Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
When she’d glamoured him.
Bellatrix was glamouring Victor. To try to get information out of him.
“Yes, but what is the secret?” Bellatrix asked.
Pandora threw open the door, knocking Bellatrix in the back with it, making her stumble forward toward Victor.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Pandora snapped at her cousin as Victor visibly jolted when the glamour broke.
“Pandora,” Victor said, brows scrunched as he looked at her. Then he cast a confused glance around the pantry. And, finally, at Bellatrix. “This isn’t … It isn’t what it looks like,” he said, but he seemed uncertain.
“Victor, can you please bring the wine out to the table?” Pandora asked, glaring at Bellatrix.
“OK,” Victor said, looking upset.
But she couldn’t deal with him right then. There would be time to comfort him later.
Right then, she needed to deal with her cousin.
Pandora waited until she heard someone speaking to Victor in the dining room before she slammed the pantry door behind her and took a threatening step toward Bellatrix.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You don’t get to go around glamouring my fiancé.”
“If you weren’t both hiding something, I wouldn’t need to.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I think I do,” Bellatrix said, flipping her pale hair over her shoulder. “He even admitted that you two have a secret.”
“We have lots of secrets,” Pandora said. “Like any couple.”
“Nope. Something is up. And I’m going to figure out what it is.”
“You know what it is, Bellatrix? You are pea-green with envy. You just can’t stand anyone getting attention other than you. It’s sad, really.”
Pandora thought she had her for a moment.
Anger and embarrassment flashed across Bellatrix’s gaze.
But it wasn’t long before it was replaced with an icy sort of reservation.
“I’m going to find out what’s going on. Then I’m going to expose you to everyone.”
With that, she moved toward the door, slamming into Pandora’s shoulder as she went.
Pandora stood there for a moment, trying to pull herself together, to stop her mind from spiraling.
It wasn’t until she stepped into the kitchen, finding Victor waiting for her, that she realized something else she’d overheard in that pantry. Before she’d even gone inside. When Victor was being glamoured, so he couldn’t have been lying.
“Why are you marrying Pandora?” Bellatrix had asked.
“I like her.”
He liked her.
21
“Well, on the plus side,” Lucy said as the two of them hauled bags of coffee beans out of boxes, restocking them under the cabinets in the front of the shop for easy access when they ran out. “Now that all the meetings are over, there’s really no reason for Bellatrix to even run into Victor.”
Lucy was a lot more optimistic than Pandora about that.
“Except she could track him down at uni. On the Tube. Leaving here at night. At his flat.” There were a thousand ways her conniving cousin could find Victor alone, glamour him, and get all the answers she was seeking. All the while, Victor had no idea what was being done to him or what he was saying.
“True,” Lucy said, sighing. “Isn’t there some ancient vampire talisman or magic or something that can prevent him from being glamoured?” she asked.
“I might know that,” Pandora said. “If I, you know, applied myself to my vampire history studies. Which, I didn’t. And neither did Dante, so I can’t ask him. Anyone else would get suspicious.”
“What about Lord Fangsworth? Wouldn’t he know?”
“Elias had a business trip to go on. Mum wasn’t happy about it. But I think now that he knows there’s no connection between us, he doesn’t see the need to be around all the time. I could wait until he gets back, but I just don’t want Bellatrix to get a chance to get to Victor.”
“Hmm,” Lucy said, glancing out the windows as the wind kicked up leaves in little cyclones for a moment, before they died down and fell back to the pavement. “Hey, what about a magick shop?” she asked. “Not like one of the ones for the general public, which sell gemstone rings and do basic tarot readings. But one of the more serious ones. Wouldn’t a witch know more about this sort of thing?”
It was certainly worth a shot.
“I don’t know of any, though,” Pandora said.
“I think I passed one on a run one day.”
“What makes you think it’s one of the non-touristy ones?” Pandora asked.
“There wasn’t even any real signage telling you what they offered. And when I looked in the window, the place was packed with ancient-looking artifacts, leather-bound books, and stuff like that. Not shelves full of tarot decks or anything like that. What was it called? Arcane something,” Lucy said, reaching for her mobile and trying to plug it in.
“What?” Pandora asked after helping a customer and finding Lucy still frowning at her phone.
“It’s not listed,” Lucy said. “But look.” She turned her mobile so Pandora could see the street view of the shop she was talking about. And it was there. It even had a small, wooden, handwritten sign above the door.