She stalked away from him, into the bathroom. Fluorescent
lights blinked on, highlighting the bloodstains splattered down
the left shoulder of her T-shirt.
Nikolaus sat silently on the bed and observed.
Tilting her head to the side, the witch noted the havoc in
the bathroom mirror, then let loose a string of curse words.
Nikolaus bowed his head and shook it, yet he smiled. The
woman could paint a blue streak.
“Look what you did!”
Stepping into the doorway between the bathroom and
bedroom, she pointed out his handiwork with an angry thrust
of her thumb.
Sore, swollen flesh surrounded two prominent bite marks
just below the sharp line of her jaw.
“It’ll heal,” he said calmly. “I should lick it again, to make
sure of it?”
“Back off! Stupid love spell. I sure hope it’s—”
Focused on more than the witch’s temper tantrum,
Nikolaus pricked his ears toward the living room. “There’s
someone at your door,” he said.
“Tell them to go away. Wait. What time is it?” Ravin rushed
back into the bedroom and grabbed the gray sweatshirt jacket
mounded in a heap near the foot of the bed.
“It’s almost morning.” He glanced toward the windows,
shades pulled, each and every one of them. No sunlight yet,
but soon. “You slept all night. I didn’t want to wake you. You
looked so serene.”
“Why don’t you leave? Get out of here!”
He fitted his thumbs into his front pockets and drew up to
stand tall. He didn’t take kindly to such treatment, especially
from someone he loved. It stirred up too many memories of
broken hearts and shouted curses.
On the other hand, she seemed genuinely peeved hewas here.
I know I’ve only just come to her home. There can’t be
things between us already. Can there?
But of course, there was one very obvious thing. The way
he felt about her.
“I’m not leaving until I’m sure you’re going to be okay,”
he said. “Even then…I don’t want to leave, Ravin. It can’t be
this way between the two of us.”
“This way? There is no way between us.”
Now Ravin heard the rap at the door. Couldn’t be the door,
because that lay on the floor of her living room.
“You are going to hate yourself when the spell is broken,”
she snapped.
She zipped up the sweatshirt jacket, but it didn’t cover the
wound, so she tugged up the hood and tied it tight, which gave
