Page 20 of Adepts and Alchemists

So, it wasn’t a shock to find the lace panties someone had hastily shucked on the floor. I’d decided to return home from work early that day… I couldn’t even say it was such a surprise that it was my overly solicitous neighbor who was astride him, rocking her hips desperately against my husband. While I might not have been surprised, seeing them like that had still pierced me to the heart. And when her gaze flicked up to meet mine, and a triumphant smile curled the edges of her mouth?

It wasn’t just that he was a faithless, lying son of a bitch. It wasn’t just that he’d betrayed me. I’d suspected that for years. Rodney didn’t follow through on his promises. He never had, even from the start, and I was beginning to despair that he never would. But it was that damn smirk of hers. It only intensified when she rose above him, flipping the sheet of long, blonde hair over one shoulder. It was the glee of a spitefulwoman, who somehow thought she was declaring victory over me by doing this.

He didn’t even know I was there.

I should have marched in and dragged her off him. Maybe I should have just walked away. Maybe I should have yelled at him. Instead, I’d just stood there, frozen, watching until he was through. Then I’d left. Quietly. Without fuss. Not looking back, lest he see me fleeing the house crying.

I cringed, squeezing in on myself as tightly as I could go. I now got to experience my worst memory—but fromhisperspective. It was galling to realize that Rodney had actually meant for me to see, to watch. All along I’d thought he didn’t know I was there. But he had. He just hadn’t looked at me. I should have punched him. I should have done something except just standing there like a deer caught in headlights. And then? Then I’d run away—like a coward. That was still one of the lowest points of my life.

More of Rodney’s petty cruelties rose up to pelt me. Forgotten birthdays and anniversaries. The lies. The gaslighting when I tried to dig deeper into our finances. The days when he froze me out, refusing to speak to me, even about business. I hadn’t realized how miserable I was until I had something better to compare him to.

Just when I thought I’d drown, more memory and sensation flowed over me. My back arched, and a surprised scream finally left my throat. Pleasure was like a riptide, dragging me down. Passion bubbled like champagne through my veins.

Angelo had been Andrea’s last victim, and I was plunged into a deluge of warmth and sensation. I could feel the darkness, the hunger, the demon that drove him. But I also felt the man I’d come to know. Scattered images flashed before my eyes, sizzling and carnal before melting back into the deluge of life she’d stolen from him. I saw...

Me.

I starred almost exclusively in every fantasyshe’d consumed from him—from the moment we’d met. I clung to them now like an anchor, holding myself in his memories as if they were the real thing. If I was going to die in here, this is where I wanted to do it. Because Angelo and I didn’t share the same mirror. None of the things I fretted about myself even registered in his thoughts. They were closer to whispered dreams than anything, but I used those dreams to keep myself from plunging headlong off a cliff. What was more, I was surprised to find the memory he liked best had little to do with sex.

Soft. She was so soft beneath my hands. The scent rolling off her skin was going to drive me mad. So tangy she made my mouth water for just a taste. She’d worn the cute sleep shorts with fluffy blue sheep again. The bow on the front was precious, and I wanted to rip it off with my teeth. The spaghetti strap nightie showed off the graceful line of her neck and shoulders. I wanted to test my teeth against her skin. Wanted to know how she tasted. But I also wanted to wait—to savor this moment of just looking at her.

I shivered. Somehow, even without a body, I shivered. The memory felt so real. Especially when he drew me into his lap halfway through an episode of Friends. In reality, I hadn’t let things go further than that. We’d kissed, and I’d sat primly on the cushion next to him, heart beating like a snare drum. In Angelo’s mind though, thingshadgone differently. He’d imagined so much more that it was almost shocking to think such thoughts had been going through his mind.

Lydia squirmed enticingly on my lap when I eased two fingers past the waistband of her shorts. I waited for her to pluck the offending hand away and chide me. All I felt was the glide of her hips over the head of me, an almost unbearable torment under the circumstances. Her heat, her life poured intome, as heady as wine. I was drunk on the taste, the smell, the feel of her.

Her hips bucked when my finger found and circled her bud, tracing teasing shapes against that most intimate of places without ever looking up to watch her expression. I stared straight ahead, using my free hand to force her to face forward. She wouldn’t remember a damn thing about the episode and I’d tease her about it later.

Her silken heat felt heavenly around my fingers when I pressed them past her panties. I didn’t care about the color or the texture, just that they were in my way. I pressed myself tighter against the succulent curve of her back as she began to whimper, trying to get more friction. Her cries sounded like music, a refrain I’d been wanting to hear since the moment we met.

I risked a peek up. Her eyes were closed and she was... smiling. Smiling despite the erotic torment. Smiling, with tears shining in her eyes. I could taste her willingness. Her trust. It was... strange. Exciting. I wanted more. Wanted that smile aimed at me. Only me.

I pulled out of the fantasy, panting and still flushed with the warmth of his fumbling, faltering feelings for me. It was the only thing that kept my drop into a glass bottle from completely upending my sanity. I came out of the darkness with a pop and a silent scream. The sound only bounced back to me, not seeming to register past the confines of my prison.

When I glanced down, I found I was more or less myself again... only translucent. A ghost. Great. Not only that, but I’d gotten Halloween Special tattooed all over my spectral ass. There was blood everywhere, staining my drab outfit like I was a B-movie damsel. I hadn’t died well or in style. So even my afterlife was primed to suck. Typical.

I was also only as tall as the bottle allowed, which seemed unfair. I’d never heard of anyone else getting the Alice in Wonderland treatment, and yet here I was, spending the rest of my time on earth trapped like a painstakingly painted ship in a forty-ounce bottle. It felt unbelievably cramped after being used to being the shape of a person. At least the bottle kept me from flying away to... wherever I would have gone. I wasn’t entirely sure these days. I’d been in a hell realm. Maybe the demon patched to my soul would have dragged me down there. Maybe I should have been grateful that I’d been stuffed into a bottle instead.

But I wasn’t grateful. So I screamed. I screamed, and no one paid me any mind. I rattled my cage until I was all tuckered out, and it still did me no good. I couldn’t move the bottle. I couldn’t make myself materialize outside of it. Someone had etched sigils on the outside, and touching them felt like being zapped by an electric fence. After only a few seconds of struggling, I had to admit it, if only to myself.

I wasn’t getting out of this. Not without help.

Indigo...I prayed, hoping she’d somehow hear me.You’d better be out there. You’d better be coming for me.

But of course, there was no reply.

I couldn’t just sit here and wait for someone to uncork me. I had to do something. It took a while to come up with anything coherent. I was still hurting, my spectral flesh somehow torn, despite there being no outward wound to show for it. What I finally came up with was a stretch, but it was the only thing I could think of at the moment.

Indigo had told me that spellcraft hinged on three essential things. Incantation, intention, and issuing forth your power. You could dress the steps up in whatever pretty language you wanted, but in the end, it was simple. You found your desire, you shaped it, and you breathed life into it with your words. Ibelieved I had the power to reach past the bottle, if only in spirit. I’d seen ghosts do this all the time.

So, I pictured the bathroom mirror in Anthony’s house. I’d only been there once, after he’d arrived from Texas. It had been unbearably awkward, and I’d escaped to the small bathroom to catch my breath for a while. The walls were beige, the rugs a shade of light blue. I kept the colors, the cold air wafting from the vents, and the texture of the hand towels in my mind as I formed a spell. But most of all, I remembered the cool, clean expanse of reflective glass above the sink. A mirror. It was my only shot.

“Mirror, mirror, my words be true. Send my warning back to you. So mote it be.”

I blew out a breath on the glass, waiting until it fogged up to lean in closer. Then I began to write with my finger.

Chapter Ten

Indigo