had money, they didn’t need to respect those they considered beneath them. If I weren’t deeply undercover, I would have muttered a sarcastic retort, but the last thing I needed was for her to report me and draw a bit too much attention. Everything had been going so smoothly, so easily. I didn’t want to lose my cool and ruin it.

“That’s an employee of mine,” one of the men said.

My blood ran cold. One ofhisemployees? Was I… no, surely not!

“I wanted to make sure that if anyone had questions, like your darling little Rosette here, there would be an expert here to answer them.”

“How thoughtful of you,” the mother said, her tone turning sugary sweet in its phoniness.

I stared at the man, who had dark brown hair and hazel eyes with the perfect five o’clock shadow that was meticulously kept in a way to make it look effortless. An athletic build, a penchant for expensive designer clothes, and an extremely large diamond in only one of his ears. A stereotype through and through. Funny how even with insane magical powers, he was still so fucking banal. I supposed everyone was when money was their entire personality. Money and greed.

“I’m glad you think so,” he said, voice so smooth and charming it made me want to puke. I couldn’t tell if the people around me were eating it up because they believed it, or they were afraid of incurring his wrath if they didn’t completely bury their noses in his ass as they kissed it. “I do have a reputation as an excellent host to maintain.”

“And you do it so well.”

Good God, get a room! With each passing second, it was becoming more difficult not to roll my eyes or sigh. I didn’t understand how people could be comfortable existing in such a duplicitous, two-faced world.

“You flatter me,” he said. Yes, she most certainly did. “But now that the little one has been found, why don’t you head back to make sure we don’t miss any of the fun events for the children?”

“Of course. Thank you for helping find her.”

“It was no trouble at all.”

For a moment, I was quite relieved that my first and hopefully only interaction with the warlock was over, but as the woman and one of the men hurried off with Rosette, my stomach sank. He wasn’t leaving. Uh-oh.

My instincts screamed at me to run, but doing so definitely would have been suspicious, so I just needed to be as boring as possible so he would leave before I messed anything up. Shouldn’t be too hard. I had to call upon those aforementioned skills from my aunt and make myself as small and unobtrusive as I could.

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