Read Accidentally Aphrodite for Free Online Page A

back into gear, some things were beginning to make sense—a connection of dots, if you will. Like how pale Nina was. “And Nina was already a vampire when I met her?”
    “She’s been one for seven years now.”
    “Is that what made her so crusty?”
    Ingrid wrinkled her nose. “No. I hear she was always a little cranky, and FYI, I was petrified of her at first, too. I know she comes off as scary with all her swearing and threatening, but she’s a total mush.”
    Quinn massaged the back of her neck. Right. Mushy-mushy. Hah.
    She rose, handing Ingrid her backpack. “I’m sure she’s very warm and supportive.”
    Ingrid nodded, pursing her lips. “I’m hearing sarcasm.”
    “You’re not hearing things.”
    Ingrid made a face, tucking her thumbs into her backpack straps. “Look, she’s good to me, Quinn. Nina, Marty, and Wanda pay me ridiculously well, way over the going rate for a receptionist to answer the phones at OOPS. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have enough money to buy a pencil, let alone pay for my tuition. Plus, it was Nina who suggested you not go by yourself to Greece. She said you looked like you needed a vacation—but you shouldn’t go it alone.”
    Now Quinn wrinkled her nose. “Now, now. That wasn’t exactly what Nina said.”
    Ingrid threw up her arms in frustration, her sigh grating. “Fine. She said the last thing you should be doing is hitting Greece alone because the idiot, romantic, rose-colored-glasses wearer that you are, you’d probably end up shackled to some olive farmer as your rebound. Okay? Happy? Despite her forward nature—insensitive, cranky, sometimes crass…okay, always crass—even she could tell you looked like hell, and Nina never notices anything about anyone unless it’s about her.”
    Quinn clucked her tongue with admonishment. “Don’t forget the label suicidal. She said I looked suicidal.” And maybe she had for the first week or so after Igor had told her he wasn’t going to Greece with her at all, but leaving her for Shawna.
    Red, swollen eyes and the muttered wish to have a bus run you over didn’t deserve a label as harsh as suicidal.
    Everyone deserved a good cry when their bubble of romance was burst by the pin of infidelity. She’d gotten over the sobbing, gulping, four-bags-of-pork-rinds-in-a-row part of it, and she’d thought she was moving on to something much less pathetic when she’d stepped onto the plane to Greece.
    “You still look confused.”
    “It’s a lot to absorb.” Her head was spinning from the attempt to absorb.
    Ingrid suddenly stuck a finger in the air. “Oh! I have the perfect way for you to relate to this. You know all those Molly Harper books you read about werewolves and vampires and love-sweet-love? It’s kind of like that only real.”
    Right. This was exactly like that. Quinn frowned. “So back to Katie. Repeat the part about why Nina and company had to save her?”
    “Remember the bit where I told you bad people wanted to kill Katie and her husband after they found out she was turned into a cougar?”
    Panic seized Quinn from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She gripped Ingrid’s arm. “Are you saying someone’s going to want to kill me because I bit an apple that tastes like donkey’s ass?”
    “How do you know what donkey’s ass tastes like?”
    “I don’t. I’m just assuming that ass, in particular a donkey’s ass, leaves an aftertaste.”
    Ingrid kept her voice low, turning her body away from the Greek goodness of Khristos. “I’m not saying anyone wants to kill you. Not yet. I just know from experience, after knowing Nina, Marty, and Wanda for a few years now and hearing all of their client stories, that there’s always some bad dude who wants whatever it is the client stumbled upon when they have the paranormal accidents. The last case they had, it was dragon scales. Those scales turned not one, but two people into dragons, and the scales belonged to very bad people, and