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“I would love to, Su.” And she snaps her fingers.

The red flame winks out. So does the orange.

I force myself to swallow the cry of outrage. All that work for nothing. The blood and the sneaking in and out of the library… I might have cast the spell, putting my magic out into the world, but I wouldn’t get the name of my one true mate until I blew out the flames of both of the candles.

“Feel better?” asks Susan.

Alice wipes her hands on her skirt. “A little.”

The blonde witch walks over to the librarian, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’re not done with him yet.”

What? “You have your spell back,” I tell them. “No harm, no foul. Right? Susan… can I call you Susan? It’s Halloween. I’m sure you have better things to do. Maybe a party for your coven? Some spellcasting that needs to be done⁠—”

“We did. But when a warlock thinks he can steal from our coven… these things take priority.” A pause, and then, “You could’ve asked to borrow the book. You wouldn’t be the first impatient male who thought he knew better than Fate. We’ve cast the bond spell before. We could’ve done so again.”

I arch an eyebrow. That’s about the only part of me aside from my mouth that can move. “You would’ve helped a warlock?”

“No.”

Thought so. “So what happens now?”

“We punish you,” says Alice, the glaring librarian.

I look at the head witch. Susan. “You can’t⁠—”

“We can. We will. And you, Vincent Morrow… your punishment will be patience.”

“Excuse me?”

“You didn’t want to wait for your mate. You don’t even know if she’s been born or if she’s a child or if she’s out of your reach… you believed you knew better than Fate and the Goddess herself, and now you’ll be cursed as you are to linger until your mate finds you.

“But because you also think you’re better than a witch’s familiar…” Her eyes flash again. This time, instead of going from black to white and back again, they’re green for a split second.

Green… just like when you catch a stray cat out in an alleyway and the light catches its eyes before the creature vanishes into the shadows.

“You wanted magic to do the work for you that badly? So be it.”

At the same time, all three witches make a gesture. On the plus side, the fact that Mary Ellen isn’t using a spell to keep me immobile means that my body is free. It also means that I crumple in a heap on the floor. I push up to my hands and knees—and that’s when they begin to hum.

No. Mary Ellen and Alice hum. Susan chants under her breath, her voice light, her words hard to decipher. It doesn’t matter. Magic crackles in the air, all of their power focused on me.

Pain slams into me next. It starts in my chest before tearing through the rest of my body on the floor. I grunt, trying to get out of their way, trying to escape the agony, but my palms are now glued to the tile. So are the knees of my jeans. My fingers… they begin to change first. After that, it all happens so suddenly. Bones shift. My clothes—my black T-shirt, my black jeans, my briefs, my socks—disappear. The room stretches higher as everything seems to change shape around me.

Terrified, I try to scream.

What comes out instead is a yowl.

Hefting her skirt up in her hands, Susan crouches in front of me.

“Until Fate chooses you, your touch will be claws, your every desire trapped in fur. Only your true mate’s magic will free you, Vincent Morrow.”

I swear, it’s like a bell clanging in my head. And I know that, whatever she was chanting before, what she just said… that was the spell.

No.

The curse. She cursed me to… to…

Hang on.