Amber (Jewels Cafe Book 1) Read online

  The chime repeats.

  “Definitely the doorbell,” Julian decides as he thrusts in and out, sending new waves of pleasure coursing through me.

  “Just ignore it,” I beg.

  “Oh, I plan to.” Julian smirks as he pumps his cock in and out of me. Guess bunnies aren’t the only ones who can keep going, and going, and going.

  “They’ll take the hint and go away,” Wes agrees, his words barely registering past my burning desire.

  But whoever it is doesn’t take the hint.

  The doorbell chimes, over and over. Julian and I try to ignore it, to focus on the sensations growing between us as we both get closer and closer to falling over the edge. That is until a familiar voice booms through the apartment. Loudly. Too loudly. Amplified by a spell that seems to work a little too well.

  I cringe and cover my ears, but it’s not enough to block out the one voice I wish I’d never heard.

  “Julian, can you hear me? It’s Mini! You have to open this door! I found what you were looking for. I know how to break your mating bond!”

  Chapter 17

  AMBER

  Julian stops mid-thrust as Minerva’s Voice of Nightmares echoes through the bedroom.

  “This isn’t happening,” I groan and cover my ears. Like that will somehow change the fact that Minerva Montgomery just managed to insert herself into the most intimate, most perfect, moment of my life.

  Then her words finally start to penetrate my hazy, sex-filled brain. She knows how to break our mating bond. How to tear us apart.

  “She can’t,” Julian bellows, though his words are barely audible past the ringing in my ears. Stupid witch and her stupid amplification spell. “Our bond can’t be broken. Don’t you think I tried?”

  Because to him, our bond isn’t what the four of us just shared. It’s that stupid spell. And if Minerva’s right, will he pounce on the opportunity to break it?

  I fight back tears as I stare up at my best friend, my lover, the man currently buried deep inside me, crushing me against the too-soft mattress. I hold my breath, waiting for him to take it back. To tell me that he wants this, wants us, spell or no spell. And even if Minerva’s right, it wouldn’t change things.

  A second passes.

  Two.

  “Did you hear me, Julian?” Minerva shouts, her words practically making the walls shake. “I figured out how to break the spell!”

  “No!” Julian shakes his head. “It’s impossible. I asked the coven, and I checked every spellbook!”

  I turn to Wes, silently begging for him to say something, but the bear shifter is too busy covering his ears and staring at the door. The door that leads downstairs to whatever Minerva found.

  I take in the hard set of the bear shifter’s jaw and his pained grimace, and start to panic. What if he leaves again? What if the spell breaks and he decides to walk away?

  I twist my head to look at Chase, who swore he’d stay, spell or no spell. But Chase doesn’t say that now. He’s covering his ears and staring at the door like he’s forgotten all about me.

  My heart plummets.

  My lungs constrict.

  I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe.

  Because what if our relationship is over before it even started? What if they really were only with me because of the spell? And now that it can be broken, they no longer have a reason to stay?

  “Julian?” Minerva’s shriek booms across the room so loudly I swear the walls shake. “Julian, wake up!”

  “As if anyone could sleep through that,” Chase hollers, because we’d be lucky if we don’t lose our hearing after this. “Can somebody please make her stop?”

  “Julian, come down here! I need to show you this!”

  “Enough!” Wes roars and clambers out of bed. The soft mattress shifts beneath my hips, making Julian shift inside me. His pelvis rubs against my clit, and the unexpected jolt of pleasure is quickly dampened by Minerva’s shouts for Julian to wake up.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Chase cries, rolling off the mattress and rushing off after Wes without a backward glance.

  My hips shift again, and Julian groans, but I ignore the pleasurable sensation coursing through me. How could Wes and Chase just leave like that? Without sparing me a single glance?

  Then, Julian pulls out and climbs out of bed like the intimacy never happened. Feeling totally exposed, I tug the comforter up to my chin to hide my nudity while Julian pulls his jeans over his hips.

  He doesn’t even look at me.

  He doesn’t say a word.

  He just turns around and rushes out of the room to his stupid Minerva Montgomery.

  It’s like the entire night never even happened. Like we didn’t just make love. Like Wes didn’t make me come against the wall. Like Chase never had his mouth on the most intimate part of me.

  I close my eyes as tears start to flow down my cheeks.

  How could Julian leave like our first time didn’t even matter? And how could Chase and Wes just abandon me without a backward glance? If I wasn’t still sore and Julian hadn’t left his boxers hanging halfway off the bed, I might think I imagined the whole thing.

  “Bean?” The mattress shifts, and Julian’s suddenly there, wrapping me in his arms, holding me. “What’s wrong?”

  He’s not shouting anymore, and I realize the ringing in my ears has subsided. Not that it matters.

  “You left.” You all left. Without a backwards glance.

  “I went to get your dress.” Julian pulls back slightly and holds the pink cloth up with a sheepish smile. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.” He reaches forward and wipes away my tears. “I’d never just leave after what we shared. I love you, Amber.”

  “I love you, too.” And maybe once upon a time, before I met my two shifters, that would have been enough. But now, knowing that they left to find a way to break the spell threatens to tear me apart.

  “And Mini’s wrong about the spell. We’ll go down there, prove that it won’t work, and then she’ll leave, okay?”

  His words give me hope, but they don’t change the fact that my shifters ran out of here the first chance they got. It also doesn’t change the fact that Julian could be wrong and Minerva could be right. “What if she can break the spell?”

  “Do you really think a witch like Mini knows better than an entire coven?” Julian shakes his head. “Come on.”

  He pulls me to my feet, his eyes never once straying from my naked form while I quickly get dressed. My cheeks flush at his attention, but then I’m following him out of the room, every step feeling like it’s taking me closer and closer toward my own execution.

  We barely make it to the door before we hear Minerva’s shouts.

  “Let me through. I need to talk to him!”

  “He’s busy,” Chase’s bellow echoes upstairs. “Why don’t you come back in the morning?”

  “This can’t wait until morning!” Minerva shrieks. “Don’t you understand? What happened to you can be undone. I can set you free!”

  I suddenly feel like I might throw up. Because her words make it sound like everything we just shared was some sort of trap, instead of the most magical experience of my life.

  I struggle to fight back tears and suddenly shift into the troll. But if that means I won’t give the witch the satisfaction of seeing me cry, I’ll take it.

  “Julian!” Minerva cries as he reaches the bottom of the stairs. Then she sees me, and her panicked look is quickly replaced by a smirk. “Interesting look you’ve got there...”

  “What are you doing here, Minerva?” I scowl at her, which is a lot more formidable now that I’m a troll.

  “I’m here to help Julian, obvi!” she gushes.

  “Julian doesn’t need your help,” I snap, glaring at her, and shift back to my own body. “None of us do.”

  “Amber’s right,” Wes says, and my eyes snap to him in surprise. Because instead of demanding she give him the reversal spell, my bear shifter says, “You should l
eave.”

  “But don’t you want to see what I found?” she asks, though she’s looking straight at Julian.

  I wait for him to tell her to get lost, too, but his gaze is glued to the ancient-looking text in her hands. “What did you find?”

  “A way to break your bond.” She smiles and leafs through the book. “After you left the library, I kept searching through spellbooks—”

  “She was at the library with you?” I demand, glaring at Julian.

  “Oh, I was.” Minerva smiles triumphantly. “And I kept thinking about something you told me, Julian... about how the mating spell couldn’t be broken by witch magic.”

  “Which it can’t,” Julian agrees.

  “Well, you’re right, of course.” Minerva gives him another one of her innocent smiles, and I brace myself for what’s about to come. “But you see, it can be broken by shifter magic.”

  She holds up her book, and when none of us reach for it, she thrusts it in Julian’s face. He stares at it blankly for several seconds, and she jabs her perfectly manicured finger at a passage. His eyes snap to it, and his lips part in surprise.

  “See?” Minerva cries triumphantly. “It can be broken!”

  “What does it say?” Wes grabs the book away from Julian. He skims the page and shakes his head. “No. Not in a million years.”

  Chase yanks the book out of Wes’s hands next and quickly reads it over. “Definitely not happening.”

  The way they all react makes me wonder what it takes to break a mating bond. Animal sacrifice? Having to drink our own urine? Being forced to spend an hour in the same room as Minerva?

  “Julian? You’ll do it, right?” the witch pleads.

  He shakes his head. “The guys are right. We’re not going to do that.”

  “What do you mean ‘you’re not going to do that’?” Minerva shrieks.

  And yet, the whole time, no one tells me anything. No one offers to let me see the book. No one explains.

  I shift into the troll again and take it from Chase. My troll eyes laser in on the page in front of me, and I gape at what Minerva found. “This is how we break our bond?”

  “Yes.” Minerva’s eyes fill with renewed hope, and her tone turns sugary sweet. “All you have to do is say the words, Amber. It’s easy. Just tell Julian you reject him and it will all be over.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “I would never do that.”

  “You have to!” Minerva cries. “Think about it. He suddenly wants to be with you? And two complete strangers show up and he’s perfectly fine sharing? And he’s not even jealous? Does that sound normal to you?”

  The way she puts it, it really doesn’t. Could such hot, sweet, perfect men really, truly want me? And be willing to share? Or is rejecting them the only way I’ll ever know for sure if they’d stay by choice and not because of some spell?

  “Mini, I think you should leave,” Julian snaps.

  “That’s just the spell talking,” Minerva cries. “You don’t actually want to be with her.”

  “Of course I do.” Julian wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his side. “I’ve loved Amber since the day we met.”

  “No, you haven’t!” Minerva’s face starts turning a shade of red very close to her hair. “If you loved her, then why didn’t you ever ask her out? Why weren’t you two dating? Think about it, Julian. The spell is twisting your memories. Making you think things that aren’t true.”

  “But it is true,” I say before Minerva can somehow make me doubt this, too. Because there’s no way the spell affected Julian’s mother, and she confirmed it. Which means the witch is just trying to get in my head.

  “Prove it!” she shrieks. “Break the spell. Reject Julian.”

  “It won’t change anything, Mini.” My best friend rubs my arm as he holds me close.

  “Yes, it will.” Minerva’s eyes grow wild. “You don’t belong with her, you belong with me.”

  “I would never be with you.” Julian pulls me even closer. “You’re like a sister to me, Min.”

  I’ve never seen Minerva be anything other than sugary sweet or completely cruel, but at Julian’s words, her face falls. “But I moved here to be with you,” she cries.

  “You did what?” I ask, caught completely by surprise.

  “You think I like making desserts that I can’t even eat? You think I enjoy waking up at four in the morning to bake? Being stuck in front of those hot ovens? Standing on my feet all day? Living out here in this stupid small town?” Her eyes turn wild. “I spend everything I earn on spells. Anti-blister, anti-eye bag, anti-frizz, anti-stain, anti-sweat! Do you know how awful my life has been?”

  “Then why would you open a bakery?” Chase frowns at her, while all I want to do is shout that pretty, picture-perfect Minerva is absolutely and completely fake. And wish we’d put cameras inside the cafe so I could post video proof all over social media.

  “To stay close to Julian! It was just for a few weeks. Until your stupid cafe went out of business.”

  “We’re not going out of business,” I snap.

  “Yes. You are. No one’s going to come to your cafe. Just give up!”

  My eyes narrow on her, but Chase voices my accusation. “Did you cast the Travel Spell?” he demands, and Minerva’s eyes widen.

  “Was that what it was? A Travel Spell?” Julian demands, and I realize that after everything that happened today, we never got to tell him. Not that the type of spell matters. What matters is who’s responsible.

  “You left the pebble, didn’t you?” I cry. “You sabotaged us!”

  Wes moves to stand protectively by my side, and Minerva takes a panicked step back. I know without her ever having to admit it that it’s true. Apparently, so does Julian.

  “How could you do this to us, Mini? To me? Our parents are friends! We’ve known each other for our whole lives. You were like a sister to me.”

  “But I did this for you!” she cries. “You don’t want to run some stupid cafe. You made a mistake, but I convinced that developer that Silver Springs is the perfect place to put up some hotels. Now you can sell at a profit and move back home, and—”

  “You need to leave,” Julian says, his voice cold.

  “No, please,” Minerva begs as he steers her out of the cafe. “Julian, please, I did this for you!”

  “No, you didn’t.” Julian snaps once she’s on the other side of the threshold. “And let me be clear. If you ever do anything else to sabotage our cafe, I will tell everyone what you did. All the other shopkeepers on our street. Your parents. Your little sister. You’ll never be able to show your face here, or back home, ever again. And if you try, I will make your life a living hell.”

  Minerva turns ghostly pale, and I don’t blame her. I’ve never seen Julian this mad, not once in the six years I’ve known him. Not even the time he didn’t make it on the Witchhikers team at the academy because one of the guys purposely tripped him.

  His eyes burn daggers at Minerva until she turns and runs. But not before she bends down and digs a new glowing pebble out of the dirt.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Chase mutters when Minerva takes the Travel Spell with her and races across the street.

  “I’m so sorry, Amber.” Julian pulls me into his arms. “This is all my fault.”

  “How is it your fault? You didn’t make her leave those cursed pebbles.”

  “No. But I should have listened to you. I should have seen this coming.”

  “What matters is she’s gone now.” Chase slaps him on the shoulder.

  “And it’s not like this reversal spell would actually work.” I stare down at the book Minerva left behind. “How could saying ‘I reject y—’”

  “Amber, don’t!” Wes shouts and grabs the book away from me.

  “You don’t actually believe this, do you? It can’t be that simple.”

  “But it is.” Wes tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear and tosses the book down on the table. “Not the words the
mselves. But if you reject your mate and truly mean it, then yes, it would work.”

  “And you knew? This whole time you knew how to break the spell and you didn’t tell us?”

  “Not the spell, little bear. The mating bond. And I’m starting to think they’re not the same thing.”

  “What do you mean?” Julian frowns.

  “Why would the spell pick us? And not everyone Amber saw today?” Wes asks.

  “Because I cast a spark, and like always, my spell went terribly wrong?” Julian asks. “Why, what are you thinking?”

  “That maybe your spell turned into something like a Mate Magnet. It drew us together and forged the bond, but only because we were already right for each other.”

  “You really think so?” I ask hopefully.

  “I do.” Wes nods. “A mating bond just enhances what we already feel. It can’t change who we are, or make us like someone who isn’t right for us. Mating bonds only form between people who are meant to be.”

  “But then why is rejecting your mate even a thing?”

  “Many reasons.” Wes shrugs. “Like, when a new bear comes into an existing mate group and upsets the balance. Maybe the group already has kids, and he won’t accept them. Or their lifestyles clash, and they all want completely different things. And I’ve seen bears pick their freedom over their mates. You always have a choice, Ambear, but none of that applies to us. We’re good together.” Wes smiles softly at me, and my heart stutters.

  He stares at me with his heart in his eyes and I wish, more than anything, that what he was saying was true. But if it was...

  “Why did you leave? If you really believed we were good together, why did you jump at the chance to break it?”

  “I didn’t,” Wes denies, but I know that isn’t true.

  “It was my first time, Wes. And you couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”

  “I’m so sorry, little bear,” Wes wraps me in his arms and pulls me tight against his chest. “I swear that wasn’t why I left.”

  “It wasn’t why I left, either,” Chase pulls us both into a hug and plants a soft kiss on my head.

  “Then why?” I cry against Wes’s chest.