Free Simply Irresistible by Kristine Grayson Page B

me,” he said. “The Powers That Be chose you.”
    “We needed fresh blood,” said the first girl, speaking out of turn. Didn’t she know that the Fates were supposed to speak in order? And the girls hadn’t genuflected when he mentioned the Powers That Be.
    The twisting feeling in his stomach had gotten worse.
    “At least that’s what we were told,” she continued. “You know, they’d been doing it, like, forever , and they were beginning to screw up, you know, so it was time to bring in new ideas, new thoughts, new people .”
    “You?” he asked.
    “Us,” the second girl said with a grin. “Isn’t that just the spiffiest news you ever heard?”
    “Spiffy,” he repeated. “I don’t suppose you’re Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, having a little joke on me.”
    “No way,” said the second girl.
    “Who gives their kids those weird names, anyway?” the first girl said.
    “They were perfectly normal names in their day,” Dex said, amazed he was defending the Fates. “What’re your names?”
    “Tiffany,” said the second girl.
    “Brittany,” said the first, “and she’s Crystal.”
    Crystal didn’t seem to be paying attention. She had returned to the book she was studying, frowning at the page.
    “You sound more like pop stars than Fates,” Dex said.
    Tiffany and Brittany grinned. “That’s what we want to be. We want to bring the Fatedom into the Now. You know. It was so Last Week.”
    “Last Century,” Brittany said.
    “Last Thousand Years,” Tiffany said, and giggled.
    Dex didn’t feel like giggling at all.
    “But this is a lot harder than we expected,” Brittany said. “You know, like, we’re supposed to know who you are just when you arrive—”
    “You’re magic, right? Because otherwise you couldn’t get here, right? They don’t let, like, nonmagic people in the door,” Tiffany said. “Right?”
    She was asking him? “No one trained you for this job?” he asked, then wished he hadn’t. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
    “Well, like, we, um …” Tiffany let her voice trail off. She looked at Brittany, who grinned at him.
    “We lied on our application,” she said. “Not lied, exactly, but we said stuff we shouldn’t have.”
    “Yeah,” Tiffany said. “You’d think they would’ve known.”
    “But I heard that the old Fates chose their replacements. That wouldn’t be right, would it?” Brittany asked.
    It would if they wanted to keep their jobs. “They weren’t fired, were they?” he asked.
    “Like, who knows?” Brittany said. “They’re gone, we’re here, and we’re going to get the permanent job.”
    “Just as soon as we figure out what we’re doing,” Tiffany said.
    “Or maybe not.” Crystal slammed her book closed. “This is way harder than anyone said it would be. You know we’re supposed to keep track of what all the mages are doing all the time? Most of them are old and, like, who cares?”
    “Besides, we can’t make that work any more than we can make the name thing work,” said Brittany. “What’s your name, anyway?”
    “Never mind,” Dex said, and spelled himself back to the store. As he did, he heard Tiffany say, “The old ones all have weird names.”
    “No kidding,” Brittany answered, and then their voices mercifully faded out.
    He appeared in the back of the store, right in front of Vivian. Her face was gray and the circles under her eyes had grown deeper.
    “You’re back,” she said. “Thank God.”
    And then she fainted.
     
    *Chapter Seven*
     
    Vivian was cradled against a man’s hard chest, his muscular arms supporting her back. She kept her head against him, and her eyes closed. If she didn’t move, it didn’t hurt, but she had the sense that it would if she did anything out of the ordinary. Anything at all.
    The smell of pet food was strong here, but if she kept her face turned toward him, she caught his nice clean scent instead. Masculine, with just a hint of