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

the vault, I had to agree. “That doesn’t look like love to me.”

“No,” Sebille agreed. “It doesn’t.”

After a moment of trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for that dichotomy and failing, I shook it off and tackled a different problem. “Any idea who or what could have destroyed the wards like that?”

“Not who,” she responded. “But what…there is something that could have done this. Though, I thought the ogres had destroyed it.”

“Ogres?” I felt my eyes go wide. “What ogres?”

Sebille grinned widely. “Oh, that’s right, you haven’t met the ogres.” She clapped her hands. “Fun!” She spun on her heels and hurried back down the aisle, her heels smacking smartly against the concrete with every step.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“To speak to my mother,” she called over her shoulder. “She’ll get us an invitation to visit King Rhorr.”

My gaze narrowing on her retreating form, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t going to enjoy my visit to the ogres. I had nothing to base that feeling on, except my assistant’s glee at introducing me to them.

The sprite’s glee was never good for my health and happiness.

On the flip side, I doubted the ogres celebrated Valentine’s Day. That meant, even if only for a brief time, I’d get a respite from the overdone and obnoxious Valentine’s Day décor. I was already heartily sick of it.

Grym and I stood back and watched the two men work. I’d never formally met the Phoenix shifter who was currently performing a controlled burn to extinguish any lingering strains of toxic magic in the vault and around the open door. But he had saved my life once. I’d since learned his name was Brad Spence. I’d also learned the soft-spoken fireman…yeah, I see the irony of a Phoenix shifter becoming a fireman…had a soft Southern drawl, warm golden-brown eyes, fiery red hair to rival Sebille’s, and a fondness for red hot candies. No surprise there.

Towering over Brad’s stocky five-foot-eleven inch build was Abe something or other. I hadn’t caught his name. Abe’s magic was undetermined. I thought he might actually be a witch of some kind, but nobody explained it to me.

“What exactly is Abe doing?” I asked Grym.

“Reconditioning the air after the toxins are gone.”

I nodded, then couldn’t help asking. “Why?”

Grym gave me a smile that made the toes inside my sneakers curl. “Think of Abe as a magical crime scene cleaner. He detoxifies, cleans, brightens, and just generally refreshes and returns the scene back to normal.”

I eyed the broken bits of dangerous artifacts inside the vault. My gaze narrowed as it fell on the black and white television. “Does that demon TV look less damaged to you?”

Grym nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“Is Abe doing that? Because if he is, I’d like him to stop. None of the things in this vault need to be in working order. In fact, it would be best if they weren’t.”

“He’s not doing it.” Grym looked at me. “You should know by now that things always balance out in the magic world, Naida.”

“I do, but when something in the library breaks, it usually stays broken unless someone repairs it.”

He shook his head. “Non-toxic magic doesn’t need to change form to create balance. It exists within a balanced environment that isn’t affected by the form the artifacts take. If the magic escapes from a normal object, it’s simply absorbed into the universe and will be used in another way.”

My eyes went wide. “Are you telling me the toxic magic from these objects will be absorbed into the universe?”

“I’m telling you that’s what happens with normal magic items. But toxic magic degrades and destroys. The natural world abhors toxic magic. It repulses and tries to expel dark magic.”

“So it’s not absorbed?” I asked, just to make sure I understood.

“Not absorbed. With nowhere else to go, the toxins put themselves to work rebuilding their own magical identities.”

I eyed the magic mirror, which was back on its shelf and covered with the cloth again. I wondered who had put it there.

The sound of someone hurrying toward us had me turning.

Sebille nearly skipped in our direction. She wore a wide smile and held a page of some kind of paper in her hand, waving it at me. “I got it! I got our invitation.”

I sighed. “I’m pretty sure I’m not going to enjoy this.”

“Enjoy what?” Grym asked, his dark brows lowering with concern.

“Sebille thinks the ogres might know how the vault was opened.”

He stared at me for a long moment and then his lips twitched. “Oh. Yikes. You’re going to see the ogres?”

I lost control of my calm. Grabbing one of his big hands, I squeezed it hard while imploring him with my pleading gaze. “What? Tell me why everybody keeps smiling about me meeting the ogres. You’re scaring me.”

Grym let the smile turn into a laugh and then, leaning down, kissed me on the tip of my nose. “Give me a call when you get back. Just to…you know…let me know you’re okay.”

He strode down the aisle, looking like he’d just won the lottery. As he and Sebille passed in the narrow aisle, he put one blocky hand into the air and slapped her high five.

I stood there quivering in my sneakers.

They’d bonded over the horror of what was about to happen to me.

This could not be good.

3

All Is Not What It Seems

“I really should be doing inventory on those artifacts,” I said again, knowing my feeble protests were going to be ignored like a puff of powder in a wintery snowscape.

“They’ll still be there when we get back,” the sprite said.

“But, I’m not sure the new ward will hold.”

Sebille sent me a blustery look. “I personally rebuilt the ward. Are you saying you don’t think I know what I’m doing?”

Alarm swept through me. The last thing I wanted to do was hack off the sprite when she had my very life clutched in her knobby-knuckled fingers. “Of course not. I didn’t say that. Did I say that?”

“Sounded like,”