An awful coldness crawled inside his belly. The tinny echo of Clarissa’s furious rebuttal came at him as if from a distance, and he shook his head again, desperately trying to navigate his way back to a place that made sense. A place that wasn’t suddenly painted every nightmarish shade of hell.
Banishment. They couldn’t do this to him. To Jemma.
Jumping from her seat, Clarissa stormed around the desk, and Domino calmly waved a hand, efficiently erecting an invisible barrier that bumped Clarissa back several steps. Clarissa retaliated by pointing a finger at the spring mechanism at the base of the leather chair Domino occupied. The seat collapsed, thunking a red-faced and cursing Domino unceremoniously to the floor.
Willa scooted her oversized tortoise-frame eyeglasses farther up the bridge of her nose and coughed timidly. “Ladies, all this excess energy is causing my hard drive to go haywire.”
Apparently the threat of melted electronics was the key way to stop a pair of feuding witches. While Clarissa awarded Willa a sheepish look, Domino cranked the chair back to a reasonable height. The matron swiveled to face Griffin and regarded him coolly. “All things considered, the punishment is more than fair. Familia Tacchi ’Loa is your birth place. Your family is there—you won’t exactly be lonely.”
No, his family was here. With Jemma. He’d left that other realm permanently behind when Clarissa called upon him to be her familiar. There was nothing left for him in Familia Tacchi ’Loa. Not anymore.
“I need him here.” Her chin squaring in stubbornness, Clarissa planted her hands on her hips. “If there’s any chance of Jemma becoming strong enough to stop Nettie, it lies with Griffin and Logan.”
“If. You’re making a lot of suppositions on an untested theory.” Domino steepled her fingers on her chest. “Furthermore, if you’re wrong, you may be playing right into Antoinette’s plans. The longer Jemma is alive, the more opportunity Antoinette has to raise her army.”
The numb disbelief that’d seized Griffin turned into explosive outrage as Domino’s meaning crystallized. “The longer Jemma is alive?” He shifted his focus to Clarissa. Her ashen pallor confirmed his worst suspicions. Rage roared inside him like a wounded beast. “You were planning on killing her?”
Domino grimaced. “That sounds so…unsavory. Of course we have no desire to harm Jemma. But it’s one life versus many. I’m sure Jemma would see the logic in that.”
She would. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t see beyond the hell of living in a world where there was no Jemma. Whether on Earth or Familia Tacchi ’Loa, it didn’t matter. She was his life. His everything. He would kill Domino before allowing her to lay a finger on Jemma.
Clarissa must have detected the murder in his eyes because she cleared her throat loudly. “You admit that you don’t relish the idea of disposing of Jemma. All the more reason to give my plan a chance.” Though she directed the statement to Domino, Clarissa kept her stare glued on him. Maybe she was concerned he’d leap across the desk and rip Domino’s throat open. Not that the possibility didn’t hold some appeal. “As far as your worries about my theory not holding merit? Tell me why else Nettie would try to persuade Jemma to join her unholy crusade if not because she thirsts for the power she senses in her granddaughter? You and I know it isn’t anything to do with some misguided notion of love on Nettie’s part.”
Domino traced a finger over the dimple in her chin, her expression considering. “True enough.”
A smile of pure triumph curved Clarissa’s mouth. “Then allow me some time to put the plan in motion.”
The leather chair’s casters provided a constant soundtrack of clicks while Domino rocked in place. “Fine, I’ll give you until Wednesday.”
Clarissa’s smile cracked. “But that leaves only two days!”
“Yes. Plenty of time.” Domino’s tone brooked no further argument. Her hawk-eyed stare jumped to Griffin. “I’m granting you those two days to fulfill your part in the proceedings, but when—or rather if—Jemma succeeds, you will be dispatched back to Familia Tacchi ’Loa. Do you understand?”
An argumentative retort broke from Clarissa, but Domino ignored her and stood. “That concludes this meeting. Willa, are you coming?”
Typing frantically on her laptop, the younger woman shot Domino a harried look. Seconds later, a jingle that announced the shutdown of the computer’s software floated from the speakers, and Willa slammed the lid shut before trotting out the door after her boss. Clarissa plopped onto the edge of her desk and buried her face in her hands.
Seeing her in such an uncharacteristic state of despair didn’t sit well on him. Where was the tough-as-nails woman who refused to kowtow to anyone? He strode to Clarissa and grabbed her arms. “Damn it, don’t you give up on her!”
Clarissa peered up at him, her red-rimmed eyes bleak. “Two days. I don’t know—”
“It’ll work.” It had to. The alternative was not going to fucking happen.
Chapter Thirteen
Jemma took one look at Griff’s ferocious expression as he stalked into the kitchen with Clarissa and deduced that whatever went down in the library hadn’t been pleasant. “What happened?”
Griff met her at the large marble-topped work island where Gloria was busy dishing up slices of egg and spinach strata. Rather than answer, he smoothed her hair back from her face. “Did Gloria’s potion help?”
“Yep. I’m feeling much better. But I had to deal with a real bad case of the hiccups at first.” Something Logan had teased her about. She’d of course been forced to retaliate by socking him in the arm a few times. After laughing like a demented fool, he’d escaped to God knows where. She hadn’t seen him for the past fifteen minutes—the chickenshit.
She poked a finger in Griff’s chest. “I want to know what happened in your meeting. Did the guild give you any crap about you and me?”
Griff’s gaze traveled over her head to Clarissa. “Yes, but it’s nothing for you to worry about.”
She highly doubted that. Still, it’d probably be better to grill him later, when she could get him alone and he wouldn’t have to worry about censoring himself in front of the others. Accepting one of the plates Gloria thrust at her, she backtracked to the dining nook. Clarissa joined her, settling into the seat across the way. Recalling the small mountain of clothes sitting on her bed upstairs, she sent the coven mistress a grateful smile. “Thank you for whipping up all that stuff for me. I certainly wasn’t expecting a whole wardrobe.”
Clarissa shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. There’s no better cure for insomnia than conjuring.”
Logan came sauntering into the nook and swiped a piece of bacon from Jemma’s plate. Sidestepping her swatting hand, he leaned his hip against the table and waggled his eyebrows. “Conjuring? Damn, shug, you know I’m more than willin’ to tucker you out whenever you need it.”
Clarissa’s eyes narrowed. “How do you manage to twist perfectly innocent conversation into sleazy sexual innuendo?”
“It’s a gift, darlin’.”
Spreading a napkin in her lap, Clarissa slid Jemma a sympathetic look. “Hopefully he behaved earlier—at least as much as he’s capable of doing.”
“For the most part.” She caught Logan’s feigned expression of wounded affront as he thumped his free hand against his chest and sighed. “Okay, other than making fun of me for the nonstop hiccup, I guess you were bearable. And you scored a few points for not treating me like a nutso when I told you about the floating head.” She dashed pepper onto her strata and popped a forkful of the fluffy egg casserole into her mouth. Halfway through chewing she noticed it’d gotten inordinately quiet in the room. She glanced across the table.