“That’s right.”
“You’re here. How are you here? Did you follow me?” She twisted her hand in the air, and she was just about ready to cast a spell, but Ethan threw his own up in defeat.
“Please, I didn’t follow you. I’m here with my girlfriend.” He nudged his chin in Ruby’s direction. “I was here in the bar, and I saw you. I thought maybe I should approach you and warn you I was here. I didn’t want to …” He sighed and shook his head. “Nope, sorry. I can’t do this. It doesn’t feel right to lie to you.”
“Youdidfollow me?”
“No, I really was here before you. Ruby over there actually is my lady friend. I just need to ask you a very unfortunate favor.”
“I am not reversing the curse.”
“But if you could just hear me out.”
She shook her blonde hair like a mean school principal dealing with a petulant child. “No, sorry. I cursed Gus and his band of idiots.”
“Band of idiots? That’s my family you’re talking about.”
“Yeah? Well, why did you let yourfamilypropose to me if I wasn’t his true mate? Do you have any idea how much it hurt to cancel our wedding? I had a dress. I had done everything to be ready. Instead, Gus … a man I was going to spend forever with … chose another woman over me. One he just met.”
Ethan opened his mouth, no doubt to explain how the fated mates thing worked, but she raised a finger at him. “I swear to Lucifer, if you try and explain to me why mates are so important, I am going to lose it.”
“Got it,” he mumbled. “So you won’t reverse the curse? Not even if I tell you that before he met his mate, Gus did love you. He came to ask me if he could marry you. I said no. Not because you’re a witch, but I thought you two were too young. You hadn’t known each other long enough to make that kind of commitment, and I really cautioned him against it. He didn’t listen.”
“If you didn’t trust him to follow through, you should have warned me.”
“But would you have listened?”
Ethan and his questions.Ruby couldn’t help but be impressed that Ethan just always seemed to be able to ask the right questions when he talked to people. She didn’t know if it was an alpha thing, but in her head, it was very much an Ethan thing. For her, it was entirely because he was good at reading people.
Ethan’s question worked its magic on Alice. The anger flew out of her … only a fraction, but it was still something.
“I honestly don’t know if I would have listened to you or not. I really thought he was it for me.”
“Well, now you know. Someone in the pack tried to do the right thing. You’re punishing a whole lot of people for the actions ofoneman.”
“I can’t reverse it,” Jazmin said, raising her chin.
“Why not? Please tell me what the pack can do to make this better. Let us make some kind of reparation but remove the curse. Our livelihoods and our lands depend on it.”
Jazmin stood. “No. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Ruby watched in horror as Jazmin stood and walked out of the bar and out onto the beach. Ruby rushed to Ethan’s side. “I am so sorry. I honestly thought that was going to work. It would have worked on me. I was ready to answer for her! I don’t know what has her like that.”
“She’s stubborn because she’s hurt.”
“Could there be more to it than that?” Ruby wondered out loud.
He frowned. “What? I don’t get it.”
“Is it possible that this is something more than Gus?”
Ethan pulled a face. “Something more than Gus? You heard her. She did say she cursed us because of Gus.”
“She did, yes. But she also said that she can’t reverse the curse. Not that she didn’t want to, that she can’t. That’s very different. Do you see the difference?”
“No.” He was exasperated.
“Remember I told you that witches are very precise in the language that they use?”