Page 91 of Bitten By the Basilisk

“Wow. I wouldn’t have thought it was still soft enough,” Justin observed from where he stood next to her.

She had trouble forming a response, worried he might’ve seen her do…whatever she had just done. “It…felt like I could keep going.”

“You have good instincts.”

As she made her final adjustments—smoothing one curve, tugging another into a better position, curling the tail’s tip into place—she made sure to use the blowtorch rather than whatever power she had tapped into. And as much as she wanted to freak out about it, she couldn’t do so here and now.

“Damn, that turned out really well,” Justin said as they admired the completed piece. “Don’t know that I could’ve done any better.”

The gold foil fused within the outer layer of the amber-hued glass gave the snake a metallic sparkle. While the piece was neither solid gold nor encrusted with precious gems, it was rather eye-catching.

“Thank you for helping me,” she told him after placing the snake into the kiln, her heart glowing with joy. “And thanks for today. It was even more fun than I expected.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” Justin said with a relaxed smile. “You can stop by anytime tomorrow to pick up what you made. I won’t be here, but I hope to see you around.”

She nodded in response, not wanting to lie, and gathered her things to leave.

Would he see her around? She still wasn’t sure. But she had to make a decision soon.

Tomorrow was the last day of the mating festival. Before the full moon rose and the mating gala began, she had to decide whether she wanted to stay with Silas, regardless of whether fate might someday separate them, and attempt to assimilate into a nest of snake shifters in a town as overrun with supernatural shenanigans as Sunnydale.

The fact that she was even considering it was wild. They’d only known each other a few days! Admittedly, they had been an amazing few days. But if someone had told her a week ago that she would not only hook up with the Basilisk of Indigo Cove but also fall for him…

“Oh shit,” she whispered, standing outside the glassworks’ studio entrance.

Had she fallen for Silas? Then again, how could she have not? The only way he could be any more of an ideal partner would be if a glowing red string connected them. From the moment the hitodama had led her to the volcanic sand baths, the course of her heart had been set.

Her pulse fluttering, partly in panic, she pulled out her phone to call her mom, only to see the time and realize Mom likely wouldn’t answer, as she was at the community center helping set up for the first show of the evening.

A recent text from Silas said he was almost done resolving the fallout from the fight that had shattered a store window but that the glassblowing class would end before he returned, so he suggested she wait for him at a nearby coffee shop.

Figuring she should try calling her mom anyway, she began heading in that direction and opened up her phone’s contacts.

Her thumb was over Mom’s mobile number when an incoming call covered her screen, which she narrowly avoided answering. The instant she saw the caller was Mark, Paul’s boss and her skip, her stomach jolted.

She slowed to a stop outside a seafood place, suspecting the reason Mark was calling—to offer her the promotion she’d worked so hard to earn. Better pay, more creative control, no longer one of Paul’s direct reports. She should be excited. Thrilled, even.

So why was she dreading the conversation?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Alice

Thanks to the email Alice had sent, the firm discovered Paul had been extracting “revision and add-on fees” from their clients for more than a year and foisting the actual work onto his team, mostly Alice.

Paul’s little side hustle alone had gotten him summarily fired, but Mark acknowledged that Paul had also violated several of the company’s other policies—and not just the ones that had affected Alice.

Mark then formally offered her the new creative director position. She would have her own team and be responsible for developing new marketing projects.

Remembering what Yōko had told her, she asked what her salary would be, tacked on ten percent, and made that her counteroffer.

She expected Mark to negotiate her down a bit, but after a moment’s consideration, he accepted her number—an amount that would not only help her pay off her student debt even earlier than she’d hoped but also let her lease a better apartment that wasn’t so far from the office.

Before coming to Indigo Cove—before meeting Silas—she would have gladly taken the promotion, but now?

Now she was having second thoughts.

Agonizing second thoughts.