My voice was cold and distant and I heard Alex’s shaky exhale. I did not give two fucks - I needed these answers, now.
“There’s no possibility that it’s just similar, the composition is exactly the same - this is our product.”
The weight of his statement sank into me and I braced myself for the war that I knew needed to be unleashed.
“In fact,” Alex continued, “I can even trace it back to which batch it came from.”
I had no fucking clue what Corinne would come up with, but not going to war with them wasn’t an option. Bitterness coated my tongue as I realised that I would have to visit Karl from our warehouse operations. Because the warehouse was the only place they could get the product from. Well, there or from Alex, but considering Alex was offering up this information, I knew that it wasn’t him. Or was that assumption not correct? Fuck, I sounded paranoid. We had another fucking mole - another traitor in our midst. I wanted to scream. Fucking roar. Instead, I hung up the phone and marched back into the house, my feet leading me straight to Corinne’s bedroom, Ravi and Stepen had long since let themselves out. With all the shit that was going down I needed them at their respective posts. A chill crept out from beneath the door, causing me to push it open without knocking.
She sat cross legged on the floor, her eyes closed as she shivered. Her phone lay discarded on the carpet next to her and the irrational part of me itched to discover who she had phoned - who was her person that she called when shit was just going wrong? Did she have someone? How much did she report to the Club? I had always assumed that she was single, but maybe that was an incorrect assumption, considering everything else I had been wrong about when it came to her, questioning myself was hardly a surprise. There was so much about her that I didn’t know - hadn’t cared to find out.
A light blue silk cloth sat neatly next to her, the square shape beneath it evident through the material.
The room was freezing - and that was coming from a person who’s temperature ran warm regardless of the season. I didn’t know what to do, but I couldn’t just stand there watching her shiver. Her small satin camisole did nothing against the cold, and from this angle, it was impossible not to admire her rounded breasts and hardened nipples beneath the shirt. When did she change? She wasn’t wearing a bra. Fuck. I didn’t know if I should shake her awake in her current state, so I did the only other thing I could think of - I grabbed a blanket off the bed and draped it around her shoulders. She was obviously connected to the Magick or a Deity or something. It was eerie seeing her like this - physically present, but her mind so obviously elsewhere.
Without anything else to do and refusing to leave Corinne in this state, I sank down onto the carpet and waited. I waited for what felt like hours, but in reality was probably only fifteen minutes.
The first thing she did was gasp for breath as if waking from a deep sleep, and I supposed her connected trance was like a sleep state. It caught me off guard and for a minute I panicked, wondering if I needed to conduct CPR or some shit. Her eyes found mine, and where I was expecting to see grogginess and confusion, she was alert, awake, and excited.
“There’s a loophole,” she gushed, rubbing her arms absentmindedly. And not at all creeped out to find me here, so I was taking that as a good sign.
Her excitement was contagious and I almost forgot for a moment about the news that Alex had just delivered - that I had another traitor in our midst - that I would have to order the death of another one of my men.
He is no longer one of your men, that quiet voice in the back of my mind whispered.
“Wait,” she stopped herself, looking around the room, “what are you doing on the floor?”
Her and her constant fucking questions. I glared at her, mulling over how the fuck I was going to answer her, but before I could even utter a word she pushed on, “You know what, nevermind that,” she shifted in place, finally realising that a blanket was draped over her shoulders, and when she looked at me again, her eyes had softened.
Fuck. I didn’t want her looking at me like that - not when being associated with me could easily surmount to her death. But isn’t she already associated with you? My mind taunted me with images of what such an association - an alliance - truly looked like. She was insane to be looking at me like that with her soft doe eyes as if I were worth something in her world. I wasn’t. I didn’t want to belong to her world, or even try to for that matter.
“What is the loophole?” I ground out, my jaw aching from how tight I had been locking the fucking thing over the past few days.
Sighing, she didn’t say a word about the blanket - thank fuck, and instead continued her tale.
“Charl is being no help,” she spoke softly - hesitantly even as if she knew that speaking those words to someone like me was a betrayal of the Club.
“I don't know what’s going on with him, but every time I speak to him, I seem to get nowhere, so I called Zoey instead and I decided that the best way forward - before acting on any crazy plans, would be to conduct a reading of sorts to see what the best way forward would be.”
Her eyes glittered in mischief and I wanted to put my lips to hers and watch the mischief drain out of them, pleasure and lust replacing everything in its wake.
“What kind of reading?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking questions - needing to understand the rules - the system - of Magick itself.
“I just connected to my guides and sort of asked them for guidance,” she shrugged. “Honestly,” she bit her bottom lip, “it's kind of a gamble - sometimes they show me things, and sometimes I get absolutely nothing. But still, I thought it was worth a shot - I mean who knows? Maybe they give me something that I can work with.”
I nodded my head like a fucking yes-man as if I understood what the fuck she was saying.
“And….” her eyes found mine and I sank into her gaze, understanding that greys came in all different shades, and depending on her mood, the shade itself shifted
“They showed me a loophole.”
Her smile was triumphant and I didn’t even try and hide my answering grin.
And then I listened to her unravel her tale. I stayed seated on the floor - the position not entirely uncomfortable, and grew more and more agitated as she explained what she had just done. Fucking Corinne had made a deal with a Demon summoner of some sort, and while I didn’t know a lot about Magick, I was certain that entering into deals and bargains with these entities was a hard no.
“But,” she continued, completely oblivious to my agitation, “Lauren has only cast a protection spell invoking the law of threefold against him should anyone try to physically harm him.”
She looked gleeful at that piece of information.