Page 9 of Wishing for a Werewolf
Hannah jumps up to go over to her husband, a knowing smile playing over her lips. “Is he the only one who missed me?”
“Goddess, no.” Severin’s shadows leap from his tattoos, racing out to coil around her waist and legs as if they can’t go a single second more without touching her. The two come together in a kiss that quickly edges past PG-13 and waltzes into the vicinity of an R rating.
Which of course means the rest of us can’t tear our eyes away.
“So romantic,” Skye breathes.
Kayla gives a wolf whistle, and I yell, “We’re all still here, you know.”
Instead of stopping the kiss, Severin sends his shadows billowing outward to form a screen between us and the happy couple. Soon Hannah’s chuckle turns into a gasp of pleasure.
Damn, they’re so deliriously happy.
My heart wish echoes through my mind: “I wish for someone to love me,reallylove me, like head over heels, totally gaga love.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Rune
I lope through the evening forest, the heavy tree canopy darkening the last bit of the day’s light into early night. But it offers little deterrent to my keen fae eyes as I vault a clump of ferns and dodge a wide rhododendron. Fallen leaves crackle beneath my feet, and tiny pulses of magic shiver up from the ground with every footfall. Having grown up in a magic-soaked realm of Faerie, I relish each touch. Magic on Earth is still weak in comparison but grows a little every day.
Rabbit scents the air, and I’m tempted to shift to my wolf form and hunt as I have for my entire life. Yet that’s the opposite of my reason for moving to Earth. After being stuck in our animal forms for generations while the doors of Faerie were closed, my people are unfamiliar with our other shifted forms. As pack protector, I volunteered to create a place where my people can learn to fully embrace our fae andwerewolf forms, and there’s no better place to do that than here, among humans. Therefore, I will eat cooked food like a man tonight.
Instead of taking the direct route to town, I curve south and stop by the Wishing Well. I circle the stone base, running my fingers along the edges of the wooden roof. Leaning over the opening, I drop a penny and say, “I wish my shirt would turn orange.” My only answer is the splash of disturbed water below, the color of my shirt unchanged. It’s as I thought—there’s no magic here. Or at least there isn’t without Autumn’s presence.
What has she done to me? On the one hand, I’m glad I finally spoke to the enchanting woman, but I never wanted it to be because the fiery little witch bespelled me!
With a grunt, I take off running again, angling for town. Even in my fae form, I can run for miles and miles like this, so I’m not even breathing hard by the time buildings come into view. On the northern side of Ferndale Falls, downtown butts up against the forest, and I cut past the library to find myself at the end of Main Street.
The town green opens up before me, a rectangular garden surrounded by fanciful-colored shops. Streetlights and the bright windows of the stores light the sidewalks, where humans and fae amble side-by-side, smiling and calling greetings.
The shadow fae, ever the experts at illusions and glamour, cast a protection spell over the town. Witches and humans welcoming of magic can see fae for what we truly are. All others see nothing but normal humans when they look at us. Even pictures and videos captured on theirrecording devices won’t show the truth.
I could shift into my werewolf form and stride down the street, and no one would notice. If I turned full wolf, most people would see only averylarge dog. I’d have to be careful not to speak in my wolf form, though, which I find irritatingly limiting. All the more reason to practice my bipedal forms.
So the wood nymph with willow-leaf hair doesn’t get a second glance, nor does the seven-foot orc striding along with green skin and tusks. Still, I wonder what normal humans see when a group of two-foot-tall gnomes tumbles down the street in a series of cartwheels and front flips.
The enticing smell of hot cheese and spiced meat pulls me toward Slice of Life. The pixies are right—pizza truly is one of the very best things humans created while cut off from Faerie.
I wave at Blue through the window, and the tiny pixie gestures me inside. The electric overhead lights are turned low, and candles gleam from each table, making the landscape murals on the walls glow with all the warmth of a sunset. Almost all of the tables are filled with shadow fae, with a few humans mixed in.
A mini-flock of pixies rings a circular platter to fly it across the room. As soon as they set the food on the table, they throw up their hands and give a joyful cry. “Pizza!” The rest of the restaurant echoes it back, followed by playful laughter, the entire ritual already enshrined in town lore.
“Rune!” a high voice calls out. Glowing with pixie light, Blue flies up to hover in front of my face. Six-inches tall, everything about her is true to her nickname, from herblue-birch-leaf clothes to her skin, hair, and large moth-like wings. “I have your order ready.”
“What did you make for me this time?” I have a standing order with her to try a different pizza each night.
Mischief sparkles in her tiny eyes. “You’ll see—and taste—soon enough.”
“Ah. It’s going to be one of the experimental ones.” Blue has decided to try out new recipes on me before adding them to the menu, since my shifter palette is very acute.
“Very experimental!” Her wings flutter as she gives a tinkling laugh. Then her little face grows serious, and she shakes a finger at me. “But it will be good, and you will like it! I refuse to besmirch the good name of pizza by making a bad one.”
If there’s one thing—and one thing only—pixies take seriously, it’s pizza. I tip my head. “I’m sure I will.”
Her narrow-eyed stare assesses me for a couple more seconds before she nods and lets out a whistle of high-speed pixie speech.
A group of pixies bursts from the swinging kitchen doors, carrying a flat cardboard box. It drops into my outstretched hands with a puff of herb and garlic scented air.
