Magical Mistakes(21)

“Three days is not enough time.”

“I’m not negotiating.”

She looked at his inscrutable face and knew he meant every word. Three days. There was no way she could resolve this mess in so little time.

But if she didn’t, she’d find herself pitted against her lover. The universe had one twisted sense of humor.

“Looks like we’d better pray for a miracle,” she told him before leaving him alone in the room they’d found such joy in only hours ago.





Chapter Six




“I’ve been looking for you.”

Mikayla stiffened at the soft voice behind her. She’d come out into the backyard searching for some peace. It’d been a terse day for everyone and the last thing she wanted to do was play twenty questions with Ciar’s latest squeeze.

Retreating out here should have given her the peace she’d been looking for but for once, the garden hadn’t calmed her. Instead she’d stood on the porch and gazed out at the dark trees. One of the reasons she loved this house was the sprawling yard. It backed up to one of the city parks, giving it the illusion of space and privacy. Rose bushes and twisting trees hid the back of the garden from the view of the house. It was a perfect place to get away from the home full of people.

Rows of herbs and vegetables lined the path connecting the porch to a small stone bench at the back of the garden. Everything they needed for their potions grew close at hand. Out here was her sanctuary.

And Alina was intruding.

With a sigh she turned to face the woman. After all, Alina was their secret weapon. Mikayla needed to do her part to ensure the other woman won Ciar’s heart.

Alina stepped gracefully onto the porch and looked around.

“Well, here I am,” Mikayla said, looking back toward the yard.

“Ciar has been ranting about you,” Alina confessed in her musical voice. She stopped beside Mikayla, reaching out to hold the old wooden rail. “What did you do to enrage him?”

Mikayla kept her face expressionless though the words were like daggers. “Nothing important,” she replied.

Alina studied her in the evening darkness.

Mikayla met her gaze head-on. “Did you need something?”

“I was shocked when your sisters tracked me down,” Alina said. “You know they even entered the demon realm to find me? They are strong women, your family.”

“I didn’t know they went to such lengths.”

Alina shrugged. “I believe it was for you more than for Ciar. They think I will fix everything and take him from your life.”

“That’s the plan.”

Alina nodded, her dark eyes watching Mikayla. “Most of my kind don’t care to learn about other races,” she said. “Especially witches. All your spells and incantations go too far past our own powers. But my nanny was a witch when I was a child. I know about your kind.”

“And what did you learn?”

“I know what kind of spell you cast on Ciar.”

Mikayla’s grip on the railing tightened.

“It’s a Beauty-and-the-Beast spell, isn’t it? You need him to fall in love to undo the curse you laid on him. It’s why you found me.” When Mikayla said nothing, she continued, “It’s all right, I won’t say anything. I think you were right to keep this knowledge from him. Ciar is stubborn, even by our standards.”

“You know a lot about him,” Mikayla said.

The other woman nodded. “I spent much of my life betrothed to him. Our families wanted an alliance, neither Ciar nor I objected.” She smiled at the memory. “I thought I was the luckiest woman in the realm to one day have him as my own.”

“What happened?”

Alina dropped her gaze. She ran a manicured fingernail along the grooves in the wooden rail. “When you live as long as we do time runs differently. A human engagement might last a few months, ours last decades. That’s a long time for things to change. To go wrong.”

“You didn’t love Ciar anymore?”

Alina chuckled. “Nothing so mundane. Tell me, Mikayla, what do you know of Ciar’s life before he came here?”

“Not much.”

“He’s important,” Alina told her. “Or rather, his family is. His father was the lord of our clan.”

Mikayla’s eyes widened. Clan Lords were all powerful in the demon world. They were the strongest, smartest and most brutal of their kind. To her knowledge, there were only six clans in existence, which meant Ciar’s lineage was impressive, to say the least.

“I was to be Ciar’s bride but I was a foolish young girl,” Alina continued. “I wanted to wed his older brother, Teivel.”