19
RYDER
At first, I thought the banging came from inside my skull. The throbbing jarred my soul. I groaned as I came to. At the first glimpse of light, pain stabbed through my skull. I pressed my eyes shut once more and prayed that the throbbing would end soon.
The sound never stopped. Soon, a voice found its way inside.
“Open up this damn door,” a female shouted from outside.
As much as I loathed the idea of getting up, I managed to force myself into a standing position. The world tipped back and forth, but I pushed forward until it settled back into place as I made my way down the hall. It took some time, but the harsh light softened a little by the time I reached the living room. I let out a haggard sigh and opened the door.
The potion-maker, Cerri, glared up at me. She gripped the strap of her purse tightly with one hand. The other hand, however, trembled in a fist at her side.
I blinked several times. The throbbing hadn’t let up. It hammered the front of my skull and kept me from processing why Ness’s friend might be on my doorstep. I took a clumsy step back and gestured for her to enter. She gaped at me, then shook herself.
“Where is she? Are the two of you having a hot sex marathon? Is that why she won’t answer her damn phone? I’ve been trying to reach Ness all day!”
Taken aback, I ran my hand over my face. My stubble scraped at my palm. The sensation grounded me—but only barely. I still felt as though someone wanted to rip my soul out of my body.
“Contrary to common belief, I do not want to bone your friend.”
She laughed and tapped the lobe of her pointed ear. “I know a lie when I hear one.”
I cocked my head. “Are you a fae?”
She stopped, her eyes widening slightly. “What? Why would you say that?”
“It’s nothing. Never mind. You said you haven’t been able to get ahold of Ness?” I paused and tried to recall the events of the night before. “She shifted, for the fight near your apartment. Maybe she lost her phone in the process?”
I turned to find Ness and realized that the apartment was empty. I’d been asleep in the bed. If Ness had been there, I would have seen her. Hell, she was hard to miss. Ness made her presence known. At least, she did when she was around me.
Once more, I rubbed at my face. I tried to will the poison hangover away, but it was relentless. My stomach churned. I clenched my teeth and dragged in a deep breath. It did little to actually settle me, but I likely looked better. Now wasn’t the time to reveal just how weak I felt.
Cerri wasn’t fooled, though. Her upper lips curled. Before I could stop her, she rushed past me and began pawing through the cupboards. Like Ness, she bemoaned the lack of food in the house. I wanted to tell her that I had no plans to stay. I wasn’t going to make a home out of this place.
Instead, I watched wordlessly as Cerri grabbed several boxes of complimentary tea from the cupboard. She snatched up a pair of scissors and cut the tea bags open. Meticulously, she plucked ingredients from each small pile of herbs and dropped them into a cup.
“I would prefer to have my cauldron for this, but a microwave can be a magical vessel in a pinch.” She filled a mug with water and shoved it into the microwave.
The machine’s beep nearly split my skull in half. I wanted to howl from the pain, but I kept my mouth shut. In what seemed like a heartbeat, Cerri pressed a hot mug into my hand. The mug wasn’t as hot as I’d expected, though.
How long had I been caught in the pain of that sound? It’d seemed like there hadn’t been enough time for Cerri to imbue the potion with her arcana. Still, I trusted her, cursed myself, and threw back the contents of the mug.
Barely a breath later, the pain faded. My chest expanded as I breathed deep. I could open my eyes now that the world wasn’t trying to sear the inside of my skull.
“I’m sorry about the hangover,” she said. “I didn’t even think about that last night.”
“Remind me to call you the next time I party too hard.”
Her laugh was weak. I could see her smile already starting to fail as worry for Ness crept back in. As if catching herself wringing her hands, she wrenched them apart and grabbed the mug from me so she could put it in the sink.
With her back to me, she said, “I’ve been searching for storms all day, too. Why can’t I find her anywhere?”
The events of the night came back to me. I hadn’t been able to forget the fight where those wolves poisoned me, but the rest of the night had been a blur until now. Ness had called on Connor for help. He was the last person who’d seen her.
I had an awful feeling.
“Do you know how to get ahold of Connor?”