22. What Was Your First Clue?

Harlow mindlessly mixed the butter cookie dough as he watched Foxx giggle and laugh with the witches. It was…not horrible seeing Foxx so relaxed. Even if the conversations were…pure nonsense… Like who the fuck cared what celebrity was dating who, and who had been exposed as a paranormal?!

"Having fun?"

His gaze snapped to the right, eyeing Sephira. The woman was…beautiful, but…as beautiful as she was, he felt nothing looking at her…or really any of the women in the room, which was…odd. He frowned. Shouldn't he feel something? Was he no longer attracted to women?!

Oh fuck, he was starting to believe that maybe Tony was right…something was wrong with his head—more than normal.

Gee, what was your first clue, Harlow?! The nightmares, the murderous rage at the thought of someone touching Foxx, or your mind's insistence that the vampire was somehow yours?! Nooo, of course not! It was the fact that you seem to no longer be attracted to women, as if all that other shit didn't raise red fucking flags?! he thought sarcastically.

"Is the silence a no?" Sephira mused with a soft laugh.

Harlow blinked. Right…she had asked a question. "I'm…fine." He cleared his throat. "So, you caught that witch, right?"

Her head tilted slightly. "That's one word for it," she said with a small smile.

Harlow smirked. "I don't care if you offed them. But I do want to know if you found out who was also working with them."

He'd been meaning to ask Tony if they knew, but he kept fucking forgetting with, well…his head being such a fucked-up mess lately. Not that he'd admit that to Foxx. The old man comments would never end.

Sephira's expression remained unchanged as she simply asked, "Working with, in what capacity? The ones who hired her, or the fools that somehow ended up under one of her spells? She did not have anyone working with her in the sense that she was paying them for their services. And the priests were not her only clients. The woman was not picky on the morals of others, as long as they paid enough."

Well, that told him it was greed that had the witch agreeing to help capture Foxx, and not some religious bullshit.

"A fool under her spell is my best guess. Someone inside the Guild."

"Then yes, there was one. A clerk whose job was to organize cases in order of importance, followed by distributing them to the handlers at the office. Some magic did come into play in placing you two on that case though. The man has since been de-spelled, and moved to a different job. I've added some wards to the Houndside Hazard Guild to make sure that doesn't happen again."

"De-spelled…" Harlow grunted in disgust.

The bastard should have gone to jail, at the very least, because the fool had to have missed major warning signs in order to have fallen under a spell that controlled his actions to that degree. Warning signs that someone working for the Guild should have noticed.

"I feel a need to mention that…the priests weren't the only ones focused on you two. There was a vampire…I, unfortunately, didn't get a name." She tsked. "For as powerful as her spells were…she herself was…not that impressive, I have to say."

"The priests who hired her weren't either."

The witch chuckled.

"Do I know the vampire?" he asked.

Sephira stilled, her smile growing as her eyes went dazed, just as they had when she'd opened the door and saw him earlier. "Yes."

It was fucking Micah… Well, at least he knew how they fell into that first trap now.

"What did you see when you first saw me?"

Her gaze cleared. "I can't say. Just know, things will work out."

"You witches are annoyingly fucking vague."

Sephira threw her head back on a laugh. "Comes with the territory, I'm afraid. Well, not afraid, but… I actually find it amusing, even if I sometimes get frustrated about all I can't say."

Harlow snorted. His gaze flicked to an entrance opposite the one they came in when someone entered—a young man dressed in a T-shirt and pajama pants, with deep brown skin and black shoulder length braids.

"Ah, my son decided to wake his butt up and join us."

Son? Right…Tony had mentioned a son, hadn't he?

The kid looked around and said, "Mom," on spotting Sephira.

Sephira sniffled. "Yes, m-my son?"

"Could you not start crying again?" the teen huffed.

The blonde, who he did not remember the name of, laughed. "Like I keep telling you, Sawyer, it's going to take time for her to move on from being weepy about you using the M-word."

"It's been months." Sawyer rolled his eyes. "What are we making?"

"Before I get into the baked goods, let me introduce you to Harlow and Foxx. This big guy next to me is Harlow, and the cutie black haired beauty next to Tabitha is Foxx."

Sawyer eyed him, there was a brief shifting of the young man's eyes before they flicked from Harlow to Foxx. "Right… Hello. So…what are we making?"

Neither witch or vampire, Harlow's guess was that Sawyer was a werewolf.

* * *

"Butter cookies,there's fresh bread going, and snickerdoodles?—"

Foxx eyed the young werewolf as Sephira continued to list off all the delicious baked goods that were currently being made around the room.

He dipped briefly into his bloodline powers to see how old the young man was. Only to frown upon seeing there was something off about the fourteen-year-old's threads. White threads mixed with blue ones, due to him being a made werewolf, but it looked as if some had been broken and then woven back together.

Most startling was that his center thread was like this. The bright thick blue thread was held together at its center by a lighter one, the color of lilacs. His gaze flicked to Sephira. Her eyes met his, but she just smiled slightly and shrugged, her threads lilac in color, telling him all that he needed to know.

Huh… Well, it was none of his business, that was for sure! His gaze moved around the room, finding it interesting that the witches' threads were all purple, though they varied in shade and tone.

His vision slipped back to normal when the teen sidled up to him, pushing between him and another witch. "So, you're Foxx?"

Foxx glanced up, brow raising. "Yes?"

"Are you sure you're an adult?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, you're so…small, and you dress like…"

"If you say a toddler, my short ass is not above cutting you off at the ankles, kid," Foxx said with a smile.

"Shesh, I was just saying."

"Sawyer, you better learn to close that mouth of yours before you find yourself in a ditch somewhere," Sephira said, in a truly disappointed motherly tone. "How many times do I have to tell you before it gets through that thick skull of yours, size and looks don't have a thing to do with strength."

"Yess, Mom," the teen huffed, before grumbling, "He's like two feet tall."

"One, you have four inches on me at most," Foxx snorted. "And two, I've taken grown men down twice your size, child."

"I'm not a child!"

Foxx giggled. "Keep telling yourself that. It'll be true one day… Just not today, and not for at least four more years legally and…probably twenty more mentally."

"You—"

Suddenly My Boy Lollipop started playing, slowly growing louder in the silence it brought.

"Son of a bitch!" Foxx cried, glaring at Harlow who was across the room.

Harlow shrugged, pulled his phone from his inner pocket and flipped it open.

"Is that…a flip phone?" Sawyer asked, sounding absolutely horrified.

"Sadly, yes… He had a craptop at one point too, but I luckily managed to destroy it. His phone, not so much."

"What is he, eighty?"

"No, but he is more than halfway there."

When Harlow's neutral expression twisted and he began cursing…Foxx had a feeling his baking fun was over. Dammit…he'd only been there two hours…

He supposed, at least it was longer than last time… Which had been zero since he never made it.