Page 67 of Pixie Problems
Iwas in the Sheriff’s Office pretty much every day the month of December when I wasn’t running my shop. Finn dug out old Moonhaven Cove maps from the basement level, and he, Draven, Nicky, Rhys and I poured over them, and Finn directed officers and other paranormals to hide-a-ways that weren’t on the current topographical maps.
I growled in frustration. “Finn, why are the maps so different? The council commissioned a new one every decade, and they don’t look anything like each other!”
Draven, seated at our conference table, pouring over a map from the 1830s murmured, “Magic changes the landscape of the land, and Moonhaven Cove is a town enriched by a lot of magic.”
“Too bad the pack moved from the last location the boys remembered them being in,” Rhys said.
I sighed. Yes, we’d briefly thought the boys’ pointing out on a map the pack’s location would mean we would have them in custody within an hour. Unfortunately, once the boys escaped, the pack had moved immediately. The shifters could smell that they had been camped there but could not discern which way they’d gone.
I sat back with a grunt, seriously grouchy. “I’m tired of looking at maps. Let’s all order lunch.”
Draven looked up from his map, his expression full of mischief. “Who’s going to feedme?”
Everyone looked at me, and I laughed. “I volunteer as tribute.” When I could tell Draven was about to backtrack and assure us he was fine, or could drink the bottled stuff, I held up a hand. “Ask Rhys. I told him next time I saw you that I would kiss you on the mouth and offer my blood for a pixie snack.”
Rhys nodded grumpily.
Draven, his eyes practically twinkling now, said, “I accept.” He paused. “Just the snack, though.” He laughed. “I have no desire to go toe-to-toe with Rhys today.”
“Good choice,” Rhys murmured, pulling me so that I was sitting on his lap.
Finn and Nicky went to pick up the food, while I fed a vampire. It was a strange sensation. Like that feeling you got when you stood in the shallows of the ocean, and the sand ebbed and flowed under the bottoms of your feet. It felt like that, except in my veins. I laughed because it tickled, which made Rhys laugh, and Draven pause, looking up at me from behind thick eyelashes, still attached to my wrist, a bit of my blood dripping from a corner of his mouth. It wasn’t sexy at all, and I think I lost the last bit of lure toward him then. Then again, I don’t think he was purposely trying to lure me. “It tickles. Sorry. Continue as you were.”
He smiled, retracting his fangs, and licked the wound on my wrist that I’d barely felt, sitting back in contentment. “You have a lot of magic in your blood for a pixie.”
I blinked and then laughed. “Does my blood taste like a Pixie Stick? I’m probably 99.5 percent sugar.”
He threw his head back and laughed, and Rhys squeezed me tight. Finn and Nicky came back with the subs, chips, and sodas, and we got back to work.
* * *
Late December,right before Mia and Draven’s Christmas party, all of our map searches paid off. Roark, who’d been doing fly-overs over Moonhaven to see if he could spot Hux’s pack, came into the office one night, and noticed that on most of the maps over the decades there were dome-like rock formations that were missing. He said they were huge, out to sea a bit like itty-bitty tiny islands, and down the south shoreline quite a ways, almost to the next town. No one went out there to swim because of the nasty riptides, but people in boats and jet skis claimed there was an entrance into the rocks, but it faced the sea, not the shoreline, so few knew about it.
He went out to do a quick recon and came back.
We’d found them.
Finally. I closed my eyes and breathed while the rest of the conference room jumped into preparations to take Hux and his pack into custody.
Finn slapped me on the back. “I know you want to be a part of the take down. You and Rhys.”
I opened my eyes in shock. “We can? I thought this was police business?”
Finn’s green and yellow eyes were filled with compassion. “Isn’t it your business as well? I mean, you don’t have to come, that’s not what I’m saying. But you’re welcome to. Moonhaven doesn’t do things the same as the rest of the world. I’d say you’ve earned the right to see things through to the end.”
I was filled with such overwhelming gratitude that I hugged him. Finn, not used to such effusion from me, patted my back like I was going to shank him, and cleared his throat uncomfortably a time or two.
“Thank you,” I whispered fervently. I was suddenly feeling really emotional. Sometimes a pixie just needed to hug someone. It had to be an actual axiom somewhere. Pixies and pestles, this town was changing me.
So far, it had all been for the better, but only time would tell.
He patted my back again, this time a little less awkwardly. “No problem, kid. Just don’t die.”
I laughed, and pulled back, blinking away the sting of tears from my unruly emotions. “I won’t,” I promised him.
* * *
Later that night,Rhys and I were dancing . . . and arguing. “Finn said it was fine for me to go. I know it’s not what you want, but I’m going, Rhys.”
