Page 6 of Jacked-up Mate
Maybe it was wishful thinking, but the scent of pumpkin spice had dwindled some. I could see better out of these triangular eyes.
My head didn’t feel so…slimy inside.
I plopped down on my front porch, grateful that I’d chosen a home away from the town a bit. The harvest moon was apparently a blood moon as well because as it rose, it took on a scarlet hue that made my heartbeat faster.
What brought on the change so fast this time? What made tonight so much easier and less pumpkiny?
I reviewed the events of the day leading up to the evening. I hadn’t done very much differently. I worked from home, as an editor. My home was paid in full, so I worked when I had to instead of every day. My day had been full of the mundane. Same breakfast of steak and eggs because something about the change made me starving the next morning. I did my chores around thehouse and then the ones outside. Feeding my flock of chickens. Watering my small garden that Cole helped me with. Then I went into town and volunteered with the festival setup for the rest of the day. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t eaten lunch and nothing for dinner before the change, but certainly that minor detail wouldn’t cause such a chasm in between this shift and the ones before. “Would it?” I asked the moon since there was no one else around to hear me.
I leaned back, against one of my porch posts. The pumpkin head was heavy. Once, in the beginning, I’d tried to bash the damned thing against a rock and a brick wall, wondering if it would smash as easily as a regular pumpkin.
It didn’t. It hurt like hell, and I had a headache for a week.
I even enlisted a questionable witch, only to hear her cackle and tell me that curse was too powerful even for her.
The same with the hoodoo practitioner—the voodoo one too. None of them could help me.
So why tonight?
Nothing had changed, and yet, everything had.
I went inside for dinner, finding joy in the fact that my food tasted little to nothing like the pumpkin spice I’d grown to hate over time. I ate until I was full and washed the dishes while starting at the moon that had given up its redness.
I sat in my favorite chair and settled on two ideas. The first was that this was a natural evolution of the curse because my thirtieth birthday was coming up faster than I wanted it to. Maybe my permanent pumpkin head would be one last shift, easier and less tedious than all the previous ones, and poof, I’d be a Halloween decoration for the rest of my life.
There was another theory, but I didn’t give it much clout.
The man I’d seen across Autumn Square.
I didn’t know his name. Who he was. Alpha or omega. Good or bad. Though, from his smile, I assumed good.
I doubted that one man could change the course of my curse, especially after not knowing anything about him other than the fact that I’d never seen him in town before. He could if he were my omega, but I’d have to date him before knowing if he was mine.
This curse really should’ve come with a rule book.
But damn, if there was a person who could not only break this curse but fall in love with me, he would be at the top of my list. He had sexiest-man-next-door vibes for days. Longer brown hair that curled at the ends. A long-sleeved T-shirt. No sweater or coat. A killer smile. Warm brown eyes. Eyes that an alpha could get lost in.
Before going to bed, I did one more round of overthinking—pacing in my yard and begging the Goddess for an answer.
I received none.
I even considered going back to the festival and scoping things out with the man I saw, but that would mean him seeing me as a pumpkin. When I spoke, the mouth moved. My triangle eyes blinked. He would know it wasn’t just a costume.
Being a jack-o’-lantern was the worst.
Chapter Six
Foster
I found my mate and was rejected by him in a nano second. My wolf demanded to be freed to chase him, but I couldn’t let him do that. If the alpha wanted to be with me, he’d have stuck around and maybe said hello. Introduced himself. Suggested we move in together and start a life.
Maybe that was excessive, but in many cases, that would be just how it went. My dads met and mated and created me all in one night. I’d never thought of myself as the hottest omega in town but ugly enough to scare off my fated mate? Never. Talk about a confidence bender.
As my potential mate disappeared into the crowd, I turned away and started for the diner. The Bubbling Cauldron had become a refuge of sorts, a place I looked forward to going to each day, especially since I’d stopped making crazy mistakes at the grill.
When I started, I broke more eggs than successfully cooked them, burned bacon, charred burgers, and accidentally served some alarmingly pink chicken. Tonight, I stepped into the kitchen, tied on my apron, and grabbed the first order as the guy getting off shift raced out the door hoping to get to Autumn Square in time to have some fun.
“No rush!” I called after him. “Things were just gearing up when I left.” There would be a lot of things more geared to adults as the evening wore on. Live music, dancing, and a beer garden to name a few. Had my mate—or the one who obviously did not want to be my mate—left the square, or was he still there somewhere? I would never know.
