Mathilda, SuperWitch (Mathilda's Book of Shadows #1)(93)

I spent a lot of time thinking.

I may be somewhat of a ditz and relatively new to this witch business but I wasn’t a total lame-ass loser. There was no reason why Ash or Aidan couldn’t confide in me that they were playing at double agents.

No reason unless they were double agents.

Even if they weren’t, I’d had too many twists and turns in the last year to be anything less than cautious.

Not to mention too many secrets kept for no apparent reason.

I finally made my decision and told Su and Viv what I intended to do.

We talked, we argued, we worried, we fretted – none of us wanted to distrust Aidan or Ash and none of us wanted to believe we’d been deceived.

But we had.

The whole thing sucked.

Last night, we cloaked ourselves and went to the Tower Room.

We drew the circle.

We cut the tips of each of our fingers and stood in the sacred circle – arms high, fingers touching, blood mingling.

And we made our vow of secrets and silence.

No one would know of Ash and Aidan’s deception. We’d keep even Mom, Gran and Mavis in the dark.

We couldn’t trust anyone. Not The Institute, Le Société, the Council, the coven, no one. We didn’t know who was in on it and the fewer who we actually trusted who knew what we knew, the better – all the easier to keep it quiet.

And in the meantime, we would plan for Josie, Rory and I to be safe so Josie could eventually save the world.

They were my Spellbounds and I was taking them home… to Denver.

In Denver, I was on my turf and Agatha, Jeremy, Ash and Aidan would have to follow me home.

And fight me there.

But in the meantime, no one must know we suspected.

So we’d have to go on as normal.

I’d have to carry on, besotted and boy-crazy… simultaneously falling in love with two men.

Or, at least, trying to convince them I was.

While Su and Viv quietly planned our get away.

Goddess, help us.

Chapter Eleven

The Month of September

1 September

Of course, deception wasn’t as easy as it seemed.

I mean, lying is hard.

Or, it was for Viv and me.

Su seemed to find it easy.

So we gave her most of the hard jobs.

Ash and Aidan both suspected something right away.

I know this because about two days after I resurfaced from my “flu” and after doing a twelve hour shift at The Dozen, I headed straight to Paulina’s house for a séance (we were just looking for some lighthearted entertainment and Antonia was pretty certain she could call John Belushi or Richard Pryor but all we got was someone telling us to, “Fucking leave me alone, you f**king bitches!” which could be practically any dead comedian from the last three decades).

Ash and Aidan were not pleased and both of them were waiting when Josie and I stumbled, exhausted, into The Gables later that night.

“Yo dudes… later,” I said, cool as a cucumber as I passed the Plush Parlor they’d just walked out of.

Ha!

Aidan caught my bicep as I tried to pass and I looked up into his narrowed, angry blue eyes.

“Where have you been?” he demanded to know in a low voice.

Uh-oh.

I’d never actually seen Aidan angry. Well, not at me anyway, around me, maybe.

Seemed kinda scary to have his anger actually directed at me.

“Séance… we were going for Belushi but I think we got Bruce,” I told him.

Aidan’s narrowed eyes narrowed more as they roamed my face. “Are you drunk?”

“Kinda, but Josie was driving.”

That was a lie. I was dead sober. And Josie’s driving was scary, as in scary-slow and granny-like.

“Have you lost your mind? You made your Spellbound your designated driver?” Aidan again demanded to know in a voice that was, again, low.

“Er…” was my answer.

“Why didn’t you tell Wilding or me you were out for the night?” he clipped.

“I did,” I lied.

“You didn’t,” Aidan countered.

Mm.

He was right.

I shrugged then stated, “I’m dead on my feet, Aidan, you wanna let go and give me the third degree in the morning?”

He let me go but he did it less in a way that he was doing as I wished and more in a way that if he didn’t, he might shake me.

Ash watched me over Aidan’s shoulder. He was being annoyed broody (rather than just unhappy broody or broody broody or thoughtful broody, I’d begun to be able to categorize his broodiness) but he didn’t say a word.

I looked from one to the other, waved lamely, said, “‘Night,” and then hightailed it out of there.

See?

Real smooth.

Ack.

They totally knew something was up.

Lying is not for me.

The only way I could figure to get around it was to avoid them.

Until I worked out how really to avoid them.

Because I didn’t think I could go through with my part of the plan.

That is, pretend I was still in love with them.

Though I was still in love with them but now I was in love with them and my heart was breaking.

That was the problem.

It was all too complicated.