She looked at him skeptically. “I suppose it’s alright. But you’ll need to shower and wash your clothes. You are covered in pulverized pumpkin.” She delivered that with a frown that reminded him that those pumpkins had been important to her.
“A shower would be great.” He could definitely smell the pumpkin still on him and by morning, it wouldn’t smell as good as it did right now. A shower was definitely a necessity.
“All right then, follow me. I’ll show you to a room and the bathroom you can use. I assume you haven’t had dinner?” She turned those stunning hazel eyes on him that sometimes turned a burning amber color when he got too close.
“Nope.”
“Right, I’ll send something up for you and Hades.” Calli led the way and Malcolm followed, swallowing hard as he climbed the stairs behind her and found himself staring once again at the delectable ass and wanting to strip her clothes off to see it. He loved sex… but the need to take this particular woman to bed was almost overpowering. Had her pumpkins been hexed with a lust spell or something?
Get it together, Wellesley, or she’ll hex you again.
Calli Wynter’s heart pounded like a jackhammer as she climbed the stairs to show Malcolm to a spare bedroom.
A warlock was in her house. Not just any warlock, but a blood warlock. She was a hedge witch. The two magics were like oil and water, they didn’t get along. Probably because hedge witches used their magic by drawing from the world around them and using their magic to create beautiful life, whereas those who were born with blood magic tended to have an inflated ego because their magic came from within themselves. She’d never liked the self-aggrandizing attitude of some of the blood witches and warlocks she’d met.
It would be wise to be careful around Malcolm. He’d already destroyed her garden, set fire to half of her backyard, obliterated her pumpkin crop and caused a small earthquake. All of that was the result of his uncontrolled blood magic. His magic. She prayed he wouldn’t set her house on fire next. Thinking fast, she started sending anti-flame enchantments to all parts of the house.
“What spell was that?” Malcolm asked as he came up behind her. She nearly tripped on the stairs.
“Oh … it’s just one of my nightly protection spells that I forgot to set up earlier.”
“Is Moonstone Falls dangerous?”
“No, but a town full of magical creatures can be a bit unpredictable.” They’d reached the top of the stairs. When she looked at him again, her heart jolted.
Why did he have to be so gorgeous? He had features which seemed to be cut from stone by angels. He probably thought he was downplaying his sexiness by dressing like a lumberjack, but it only made him more enticing. His flannel shirt looked soft, and he smelled incredible. She had the sudden image of wearing his shirt, feeling that soft fabric on her bare skin and breathing in the scent of him as it enveloped her. His scent was like the woods, completely natural. She could actually feel the natural magic that clung to his skin. It was a magic she recognized and adored. He must have been outside recently, deep in the woods. Those trees had kissed his skin and hair with a pure and ancient magic, and it had left a scent behind. It was the same ancient magic that called to her every day and whispered its wisdom to her.
To be so close to this man with the purest green eyes she’d ever seen and thick dark hair that she wanted to dig her fingers into while she… God, she felt drunk just being near him, which was insane. She couldn’t get drunk from being close to someone… could she?
Malcolm leaned against the wall, a curious, somewhat amused gleam in those jade green eyes of his. She hadn’t realized she’d been staring at him.
She cleared her throat. “Right, so here’s a guestroom you can use.” She opened the door closest to the stairs. She had five extra rooms in the house aside from her own. This would do as well as any other.
She’d chosen the one room with walls as green as his eyes. Why had she done that?
Portraits hung in gold frames on the walls, and a large fourposter bed with vines wrapped around the wood sat against one wall. Flowers from the vines on the bedposts began to blossom the moment Malcolm entered the room. She’d never seen her magic do that for anyone but herself.
“I guess the bed likes me,” he chuckled.
She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself, Firestarter. It does that whenever I’m around.”
But that wasn’t quite the truth. The flowers always bloomed, but they’d never produced those exotic looking blooms before.
Hades bounded up onto the bed and immediately tossed the pillows off with his nose, then rolled around on the plush white comforter and flopped onto his side. Thankfully, unlike Malcolm, the dog had escaped being covered with pumpkin.
“Hades, come on. That’s rude. Get off. She doesn’t need you rearranging her pillows.” Malcolm pointed to the floor expectantly. Hades turned to look at him with inscrutable, dark, brown eyes. Malcolm stared back at the dog, and Calli wondered if they were having some sort of private communication. The schnauzer huffed softly and turned to look straight at her, as if asking for her opinion.
“He’s fine.” Calli assured Malcolm and she patted the dog’s head. Hades was a beautiful dog and so sweet despite his intimidating size.
“I’ve never seen a schnauzer this big before.” The nature of familiars meant that they were different than other animals. They lived as long as their chosen witch or warlock, and they were incredibly intelligent.
Malcolm shook his head. “He’s a giant schnauzer, the largest of the breed. How about you? Do you have a familiar?”
The question caught her off guard. “No, not yet. They don’t come until later in my family.”
“In my family, they usually show up when we’re around twelve or thirteen.”
He reached out to the nearest pink bloom on the bed vine, which flared its petals toward his long, elegant fingers. “Your spells are incredible.”
