Page 14 of A Game Cursed and Deadly

“I told you fate would bring me to you,” I say with my most charming smile.

“That you…” She looks past my shoulder. “Did.”

I turn around to see what her attention has focused on. Meilin has moved closer, and her undivided attention is trained on Esmeralda. I glare, hoping she’ll catch the hint, but aside from the nosey ghost, I don’t see anything that would catch my little prey’s attention.

Esmeralda clears her throat, and I turn back to her. “I’ve got to head to the bookstore.”

“I’ll walk you.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Weren’t you here for coffee?”

I smirk. “I was, but I vowed I wouldn’t let you go a second time.”

Her cheeks tint a rosy color, but she nods and leads the way. I shoot a glare at Meilin behind me before following. Esmeralda tries to get the door with her hip, and I take the chance to pull the drink carrier from her. She shoots me a thankful smile as she uses her now free hand to open the door, but something about her expression looks on edge. I can scent it in her smell, too, which has taken on a bitter note.

Once outside, her shoulders drop a little. I steal a glance behind us to check on Meilin, who’s following us, but at a respectable distance.

“I was starting to think I wouldn’t see you again,” Esmeralda admits.

So she’s been thinking about me. I can’t help feeling smug at the idea. “Fate, remember?”

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Sure, that.”

“You don’t believe in fate?”

She turns her face to me. “Do you?”

The question sounds genuine, so I land on giving as honest an answer as I can. “I believe certain powers are stronger than the rest of us.”

“Mhmh.” She lets her gaze drop to the sidewalk.

“Too heavy a subject for a Sunday morning? We can pivot to smaller talk, if you’d like. How’s your week been?”

She grimaces. “Overwhelming.”

She makes a right turn down a narrow alley, and I follow. “Want to talk about it?”

“I don’t want to bother you with it.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t care to know.” That rings truer than it should be, but something about how guarded my little prey is makes me want to unravel all her deepest secrets.

She studies my face, as if assessing my honesty, and finally sighs. “I’m back in Hazel Creek to settle some family matters, and they’ve been more challenging than I thought.”

It’s as much detail as I’m going to get from her, but I stow that morsel away like a nugget of gold. “Sounds like you could use a distraction.”

She giggles. “You got any suggestions?”

I raise an eyebrow in her direction. “You know exactly what my suggestion is.”

She makes a rumbling sound in her throat, but doesn’t say anything. I can be patient in getting what I want, but this game of cat and mouse is starting to irritate me. Grabbing her elbow, I force her body to face mine. I step closer and she moves back until she’s pressed against the alley’s wall. A grin spreads on my lips now that I have her trapped. I lift the forearm not holding the coffee to press against the wall by her head so she’s caged in.

But Esmeralda isn’t afraid. Her pupils dilate, taking over the haunting green of her eyes, and her breathing shallows. The scent I’ve come to search for gets stronger, twinging with something unexpected like fresh cut grass. When I take a deep inhale of it, it burns down my nostrils and throat in an intoxicating way, and the more of it I take in, the more I realize it’s not grass. Olive oil.

My little prey is excited, and her desire is the most inebriating aroma I’ve ever scented. I have to fight to keep my glamour up so my fangs won’t show.

Esmeralda clutches her brown paper bag with a blooming grease spot on it to her chest. “What are you…”

Her voice dies in her throat as I lean my face closer to her neck. “I told you I wasn’t taking no for an answer this time, Esmeralda.”