Page 6 of Wicked Witch of the Wolf

Ida scoffed. “Like it would be the first time.”

“I didn’t attack her,” Felicia yelled. She lowered her voice and continued, “I wouldn’t have hurt you, Carmen.”

“I know, Felicia,” Carmen said, with a kind smile. “You didn’t even scare me, really. I only called Betty and Ida because I thought you might be a spirit trying to tell me the developers built my house atop an abandoned cemetery or something.” She laughed.

“We exhumed the bodies first,” Felicia said.

The mayor stopped laughing.

“I think she’s kidding,” I said.

“Yeah.” Felicia grinned sheepishly, which was a look I’d never seen on a half human-half rat face. “When we okayed this land for development, it had been an alfalfa field for decades. No cemetery. No dead bodies.”

Carmen laughed again. “You got me.”

“That makes once.” Felicia’s face fell. “Sorry I behaved like such an ass. I really wanted to win the election, and I think it made me a little irrational.”

Alittleirrational?

“The thing is, I had all these plans for this little town, and they hinged on us merging with La Paloma.”

Carmen was silent for a long moment. “Would you be open to sharing them with me?” she asked. “Perhaps we can find a way to implement some of them. I’m firmly against merging our city with any other, but I am open to expanding our business holdings.”

The flicker of hope in Felicia’s eyes made me feel sorry for her. “That sounds … nice.” She shifted all the way back to human, not noticing—or perhaps minding—that she was stark naked without her cloak. “There are a couple that, scaled down, might work.”

Mayor Carmen kept her gaze firmly on Felicia’s face. “Let’s meet this morning at nine. My office? I’ll pick up coffee and those delightful lavender scones from the Desert Rose Café and we’ll chat while we eat.”

“I’d like that.” Tears glistened in the corners of the ex-mayor’s eyes. “I apologize for calling you ladies names. I was so angry and frustrated. I thought you’d all— Never mind. It was rude and unacceptable. I was being a sore loser.”

“You thought we’d plotted against you and Alpha Pallás in the election,” I said.

She nodded.

“We didn’t plot against you. We disagreed with several of your policies andvotedagainst you. That’s not the same thing.”

I had, however, plotted against Alpha Floyd in that election. I was still plotting against the Pallás pack leader. He wasn’t a person who should ever have that sort of power and never would, if I could help it.

“Let me clean up here, and we’ll give you a ride home.” I grabbedthe broom and dustpan I’d spotted tucked into a nook beside the pantry and swept up the containment circle.

“You’d better put on your cape. We don’t want anyone thinking we were throwing some weird sex party with the mayor,” Ida said as she finished her coffee.

A little crass, but Felicia must’ve agreed because she threw the cloak over her shoulders, knotting it at her throat.

I poured the dirt back into my bag. It was my soil, and I didn’t intend to leave any of it behind. Palms hovering over the last of it, I chanted a spell to draw it up and into my hands. The heated grains burned for a split second before being absorbed into my skin. Delicious magic zinged through my bloodstream.

“Thank you, ladies,” Carmen said.

“Anytime,” I said.

Ida rinsed off our mugs in the sink, and the three of us walked out.

“Well, that was a real downer. I was hoping to see a ghost. It’s been a while,” Ida said. We were in the LTD, Fennel and Ida in the front seat, the ex-mayor and me in the back.

Fennel purred in agreement. Apparently, he’d wanted to see a ghost, too. I, on the other hand, was all done with things that weren’t alive—ghosts, demons, gods, and anything else not of this world.

“So your alpha doesn’t know what you did?” I asked Felicia. “Today and before?”

“Of course not. The thing with Alpha Pallás was personal business, not shifter. The rats and the wolves are cautious allies. We stay out of each other’s way.”

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