Chapter 12
Theguyswereconfusedfor the rest of the day, despite my attempt to explain that I’d just beenreallyhorny. So horny, in fact, I’d jumped a random stranger with a cock too big to fit in me. They hadn’t bought the story. Would I have? Absolutely not, so I couldn’t blame them. My death came as a relief, late in the evening as I was getting ready to sleep on the living room couch.
I woke up in the bathtub again with fresh eyes, well-rested despite not actually getting any sleep. Who knew good sex would loosen me up so much? Not me, because I’d never had sex that good. I’d figured the effects would be short-lasting, if anything.
“Good morning,” I sang out as I wandered out of the bathroom door and toward Kirin. Zan had vanished with a quick brush off from me, as he always did.
To my credit, I didn’t blush. He didn’t remember, which was made obvious when he asked who I was and what I was doing in their house. Again. This morning was getting old. First thing was the most monotonous part of my day because I had time to change the course of everything yet. By midday, every day was different.
Giving them a simple explanation of my appearance in Hadley House, I glanced at everyone. No one remembered. They would have looked at me differently after watching me ride Kirin’s face in nothing but an old tunic.
“I’m going to explore the house a little, can I?” I asked, smiling at Bennett.
He was always the easiest to talk to. There was no suspicion like what I got from Waylon, no flirting like Kirin, no silence like when Abraxas stared at me instead of answering my questions. Bennett was sweet and composed.
Well, until he wasn’t.
That image of his cock down Waylon’s throat was going to live rent-free in my head forever.
“You’re a resident now, so go ahead. I can show you Felix’s office?” he offered.
“No, I’ll wander and explore on my own. This is such an old house, it’s got to be hiding some secrets,” I said, shaking my head.
Hiding secrets was the optimistic way to put it, thanks to my two great orgasms. Generally I referred to the house as decrepit instead of old (which it was) and the secrets irritated me to no end. For the moment, nothing would bring me down.
The men left me to my own devices, Zan fading away into the background as he always did. I felt bad for wandering today, because he wouldn’t be able to settle down anywhere other than his bedroom. The poor ghost was always so nervous we would run into each other.
I started with the front entryway.
The door wasn’t on its hinges, leaning up against the outside wall beside the entryway. If I’d known we couldn’t get outside again to put it up, I would have relocked it before heading inside. Unfortunately, the barrier keeping us inside prevented us from getting to the old wood now.
Pressing my hand flat against the barrier, I took a deep breath in, and let the air out of my lungs. Then I breathed a few more times until I’d settled into a rhythm, my body calm and able to focus on the magic emanating against my palm. Sparks flashed faintly, little zaps tickling my skin. The sparks were made of blueish light, which gave me no information on the characteristics of the barrier. All the zaps told me was that the barrier wasn’t meant to harm us.
That also meant whoever erected the magic believed extra protection was unnecessary. The spell was powerful enough on its own and couldn’t be trifled with, even if someone came along and played with the barrier like I was now. I didn’t know what kind of spell I needed to break this, and was less than confident in my ability to conduct the spell. Magic enhancing artifact or not, my base magic was weak.
Uncle Felix couldn’t have left me with an impossible task, though, and he’d observed me enough to be aware of my level.
Unless he wanted me to fail, which I hadn’t ruled out.
Groaning, I pulled my hand back and shook it out, waiting for my fingers to stop tingling. I pressed my fingers to the wall beside the door next, running them across the aging wallpaper. There were no zaps or the gentle thrum of heavy magic. Something else was present, though. A faint feeling of a weaker magic. Possibly to hide something about the barrier?
I headed up to the library and spent a couple of hours searching for a book with spells to reveal information, or pull back layers of secrets. The library was still a mess, but certain sections I was getting more familiar with. When I had a few options for spells, I went back down to the foyer and sat cross-legged on the floor.
My first spell was a bust, but the second caused a faint flash of light in the shape of a Xurian character.
Of course, they’d reinforced the inside of the seal with written spells. I cursed my lack of magic and tried again. This time, the spell worked, breaking the magic hiding the writing. Xurian characters were evenly spaced out on the walls in the foyer, as I’d predicted.
With a barrier as complex as the one around the house, these characters weren’t the only factor. Erasing them or dispelling them one at a time wouldn’t work, to my knowledge. But every bit of information may be a clue.
I wrote each character down on a piece of paper, finding every wall held a couple. To do so, I had to break the concealing magic, usually requiring two or three tries of the spell. I went around the edges of the living room, the end of the hallway, and the bathroom. I skipped Uncle Felix’s office because I didn’t want to waste magic breaking the lock, and headed upstairs.
Starting on the third floor where I wouldn’t have to invade the men’s rooms, I flinched at the sheer amount of spider webs around the edges of the disused living room. The library’s characters were primarily placed on breaks in the shelving, some hiding behind books. None of the Xurian was helpful, but I was excited nonetheless. Progress was progress.
By the time I made it to the second floor, the sun was setting, an orange glow gleaming through the west-facing windows. I’d done what I could to memorize every character I noted down, knowing my notes would vanish with my inevitable death. My memory being sharp was an immense help when all I had to count on was my own brain.
I wandered to Waylon and Bennett’s side of the house, knocking twice on Waylon’s door. He opened it a second later with his dark eyebrows scrunched together. “Do you need something?”
Every time he spoke to me, his voice held a hint of sarcasm or disdain. It was hard to reconcile with the begging mess I’d seen with Kirin and Bennett. “Can I come in?”
