Wolf & Witch III: Oracle's Path

Ch. 3

"Wait... Okay, explain that again, but like I'm as slow as Nate is sometimes," Axel said, reclaiming a seat on his ottoman.

Nate pointed a glare in Axel's direction but left his reaction at that only because he wanted to hear Chloe's response.

"For the love potion? In the punch? That's what you were upset about, right?" ...No, the blank looks on their faces told her that neither of them seemed to know what she was talking about. "Shoot!" she exclaimed.

Axel was first to break the silence. "You put a love potion in the punch!?"

"Yes? I mean it wasn't, like, a full love potion! It was just, like, you know, a little bump to inhibitions. Heh...heh." Chloe's hands fidgeted behind her back nervously.

"You've got to be joking. Where would you even get something like–" Axel stopped himself. Did he really need her to answer that? They'd been at a house party...hosted by witches... Axel was rubbing his face with his hands when something occurred to him, and he whipped his head up to glare straight at Nate. "I meant what I said that night, you piece of shit," he grumbled, pointing a finger as well. "That went back farther than a few stupid cups of potion-spiked punch, so don't even think it."

Nate's cheeks flushed as Chloe turned, following Axel's finger to him. "I-I know that!" he snapped defensively, trying—and failing—to sound as if that weren't exactly what he was thinking at that moment.

"It's fine, Nate. It wasn't like mind control or anything!" Chloe said in a sweet tone, obviously trying her best to be supportive but it was too nice and just seemed to rub Nate the wrong way. "It was just, like, horny juice!"

"I'm not worried! Okay? I mean, it's not like we're a thing anyway..." Nate's voice betrayed him and cracked a little at the end, and he cleared his throat.

"Yeah, about that-"

A slam of the front door drew their attention, but Hazel's steps across the foyer and up the stairs were notably quieter. She paused at the top of them when she noticed Chloe standing in the doorway of her brother's room. "...What are you doing?" she asked, with a measure of dejectedness in her tone.

"Chloe was just telling us about how she spiked the punch," Nate said.

"I said I was sorry!" Chloe added.

For a moment, Hazel looked like she didn't have the energy to entertain them before her expression changed to realization, then apathy. "Oh. I forgot you two didn't know about that."

"You knew?" Axel was up and sticking his head out the door now to gape at Hazel.

She gave a brief shrug. "Yeah? Girls tell each other things. Maybe if you two weren't so disgustingly repressed, you would have been able to spend some of the party chatting and finding out, instead of being on each other like a pair of desperate rabbits."

Heat flared across Axel's face, turning his normally pale ears bright red. It was instinct alone that caused him to spit out something to turn things around on her. "Well, if you knew about it and slept with Kaiden anyway, then who's really the desperate one?"

"How dare you!" she barked, charging forward, sandwiching Chloe between her and Axel. Haze pointed a finger at her brother, her nails painted a bright neon that, at the moment, looked as poisonous as her glare. "Kaid's wanted me for years! You don't know what the hell you're even talking about! And really? I'm in the wrong?! You slept with the guy that kil-"

"Stop," Axel warned, a growl escaping his throat. "Do. Not. Finish that."

"Or what? You'll have to actually think about it?" Hazel spun away, stomping toward her room, mumbling what sounded an awful lot like a "fuck you" before disappearing behind her door.