Not just the fact that I was blurting out inappropriate comments at my tenant, but the fact that Liora was living in my house. I couldn’t have picked a more distractingly chaotic person if I had tried.
Not to mention, what was Loren Brae going to think of this? It certainly wouldn’t paint the past rumors about me in a good light.
Growling with frustration, I stormed out, slamming the door behind me, and stomped across the kitchen to my bedroom.
I was going to kill Ross for putting me in this situation.
CHAPTER FIVE
Liora
Ireached for my phone to call my sister and then stopped, dropping my hand back to my side. I couldn’t keep calling Zara to rescue me from every situation I stumbled my way into.
Nope, this one was all on me.
And I needed to find a solution fast, or Torin was going to boot me out on my bum. I was surprised he hadn’t already, if the fury in his expression was any indication of how he felt about having me as his new roommate.
Not to mention that wee truth spell that had knocked him back a step when he’d crossed into my circle.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
What had I been thinking?
Of course the spell needed a subject to work on. What? Why was I even trying a spell that had nowhere to go? Nowhere to land? I’d been caught up in the excitement of finding my name in the book and maybe, just for once, having an answer to why mymagick couldn’t ever seem to work. And instead, I’d just made the situation worse.
Per usual.
Sighing, I slumped back onto the couch and pulled my feet up, cradling the book in my lap.
“Bloody hell, Liora, but you’ve gotten even more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”
My body flushed with heat as Torin’s words came back to me. Had he really meant that? Obviously he had, as the truth spell was working, and he seemed furious about what had come out of his mouth. Which meant, Torin, a man who could easily be a cover model for Lumberjack Monthly or whatever manly magazines were out there, thoughtI, Liora Webster with the mousy hair and messy magick, was beautiful.
Honestly? The thought didn’t even compute. It was so at odds that someone as visually stunning as Torin—I’d just leave out his abrasive personality—would find me beautiful.
Last year I’d stumbled across a woman on TikTok who watched videos of this man chopping wood with his shirt off and pretended to be solely interested in his axe-wielding technique and not the muscles rippling down his bare chest. It had made me laugh, but then I’d found myself thinking how much the man had reminded me of Torin.
Broad, strong shoulders.
Thick muscly arms.
Dark chestnut hair, searing blue eyes, and the swagger of a man used to carrying an axe around.
Or a chainsaw, for that matter.
Sighing, I let my head fall back on the cushions and closed my eyes. Torin was a forester, used to walking among the trees, and not one for idle chitchat if I recalled. I wished I could remember his birth date, but I was betting he was a Taurus or at least had a Cancer Moon. Avery had been head over heelsfor him, or so I’d thought, until she’d been willing to let the relationship break up over an astrology reading. Or perhaps there’d been more, but she hadn’t spoken to me about it.
She hadn’t spoken to me at all.
It had hurt to lose one of my only good friends in a town as small as Loren Brae, and when she’d packed up and moved on, I’d done the same, needing a fresh start elsewhere.
Apparently, Torin had been left to deal with the brunt of our choices. Sympathy filled me. Frankly, it wasn’t fun to be the center of gossip and rumors, that much I knew, and when he hadn’t even done anything to deserve them? Well, I guess I could understand why he wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me standing in the middle of his house.
I looked around the room. The furnishings were somewhat simple, but still comfortable, and the house itself exuded warmth. It was a place to start fresh, a safe haven to ground myself, and I didn’t want to leave. What I needed to do was find a solution to the truth spell, fix Torin, and beg him to let me stay in the flat.
An hour later, I was still paging through the book and not finding anything about how to undo that particular spell. Sure, there were ways to generically reverse a spell, but I’d lost my confidence. What if, in the undoing, I made the situation worse? Already Torin had next to zero patience with me. I was certain he wouldn’t allow me to keep practicing unknown spells on him.
Plus, I’d discovered two more books in the boxes, both of which held numerous spells, recipes, journals, and other words of wisdom. It would take me days to get through it all.