Lola sucked in a breath and echoed the words.
As soon as the last of the invocation was out, a sharp, cool wind cut into the loft. There were no windows open. No AC running. But Lola felt like she was at the ocean’s edge caught in the beginnings of a storm. The air suddenly smelled sweet and bitter, like jasmine and burnt almonds. She could almost taste it on the tip of her tongue.
Though there was no light, no glittering magic, an eerie chill crept up her spine like she’d seen past the veil of something she maybe shouldn’t have.
And then, in an instant, it was gone.
The wind dissipated.
The chill and the heaviness subsided.
And Lola was left standing there blinking over at Rose wondering if any of that had just happened.
Just how much had she drunk?
Rose smiled a smile that was all lips, no teeth as her eyes flashed deep purple.
Goosebumps covered Lola’s arms.
“The deal is done,” Rose said. “You have three wishes. If you understand this, say yes.”
The edge of Lola’s vision turned dark and fuzzy.
She needed to lie down. She should have eaten something.
“Say yes,” Rose said, this time with an edge to her voice.
“What? Oh. Yes.”
“I am yours to command until your three wishes have been granted. If you understand this, say yes.”
Lola scrubbed at her eyes, forgetting that she still had all her makeup on. Her fingers came away smudged with mascara. Friggin’ mess.
“Lola,” Rose said.
“Yes.” Lola grabbed her glass but realized it was empty.
“The deal is done,” Rose said.
Lola stared at her empty glass.
“Here.” Rose filled it with half of hers. Margarita splashed across the butcher block.
“That’s going to leave a stain,” Lola said and giggled.
Rose snapped her fingers and the spill disappeared as if it’d never been there. She patted at the counter top and her hand came away dry.
“Holy shit.” Lola looked at her friend wide-eyed. Rose grinned. The air smelled sweet and bitter again. “How did you do that?”
“Magic, of course.”
Lola plopped down on the stool and hoisted her glass. “To my incredible and incredibly magical friend. You are awesome.”
Rose laughed. “To all our hearts’ desires.”
They clinked glasses and drank.
Lola said, “So should I make a wish now?”
And Rose said, “If you’d like.”
“What should I wish for?”
Rose slid closer. “Whatever you want.”
Lola closed her eyes while she thought and the darkness swam behind her lids.
What did she want?
Maybe she should go to bed and sleep on it.
That seemed like the sensible thing to do.
There should be a rule about this sort of thing like, Don’t get drunk and make wishes with supernatural beings.
But what if sensibility was the exact opposite of what she needed right now?
She didn’t want to wish for the sensible thing.
There was one thing she’d secretly wanted her entire life. It was an abstract, intangible thing. Something she’d always considered broken about herself, like other people were chronically late or stubborn or complete assholes.
What she’d wished for her entire life was the ability to see men exactly as they were. To shed the curse she’d inherited through her mother’s DNA.
And now here was her chance. She could be free.
“How do I wish for something?” she asked.
“You say, ‘I, Lola St. James, wish to invoke my first wish. My wish is…’”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
In the back of her mind, she could recall Ashley telling her that the wording of a wish was important. That there was such a thing as a bad wish. But Lola wasn’t an idiot. She wasn’t going to ask for a tiny house and then find herself with a dollhouse or something.
This was concrete.
Specific.
She took in a breath.
Her body buzzed with the anticipation.
“I, Lola St. James, wish to invoke my first wish. My wish is that I want to have the ability to see men exactly as they are.”
Rose grinned that devilish grin. Her eyes flashed violet.
She brought her hand up and snapped her fingers.
The wind kicked up again.
Lola’s eyes burned as if she’d stuck her face in the smoke of a campfire.
She clamped her hand over her eyes as that sweet bitterness filled her nose.
“Lola St. James,” Rose said. “Your wish has been granted.”
Lola tried to stand up to go to the bathroom. See if she could wash the burn away.
But as soon as she found her footing, her world tilted in the darkness.
“I think I’m going to pass out,” she said.
And then she did.
Chapter 14
LOLA
Lola woke in her bed.
She blinked against the bright sunlight pouring through her loft’s giant windows.
Usually she pulled the curtains shut before she went to bed, but she’d been so out of it—
Wait, how did she get to bed?
The entire night was fuzzy.
She remembered Thorin annoying her (was his overprotectiveness annoyingly sexy or just annoying? She couldn’t decide). She remembered coming home alone and then Meg…no, Rose was here and Lola had made the mistake of agreeing to have a drink with an immortal djinn and then—
Well, Lola wasn’t really sure.
Slowly, she pulled the blanket back and sat up.
Big mistake.
That fucking pounding in her head…had a gnome crawled in there in the middle of the night and started building itself a house?
God.
Just how much had she drank?
Water. Water would help. Then a healthy (unhealthy?) dose of aspirin.
Shower then. Wash the grossness off (so many regrets).
And coffee.
If there’d been a to-do list for today, at the top would have been written GRAND PLANS, but Lola didn’t bother with to-do lists because she could never find where she put them. But the thing she definitely would not have written was nurse a hangover because you’re a glutton for punishment you big dummy.
If she was going to capitalize on last night’s gallery opening, she needed to be on Instagram live streaming her super poignant thoughts on art and living your best life, bitches.
Finally up on her feet, the room swam and Lola had to steady herself with a hand on the windowsill.
“Water,” she said as if reiterating her tasks out loud would make them easier to accomplish. “Aspirin. Then—gross. Brush teeth. Shower. No, wait, skip the shower. Coffee first. Come on, Lo, you can do this.”
When in doubt, give yourself a pep talk.
Could a positive mindset cure a hangover?
Was there an essential oil for fixing your life? Because she’d buy that one in bulk.
After using the bathroom, she managed to twist her hair up into a messy bun that looked half passable. She slipped into a loose white t-shirt, cut off shorts and her comfiest pair of Birkenstocks.
There was a café at the other end of her block that sold the deepest, richest, strongest espresso. If anything could drive away the fuzz in her head, it was that.
Though the interior hallway of her building’s third floor was fully enclosed, she still slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses. She didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone. At least not until she had an elephant’s dose of caffeine running through her veins.
Outside, she kept her head down as she shuffled to the café. Her entire body complained about the short walk.
Why had she agreed to have a drink with Rose?
Oh right.
Thorin. Maybe
her petty way of showing him she was her own boss. That she followed only her own rules.
But it wasn’t just Thorin…it was everything.
She was failing at life.
Failing at making it on her own.
If things continued on the way they were, she’d be moving in with her mom in the apartment in Alcona, probably waitressing too and struggling just to get by.
As soon as Lola walked inside the café and took in a deep breath of freshly ground beans, she started to feel a little more aligned with her true self. While she waited in the queue, she checked the notifications on her phone. There were several text messages from Thorin.
Do not make a deal with Rose.
She hadn’t, thank you very much. Not that it was any of his business.
Wait…wait…
Did she make a deal with Rose?
She vaguely, like really far in the back of her mind, remembered wishing for something, but that was just a thought she’d had, like what she’d wish for if she had the chance.
Wasn’t it?
“Hey Lo. What can I get started for you?”
Lola snorted. “Can you tap a vein, Charlie? Because I need a—”
Lola looked up and gasped.
A thick, red cloud shrouded Charlie’s face.
“What the—”
Was this some kind of joke? A special effect? Or makeup maybe?
Was anyone else seeing this?
Lola turned to the man behind her and then…
Fuck.
She backpedaled and slammed into the counter.
The man’s eyes were just two writhing shadows in otherwise empty sockets.
“Are you okay, Lo?” Charlie said.
The shadow-eyed man reached out and put a hand on her waist a little too aggressively. “Do you need help, sugar?”
Lola shot away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
The guy held up his hands. “I’m just trying to help.”
She was going crazy.
She scrubbed at her eyes, hoping to God the horror show went away.
But…
Nope.
Still there. Still fucking there.
What was going on?
How was this happening? Was she hallucinating? Please be hallucinating because—
Wait.
Oh God.
“No. No no no nononono,” she said.
“Lola?” Charlie said again.
The words came back to her. A foggy memory from last night.
I wish to see men exactly as they are.
She had made a deal!
She’d made a wish!
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.
“I’m—I—I’m fine.” Lola struggled to swallow around the lump in her throat. She was in so much fucking trouble. “I’m okay. Just…tired.” She stumbled back and bumped into a table. Coffee sloshed out of a mug and a girl yelped.
“Hey! Watch it,” the girl said.
“Sorry. I’m sorry.”
Lola turned for the door and burst from the café.
Lola St. James, your wish is granted.
Fucking hell. What did she get herself into?
Chapter 15
THORIN
Blood. So much blood. The rage pounded through him, blinding him. There was power in the rage.
He was better than them.
Superior in every way.
He would show them.
Thorin jolted awake and the screams echoed in his head.
He put his face in his hands and scrubbed at his eyes as if he could wipe away the memories.
But they weren’t going anywhere.
If they hadn’t left him in three hundred years, they never would.
Sunlight pouring through his bedroom windows, he rolled over and set his feet to the rug and then realized he was still fully clothed.
What the fuck?
Had he gotten drunk?
That last thing he remembered was…
Oh shit.
The Blackbird. Adonis Northman.
The rage.
The blinding rage.
Fuck.
He’d lost control.
After several centuries, he’d lost it. No wonder he was dreaming about the incident again. All of those memories bubbling up to the surface.
The guilt needled along his spine. The shame right behind it beating like a bass drum in his chest.
His stomach twisted and the old memories mixed with the new from last night.
All of it chaos. His doing.
Bones cracking and blood painting the air.
Had he killed Adonis? That would be bloody impossible without a runed blade or two. Or a higher fucking power.
Okay, start with one thing.
Mad had taught him years ago to focus on one thing and move forward and get back on track and—
What time was it? Start there.
He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and activated the screen.
Shit.
He had five missed phone calls from Lola. All within the last hour.
He lurched upright.
Lola.
Fucking hell. If something had happened to her—
He quickly tapped at her name initiating a call. She picked up on the first ring.
“Oh thank God,” she said, her voice breathy and wavering as if she’d been crying.
“Are you all right?”
Lola took a deep breath. “I made a really, really big mistake.”
“Tell me,” he said. He was afraid of the answer. Adonis’s threat came back to him. And the Northman djinn would be even more pissed now that Thorin had attacked him and made him look the weaker in a room full of supernaturals.
Thorin mentally counted all of the hours that must have passed between then and now. All of the opportunity Adonis or Rose had had to get back at Thorin and hurt Lola.
If the Northman had so much as laid a hand on her—
“It’s Meg. Or Rose, I guess,” she said and expelled a heavy sigh. “I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
“Did you make a deal with her?” He was already on his feet, already moving as the anger pulsed again, flashing white on the edges of his vision.
This was his fault, sure, but his brothers had known Lola was in danger. Red had said, A mortal is not worth the risk.
Fucking Red.
“It was so stupid,” Lola went on. “I knew the risks, obviously. But I was drunk and…I don’t know…mad at you too, I guess. I think I did it to spite you. You were being ridiculous last night.”
Looking back, he could see the error of his ways. Sometimes his need to save and protect what he cared about overrode his sensibility. Maybe he had been a tad overbearing. Lola might have been the one to run off, but he knew where she lived. He could have easily cut out of One Rome and found Lola and insisted on staying by her side regardless of her objections.
A thousand possibilities.
All of them too late.
“Did you make a wish?” he asked.
“Yes.”
In his walk-in closet, he put the phone on speaker and set it on the tabletop in the center of the room. “What was the wish?” he asked as he tore a t-shirt from a hanger and slipped into it. “Did she twist it?”
“She definitely twisted it.”
Thorin put his hands on the edge of the table and closed his eyes trying to quell the fury gurgling up to the surface. Not at Lola. At himself. He never should have brought her into his life. Having friends who were destructible, mortal, was just asking for trouble.
“Tell me the words you used.”
Lola’s breath stuttered. “I think I said, ‘I wish to see men exactly as they are.’ There was a guy at the coffee shop without eyes. His eyes were GONE, Thorin. I mean, how is that even possible? What does that even mean?”
He siphoned through all of the possibilities of the wish, how Rose might interpret the wording, and how the magic might make it come true.
None of the possibi
lities were good ones.
“Where are you?” He searched for jeans and found a pair cast aside in the corner. His hair was a damn mess, so he threw on a gray beanie hoping that would suffice.
And then he had to laugh at himself, because if Lola could now see men exactly as they were, his hair was going to be the least of his worries.
“Stay where you are. I’m coming to you.” He grabbed the closest pair of shoes—white Adidas. He didn’t bother untying them and mashed his feet inside.
Lola said, “You can’t come over! I don’t want to see you! What if your eyes are gone? Or something worse?”
He grabbed his phone and his car keys.
“You don’t have a choice.”
Would she see the shadows of his past? All of his dark deeds written across his face?
Would he look like a monster, twisted and fiery and broken?
Didn’t matter. He’d already failed Lo once. He wasn’t going to leave her to deal with this mess alone.
Revealing his secrets was a risk he had to take. Because Lola deserved more than this.
He would repent for his sins over and over again. This was just one more tick on the board. One more horror he needed to bear in order to restore whatever good he’d lost all those years ago.
“I’m coming to you right now,” he said. “Whether you like it or not.”
Lola grumbled. “Okay. Fine. I just won’t look at you.”
“If that’s what you need to do.”
It would be better for him if she didn’t.
“I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Don’t wish for anything else until I get to you.”
“I won’t.”
“Not even if Rose returns and threatens you. You are her mark. It is against the Law of Djinn to harm a mark in order to demand a wish.”
“Okay. Got it. No wish.”
He left his bedroom and hurried down the curving, grand staircase.
If he drove fast, he could be to Lo’s in less than fifteen minutes. If only he were invoked. He thought about calling Dae or Poe, but they’d brought him home last night and then knocked him unconscious, knowing full well what it would cost Lo to be alone.
No, he needed to deal with this one on his own.
One Mark: Steamy Friends to Lovers Paranormal Romance (Blackwell Djinn) Page 7
