Page 17 of Chase Me

Jakob used his power over the earth to put up a wall of rocks between her and the door.

You can think about all the trouble you've caused.

“If you think I've caused trouble, you haven't seen anything yet,” she shouted before the door slammed shut.

Jakob flew through the tunnel moving the earth out of his way as fast as he could. Instead of flying up the stairwell he carved a new path straight up into the grounds of the Villa. Dusk had only just settled, but a half dozen demon dragons slinked out of the shadows.

Trouble indeed.

WHOA, OH, IT’S MAGIC

Um, what?

He could not be serious. Stay here? Think about the trouble she’d caused?

Blow me.

As soon as Ciara shook off the shock of Jakob locking her in his treasure trove, she started looking for a way out. The space-aged doors seemed locked up pretty damn tight, but there had to be a release mechanism from the inside.

She found a keypad set into the rock wall next to the metal doors, but there weren’t any numbers or letters to enter a password. Not that she’d have any idea what the code could be.

Probably asshat69 or ImSexyAF.

Waving her arms around, pounding on the door, and trying to pry it open with her fingernails didn’t work. Kicking it only hurt her bare big toe.

Finally, the blaring alarms quit and she could hear herself think again.

This place was huge. There had to be a backdoor.

She climbed over a pile of gold coins feeling a whole lot like Scrooge McDuck. How cliché was he to keep mountains of jewels and gold bars laying around? If she didn’t want to get away from him so badly, she’d take a little something just to irritate the hoarder.

Behind a shelf filled with framed paintings of women in various states of undress, all by artists long dead, a small two-seat café table and chairs sat. It wasn’t an antique or anything and sitting smack dab in the middle was a tiered tray with finger sandwiches, scones, petit fours, and jammy thumbprint cookies. There were even two teacup and saucers.

Who in the hells bells was having a tea party in the middle of a dragon’s lair?

Mrs. Bohacek appeared from the opposite direction wearing a beautiful flowing white dress and carrying a tray with a steaming pot of something spicy and fragrant, a small creamer jug, and tiny ramekins of sliced lemons and sugar cubes.

“The tea is a cinnamon rooibos. Would you like cream or lemon in yours?” she said and set the tray on the table.

Aha. So there was another entrance to the cavern.

“Thanks, but no thanks. If you’ll just point me in the direction of the exit, I’d like to get the heck out of here and back to my life.”

“Yes, yes.” She waved Ciara to the other seat at the table and sat down. She poured them both a cup of the delicious smelling tea. “But first let’s have a little snack to fortify ourselves. Magic is taxing work, you know.”

No, she didn’t know. She wasn’t going to have high tea either. Dammit.

A flash of anger she couldn’t suppress bubbled up and out before she even recognized she’d lost control of her emotions.Mrs. Bohacek pulled the cup she’d been sipping on from her lips and tipped it upside down. Nothing came out. She gave it a shake and a large round tea-colored ice cube fell to the table.

“Better ice than fire, I guess. I warned you about trying to quash those emotions of yours, but I appreciate that you didn’t boil my tea and burn my mouth.”

Ciara glared at the mess on the table. “I didn’t do that.”

Mrs. Bohacek smiled up at her in that I-know-something-you-don’t-know way. “Of course you did.”

Ciara grumbled and crossed her arms. This woman didn’t want her to hide her emotions. Fine. That anger inside simmered up again and the ice block on the table melted and then evaporated, leaving a reddish-brown stain on the tablecloth.

More smiles from the witch. “Ready to learn to use those emotions you’re quelling to your advantage?”

---