“No we’re not!” Sarah yelled.
Gage moved a bumper car between us. “That’s enough,” he called out sternly. Sarah steered away, sulking.
We were breathless and happy when the ride ended, and we continued to make our way through the fairgrounds. Her eyes were full of wonder from everything surrounding us. Her hand was now in mine as we walked. We stopped to get curly fries and I fed them to her, and she smiled at me and licked ketchup off her lips.
I felt something that I hadn’t felt in a good long time at that moment. It wasn’t lust, the need to bend her over something and take her hard and fast right there. No, it was something else.
Love. Contentment. I wanted to feel this soft buzz of joy for the rest of my days.
And I could feel it in her too. Where there was once fear and anxiety, there was a serenity there. One I hoped to share with her for decades to come.
There was a crowd of people ahead of us, thicker than the usual denseness that the festival brought.
“Cheater!” someone called out. It was Fionnulla’s stall. She had her plants on display for the Green Thumb Competition.
“There’s no way she’s that good! These plants have doubled in size since she got here!” a woman cried out.
“I had no one to help me grow these,” Fio snapped back. “Don’t blame me for actually being good at something when you can’t even make weeds grow.”
“Stand aside,” a feminine voice called out.
“Melisande,” I murmured to Daphne. “High priestess of the High Moon Coven.” Tall and confident, she had an imposing presence that buzzed through the air. The crowd parted for her the same way they did for me—it was that big-boss energy.
She picked up one of the smaller plants in Fi’s collection and examined it.
“This plant contains traces of magic that aren’t your own, Fionnulla.”
“What? That’s nonsense.” Fi protested. “I never let another witch near my plants! Who put you up to this, Melisande?”
Melisande drew herself up to her full height. “Excuse me?”
“This is a scheme to frame me, isn’t it? Who paid you off?”
“No one, Fio. I don’t like your accusations.”
“Then tell me, whose magic is on these plants besides my own?” Fionnulla scoffed.
Melisande focused on the plant for a bit longer. “She knows the magical signatures of every witch and shifter in Tall Timbers,” I told Daphne.
Melisande looked up. “I don’t recognize the other witch’s magic. But it is not only yours, Fio. So by the rules of the Green Thumb Competition, I have to disqualify you.”
“This is ridiculous! Someone framed me!” Fi stormed off, elbowing people out of her way.
“That’s too bad.” Daphne shook her head unhappily as I seized her hand and led her away. “I liked her. Do you think someone really framed her?”
I shrugged. “Hard to say. Witches have their power struggles just like shifters do. There is a hierarchy to a coven, a pecking order, and Fi just got shoved down several places. Which means someone else rose up.”
“Oh, it’s Killian!” a young voice yelled out. “And this must be his new mate from the human world!”
A bunch of kids, most of them not even ten years old, ran up to us, but their focus was on Daphne. They were shifters from a nearby ley line town.
“Hello, people I don’t know.”
They surrounded us, jostling eagerly to get close. “What’s it like to live in the human realm, with no magic at all?” a little boy asked, wide-eyed.
“Uh…. pretty normal. Honestly, not as fun and exciting as this.” She gestured at a sparkling light display shaped like a dragon that flapped and swooped overhead.
“Do they eat wolves in the human realm? My uncle says humans eat wolves,” another boy asked.
