Love Croakies by Sam Cheever (the kiss of deception read online .txt) 📕

slid a searching gaze over him. The last time I’d seen Ed, he’d looked weak and tired. He’d been kept prisoner for goddess knew how long, his jailer the very woman we were going to visit. Dacara had kept him inside a prison cell made of magical flame, sleeping on a platform like a male version of Sleeping Beauty. When we’d broken him out of the cell, he’d revived, but he’d looked like he’d run thirty miles with wraiths licking at his heels.

Maybe he had.

“You look better than last time,” I told him, smiling.

His answering smile was like a knife in my chest, ripping loose a forgotten memory of a man long dead. Healed and hearty, Edric was the spitting image of our father. Though he had blond hair like Narina’s, his locks curled softly around his handsome face where hers was straight, and his eyes were the same deep blue as mine. Our father’s eyes. He’d been thin and pale the last time I’d seen him, with lines around his mouth and in the corners of his startling eyes. But he’d put on weight since then, and the lines were gone. He was no longer pale, and, even without the lines of strain on his face, he looked more mature than I remembered.

Our mother, Narina, was a powerful wind sorceress. She was my height, around five-nine, with long, straight blonde hair and hazel eyes that I knew would glow with silver energy if she had to use her magic. I’d been told my eyes glowed silver when I was threatened too. Though I’d never, of course, seen it myself. I generally didn’t think about looking in a mirror when I was under attack. Pity. Having glowing eyes was pretty kick-butt, and I’d have enjoyed seeing it.

Unlike the last time when she’d been dressed in soft, feminine clothes, Narina was wearing form-fitting black leather pants and ankle boots, with a white tee and a matching leather jacket over it.

My mother caught me checking out her outfit and smiled. “Wraith resistant.” She jerked her head toward my own jeans, tee, and sneakers. My usual uniform. “They can claw right through that.”

I grimaced, my experience with the wraiths’ deadly claws and acidic spit one I’d hoped never to repeat. “Good to know.”

Next to me, Sebille eyed my erstwhile family with a grim expression. Though she and Narina had both been poisoned by the wraiths the last time we’d visited Dacara, the sprite didn’t seem inclined to indulge in small talk or niceties with the sorceress.

I wondered what had her most-likely striped panties in a twist. However, with Sebille, being cranky was more the usual state of affairs than an oddity.

“I believe that will do,” Archie announced. We turned to look at him.

The dial had dropped to the ground and a solid circle of yellow light pulsed on the dusty ground around it.

Archie picked up the book and tucked it under his arm, turning to us. “Ready?”

No! I’d probably never be ready to face off with Dacara again. But Hobs would die if we didn’t get hold of that serum. So I nodded.

Narina looped her arm through Eddie’s and moved toward Archie. I would have never anticipated the twist of real pain the sight caused in my chest. They were my family. Though I hadn’t known them for most of my life. And it hurt to feel like an outsider when I saw them together. Something must have shown on my face because Narina smiled at me. It was a genuine smile, her eyes warm with emotion, and I blinked back my tears of hurt and turned toward Archie, terrified of her rejection.

Archie stepped into the sphere of light and disappeared.

I jolted to a stop, eyeing the empty air where he’d been. “Um. Archie?”

An arm slipped through mine. My gaze jerked toward Narina’s. She met my gaze with her own and gave my arm a squeeze. “It looks like we’re going on another adventure,” she said. “A family affair.”

Sebille bumped into me on her way by. “Not if we don’t stop dawdling and get our butts in gear.” Sebille stepped into the yellow glow and popped out of sight.

Narina lifted her brows over Sebille’s rudeness.

I shrugged. “She got a gooey center. She just hides it well.”

Eddie chuckled. “I kind of like her. She’s…feisty.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling a little gooey in the center myself when Eddie took my other arm. “That she is.”

A bony hand snaked out of thin air and grabbed my wrist, giving me a muscular yank.

And the three of us stumbled into the great unknown together.

18

Goddess in a Wet Suit. It’s Going to be Chaos!

At first, I thought we’d somehow missed the anomaly. Then I saw Archie and Sebille and realized we couldn’t have. I looked around at the clearing where we’d been, clearly seeing the trees, the sky, and the ground, minus the yellow glow. It looked the same. Though, if I turned my head, the view seemed slightly glossy in my peripheral vision. Like we were in a clear bubble. “Shouldn’t this be dark and black and…spongy?” I asked Archie.

He had Osvald’s book in his hands and was reaching for the edge of the dark brown leather cover. “This isn’t a void, Naida,” he said in a distracted voice. “It’s an anomaly. Abnormal by its very nature.”

Eddie and Narina dropped my arms, and I instantly felt the loss. I fidgeted, not knowing what to do with myself.

Sebille was tapping the edge of the bubble with her fingertips, mumbling quietly.

Archie opened the book and Osvald’s dark, ugly head rose into view. The professor spun slowly to fix his black gaze on each of us in turn. He raised his brows. “So many people willing to be sucked up into the twisting magic?”

Sebille reached out and flicked him on the ear. “Shut it, Mr. Happy. Your gloom isn’t helpful.”

Eddie cleared his throat, his lips twitching, and slid Sebille an assessing glance.

The sprite gave him an innocent look.

“Ow!” Osvald complained.