I tipped my head back and glared at the ceiling before sliding a look at Pete. “Apparently, I run a brothel with a spa.”
Pete croaked once. I wagged my finger at him. “Don’t you try to weigh in on this disaster. I’ll leave you slimy and one-eyed for the rest of your life.”
Did magically modified people’s life expectancy remain that of their original form, or did it alter to match their new species?
The wards thrummed in my bones like a polite doorbell chime, the scent of meat and veggies giving away the visitor. Sophia appeared in my doorway, carrying a tray the size of a small country, containing mini cabbage rolls arranged in concentric circles like a crop sign to warn off UFOs. I really needed to stop watching those alien shows with the shifters.
Indigo perked up.“Ah. Food.”
“Tastings for your wedding,” she corrected.
Rebecca perked up. “Oh, this is going to be delicious.”
“This is not the time,” I pointed out.
Sophia’s dark eyes narrowed. “Pretend otherwise if you must, but a Roberts wedding attracts attention even when wedon’t set the lawn on fire. They are rare, and with good reason. And given the way you and Hudson?—”
“Stop.” I raised both hands. Heat uncoiled behind my ribs as Indigo stretched like a cat. “The next person to mention the full moon and the lawn will receive a permanent ban.”
“Not the cabbage roll maker,”Indigo snarled.
“Hudson isn’t here,” I pointed out. “Surely he needs to offer his opinion?”
“I’m sure he trusts you to make some decisions.” Aunt Sophia’s expression softened. “Dave likes the pickled ones.”
Wait, the chief of security had already sampled my wedding food? Did he want the job? Although a man who preferred pickled anything could not be trusted.
She set the tray on the desk and pointed at a paler clump. “Those are the veggie ones.”
Rebecca plucked one and popped it into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully, then declared, “Tastes like love.”
“Cabbage rolls cannot taste like love,” I pointed out.
“Try one,” she said, quirking a brow in challenge.
Fine. I obliged and tried not to wilt under the stares of the supernaturals awaiting my verdict. They were a secret recipe, guarded by generations, made for comfort, and they tasted like...
“Fine, they taste like love.”
Rebecca snorted, and Aunt Sophia smiled in victory.
The door swung open, and Aunt Liz and Aunt Dayna swept in on a wave of expensive floral perfume and righteous sibling bickering.
“I’m not saying we do it,” Aunt Dayna declared, hair a tumble of dark curls, eyes sparkling. “I’m saying we talk about it like adults.”
Aunt Liz, draped in an elegant pale gray dress, rolled her eyes so hard they took a tour of the ceiling. “Talking about it is step one to doing it, and you know it.”
“What are we not talking about not doing?” I asked.
Sophia held up the tray, and my aunts snatched a cabbage roll each.
Dayna flopped onto the sofa near the window. “As requested, we’ve been poking at the curse,” she said without preamble. “The original weaving by the scorned wives, Mary in particular, tied the condition not just to love, but to confessed love. Spoken, not implied. It’s in the footnotes. They were nothing if not bureaucratic.”
“Are you saying that as long as we don’t verbally acknowledge our love, the curse doesn’t take effect?” I asked. It sounds too easy.
Liz shot her sister a glare as she leaned on the arm of the chair and folded her arms. “It’s not that simple. The curse listens for the truth of it in your heart, not the sound of the words.”
“It could be in the actions of the loved one. Like risking it all,” Dayna added.
