Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
“Oh—the ladies room!” I couldn’t help laughing. “That’s just a nice word for the bathroom.”
“Oh—that makes more sense.” He nodded thoughtfully, then frowned. “But you said you were going there to cry—was that right?”
“Um…” I nibbled my lower lip, wondering if I should tell him.
Normally, I wouldn’t have told anyone, not even my friends. I hated being pitied. But somehow, Tark felt like a safe space—I found I wanted to tell him.
“It was my boss,” I admitted at last. “He said…some pretty nasty things to me and threw some things at me and, well…sometimes you just can’t help crying, you know?”
“He what?” The angry tone in his deep voice surprised me. “What did he throw at you? What did he say?”
“It was just some papers,” I said quickly, surprised at how upset he’d gotten on my behalf. “He, uh, claimed that he told me to alphabetize them—only he didn’t! He’s always making up new rules and not telling me about them until I’ve broken them somehow.”
I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. Sometimes working for Mr. Price was nearly unbearable!
“He sounds like a fucking asshole,” Tark growled and suddenly his face was scary again. Or it would have been scary if I’d thought his anger was directed at me—it wasn’t, though. I knew that instinctively and I wasn’t frightened.
“He is an asshole,” I said and sighed. “But he’s an asshole I’m stuck with for the next four years—at least until I finish school.”
“What? Why are you stuck with him?” Tark demanded. “You ought to leave that job!”
“I can’t,” I said and proceeded to explain about the contract I’d signed and the way I couldn’t get out of it because I didn’t have an extra hundred thousand or so to spend.
Through it all, Tark listened intently. What I really appreciated was the fact that he didn’t start offering solutions right away—though he did ask why, even if I had to stay at Bentley Pharmaceuticals, I couldn’t at least get away from Mr. Price.
When I explained that I’d tried and HR wouldn’t let me leave him because Mr. Price didn’t want to let me go, his face went as dark as a thundercloud.
“That asshole is a Sin Sucker!” he growled.
“I’m sorry—a what?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“A Sin Sucker—a being that enjoys the discomfort or pain of others,” he explained. “Most Sin Suckers feed on physical pain, but there are plenty out there that feed on emotional pain too.”
“But that’s here in the Magical Realm,” I pointed out. “I’m sure we don’t have anything like that in the human world—do we?”
“You sure as fuck do,” he said, frowning. “In fact, you had a whole lot of them back in the 1940s. What do you think the fucking Nazis were?”
“Really?” I looked at him, wide-eyed. “You’re saying there were magical creatures living in among us, uh, humans?”
“Don’t lump yourself in with the humans when you’ve obviously got magical talent,” he told me. “And yes, there were and there still are. Most of them wear glamours to disguise themselves so humans don’t notice them. Like, most of your movie stars are fairies, hiding their wings and their pointed ears with magic. And the billionaires and CEOs are almost all dragons—hoarding more wealth than they could ever possibly use just so no one else can have it. So why shouldn’t your asshole boss be a magical creature too?”
“I really doubt he is,” I said, thinking of Mr. Price’s skinny frame and the way he always wore his reading glasses perched on the very end of his long, bony nose. If there was anyone less magical than him, I didn’t know who it would be. Except maybe me—I was sure the fact that I’d gotten into Hidden Hollow in the first place must be some kind of cosmic mistake.
But talking about my boss made me glance at the time charm that Madam Healer had given me…and realize that I had been in the magical little town for almost three hours.
“Oh, I really need to be going!” I said. “But…I don’t know how to get home.”
“Or how to get back again—if you want to,” Tark pointed out. He reached for my hand. “I mean, if you want to.”
“I do want to,” I said honestly, squeezing his long fingers. His hand was so much bigger than mine I felt like a kid again, holding hands with an adult. But it was nice—really nice. There was a spark between us—I could feel it. And that wasn’t something I could say about any of the human men I’d dated—not that there had been very many.
“I want you to, too, Babygirl,” he rumbled. “Come on—I know who we can talk to about it.”
He rose and lifted me off the couch, just like he had before. Then he frowned down at himself.