Chapter 18
XANDER
I popped the top off a second bottle of beer.
“You want one?” I asked the warlock who was still lying on the sofa.
When I had gone back to the veil and found Michael in an unmoving pile of clothing and limbs, I’d thought he was dead. Blood had splattered everywhere around him on the forest floor. His palms had still been healing from deep gashes across them. Judging by the pallor that still decorated his cheeks, he had clearly lost a fair bit of blood before he’d managed to patch himself up.
Michael groaned and pulled himself upright. “Yeah, thanks.”
I handed him the cold bottle, then tipped mine back and chugged down half the beer. God, I needed a drink, but I couldn’t get too smashed, not tonight. We had to sort out this situation between the four of us, and how it might work.Ifit could work, now that Monique had married her warlock. Then we had to work out what the hell was going to happen next. I needed my wits for that conversation.
Michael drank his beer. “What a fucked-up day.”
Kyle sat down with a packets of chips and a few bars of chocolate. “It’s been a fucked-up few days, but hey, we’re out. We’re alive. And I’m fucking starving.”
“There’re microwave meals in the fridge, and frozen stuff in the freezer, too. Pizzas, if you want one,” Michael said, grabbing for a bar of chocolate.
“Were you living here or something?” I asked the warlock.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Michael ran a hand through his hair. He still looked pale and shaky. “I used it as a home base when I was traveling. There are spells on everything. The fridge, the freezer. You take something out, and it refills.”
Kyle chuckled. “Sounds like the perfect bachelor pad.”
“Yeah.” Michael leaned back on the couch, “Yeah, it is. I mean...it was.”
Oh, yeah. Married guy.
For a second or two, I’d forgotten that.
I settled into my armchair and sipped on my beer. I wasn’t ready to eat yet, but I was slowly calming down.
Part of me still couldn’t believe that a psycho warlock had locked us underground with the intention to keep us as his private blood bank. Like some sort of vampire.
“Hey, Xander,” Michael said, interrupting my thoughts about pummeling his father into the dirt.