Page 46 of Enslaved

“I don’t know. Not without white asphodel.”

A large, tanned hand nudges the phone toward me. “Call her.”

I nudge it back. “There’s no point. She won’t.”

His eyebrow goes up. “Because…?”

After another lingering glance at the beer, I rise and head for the kitchen cupboard that I filled with Keane’s bag of snacks.

When I have a muffin in hand, blueberry this time, I return to my seat and pick at it. Keane raises his eyebrow, and I raise mine right back. “You have your poison, okay? I have mine.”

“Fair enough. Why not get this Sera’s help?”

“Because of what happened back there.”

I think about it again. The explosion looked big enough to rip through anything. If it happened without warning like that, the Calla sisters wouldn’t have had time to protect themselves before it tore them apart.

Just because elemental witches can control fire, it doesn’t mean they’re immune to its effects. Mom’s death taught me that. “Rose saw.”

Keane takes another long draw of beer before he reaches for mine.

I stuff some of the blueberry muffin in my mouth and chew. If Keane wasn’t there, I’d spit it right back out again. “This is dry. The packet said it was one day old, but this has to be at least two. Maybe three.”

“Who’s Rose?” Keane asks, ignoring my talk of dry muffins.

I return said muffin to the table and dust the crumbs off my hands. “Diana Calla’s other daughter.”

Keane snorts. “I should’ve guessed with the flower name. How come she isn’t as blonde and florally?”

“That isn’t the question you should be asking. It’s how fast she’s going to call her Mom—Diana Calla, leader of the elemental witch coven, in case you forgot—who will then call Layla Markham, leader of the green witch coven, who will order Sera not to have anything to do with me. Right before they chase me out of town. Or kill me.” I scrub my hand over my face. “But that’s not important. Three people are dead. Okay, so they weren’t the nicest—”

“You mean those bitchy witches?”

“You can’t speak ill of the dead. It’s rude.”

“Yes, you can. Anyway, whoever blew them up did them a favor. It was either the explosion or my claws. This was faster and less messy.” He pauses. “Or not.”

I sit back in my seat when the memory of his murderous tendency toward witches makes a sudden reappearance. “Right. The claws. Of course.”

His gaze bores into me until my anxiety makes me grab for the muffin. I’ve eaten another mouthful before I remember how stale it was, so I return it to the table, this time pushing it further away so I won’t make the same mistake again.

Keane observes me without expression. “Don’t you get sick of sweet things after baking every day?”

I have a sudden flashback to being trapped in the window. “You would think so, wouldn’t you?”

“Those girls…” Keane drawls. “Have they always been like that?”

I mull over my magic lessons from age eleven to sixteen. I don’t think anyone could have been as relieved as I was when Diana Calla finally washed her hands off me.

“Not really,” I mutter.

They were worse.

A lot worse.

If it wasn’t for Sera’s healing spells, my arms and legs would still be covered in burns from the Calla sister’s ‘helpful’ attempts to educate me on how to control fire.

Keane’s gaze sharpens as if he can peer into my head. “They deserved it. They were bullies who got what was coming to them.”

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