by Michele Hauf
“Charcoal.” He stepped back and placed a palm over the smear. “I forgot toothpaste.”
“No problem. You can use anything in the house that you need. Except I suggest you avoid the belladonna.”
“Not going to be an issue. I shouldn’t ask but...”
“It’s for girl stuff,” she quickly answered. “You know, for when the moon is full and our cycles are raging?”
Tor put up a palm. “Good enough. I should have never asked.”
“Does the fact that we women have periods freak you out, Tor?”
“Nope. Just makes you stronger than you all appear. If I bled for days every month, I’m sure I’d be dead.”
“Just so.” She wiggled her shoulders in triumph. “I’m going to let Duck sleep inside tonight. She’s got a nest over in the corner.”
Tor noted the wooden box stuffed with wood chips and feathers. Cozy.
“As for you...” She tapped her lips as she gave it some thought. “I have a cot folded up in the storage room that I might need help getting down from the rafters.”
“I can sleep on the couch. Done it once already. It’s a comfy couch. Though I’m still not sure that was because of the comfort, or that I was under the influence of some kind of sleeping spell.”
“Oh, darling, if I were going to put a spell on you, you would know. I’ll grab you some blankets and a pillow. Uh...” Her gaze again fell to his abs and even lower. “Do you sleep in the buff?”
Generally? Yes.
“I left my stuff by the front door.” Tor spun to leave the room. “I’ll put something on while you get the blankets.”
“Don’t get dressed on my account!” she called after his departing figure.
Smiling as he grabbed his bag and headed back toward the bathroom, Tor replayed that hungry look she’d given him in the living room. So he worked out and had muscles to show for it. It was necessary when he sported the kind of résumé he did. But if it caught a woman’s eye? Bonus points.
On the other hand, did he want to attract a witch’s attentions?
“Maybe?” he muttered to himself. A smile was irrepressible. He wouldn’t deny she was attractive, and he did like being around her. And below those bright sparkly eyes were a pair of lush, red lips that did entice him to wonder...
He’d never kissed a witch. Nor had he kissed a client.
Right, then. Back to the real world. Now, what to wear beyond the shirts and silk ties he’d packed?
When he returned to the living room in boxer shorts and a longer dress shirt with unbuttoned cuffs, Melissande gave him a nod of approval and then handed him a cup of tea.
“Uh...” He winced and sniffed at the brew.
She sipped her tea, then offered it to him. “I got you covered tonight. It’s not bespelled. And to prove it, you can drink mine. I just took a sip. It’s safe.”
He accepted the mug, then sat on the couch. Mel settled onto the floor before the ottoman, and the duck waddled over to sit on her lap. The tea tasted different and sweeter. Maybe he trusted it. Maybe not. But it was a great way to end the night. A quiet evening after a day fraught with craziness.
“An evening without trouble,” he commented.
“I was thinking the same,” she said. “My cloaking spell must have worked.”
“Must have? You never seem very sure of your magic.”
“Lately it has a strange tendency to not last long,” she confessed. “It has no sticking power. That’s what my sister used to always say when her spells didn’t take. I’m not sure why. Some stuff sticks. The stuff that comes easy and right from my heart.”
“Maybe the magic you’re not completely enthused about feels that lack of enthusiasm and so...?”
“I’ve not heard it explained quite that way. It is possible. But I hate to consider it the truth. I mean, I’m not overexcited about the full moon spell. If what you say is true...”
“It’ll work.” Tor set down the cup and clasped her hand. She startled, but then gave his hand a squeeze. He’d meant it as a simple gesture of kindness, but now that they sat there a few moments, in the quiet darkness, it grew to a deeper connection. More intimate.
And he liked it.
“You know dark magic takes a witch’s lifetime to master,” she said.
“And you think a few days will be just what you need to perform the full moon spell?”
“No, but...” She sighed. Probably unsure, and maybe even worried.
He could relate. For as psyched as he was to start a new job in the normal world, could he really do it?
He shouldn’t go there, to that place of doubt. And he didn’t want Mel to see him falter. Besides being unprofessional, it was just too...personal.
“You’ll do fine,” he said. “I know you will.”
And he pulled up her hand to kiss it. For a moment he lingered there, with his lips against her warm skin that smelled like soup and spices and lemons. Kind of a crazy moment. He felt as if the world did not exist. As if it were just the two of them. Alike in the most bizarre manner. And yet so different. Worlds apart.
Normal—according to her strange definition—and wanting to be normal. Could they coexist?
* * *
Sunlight beamed through the patio doors and shocked Tor awake. He didn’t do bright light in the mornings. That wasn’t a weird vampire thing. It was common sense. Any sane human needed to cling to the few rare hours he did manage to sleep.
He swung his legs off the couch, and his bare feet landed on a furry rug before the coffee table, his toes sinking deep into the soft texture. It was fake something, with long white nap that felt good beneath his wriggling toes. But he still winced at the sunlight.
Standing, he padded over to the patio door, gripped the gauzy white curtains in preparation to pull them closed—at least until he could gather his wits about him—when he noticed something moving in the yard. It was small and—there was more than one. It couldn’t be the duck called Duck.
Tor narrowed his gaze. Frogs didn’t move like that either.
Chapter 8
Something crouched near what looked like an iron cauldron under a chestnut tree. Tor started to wonder about the big black pot—how cliché could a witch get?—but his attention quickly returned to the moving thing.
“What the hell? Is that...? No. Really?”
Dashing for his pack, he pulled out the pistol loaded with salt rounds, then spun and pulled aside the patio door. Stepping outside in his shirt and boxer briefs, he wandered across the concrete patio crowded with wicker chairs and potted plants and right up to the edge, where long grass blades hugged the concrete.
The things growled at him. And revealed fangs. And then an ear dropped off one that resembled a dog. Not a normal dog either. This one was big and—half its fur was missing, and the two front legs were bones.
“Zombie dogs?” Tor muttered. “What the...? That’s impossible. Zombies don’t—” Gulping back the denial, he crouched into defense mode.
There were five of them, in all sizes ranging from a dachshund to what must have been a former wolfhound. They tromped toward him with maws opened to reveal fangs and black ooze dripping to the grass.
Taking aim, Tor fired at the wolfhound as it leaped for him. The salt round pierced the creature’s mouth and exited the back of its head, spraying bone in the too-bright air. That alerted the other beasts—and they all charged.
“Holy crap!” a voice called out from behind Tor.
“Stay inside! Close the door!”
Firing at the smallest one that crept along the ground, Tor was startled when Mel touched his back and joined his side. “I said to stay inside!”
“What are those creatures? They’re...dead? Oh mercy, the heart.”
“I thought you put a cloaking spell on that thing?”
Another zombi
e leaped toward Tor, but midair, the body fell apart and a crumble of bones landed on the grass.
“I did, but I opened the container this morning to check that it was all right. That must have broken the spell. I wasn’t thinking. Like I told you, the dark magic I’ve been studying never lasts for long. That one is going after Bruce!”
Tor twisted and aimed for the creature that had its jaws open less than a foot away from the slowly fleeing levitating frog. He pulled the trigger. Bones scattered.
“One left,” Mel narrated. “I could toss a fireball at that one.”
Tor caught her arm just as she was ready to fling whatever magic she thought might help. “Let me handle this. Go inside! And take your frog with you!”
“Fine. But I hardly think zombie dogs are a threat.”
At that moment, the final creature scrambled across the grass and nipped at Mel’s ankle, which, thankfully, was encased in leather from the knee-high boots she wore.
“Not a threat, eh?” Tor kicked at the thing, and yet it clung to her boot with tenacious fangs.
“Shoot it!”
He was out of salt rounds. So instead, Tor clobbered the thing over the head with the pistol barrel. That released its hold so he could shove Mel toward the open patio door. The zombie dog followed close on her heels. The patio door slid closed. The dog got its head inside and—
—the torso and legs of the dog fell to the ground as it was decapitated.
Tor gave a cursory glance about the yard. No more threats. And now he spied the holes in the garden, from where the dogs must have risen. Former pets buried in a pet cemetery? No doubt about it. But the witch didn’t strike him as a dog person.
A white-headed duck popped its head out from behind the cauldron and quietly quacked.
“All clear, Duck,” Tor offered. He made to shove the pistol in the holster, which should have been under his arm, then remembered he had just risen and wasn’t suited for this kind of adventure.
“The witch needs more protection from herself than anything.” He glanced to the patio door, behind which Mel, clutching the frog to her chest, stood staring at the dead dog’s skull. “The full moon can’t come soon enough.”
* * *
Melissande set a smoothie bowl on the counter and a spoon beside it. She heard Tor come back inside, swear as he stepped over the slimy remains of the beheaded zombie and wander into the kitchen.
“Breakfast,” she announced cheerily.
“I’ll clean up the yard dogs first.”
“Zombies,” she corrected.
He lifted a finger in preparation to argue her point, but then did not.
Standing before the counter, he inspected the smoothie. It was made with blueberries, chia, dragon-fruit stars, pomegranate arils and a touch of magic. It made the whole dish sweeter, but didn’t alter or bespell the eater.
Mel didn’t notice the smoothie so much as the man and what he was not wearing. She’d been too frightened when standing out on the patio to notice his attire, but now... His legs were long and muscular and dusted with dark hairs. Powerful thigh muscles flexed with his movement. Even his feet were cute.
“What?” he asked, then dipped a finger into the blueberry concoction.
“You’re not wearing pants.” She stated the obvious, and then quickly wondered if she should have pointed that out. “But that’s fine by me.”
“Same thing I had on last night. I don’t normally sleep in—I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t get dressed on my account!” she called as he slipped into the living room.
Darn. Why did she keep telling the man to put on clothes? The last time she’d had an opportunity to admire eye candy had been... Mel sighed and shook her head. Just because her dating life was awkward and random at best didn’t mean she didn’t have some great experiences. But lately she’d been too focused on her family to consider her own needs and desires.
Desires being a key word on the list of overlooked things required to make a person happy. She had a half-naked man in her home right now whom she’d just told to put on pants.
“I didn’t tell him that,” she whispered back at her conscious. “I would never.”
“What’s that?” Tor glided back in, now wearing pants and buttoning up his shirt to hide those incredible abs. Of which she’d not taken the time to do a proper ridge count. Stupid. He scooped a serving of smoothie into his mouth, followed by a few more. “I’m going to clean up the mess quickly. I’ll finish this decorative meal—” two more scoops “—when I get back in. I’m assuming those were all former pets of yours?”
“No! I don’t do dogs. Why would you guess that?”
“They were revenants.”
“I thought you said zombies don’t exist?”
“They don’t. And yet...” Tor shook his head. “You’ve got me thinking down new tracks lately. Maybe they were zombies. I honestly don’t know. Haven’t had experience with zombies. But they did climb up from graves in the garden.”
“Oh, gross. The former owners must have had dogs. I’ve only lived in this house five years. I do recall I had to do a major cleaning job to remove all the dog scent and hair from the walls and floors. Smudged this place for days to get out the smell.”
“That heart.” Tor pointed to the container on the counter next to his smoothie bowl. “Needs to be cloaked, chained up and—I don’t know—buried until the full moon.”
“I’ll recloak it right after you finish breakfast. I’ll need a triad to invoke a stronger spell this time. You’ll serve as one of the threesome.”
“Whatever you need.” He scooped in more smoothie, then grabbed the bowl and the spoon and wandered into the living room to clean up the mess.
Twenty minutes later, Tor returned with an empty bowl, dirt smudges on his face and a grin that popped in the dimples on his cheeks. She hadn’t noticed those impressions in his cheeks before. Never thought something like that could appeal to her, but—wow. The dimples seemed to only draw attention to his sparkling eyes. Laughter hid in his irises, but it wasn’t something he let loose too often. And that gave his whole cute-guy vibe a hint of stoicism that brewed it all into an irresistible facade.
It was hard not to grab him for a hug so...Mel did just that.
“Thank you,” she said, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. He smelled so freaking good. Overripe cherries and sharp tobacco-infused leather. Mmm...
“Just because I buried them doesn’t mean they’ll stay put,” he offered. “I’m fresh out of chlorinated lime to dissolve the bones. If you know a spell that’ll fix them in the earth, I’d suggest you perform one.”
“I’ll look one up in my father’s grimoire. I own a copy. You’ve some dirt on your chin.”
She licked her thumb and made to dash it over his chin, but he caught her by the wrist. For a moment, she suspected his stoic need to always be the strong one took flight and was replaced by sudden desire. They stared at one another for what felt so long, but could have only been two seconds. And just when she felt herself go up on her tiptoes—
The doorbell rang. Tor’s musculature tightened and he gripped her wrist painfully. Her startled gasp shook him out of warrior mode, and he released his grip.
“Sorry. You expecting company?” he asked.
“No. No one ever visits little ole me.”
“Then stay put.” He swung around the corner into the living room and reappeared with the salt-round pistol.
Impressed by his ability to switch from cleanup guy to alpha protector, Mel felt her heart thump double time. She’d not asked for a hero, but somehow one had dropped into her life. Everything he did fired all the desire receptors in her body. But she knew now was no time for another hug. Even if a kiss had been so close to happening. Not when he was responding to his need to protect.
She peered around the corner, follo
wing Tor’s strides as he walked up to the front door. He opened the door, pointed the pistol barrel into the forehead of the man waiting on the front stoop and—
“Dad!” Melissande yelled.
She heard Tor mutter, “Ah, shit,” and then witnessed her father’s remarkable magic fling her protector against the wall and pin him there, feet dangling a foot above the floor.
Chapter 9
The dark witch’s grip about Tor’s throat cut off his air. But he wasn’t going to struggle. Or argue with the man. He had been the idiot to point a gun at his head, thinking it might have been a dangerous intruder intent on harming Mel.
His mistake.
Now he’d pay.
“Who are you?” Thoroughly Jones demanded in a deep and slightly malevolent voice. “Why are you in my daughter’s home? And how dare you...” He squeezed his fingers so Tor actually squeaked. The silver rings the witch wore cut into Tor’s larynx. “...challenge me?”
Tor could but blink. And hope he’d survive to fight more backyard-garden dogs, should that be what the universe tossed his way.
An aura of sweet darkness surrounded the man with onyx hair who wore velvet and leather and whose blue eyes held wicked secrets that Tor didn’t want to know. Ever.
“Dad, don’t hurt him! He was only trying to protect me.”
“From your own father? Insolent—wait.” The witch’s eyes narrowed as they took in Tor’s face. Tor didn’t want to look into them. A witch could read a man’s soul. “I know you. You’re the shill for The Order of the Stake.”
Not a shill, Tor wanted to mutter. A master of spin, actually. But he’d best remain silent. Not that he could utter more than a garbled plea. His feet still dangled, and his spine was lengthening. That was not a pleasant feeling.
Thoroughly released him and stepped back, yet Tor remained magically pinned to the wall. The dark witch snickered at his helplessness. His expression was menace mixed with a daring mischief.
“I hired him to protect me,” Mel insisted.