“Okay, I just want to state for the record that I amnotMadame Fortuna, qualified witch,” Luna said, her voice shaking just a little bit. “I didn’t make this website. I didn’t evenknowabout shifters, or witches, or anything else until yesterday. Iswear, I have nothing to do with this.”
“I believe you,” Henry said quickly – and he did. He didn’t have to think twice about it. He knew Luna wasn’t deceivinghim, or anything even slightly similar. No, whatever was going on here, whoeverMadame Fortunawas was the one behind it.
“I feel like my parents would have mentioned it if I had a secret twin sister, or something like that,” Luna said, clearly trying to sound light-hearted, but Henry could still hear the shake in her voice. “And we’re really not a mysterious enough family for them to have secretly sent a twin out for adoption or something like that.” She frowned suddenly, learning forward again to inspect the photograph. “But… um, now that I think about it, that’s my photo from the staff page for the online magazine I work with. It pops up next to my byline, it’s just usually really small so I don’t look at it much. But the one on the ‘About Us’ page is much bigger.”
“Well, I think it’s pretty clear, in the absence of a secret twin who was adopted at birth, that Madame Fortuna just stole your photo off the website and is using it as her own,” Kira said, cocking her head. “I mean, Occam’s Razor and all that.”
Luna laughed. “No… you’re right. I guess the last couple of days have just made me go to the most convoluted explanation possible. I mean, she might have stolen my image using magic, right? But no, I think it’s what you said. She just stole the photo for her own website.”
“But why would she do that?” Henry asked. “Why not just use herownphoto? It’sherwebsite – what’ll she do when she meets a client and turns up looking nothing like the photo?”
“Maybe she doesn’t meet in person?” Caleb suggested. “Although itdoessay here she’s available for in-person bookings. So it seems like she wouldn’t be able to maintain the illusion.”
“This is just gettingweird,” Luna muttered. “Of all the people, whyme?If she wants to look glamorous on her website, can’t she use, I don’t know, some pop star’s photo?”
“That would be pretty easy to spot, I guess,” Kira pointed out. “I think people would pretty quickly be tipped off this isn’t her if she slapped up, I don’t know, Beyoncé’s photograph all over her website.”
“All right, good point,” Luna laughed. “But still – how do we fix this? Does she have a complaints box? And if she’s the one that cursed Henry,whyis she usingmyphoto?! It’s just too freaky!”
“Okay, thatisone hell of a coincidence,” Kira agreed.
“If there’s one thing dragon’s luck has told me, it’s that there’s very few things in this world that are actually coincidence,” Caleb said, a little grimly. “But without talking to Madame Fortuna, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to find out more.”
“I’m not sure she’ll respond to emails about it,” Luna mused. “She’ll probably just take the photo down and steal someone else’s. And westillwon’t have an answer about why she cursed Henry.”
Henry shook his head. He supposed he should, perhaps, not be feeling quite so confused right now – after all, he was a shifter, and he was well aware that many people would consider his very existence extremely confusing and very unlikely. But he was having a really hard time wrapping his head around this.
“Maybe if she was using her own photo I would remember her,” he murmured. “If I’d seen her somewhere, or offended her somehow. But I really don’t remember doing anything that would piss someone off enough tocurseme.”
“Even if, as curses go, it’s a pretty adorable one,” Luna said, grinning at him. “If it was only a matter of attracting little squirrels and chipmunks, I’d be tempted just to tell you to leave it alone.”
“You’dthinkit was cute, but it gets pretty old pretty fast,” Henry said gloomily, remembering the chipmunk he’d had toextract from his jacket pocket when itreallyhad not wanted to be extracted. “Anyway, it’s not just cute little animals – it’s bears and deer and cougars as well. I don’t think it’s worth the price.”
“All right, spoilsport,” Luna said, playfully rolling her eyes. “Shatter my dreams of my boyfriend, the human fuzzy little animal attractor.”
Henry had to admit, Luna was taking all of this in stride – though maybe that was because she seemed to have decided to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. He really could take a leaf out of her book, he decided.
But – wait. Did she just call me herboyfriend?Just like that? Like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to say?
Henry almost wanted to ask her if she’d meant it – but clearly, he thought, as he watched her turn to say something to Kira, she’d just said it without a second thought, like it had just come naturally. Would it be weird to ask her to say it again?
Yes, it would,his hellhound snapped.Just accept it – can you not just take a good thing when it’s given to you? Ofcourseshe called us that. She is our mate. We are hers. What else is she supposed to call us?
And for once, Henry decided he’d definitely take the hellhound’s advice.
“Well, since looking at her photo – though it’s notherphoto – isn’t really getting us anywhere, perhaps we can try this,” Kira said, pointing to a link at the bottom of the paragraph outlining Madame Fortuna’s qualifications as a witch that readClick Here to Book Me for Your Next Event or Gathering!
“Hmm. Do we actually want tobookher?” Caleb asked, glancing up at his mate as he clicked the link. “Is that a good idea?”
“Wedoneed answers,” Luna pointed out. “And like you said, I’m not sure she’s going to respond to an email or an impassioned plea on social media.”
“I’d like to find out exactly what I did,” Henry added. “Whatever the case, I can’t go on like this, especially not now that I’ve found my mate. It was my plan to just stay in hellhound form – since animals don’t seem to like me so much like that – and live in the woods until I’d sorted things out, or stuff went back to normal on its own. But that would mean living apart from Luna.”
He swallowed, wanting to addAnd I just don’t think I can do that anymore,but his throat was too tight to let the words pass. He hoped Luna understood him without him having to say the words – and when he looked at her, he could see from the shine in her beautiful green eyes that she did.
And not only that she understood him, but she felt exactly the same way he did.
We were meant to be together. And there’s no way we’re letting these curses come between us. We’ll do whatever it takes.
