Page 37

I laugh, leaning my shoulder into his. “Fine. Explain it to me, thirty-one-year-old man born seventy years ago.”

He mutters something under his breath about disrespectful mates, but I catch the hint of a smile before he says, “The curse preserved me. I age when I’m in this form, not when I’m a cat. Thirty-nine Halloweens is only thirty-nine days, so physically, I’ve aged a little more than a month since Susan cursed me.”

“So you’re thirty-one and a month.”

“Something like that.”

“But chronologically seventy.”

“Kate,” he growls.

I laugh again, but it fades when another thought occurs to me.

“Physically,” I echo. “But you remember it all.”

That wipes away the last of his smile. “Of course I do. All thirty-nine years.”

I glance down at the hands he has folded in his lap. He’s been using them constantly today, I realize. Carrying boxes. Stealing food. Touching me whenever he thinks he can get away with it. Performing little bits of magic just because he can.

“What was it like?” I ask.

“Being devastatingly handsome?”

“Being a cat for almost forty years.”

“Oh.” He leans back against the bench. “That.”

For once, Vincent doesn’t have an immediate answer.

“It became normal,” he says eventually. “Not at first. At first, I was furious. I kept trying to get back into Spellbrook to confront the local coven, but Susan… the head witch who cursed me… and the others made sure I couldn’t. Then I started waiting for Halloween because I thought I’d break the curse myself. Every year, I’d get my hands and my magic back and try something new.”

“And nothing worked.”

He shakes his head. No. Obviously not, considering I was able to adopt him as my cat mere weeks ago.

I think about what it would be like, cursed to be a voiceless, thumbless creature, all while the world continued on around you. My heart breaks for him, and I can’t help but ask, “How long before you stopped expecting it to?”

His gaze slides toward mine. “That’s a very personal question, pumpkin.”

“You snuck into my bed last night while I was sleeping. Can’t get more personal than that, Mr. Whiskers.”

He tilts his head, conceding the point. “How long? I don’t know. Twenty years, maybe?”

My eyes drop as he absently reaches up to scratch his upper arm, and that’s when the black marks there catch my attention again. I’ve noticed them multiple times before. When he was naked, surely, then again when the tight sleeve of his T-shirt curved around the top part of it. Then when Bonnie mentioned him getting ink…

For the first time, I focus on them. I mean, really get a good look. There are four claw-like slashes stretching down the length of his right bicep.

I reach out and touch one.

Vincent goes completely still.

“What about these?” I trail the tip of my finger down one scratch until I hit the end. “These are cat scratches, aren’t they?”

“Something like that.” He leans into my touch. “I got them about the same time I realized that I might be a cat forever.”

“Why?”

“I was bored.”