of her dressing table, combing her hair a little rougher than necessary. What was it with these men? Not one of them could manage to finish the jobs she’d given them. She sighed and pulled open the drawer to check her potion supply.
When she was in Erdikoa, she often helped her mother make illegal potions to sell in the underground market. Their specialty was concocting unsavory potions made from normal, everyday potions.
She and her mother would spend hours in her mother’s workshop, mixing different things and trying them out on random volunteers. It was a stroke of luck Nina was also born an alchemist, and she shadowed under her mother from the time she was old enough to walk. Luckily, the potions in the pharmacy were already made, and mixing them didn’t need magic. The spells fused on their own.
Few alchemists were as talented mixologists as Nina and her mother. Even if they found her out, she knew Caius wouldn’t send her to hell. He loved her, no matter what the little butcher bitch said.
A stronger potion was needed to work on stronger men. Her current mind-bending potion wasn’t potent and only worked on the weak. She found men who looked at her with desire, spoke with them to see how gullible they were, and when she found the perfect candidates, she would lick the potion from her finger, kiss them, then immediately lick her other finger containing the antidote.
With regular doses, they were putty in her hands, wanting nothing more than to do her bidding. She was meant to be queen, and before Aurora came along, she was well on her way.
She’d tried the potion on Caius once, but it hadn’t worked. He was too powerful. Finding a way to make her potion stronger would be her next course of action.
Just then, she heard the door to her apartment fly open, and before she could stand to investigate, Lauren, an imposing member of the legion, stepped into her bedroom with murder in her eyes.
