Casually Cursed Read Online Free Page B

Casually Cursed
Book: Casually Cursed Read Online Free
Author: Kimberly Frost
Tags: Romance, Adult
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c’mon. The biscuits are done. And everything will seem better with a belly full of biscuits.”
    Most times an announcement like that would be met with skeptical chuckles from people, but these two just turned and went inside, like they understood the truth about the fortifying power of biscuits. I frowned. There were moments when I felt my own Seelie roots.
    I’d been raised by witches and hadn’t known I was half fae until a couple months earlier. Momma, Aunt Mel, and my double-great-aunt Edie had all kept my magical mixed race a total secret, even from me, because the World Association of Magic was against the fae in every way.
    It was possible that the Association would lock me up or kill me if they found out I’d used fae magic on occasion. It wouldn’t even matter to them that I hadn’t meant to or tried to. In some ways, that would make it worse. I had powers that I couldn’t control and that they wouldn’t be able to control either. They wouldn’t like that. And when they didn’t like something . . . well, they weren’t nice about how they dealt with problems, or witches who caused them.
    Inside, the house smelled like melted chocolate and spiced vanilla with just a faint note of pine needles from the tree. After putting the biscuits and fixings on the table, I raised the volume on the country Christmas music, hoping to put everyone in a festive and friendly mood. Kismet’s shoulders bobbed in time to the beat as she broke her biscuit in half down the middle and dipped the right half in a circle of berry compote and then in a dollop of whipped cream. A jolt of recognition ran through me, leaving me tingling and smiling. I’d eaten biscuits that way a thousand times. When I’d been little, Momma and Aunt Mel told me over and over, “Use a knife and cut them in half the other way. Spread whatever you want on the bottom half and put the top back on, like a sandwich. When you dip, you make such a mess, and half the time the biscuit crumbles and you get your fingers sticky by going after the lost pieces. Little ladies have better table manners.”
    Little faeries apparently didn’t. Neither did big ones.
    A small chunk of biscuit fell onto the dish. Kismet retrieved it and dipped it and the tips of her fingers into the crushed berries. She dropped the morsel in her mouth and licked the sweetened fruit from her fingertips.
    “That’s delicious, delectable, and divine,” she said.
    I chuckled. “We’re sisters, all right.”
    She grinned.
    I ate a biscuit, dipping it into butter, then the fruit compote, and licking my fingertips in the bargain. Then a key in the door’s lock announced that Aunt Mel had arrived. My shoulders stiffened and my smile dropped. I loved her dearly and couldn’t wait to see her, but there was so much I had to tell her. And none of it would make her happy.

2
    WHEN I WAS eleven years old, Edie told me that if we’d all been drinks, she’d have been a whiskey sour, I’d have been a gin fizz, Momma a maiden’s prayer, and Aunt Mel, sangria. I hadn’t understood her at the time, but now I did. Edie’s sarcastic wit had a tart bite. I was bubbly. Momma was soulful and mysterious. And Aunt Mel loved exotic men and places, and she lived in pursuit of things that made music play in her head.
    Upon entering, Aunt Mel called out my name and then strolled in wearing a fitted dress that had alternating indigo and mint-green horizontal stripes. She wore dark blue platform heels and a mint-colored scarf around her ponytail. She was thirty-nine, but looked twenty-nine, and her style was as young and fresh as springtime.
    She’d come in with her hand outstretched to present me with a small wrapped present, but her arm dropped when she saw the visitors in the kitchen. Her lips parted slightly in surprise, her gaze jerking from Crux to Kismet and me and then back.
    “What’s going on?” she asked, moving slowly away from Crux. She clutched my forearm and looked at Kismet.

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