Page 15 of Bite of Passage
Her phone rang with an incoming call from work.
She answered.
Her supervisor said, “I’m so sorry to call you this late, but we’re short-handed.I know you’re not on tonight, but we could really use some help until morning.We’ve got three out with the flu and a multiple trauma incident coming in.Tell me you can come in.”
Not really in the right mindset for work… “I’m tired.”
“Have you been drinking?”
Wish I had.“No, but I haven’t had a lot of sleep and?—”
“Great.I can give you Monday off, if that helps.”
“Not really.”
“Please, Gemma.Marci can’t come in because she’s got the kids this weekend.Amy is driving back from visiting her boyfriend in L.A.We need you.”
“All right.Give me about forty-five minutes.”
“You’re a godsend.”She hung up.
* * *
On her way home on Sunday morning at eleven she tried calling Val again.Still no answer.
As she opened the door of her apartment, she found it lit by the glow of the TV.Had she left it on?It usually turned itself off after a few hours.
Her heartbeat accelerated.The icon for a new episode had appeared on the home screen.On the one hand, all of this was completely freaking her out.
But on the other hand… Who cared?She was so exhausted she could barely stand, and she could use some Skarde time, whether he spoke to her or not.
She grabbed a bottle of fizzy water and made some microwave popcorn.
While on shift, Gemma had searched for the show online again, still finding nothing.Not one mention of the series could be found anywhere.She’d concluded theLegacy of Magicmust’ve been a failed pilot or something.
The first scene opened and, no surprise, it featured Skarde.
Naked.In a bath.
She choked on her sip of fizzy water.Coughing and wiping at her nose, shestared.As in googly-eyed gaped.
His torso appeared above the waterline.Everything beneath the water… Oh, she strained to look.Darn it.Nothing visible.
“Holy bejesus,” she coughed out as she cleared her airways without breaking her view of the screen.She couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to be with someone like him.He was a big guy.Really big.He dwarfed the metal bathtub.Now that she’d seen him up close, she’d guess six-five, which made him the perfect size to be a professional supernatural killer.Of course, there was the question of the size of things below the belt line.Guessing from his hands, he’d be big.
What would it be like, being handled by that kind of power in the bedroom?And with those teeth?The thought of those teeth in her skin didn’t in any way give her the warm fuzzies.He’d chew her to bits.
Was he alone in the bathroom?She could see about half of the room.No one else seemed to be around.
She’d blow a fuse if he had company.
He better hope the magic didn’t activate.She’d disrupt his evening romp to lay down a piece of her mind.They’d had something yesterday, a connection or who knows what.This was nuts.She didn’t have any serious claim on him.
“He’s a fictional character,” she muttered.
“This is the fourth missive asking you to hunt something.”Serish placed a new envelope made of homemade-looking paper on top of the pile on the side table beside the standalone, copper tub and threw a towel on the nearby chair.The mage had appeared in the very first episode.Today, he wore a colorful cotton kurta that fell well past his knees.
“They don’t ask.They demand I show up as if it’s a given.”Skarde didn’t even open the new letter.“I’m tired of the disrespect.”
