“Lou,” Ethan said. “If you want to warn me away or to tell me that if I hurt her, you’ll come after me, save your breath. I already know what happens to a wolf shifter when he crosses a paranormal creature. I’m not ready to repeat the experience for myself. What I feel for Ruby is real, whether she wants to believe it or not. That’s beside the point, though. She wants to have kids. A family. She won’t leave her work behind if it means she has to train her children to take her place.”
Ethan didn’t know Lou enough to be certain, but it sure looked like this new information was hurting him.
“Little Ruby wants to quit?”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah. She wants it all. A life, a home with the white picket fence.”
“You know this? She told you so?”
“I’m taking her breakfast in bed after spending the night with her, so yeah. I know that’s what she wants, but Ruby didn’t justtellme. I wish I was the guy who was by her side in that life.”
“That’s …” Lou struggled to find the right word. “That’s profound.”
“It’s the truth. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Ruby is waiting for me in bed.” Ethan tipped his head. “Thanks for this, Lou.”
After giving Ocho his fair share of tips, Ethan made his way up in the elevator. He was barely through the hotel door that a little red flurry of action pulled the cart into the room and shut the door behind them. Ruby was flustered. “There you are,” she threw her hands up in the air even though she was fully nude. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
Ethan lifted one of the silver domes, revealing a stack of pancakes and crispy bacon. “I went to get breakfast. I was trying to do a thing.”
“You brought me breakfast in bed,” Ruby whispered, her hands going up to her mouth. She repeated the words over again.
“I did. Now, you wanna get in bed and eat this before we go for round … What number are we evenatanymore?”
Ruby held up her hands. One went to cover her breasts, and the other hid her pussy. “You are the sweetest, and I will totally rock your world for being an actual gentleman in a minute, but first, I’ve got good news. That’s why I was looking for you!”
“Nude?”
“Well, I was still just searching in the room.”
Ethan chuckled. “You are adorable, Ruby.” He towed her to the bed, wrapped her shoulders in a robe, and settled a tray on her lap. “You’ve got news?”
“Sorry, I’m still in shock.” She popped a strawberry into her mouth. “Thanks for this, Ethan.” She beckoned him with a wave of her finger, and with a smile, he leaned over her to kiss her softly.
“You’re welcome, Ruby.”
“Okay, news.” She bit into a pancake. “We found a witch who is willing to reverse the curse.”
“Oh?” He settled on the bed beside her. “Is it Alice Gatlin?”
She nodded. “It is. She can’t get away from work right now, but she said that she can start looking into ways of reversing the curse if she could just get the exact words of the spell. She’ll be here in a couple of days.”
He winced. “Shit. The exact words? I would have to call Gus. What are the chances he remembers what his evil witch said to him?”
“Well, he better have pretty good recall of it. Spells and magic, at least the kind that the witches do, is a particular kind of force. It’s not quite what you would expect from magic because it’s so specific. They have to be very careful of the wording, or all Hell can break loose.”
“Figuratively?” he asked, hopefully.
“Literally,” she corrected with an apologetic smirk. “I know, not super helpful. But at least we can try to reverse it.”
“Can we make things worse if we don’t have the right words? The right curse?”
“I think so. We would need to talk to Alice again. The question is, don’t you think it’s worth the risk?”
He blew out a breath. “I’m freaking out a little bit here,” he admitted. “What do you think I should do? Wait for Alice to break this with what can be a possible cure, or do I try to find Jazmin?”
“Oh. I thought we agreed that finding Jazmin and getting her to reverse her magic wasn’t a good idea.”
“It’s not. I know it’s not, but that doesn’t change the fact that we might need her after all. How do we find her?”