Page 80 of Sugar, Spice, and Magical Midlife

The color drained from Serena’s face. “Actually, there’s one toilet that we can fit through if we miniaturize.”

“No.” I clutched my gut while bile burned my throat. “I’m not going through the janitor’s toilet. Besides, I’m not a pixie.” Thank the Goddess. I wasnotclimbing through a troll’s toilet. Eww times infinity!

“But you have pixie blood.” My aunt motioned toward Ethyl. “Our cousin obviously has more of it, but I know a spell that can activate our pixie blood and shrink us down.”

I gaped at my aunt as if she’d grown a penis out of her forehead, and not a keratin horn, either, but a real one-eyed monster. “You expect me to go through a troll toilet.”

She worked a tic in her jaw while staring at me. “Either that or we let Ric hang.”

My stomach roiled and pitched, that cheese and wine threatening to hurl back up exorcist style.

The harpy let out a boisterous squawk. “The good news is the troll has a fairly regular toilet schedule, as long as it’s not Taco Tuesday.”

Ethyl’s face turned a diaper-doo shade of green. “Tomorrow’s Tuesday.”

Holy troll turds! Literally!

Chapter Fifteen

Ric

Ihung my head between my knees with a groan, my chains clanking with the movement and rubbing my ankles and wrists raw. I tried not to think about my growling stomach or the fact that Luci and her child had followed me to Rome. What had she been thinking? Didn’t she know there was no reasoning with the Tribunal? I was as good as dead, and I sure as hell didn’t want her to be executed alongside me. Or her son. For I suspected he was the phoenix. How foolish the Tribunal had been to write off the boy, though I wasn’t surprised at their incompetence.

I shot up, squinting at the door in the low light while salivating like a mongrel at the sound of hooves stomping outside. I snarled at my jailer as he slid open a window on the floor of my cell and shoved a tray with a bowl toward me, sloshing liquid everywhere.

“Enjoy your meal,” my jailer taunted. “It will be your last.”

Ahh, so the Tribunal had already decided my fate without gathering all the evidence. I wasn’t surprised. They were trying to force Luci to come out of hiding, damn them. For the sake of her son, I hoped she listened and stayed away this time.

I had to grab the damn tray with the tip of my bare foot, inching it over to me slowly across the dirty floor. I could hardly move with these short chains, and the bastards only unhooked me from the cold, brick wall twice a day to shit and piss.

The food was indistinguishable, but I didn’t care. I shoved gruel into my mouth with dirty hands, barely registering thebland flavors of whatever meat they’d fed me. Swallowing was hard with this Sireneum collar around my neck, but I only choked a few times. After letting out a rancid burp, I licked my bowl clean, then my fingers, before throwing the bowl and tray at the door. The food was hardly filling. Not when I was used to eating ten times this much for each meal. I swore if I survived this ordeal, I’d never forget how I’d been treated, a member of the striga nobility brought lower than a dog.

Damn, I was hungry. So freaking hungry. These minotaur jailers were lucky I couldn’t shift. Otherwise, I’d bite off their heads and roast them rare, just how I liked my steaks. Even though they’d silenced my sphinx with Sireneum coral, my appetite hadn’t waned. If anything, it was worse, though not as powerful as my thirst for revenge, first against theMagaSagredo and then against every last succubus. If I escaped death and this prison, I would hunt them all down. I was tired of hiding. These fools had awakened my inner beast, and I was prepared to fight.

I let out a human-sounding growl as two apparitions floated into the room. The coral had silenced the good parts of my magic but left my cursed medium abilities, and holy hex, there were a lot of souls stuck in this prison. These two ghosts were unusual, just white balls of light rather than formed souls.

When they continued to hover above me without saying a word, I let out a curse. “What is it?”

The balls of light pulsed like heartbeats. “You need to destroy the succubus.” The voices were indistinguishable, neither male nor female.

I held up my chained wrists. “How exactly do you propose I do that?”

“Rip off her head.”

Bitter laughter erupted from my throat. “Believe me, I would if I could shift.”

“You are one of the last of your kind, the guardians of the phoenix.” The lights pulsed faster, brighter. “You must not die.”

One of? No, I was the very last sphinx. “Yeah, not dying would be nice.” I squinted up at them. “Do you have a way for me to get out of these?”

The light softened. “She is coming for you.”

“Who?”

“She bore the phoenix. Now it’s your job to protect him.”

Their light was so blinding, I hung my head to shield my eyes. I heard apop, and they were gone, fluttering to the ceiling like butterflies before blinking out completely. I looked down at my broken chains, shrugging them off me before ripping off my collar. The lion inside me roared to life. I shifted into a massive beast, busting through the walls of my prison cell.

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