Page 18 of Wicked Witch of the Wolf

“It’sgoingto work.” He put his hands on the Mini’s roof andswung his handsome face through the window. “Come to the pub. I’ll feed you and Cecil lunch. I have a to-go order from El Rancho Grande in the works and the delivery truck from La Buena Suerte Panadería dropped off an order of fresh polvorones early this morning.”

“Tacos and cookies? Mr. Pallás, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?”

“If I were, that’s precisely the way I’d go about it.” His smile widened.

Tacos and cookies. Yum. Funny, had anyone asked me a year ago how I’d feel being mated, or bonded, to a shifter, I’d have said I’d rather be dipped in honey and planted in an anthill, boob-out on a cold mammogram plate, or at a dentist’s office getting a root canal, but right now it didn’t sound so bad.

“Fine. I need to run an errand, but I can be there in twenty, thirty minutes.”

The smile that walked across his mouth was as sexy as the rest of him. “I’ll be waiting.”

“Yeah, you will.” I pushed his face out of my window, rolled it up, and pulled out of the lot.

According to Bronwyn, Maya stopped by Díaz Dry Cleaners at one o’clock every Tuesday afternoon. In the past, Maya would’ve grabbed a cappuccino for herself and Bronwyn at the café next door and stopped by Wicked for a chat before taking the cleaning back home.

The coffee stop hadn’t happened since her personality change, but Bronwyn was pretty sure she was still going to the dry cleaner because she picked up Desmond’s dress shirts there. He might’ve forbidden her from seeing Bronwyn, but he wasn’t likely to want her to stop running his errands.

“You know, Cecil, I remember a time when I didn’t do high-risk jobs like this. I went years doing nothing but crafting peace charms, casting fertilization spells for paranormal organic farmers, removing the odd hex from someone’s property…” I coasted past the dry cleaner and down the street to a newer section of La Paloma. “Now look at me. Breaking into a coven member’s house in the middle of the day while their spouse is picking up the laundry.”

Cecil ran a tiny thumb over the edge of one of his new rocks and chittered idly. He liked breaking and entering. Viewed it as a sport.

“I know that’s in your top ten things to do on a Tuesday afternoon, but it’s not in mine. That lunch thing with Ronan? That’s what’s at the top of my list.”

Maya and Desmond lived in an upper middle-class subdivision five minutes from town. There was a lot of new construction in the area, including behind their home. I parked the Mini on a side street and approached the home from behind, Cecil on my shoulder like a mischievous little gargoyle.

I’d scaled a flood ditch and was approaching the backyard when a thunderclap of power shoved me on my ass. Cecil managed to hang on by gripping my hair, but it wasn’t an easy landing.

“The son-of-a-bastard isn’t messing around.” I sat up in the dirt. “That felt personal.”

A repulsion spell? It couldn’t be any old repulsion spell, because I had no problem sidestepping such tame witchcraft. I had a feeling this was specific to paranormals.

Cecil scampered down my arm, across my leg, and leapt off my boot, landing in the dirt just behind the fence. He turned to me and shrugged then shot over the fence and into the yard.

“Cecil,” I whispered as loudly as I dared. “Get your ass over here. We don’t have time for your shenanigans right now.”

When he didn’t instantly reappear, I resigned myself to being late for tacos and cookies and started poking at the repulsion spell. It hadn’t affected Cecil, so it wasn’t targeting all paranormals, which made sense if Desmond was worried about someone from the coven finding him out.

The more targeted a spell, the stronger it was. This one was for witches, and only witches. My guess: to keep Bronwyn away.

I stood, and, once again, the dirt on my hands, arms, and facegrew red hot then vaporized and sank into my skin. Magic crashed through me in pulsing waves. I did my best to keep it under control.

This ability was still new, and I had to admit it made me nervous. It had started a month ago, and I had no idea why.

My magic came from wielding soil—using it in spells as I had at the mayor’s place, growing plants, healing sick ones, healing myself. I not only fed it power, it fed me power back, and while it wasn’t always an equal exchange in the moment, it had always worked out that way in the end.

I’d never known any earth witch who literallysteamedthe earth into their body like this. This was strange.Iwas strange.

The whole damn situation was strange.

I wished there was an earth witch around that I could talk to about it, but the only other one in town was Desmond and my recidivist gnome was currently breaking into his house because we suspected he’d zombified his wife. Something told me he wasn’t exactly someone I could call upon for a friendly chat.

I flipped through the messages on my phone, landing on the last one I’d gotten from Joon. Baek Ye-Joon was an experienced earth mage and a good guy. I trusted him so much I’d nearly sold him the Siete Saguaros. For sure, I could talk to him.

Except he was currently in Seoul, South Korea. According to my cell, it was still too early to bother him. Besides, he’d been working on an intense case involving the love-cursed son of a diplomat for the past week. He didn’t need me hassling him.

Ten minutes ticked past. Twenty. I hunkered down in case Maya came home while I was waiting. From my perspective, which was hunched behind the fence outside the boundaries of the repulsion spell, I couldn’t see the front driveway or garage, so there was no way to tell unless she went into the backyard.

I wasn’t too worried about Cecil’s safety. That gnome had more magic in his pinky finger than Desmond had in his whole body. Plus, he was tiny and knew how to make himself invisible. He’d be all right.

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