Page 50 of The Royal Street Witch
There’s a quick inhale from Cassius’s lips as he’s caught off guard for a moment, gazing upon the two of us, our one-sided conversation, how closely we stand next to each other, an intimacy we didn’t try to hide.
“Oh, Bastian,” Cassius says and slides one hand over his mouth, wagging his pointer finger in his brother’s face. “You dumb motherfucker,” he says then clenches his forehead between his fingers. “You’ve given your heart to someone that doesn’t have one.”
Bastian’s face pales between us, and he stumbles back to lean on his mother’s desk.
And for once, I am silent from this accusation, because if my mother is known as the wild witch, then I’m certainly known as the heartless one. One would think a witch would be okay with that title, and under usual circumstances, I would be. But not when it comes to Bastian. With Bastian I want to be all heart. And now I really need to get out of here.
The sound of my footsteps is the only one in the room as I walk to collect my money—not even counting it, just shoving it in my messenger bag. Bastian coughs and it draws my eyes to him, and he coughs again and my arm falls to my side as I whisper his name.
There are screams that cannot leave your body. Screams that grip you by the throat, like a curse that never breaks, like a spider that never spins a web. They settle in your bones, seizing your veins, locking your tongue. Rattling inside your chest, they convulse inside of you, freezing your blood so that nothing pumps, nothing can escape.
This scream is held prisoner inside me while blood sputters from Bastian’s mouth, spraying onto my neck as his eyes roll back and his knees collapse underneath him. Cassius softens the fall, catching Bastian under his armpits, and they slide to the floor together, blood trickling over Bastian’s lips down to his chin.
“Baz! What the fuck?” Cassius says as I kneel in front of them.
“Bastian?” I cry out as Cassius looks at me for answers.
“Leave,” Bastian orders, his eyes unfocused, his forearm wiping his mouth. He lifts his head to meet my eyes as more blood drips from his mouth. “Aster, leave.” There’s a gurgling in the back of his throat and now I can say that for the first time, I’ve seen Bastian scared.
“I’m not just leaving you like this.”
“Now!” he booms.
It’s not every day I take orders from men, but the way that Cassius is looking at me, the way Bastian is commanding me, pulls my legs up as if my legs are in charge and I have no control over where they go.
Bastian sputters more blood, his head falling back.
“Baby…” the word escapes my mouth and I wish I could take it back, an affectionate name for someone I care so much for, and how can I just leave him like this? How can I walk out? I’m sure I can stop it, I’m sure I can do something to fix it. It’s the potion, it has to be, and it’s my fucking fault and I can’t undo any of it.
“Go,” he demands. “Get out!” He leans back against his brother, the blood ceasing, but he’s so pale. Anger coils inside because I can probably fix him, but if someone came into this room with two vampires on the floor and a witch standing over them, there would certainly be trouble for me. And I can’t think straight. If I go, I can think, I can think and then come back if I need to.
I force the thoughts away as Cassius pulls a flask from his back pocket, his eyes dark and treacherous, but also…terrified.
“I’ve got him,” Cassius reassures me, and it’s shocking.
“I love you, Brother,” Bastian says to Cassius, sounding close to drunk, as Cassius brings the flask to his brother’s lips. “Always catching me when I fall.”
I clutch my heart and leave the room.
I HAVE SET EYES ONFranklin Maltese, Vampire King of Louisiana, twice in my life. These are not the circumstances that I would have liked to see him a third time. He sits in the corner of the room, his soot-colored eyes upon me immediately, his head turning as he studies me. And it hits me why Bastian ordered me away like he did. Franklin finding out our secret would be lethal. I swallow and straighten, imagining an iron rod along my spine.
The vampire boy on his lap is typical for Franklin Maltese. Young—as in barely eighteen, and new—as in just recently turned. His reputation for young, fresh vampires is well known throughout the Quarter, and just when the newest muse catches on that he’s only to say yes, the boy is quickly replaced and often never seen again.
I need to get out of here.
Nicola whispers in his ear and I cast a sound spell, but my magic is weak—my mind is on Bastian, lying on the floor of his mother’s office.
Witch, delivery, Delta’s daughteris all I can hear as I walk toward the entry door, deliberately taking slow steps to not draw attention to myself or anything that’s going on behind the door I exited. My heart drums against my chest while an uncomfortable sweat glazes across my brow. I hear the Vampire King say something about a tasty fuck, and I turn to him as he licks his lips, his long, grey hair still as greasy as I remember it, his eyes intensely on me. I push through the door and let out a breath, my fingers wiping the sweat from my face.
I skip down the steps two at a time and burst out of Comey’s, a fire raging inside my throat as everything that just transpired hits me. Bastian, the potion, the Vampire King seeing me leave Nicola’s office. If he goes in there, if Nicola goes in there and sees Bastian vomiting blood, I am done. My feet fly me down Bourbon Street all the way to my front door where I collapse as soon as I’ve locked it. With hands clenched over my mouth, I obsess over the outcome at Nightwalkers, if Bastian is okay, and the fact that I will have to banish the potion I created, the one that brought me Bastian.
After I’ve taken a few minutes to just digest what’s happened, I pull out my phone and text Bastian.
Contact me ASAP
But what if he doesn’t have his phone? What if he’s still lying on that fucking office floor? No, no, the blood in Cassius’s flask will have surely healed him…I hope that’s true. I hope Cassius will heal him and forgive me for what I’ve created, for what I’ve done.
Pulling myself from my floor, I shuffle to my couch, propping my phone on my chest, staring at it. I will Bastian to answer me, but that’s nothing I have control over, and all I can see is his blood-soaked lips telling me to leave, to get out, and the words of love he spoke to Cassius as I left. It stings, Bastian clinging to his brother instead of me, but it’s to be expected and only solidifies the bond that Bastian has with his brother.
