Salvage: Book 3 of the Magic Mutations Series

33: Lukas

May, 2019

When I walked through the door that evening, my nose was immediately filled by a sweet scent. A scowl adorned my face before I had even kicked my shoes off.

"Why are you here?" I started to growl as I rounded the corner into the kitchen. I was quick to busy myself in the pantry, throwing a couple of blood pills into my mouth in the hopes to quell the mouth-watering desire to sink my teeth into the knowingly poisoned apple.

"Hello to you, too," Erica responded instead of her, causing my eyes to finally fall on the silent figure in the room.

Copper brows pinched together in worry, her green eyes averted as our gazes met, her teeth snagging that bottom lip again, making me want to cross the room and yank it out, demanding she stopped doing that. That she stopped being so her.

"I just wanted to make sure you're okay," Olivia finally mumbled, her voice like acidic music in the air, begging me to step closer, though making my heart throb in painful echoes as the memory of her leaving caught up with my mind.

Emma's words started to ring in my ears as the sides within me—the one that wanted to shake her and scream at her and demand why she wasn't as miserable as me and the other that wanted to forgive her—battled. "Well, you've checked. I'm fine. Now leave," I forced through clenched teeth in the end.

"Lukas!" Erica then scolded, stepping closer to me as shock spread across her face. I didn't need to ask; I knew Ri was upset by how I was treating Olivia. It was quite unlike me.

Though I couldn't help myself. I needed time. I needed space. I needed to process what her being back meant and how I really felt about it.

Stopping Erica short from berating me was Olivia's hand grabbing her arm.

Ri warily watched the red-haired fairy as she rounded her, coming closer to me, eyes hesitantly meeting mine. "Do you think I buy your lie that you're okay? It's clear you're not."

Squaring my shoulders at the small woman who seemed to only be approaching me from a state of concern, I unfairly grumbled back, "Seems you need an eye-check, Olivia, because you're seeing things. I'm fine. Perfect, in fact. Did you think you being here would make me not?"

Her head cocked to the side, eyes narrowing slightly as she took me in, clearly seeing through my ruse. "I never said that I thought I was the problem. It seems like something else is troubling you, based on how you took off when I mentioned Emma."

Before I could think of a retort, this time Erica interjected. "Emma? You know her?"

Olivia glanced the witch's way, confusion once again marring her face—that same look that consumed the fairy when I reacted so brusquely a few hours ago before taking off to see Emma. "Do you all know her?"

Ri scoffed in response. "Know her?" But as she glanced at me and saw my look that could kill, she turned her amusement into a cough before forcing out the blatant lie of, "She's a mutant. We were bound to run into her at some point, so of course we've all met."

But then Olivia turned back on me. "And how do you know her?"

"Same thing," I mumbled. It was now my time to avoid eye contact as her piercing green gaze picked my reactions apart. "We... ran into her one day while fighting Mades, and she immediately joined us in hunting them."

The room fell eerily quiet for a few beats of my heart—and of Erica's wary one, and Olivia's clearly untrusting one—though eventually she whispered, "I see."

I resisted every urge in me to confirm whether she bought the lie. I was trying to tell myself I didn't care what she thought... but evidently I did, otherwise why was I already lying to Olivia about my relationship with Emma?