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Unbreakable.

I nod against him. “I did. So I hope you know… you’re not getting rid of me, either.”

In response, he starts purring again, and I can’t help but laugh. “God, I love it when you do that.”

I can hear the smirk in his voice as he murmurs, “Why do you think I do it? Anything to make my mate happy. I hope you know that, Kate. And if you don’t? We have a very long time for me to prove it.”

I have no idea what it means. My biggest worry was that the curse would break and, in a heartbeat, Vincent would go from the thirty-one-year-old warlock I knew to a seventy-year-old man as though the years would catch up to him once the spell was broken. But I guess his insistence that he only aged a day was right because he looks exactly the same—well. No. He looks absolutely content as I pick up my head and look at my new mate.

His eyes are closed. It’s well into the night now, and it’s been quite a day. Smiling to myself, I settle against him again, closing my eyes, too, while the former Mr. Whiskers continues to stroke my hair.

Tomorrow—or, technically, later today—we can figure out what it means that his curse is broken. We can figure out the mate bond, and magic, and what happens when a human woman permanently attaches herself to an obnoxious warlock who is as much a cat now as he was yesterday because after forty years… some habits are hard to break.

But tonight? I don’t care.

Halloween is over until next year. The clock struck midnight, and my cat stayed a man—not because Vincent claimed me or because we completed some magical mate bond, but because I chose him.

Plus I claimed him right back.

And now he’s stayed a man and he’s stayed with me, and now he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be: in my bed, holding me close, and purring so soundly that it’s like I still have a piece of my beloved pet cat to hold onto for the memories.

And I consider that a very happy Halloween.

EPILOGUE

HALLOWEEN, ONE YEAR LATER

VINCENT

I’ve been a man for three hundred and sixty-five days—in a row.

True, that probably doesn’t sound impressive to anyone who hasn’t spent thirty-nine years as a fluffy black cat, roaming the streets as the (mostly) neighborhood stray, but I assure you that it is.

For nearly four decades, I only got twenty-four hours every Halloween in my skin. From midnight to midnight, my paws became hands, that black fur coat of mine disappeared, and I could walk around on two legs without anyone trying to scratch behind my ears or some psychos attempting to yank my tail. I could talk. I could practice magic and work toward finding my mate. I could eat whatever I wanted without someone insisting that chocolate might kill me or that I was lucky to be offered pâté from a can.

Then midnight came.

It always came.

But last Halloween, it didn’t.

Well, nah. Midnight came. Time itself didn’t stop simply because I finally found my mate, though I wished that it would while I braced myself to change back to Mr. Whiskers. I would’ve waited as long as it took to convince Kate that I was worthy of her, but I somehow did because, when midnight tolled, I didn’t change back to my furry feline self.

For the first time since 1987, the first November arrived and I was still Vincent Morrow.

I’ve been Vincent ever since. For the most part, I’d say. My gorgeous mate would point out that I’m still very Mr. Whiskers-like when I open the blinds in the living room so that I can stretch out on the couch and nap in a patch of sunlight, or when I get irritated and pace outside of the bathroom door when she closes it between us. Though that’s not being a former cat so much as, if Kate’s taking a shower, I think we should take one together.

See? Cats hate water, and I’m all about conserving the stuff. Thoughtful warlock I am, huh?

And I’m still a warlock. In the back of my mind, during those long winter days when I was the most defeated at my fate, I wondered if I would find my witchy mate and somehow lose my own magic. That didn’t happen; neither one of those things, actually. Kate is undoubtedly human—though her bond with me means she isn’t exactly mortal any longer now that our extended life spans are tied together and we’re looking at another hundred and fifty Halloweens together easy—and I am the most powerful warlock in Shadowvale.

Up until April, I still believed I was the only warlock in Shadowvale.

It was Bonnie, the witch two doors down, that finally clued me in that I wasn’t. Not really. I’m not really sure of the details, only that it’s a legend that’s been whispered about between any of the witches that find their way to this town, but the leader of the warlock order that supposedly disappeared hundreds of years ago didn’t.

He’s still here.

On the southern side of Shadowvale, there is a district made up of tall apartment buildings built near a small college. On one particular building, known for its unique gothic style, is a lone gargoyle carved out of dark grey limestone. He has wings and horns, a grotesque face, and a tail—and, beneath that rock, is what used to be Thaddeus Hawke, the head of the Shadowvale Order of Warlocks before he got on the wrong side of a wicked witch that cursed him to stand guard over the town until no one knows when.