“Yep! Only…” I spin within the comfort of his arms, straining my neck to take in the rest of the town green. When I don’t spot who I’m looking for, I call out, “Princess Buttercup!”
She comes racing from a clump of rhododendrons, the walking tulips and rolling pumpkins running beside her, along with Finn, Hannah’s fox familiar. The flying hearts launch from the rhododendrons and swoop after. When Severin took down the winter greenhouse, he constructed a special shelter inside that group of bushes for the town’s animated creatures and shielded it with magic, giving them a safe place to retreat to. The familiars like it as well.
“We’re playing!” she says, stopping several feet away. “I don’t want to go home yet.”
“We talked about this,” I remind her. “You said you’d be happy to keep to my schedule when we discussed you having town visits.”
“Luke can come back and get me later!” she says, looking up at him with huge pleading eyes.
A growl rumbles in Luke’s chest, his expression morphing into grumpy number three, mildly annoyed.Before he can grumble that a superior fae like a dragon isn’t a taxi service, I catch his eye and mouth, “I’ve got this.”
He grunts his yes grunt.
“Okay, then.” I turn away from Princess Buttercup. “He’ll come and get you after dinner. It’s too bad you’ll miss the chicken, but if—”
“Chicken!” She gallops over to us. “Why didn’t you say we were having chicken! Of course I’m coming!”
I pretend to hesitate. “Oh, but you wanted to stay.”
“No!” she wails, loud and dramatic like the little diva she is. She leaps up to set her paws on my leg, kneading my thigh. “I didn’t mean it!”
The left corner of Luke’s mouth twitches.
“Okay, we’ll go have chicken.”
“Yesss,” my familiar hisses with delight, leaping into my arms.
When Hannah steps out of Town Hall and heads for the green, Finn races off to meet her, yipping and dancing with delight.
Severin wings down from the sky, and the tulips go running toward him, flapping their long pointy leaves like arms, little flower heads bobbing. They surround him like a group of toddlers begging to be picked up, and he leans over, his expression softening as he touches each flower, sending pulses of plant magic into them.
We don’t yet know which witch created all of our new animated friends, but the tulips are the liveliest of the three and benefit from his magic. Luke thinks it’s because they were actually alive when animated, whereas the pumpkins had been picked and the paper hearts had never been alive inthe first place.
Kayla comes out of Grounds for Celebration, coffee in hand, and heads toward the group of us.
Right as she reaches where we’re standing, Shadow steps out of thin air, towering over her in his werepanther form, seven feet of fur-covered muscle. He’s longhaired, with black fur that turns all the shades of gray before ending in silver tips, and his face is still handsome, even in its cat-man form.
Kayla startles. “I should bell you.”
“I’d love for you to try.” He grins, showing off an impressive set of fangs.
“Why are you like that?” She flaps a hand up and down his body.
“I ran the shadow roads of Faerie in my werepanther form,” he says, holding a small bag in front of his crotch. “I could change into a man, but I’d be naked.”
Mrs. Greely yells from the sidewalk, shaking her cane. “Young man, put some clothes on this instant!”
“Oops. I forgot the protection spell already makes me look like a naked man to anyone non-magical.” Mischief dances in his green eyes. “Lucky them.”
Luke grunts, pulls a pair of pants from his invisible pocket, and slaps them to the werepanther’s chest.
Shadow pulls them on, each movement slow and graceful.
Kayla scowls at the hunky fae, but not before I see a flare of interest. Then she turns to me and Hannah. “We still on for our Witch Bitch Spicy Book Club meeting this Sunday?”
“Yep!” A smile stretches my cheeks. I’m so excited to talk about spicy books with my besties. “And we’re even going totalk about a book this time!”
“Maybe.” Hannah laughs. “We’re talking about a book,maybe. As long as there aren’t any new witchy shenanigans.”
