Page 13 of Bewitched by the Fruit Bat King (The Bewitching Hour #3)

The Not A Date Date

Willow

M y phone buzzes repeatedly as I stare at the mountain of clothes on my bed, each rejected outfit a testament to my mounting panic.

Luna: Outside your door! Luna: With reinforcements! Bethany: WINE AND DRESSES!!! Luna: Let us in before your wards zap us Bethany: Again Me: Door's open. I'm upstairs having a crisis. Lock the door behind you please. Luna: Fashion or existential? Me: Yes.

I hear them before I see them – the shop bell downstairs, followed by rapid footsteps and excited chatter. My apartment door bursts open with a gust of perfumed air and shopping bags.

"Honey, we're home!" Luna sings out, already kicking off her heels. "And we brought – oh wow, this is worse than the graduation party meltdown."

I emerge from behind a particularly tall pile of rejected dresses. "I have nothing to wear."

"You have the entire contents of your closet on your bed," Bethany points out, setting down what appears to be several bottles of very expensive wine. "And half of it's on your floor."

"Those are the definite nos." I gesture to the bed. "Those are the maybes. And that..." I point to a single black dress hanging on my closet door, "is mocking me."

"Drama queen." Luna starts unpacking shopping bags while Bethany hunts for wine glasses. "Though I have to say, when you texted about library research, I didn't expect it to end with a date with the vampire king."

"It's not a date," I protest automatically. "It's a business dinner. About stamps."

"Uh huh." Bethany returns with glasses and starts pouring something that sparkles suspiciously. Her eyes narrow slightly as she looks at me, and I know she's using her cupid-in-training abilities. "That's why you're practically radiating attraction right now."

I fidget under her knowing gaze. "That's... anxiety."

"Sure it is." Luna pulls out a garment bag with a flourish. "Now, speaking of your library adventure – spill. The ghost network says he caught you falling off a ladder?"

I accept the wine glass Bethany offers, taking a large sip. "Mrs. Haversham is a gossip."

"Mrs. Haversham is our best source of supernatural tea," Bethany corrects, settling cross-legged on the one clear spot of my bed. "Also, you're blushing."

"I am not." I am. "I was doing research—"

"On stamps," they say in unison, grinning.

"—and Mrs. H pointed me to this really high shelf, and the ladder moved, and..."

"And Kane just happened to be there to catch you?" Luna starts laying out dresses with surgical precision. "How romantic."

"It wasn't romantic! It was..." Humiliating? Thrilling? My heart skips traitorously at the memory. "Professional."

"Oh yes, very professional." Bethany reaches into my bag, pulling out the grimoire. "Just like this very professional family research you were doing? The one that has nothing to do with Kane?"

I lunge for the book but she holds it out of reach. "That's... historical interest."

"Historical interest in your mate's family tree?" Luna pauses in her dress arranging. "What did you find?"

I sink onto the bed, displacing several sundresses. "Something weird. Kane's ancestor, Viktor Drake, was apparently fated mates with someone named Hazel Florence."

"Florence?" Bethany's eyes widen. "Like your mom's family?"

"Exactly like my mom's family. But then Viktor suddenly married someone else, and all record of Hazel just... vanishes." I take another sip of wine. "And when I tried to find out more, the pages in our family grimoire in the library were torn out."

Luna abandons the dresses entirely, coming to sit beside me. "That's... concerning."

"That's not even the weirdest part." I gesture to the grimoire Bethany's still holding. "Look at the entry from three months before Viktor's marriage."

Bethany carefully opens the book, finding the page I marked. Her eyebrows shoot up as she reads. "'The bond grows stronger daily, defying all attempts at severance. V swears his devotion, though dark forces gather. Must protect—' and then it just stops."

"Protect what?" Luna peers over her shoulder.

"No idea. The next three pages are missing." I drain my glass. "And then Viktor's marrying Evangeline Blackstone and Hazel's just... gone."

"Well, that's not ominous at all." Luna stands abruptly. "This calls for divination."

"Luna, no—"

"Luna, yes!" She's already pulling out her tarot cards. "The cards were right about Kane before, let's see what they say now."

"Can we at least do the reading after I find something to wear?" I eye the clock. "He's sending a car at eight."

"Multitask." She starts shuffling while Bethany returns to the shopping bags. "Besides, you should probably know if you're going to discover any dark family secrets over dinner."

"It's a business dinner about stamps!"

"Speaking of business," Bethany pulls out a deep burgundy dress, "how are you doing after... you know, the Marcus thing?"

I freeze halfway through reaching for the dress. "How did you..."

"What thing?" Luna's cards scatter across the bed. "What happened with Marcus?"

"Um." I suddenly become very interested in examining the dress's hemline. "There may have been a small incident at the flower fields..."

"WHAT?" They chorus.

"It wasn't... well, it was a big deal." I sink onto the bed. "Marcus bit Kane."

"Marcus bit Kane?" Luna's voice hits a pitch only dogs should hear. "But vampires don't bite other vampires! That's like... that's not even a thing!"

"I know! And the worst part? Turns out Kane is the Vampire King of the Eastern Court."

"He's WHAT?" Luna nearly drops her wine. "How did we not know this?"

"Because vampires are basically the introverts of the supernatural world," Bethany points out. "Ever since the hunting days, they keep everything under wraps. Their hierarchy, their power structure... I mean, we only know Marcus because he actually interacts with other supernaturals."

"Which makes this even weirder," I add. "I was at the cut-your-own fields - thanks for that last-minute save with the date, by the way, Bethany, even if it didn't work."

"Hey, you asked for an emergency Kane-avoidance plan," Bethany shrugs. "I did my best on short notice."

"And then he showed up anyway," Luna says with a barely suppressed grin.

"Don't start," I warn her. "I'd barely made it past the greenhouse when Marcus appeared. And something was... wrong. He wasn't himself at all."

"What do you mean?" Bethany leans forward, frowning.

"He seemed agitated. Aggressive. This is Marcus we're talking about - the vampire who puts out sugar water for bees and apologizes if he steps on a leaf. But his eyes were just... empty. When he lunged at me, I managed to throw up a shield spell."

"But then Kane got involved?" Luna prompts.

"Yeah, he appeared out of nowhere and Marcus just... changed targets. Went straight for Kane's throat. I've never seen anything like it. I had to use a binding spell to pull Marcus off him and hold him there until the medic team arrived to sedate him."

"That's some serious magic," Bethany whistles.

Luna swirls her wine thoughtfully. "And now you're stuck having dinner with the vampire king you accidentally bit."

I groan, falling back onto the bed. "Don't remind me. I still can't believe I did that. One moment of lost control and now there's this... this..."

"Partial mate-mark?" Bethany supplies helpfully, her cupid senses clearly picking up on something.

"At least it's not complete," I say, staring at the ceiling. "I mean, breaking it would hurt like hell, but..."

"But you're considering it?" Luna asks softly.

"I don't know what I'm considering." I wrap my arms around myself. "Everything's so complicated now. There's this whole vampire king thing, and Marcus acting weird, and now this dinner..."

"Can we please focus on finding me something to wear?" I gesture desperately at the clothes explosion around us. "He will be here in a few hours."

"Fine." Luna returns to her cards while Bethany holds up a deep emerald dress. "But we're not done discussing this. Something weird is definitely going on with Marcus."

Luna spreads her cards on the only clear spot of bed, while Bethany holds up what must be the tenth dress of the evening. This one's a deep midnight blue that seems to shimmer with its own starlight.

"Hold still," Bethany commands, pressing the dress against me. "This one's perfect. It says 'I'm here to discuss stamps but I could also hex you into next week.'"

"That's... oddly specific." But I have to admit, the dress is stunning.

"First card." Luna's voice takes on that dreamy quality it gets during readings. "The High Priestess, reversed. Secrets coming to light, but with resistance. The Universe is basically screaming 'girl, dig deeper' about this whole Hazel situation."

I try to peer at the cards while Bethany maneuvers me into the dress. "What kind of resistance?"

"Second card... oh." Luna's eyebrows shoot up. "The Tower. Major upheaval ahead. But look how it aligns with Justice – truth will out, but it's gonna be messy."

"Define messy," I say, voice muffled by silk.

"Like 'centuries of carefully hidden supernatural drama' messy." She lays down another card. "The Moon – more secrets, obviously, but also intuition. Trust your gut about this."

"My gut is currently telling me to run far away from all of this."

"No, it's not." Bethany's hands still on the dress's zipper. "Your cupid aura is practically glowing. You're intrigued. Both by the mystery and by him."

"I am not-" I catch sight of myself in the mirror and forget what I'm protesting. The dress is... perfect. The color makes my skin glow and my eyes look almost otherworldly. "Oh."

"Final card." Luna's voice cuts through my distraction. "The Two of Cups, but..."

"But what?"

"It's bleeding into Death." She frowns at the cards. "I've never seen them do that before. It's like... like the cards can't quite decide if this is about transformation or endings or beginnings."