Page 4 of Trick Me
“He’s been gone for two months,” she continues. “This is exactly the kind of place he’d resurface. All mysterious and dangerous and?—”
“And toxic,” I interrupt. “Sera, he treats you like a pit stop between murder tours.”
“I know.” She sighs. “But gods, Erynn, you should see what that man can do with his tongue. I swear he’s part demon. The things he does to my?—”
“And we’re done with that conversation,” Marcuscalls from his desk, not looking up from his computer. “Some of us are trying to eat lunch.”
“It’s ten in the morning,” Sera points out.
“I had an early start.”
“Anyway, Rich isn’t my actual boyfriend,” Sera explains automatically. “He’s my… complicated sexual arrangement and rare emotional vulnerability.”
“That’s actually worse,” I tell her.
She sighs. “I know.” She turns back to me, and now she’s in full pleading mode. “Please come with me? Please? I need moral support. And someone to keep me from doing something stupid when Rich shows up looking all brooding and dangerous.”
“You’re going to do something stupid regardless.”
“Yes, but with you there, I’ll at least feel guilty about it.”
I look down at the invitation. The serpent seal seems to wink at me, which is disturbing on multiple levels. The whisper echoes in my mind:Stay away.
I try one last time. “I have four clients booked on Halloween, so I can’t really go.”
“Cancel them. Tell them the dead will still be dead next week.”
“That’s terrible customer service.”
“You know what’s horrible? Your social life. When was the last time you got laid?”
Marcus makes a choking sound. “And that’s mycue to take an early break.” He practically runs for the elevator.
“Sera—”
“Six months? A year?”
“I don’t?—”
“Two years?” Her eyes widen. “Oh my, it’s been more than two years, hasn’t it?”
“Can we not?—”
She leans in. “Your vagina is going to seal shut. Like, literally close for business. Put up a littleClosed Indefinitelysign.”
“That’s not how anatomy works.”
“It is when you ignore it for that long. Trust me, I’m a blood witch. I know things about bodies.”
“You know how to explode them, not maintain them.”
“Same principle.” She leans even closer, grabbing my hands. Her skin is always fever-warm, a side effect of all the blood magic. “Please. One night. Wear something pretty, drink something irresponsible, maybe talk to someone who has a pulse. What’s the worst that could happen?”
At a fae party at Crossroads on Halloween?
My imagination immediately supplies about seventeen different scenarios, each worse than the last. Everything from being turned into a toad to having my soul stolen to ending up in a different dimension where everything is made of teeth.
But Sera is staring at me with those big emerald eyes, and I can feel the invitation pulse in my hand like a heartbeat.
