Page 21 of Wooing the Wiccan (Elf Magic #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jared

The elevator stops at the right floor, doors opening, and I peer out.

It looks like any other corporate office I’ve been to. How disappointing.

Pull it together, Jared. Show these people the respect they deserve—they’re not here to entertain you.

I’m so busy giving myself that little pep talk that the elevator doors start to close, and I lunge through them with a yelp, banging my shoulder on one and half-skidding into the lobby. Exactly the kind of first impression I want to make.

Heart pounding with embarrassment, I look around. There are two people in conversation over by the security gate that leads into the office area, and the receptionist is on the phone, but the man closest to me?—

“I hate when that happens,” he says sympathetically, shaking his head. “There’s sensors in everything these days, right? So why can’t those sensors know when I’m having thinky thoughts and need more time?”

I stare at him. “Yeah,” I manage, though I’m not completely sure what I just agreed with. Elevators that can read minds, maybe? “I got distracted.”

The guy nods. He’s big, on the scale of those monster-sized hockey players last night—was it only last night?

—but has this cheerful, happy-go-lucky vibe that balances out the sheer size of him.

His accent is distinctly English, and it strikes me that if the lucifer is the top-level leader, then the community of species has a world government. I wonder how they make that work?

“Distraction is the best. All my favorite ideas came to me when I was distracted by something else,” he tells me earnestly. “My boyfriend jokes that if I don’t bring up a new idea during afterglow, he knows I wasn’t completely focused on the sex.”

I furtively glance around. Am I being pranked? Are there people waiting to jump out and yell, “Gotcha!”?

The lobby seems just the same as before, except the two people who were by the security gate are gone, and the receptionist is now typing something.

“I hope he doesn’t get mad,” I say politely, then wish I’d thought of something better. He already said it was a joke.

“Nah, even with only half my attention I’m better at sex than most people. I’m Alistair.” He extends a hand, and I shake it automatically, glad for a reason not to have to come up with a reply to his statement.

“Jared. Uh?—”

“I’m Sam’s bestest bestie,” he continues, and every bit of my attention is immediately laser focused on him. “I work with him and Gideon. He said you were coming in and that you didn’t know much about the community, so I decided to be your temporary bro.”

“My temporary bro?” I echo, and he grins.

“Yep. I can’t offer more without knowing you better, but permanent bro-hood could be on the horizon if you fit the vibe.”

This conversation isn’t getting any easier to navigate. “You don’t know me at all,” I point out. “Shouldn’t you hold off even mentioning it for now?”

He shrugs his ginormous shoulders. “Probably. But I’ve got a good feeling about you.

Okay.” He turns toward the reception desk.

“Let’s get you a visitor badge, and then I’ll give you a quick tour of the office and introduce you to people.

You’ve got an appointment with the integration department at eleven thirty, and then we’re having lunch with Noah after that. Sam said he told you about Noah?”

I nod, quickening my steps to keep up with his longer stride. “Yes. He’s human too.”

“Meh. I always considered him to be part gremlin. He can be vicious when he wants.”

That’s not the most comforting thing to hear right now.

“But he’s the expert on human magic, and Sam tells me you’re in the program already? Hey, Candice,” he says to the receptionist before I can reply. “We need to sign in my temp-bro Jared.”

The woman smiles warmly at me. She’s pretty, looks to be in her early thirties, and has horns poking through her impeccably styled hair. “Hello, Jared, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Candice, the executive receptionist. I’ve got everything ready for you.”

Her calm normality is a beacon in the past five minutes of Alistair’s chatter. I smile back at her, say hello, and sign where she tells me to before taking possession of a badge on a lanyard.

“Are you going to take Jared around?” she asks Alistair. “I can call one of the admin support staff to watch the phones?—”

“No need,” Alistair declares. “I’ve got this. Team Bro is vetting him for potential membership.”

They are?

Candice rolls her eyes and winks at me. “I’ll see you later, then, Jared. Welcome to the community.”

Sam made me feel welcome last night, but this is the first time I’ve heard those words, and something about them lifts a weight off my chest. “Thank you.”

We’ve taken five steps away from the desk before Alistair picks up the thread of our previous conversation. “So yeah, Sam said you’re already pretty experienced with magic?”

“I guess that depends on how you define experience. I’ve been going to lessons—the program, I guess—for a few months, and R—” I cut myself off.

That name means something here. I don’t know exactly how much Sam told Alistair, but I don’t want to talk about my current personal situation, and I really don’t want people to think that I’m trying to claim some sort of status by mentioning him.

“A friend has been helping me practice as well,” I finish. “I didn’t know it, but he’s an elf.”

“Elves are such great friends,” he informs me, swiping us through the security gate. “My bro Caolan is an elf. Some of the stuff he can do with magic is epic . I don’t think I’ve met an elf I disliked—their king sets a high standard for being awesome, and they all try to live by that.”

“Oh,” I mutter, casting around for a way to change the subject. “Um, I don’t want to be rude, but is it okay to ask what species you are?”

The beaming grin he gives me is reassurance that I haven’t offended him.

“Sure! It’s totally fine to ask as long you do it nicely like that.

Most of us can tell each other apart, but humans struggle with it, at least at first. My bro Caolan says there are times he still can’t always be sure if he’s talking to an incubus or a vampire. ”

“I promise not to be rude if I ask,” I assure him. I spend most of my days teaching five-year-olds how to use manners—I’m pretty sure I can handle using my own.

“I’m a hellhound,” Alistair proclaims. “Uh, I mean canid shifter. Did anyone explain the name to you?”

“Only that humans used it to vilify your species and then it stuck.”

“Our species leader at the time thought it was funny and made it our official species name.” From the way he’s chuckling, I guess he thinks it’s funny too.

“We don’t have anything to do with hell, I promise.

Mostly since hell’s not real.” He stops and gives me a concerned look.

“You’re not religious or anything, are you? ”

My chest gets tight. I’m still not thinking about how what they’ve told me changes everything I’ve believed. “I’m Wiccan.”

His expression clears. “That’s a good one, as far as religions go. You guys don’t believe in hell either, so you’re not going to try to burn my house down with me in it.”

My lips part in shock. “People do that?”

Alistair shrugs. “Only once. I’m over it now; it was a long time ago. Hey, Jim!”

A big horned man looks up from the desk we’ve stopped beside. “Hi, Al. Who’s this?” He sounds friendly enough, but the expression on his face doesn’t really match.

“Say hi to Jared. He found out about the community by accident, and now we’re helping him get acquainted with it.

” He turns to me. “Jim’s a demon, as you can see by the horns.

Here in the office we don’t worry too much about disguise glamor, but obviously outside it’s a priority.

Now, what I was going to say before about knowing who belongs to which species—if we’re glamoured, it’s going to be nearly impossible for you.

Sorry, but your senses aren’t developed to be able to smell us apart.

” He elbows me. “Get it? Smell us apart?”

My laugh is entirely involuntary, but I don’t begrudge it. He’s been nice; the least I can do is laugh at his jokes. “That’s a good one.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Jim says, but Alistair’s moved on.

“See Anice over there? She’s a cat—a felid shifter.

You’ll usually be able to tell someone’s a shifter by the way they move.

Our joints are more fluid than other species, and we have great balance.

Felids are generally smaller than hellhounds, so if you see someone you think is a shifter, you can make a guess at which kind based on their size. ”

“Got it.” None of that seems at all scientific or concrete, so I think I’ll just stick to politely asking if I really feel like I need to know.

“Al, Caolan was looking for you,” another big guy says as we pass more desks. Hellhound? There are no horns. “He said the glitterball tournament is back on.”

Alistair stops dead. “Really? He made the spell work?” He yanks his cell from his pocket.

“Apparently the king helped him with the spell,” the guy continues. “That man is so amazing. What other species leader would help with this even though he doesn’t approve of glitterball, just because he knows we all really want to play?”

I try to ignore the pang in my chest. That does sound like something Raeulfr would do—like the time he helped me research how to look after kiwi plants, even though he dislikes the fruit and thinks me trying to grow one is a waste of time and space, especially in our climate.

He even went so far as finding a reputable grower who’d be willing to part with some seedlings for me.

Alistair finishes his conversation and moves us along. “What’s glitterball?” I ask, even though what I really want to ask is for everything he knows about Raeulfr.

“It’s like paintball, but with glitter instead of paint,” he explains.

“The problem we were having was that the glitter wasn’t giving enough pizzazz.

We could get a glittery paint splatter effect, which is boring, or we could get loose glitter, but it just kind of dropped wherever when the pellet broke. ”

“Okay…” This is something I hope none of my students ever learn about.

As a kindergarten teacher, I respect the joy glitter brings to young lives, and I even encourage its use.

But I also loathe it with the fire of a thousand suns.

That shit is impossible to get rid of. If you use glitter once, you will forevermore be finding random pieces of it in the weirdest possible places.

“What we really wanted was for the glitter to explode from the pellet and coat the person it hit. Like the effect you get from a glitter cannon, but targeted.”

Oh sweet goddess, no.

“Caolan was sure he could do it with the right spell, but it seemed like he was never going to perfect it. We were really discouraged.”

“But now you don’t need to be,” I manage. Raeulfr is a saint if he actually helped them do this—either that, or he’s not anything like the man I thought I knew.

Which brings me back to the dilemma I’ve been avoiding since he left my house last night.