Persephone seemed unbothered by that statement and began to explore her new home. Calli stood in the kitchen, still trying to process all of this.
Flashes of last night came back to her. Malcolm sitting bare-chested on her couch. How she felt when he’d stepped into her personal space and put his arms around her. How she’d been both excited at being caught in his arms, yet utterly safe. Then he’d kissed her, and oh, the man could kiss.
Get a hold of yourself. This is not the time to be thinking about all that. You have things to do.
Calli went back upstairs and took a quick shower. She found the kitten chasing a small white and black striped lizard around the bedroom. The lizard twitched its blue tail in challenge before it darted around on the rug.
“Don’t hurt him,” Calli said to the cat. “He’s a skink. He’s harmless, and he eats bugs in the house.” She’d never been afraid of lizards and thought this particular kind of skink was cute.
The skink vanished between the baseboards and the wood floor, leaving the kitten to swish the fluffy plume of her tail back and forth.
“Okay, cutie, let’s go.” She picked up the kitten and set her on the bed. Calli changed into her jeans and a cream cable-knit sweater. Then she retrieved Persephone and tucked her into a large tote bag.
“Mreow?” the kitten queried.
“Yes, we’re going into town,” said Calli.
It was odd, but she could feel what her familiar was thinking, almost like words spoken in her head. She had a thousand questions she wanted to ask Sage, who had had a familiar since she was fifteen and definitely had way more experience with having a familiar.
But first, Calli would pop into her bookstore to check on things, then she’d grab coffee with Sage before her meeting with Malcolm at noon. She hummed as she walked out to her car, still giddy over Persephone’s appearance. The only damper on her joy was the question still niggling in the back of her mind: why had Persephone finally shown up, and did it have anything to do with the half-warlock who set her garden and rug on fire?
“Maybe grandma was wrong,” she mused as she opened the car door. Persephone meowed again and Calli felt a very strong disagreement in the familiar’s response.
“Well, too bad. Because all I’m going to do is give him a few magic lessons. You can forget your Hallmark movie fantasies.”
Another tiny questioning meow.
“I’ll show you what a movie is later. Right now we have better things to do, fluffball.”
Tiny claws punctured the bookbag and pricked Calli’s arm.
“Ow!” She flinched and the little claws withdrew. Okay, so she didn’t like being called fluffball. Calli was going to have to get used to having a familiar, but her familiar was going to get used to the idea that she and Malcolm weren’t in love.
CHAPTER FIVE
Malcolm bounded up the steps to the Moonstone Inn and knocked on the front door, Jasper and Hades right behind him.
An elderly woman greeted them. Her silvery hair was curled up in a perfect bun on the top of her head, and several paintbrushes were being used to hold her hair in place. She studied him with bright and curious blue eyes. A delicate blend of spells covered her wrists, ones he recognized for treating pain, most likely arthritis.
“Mrs. Greenlee?”
She pushed her large spectacles up her dainty nose. “Yes?”
“I’m Malcolm Wellesley. I was hoping you might still have a room available?”
“No, dear. I’m afraid not. We booked our last room yesterday. The festival always fills up quickly this time of year.” The older woman looked past Malcolm. “Oh, hello Mr. Reed!”
“Hello, Ivy,” Jasper said with a grin. He’d been renting a bedroom on the ground floor since he arrived four months ago. “Malcolm is a long-time friend of mine. You really don’t have any rooms left?”
“Sorry, dear, a vampire took our last one.” She glanced between them. “I could always whip up a bunkbed in your room, Mr. Reed.” There was a devious twinkle in the old woman’s eyes. Malcolm suspected that Jasper had told this witch about that accidental levitating spell he’d done on Jasper in college.
“That won’t be necessary. We’ll figure something out, won’t we? Thank you, Mrs. Greenlee!” Jasper put an arm around Malcolm’s shoulders and steered him away from the chuckling old witch back down the stairs.
“Damn.” Malcolm rubbed a palm over his jaw and sighed.
“Sorry about that,” said Jasper.
“I guess I’m headed back to New York after all.” He really didn’t want to have to go. Not yet. But where was he going to stay? He wasn’t exactly giving up… but it didn’t seem like he had any options.
