Page 80 of Wishing for a Werewolf
“Your fated mate?” My sister’s eyes widen. She mated with the strongest non-related male in the pack. There wasn’t any love between them at first, yet they’re happy and both very dedicated to the pups. “I didn’t think of it, but now that the doors of Faerie are open, it is possible you could find yours.”
“But what if it’s not Autumn?”
Riselda narrows her eyes and immediately shoots back, “What if it is? Don’t let her get away.” That’s my sister, the alpha, always ready to cut to the heart of the matter.
The excited voices of my niece and nephew reach a fever pitch, pulling our attention back to them as we come to Cake My Day. Finally able to enter in their upright forms, they race inside, leaving a despondent Babybelle behind. Autumn hovers in the doorway, clearly torn as the twins yell at her to come and explain all the different chocolate treats.
“Go and help them decide,” I say. “I’ll stay with Babybelle.”
“How very noble of you.” She grins up at me.
“It’s not noble.” I snort. “If you don’t help, we’ll be here all day, and I want to eat pie.”
She laughs and tucks a lock of red hair behind her ear. “Which kind? Apple or pumpkin?”
“Both.” My lips twitch. “I want to eat all the pie.”
“Every pie, coming up!” She disappears into the bakery.
We picnic on the green again, and the twins do indeed love all things chocolate, with chocolate chip cookies being their favorite.
“That’s good news.” Autumn leans toward me. “We can buy you premade cookies. All you have to do it slice them up and pop them in the oven, and ten minutes later you’ve got warm chocolate chip cookies.”
“Is that how you make them?”
“No, I bake them from scratch.”
“Perhaps you can show me how to do that someday.”
Her smile wavers for a split second, then reappears. “Sure.”
The rolling pumpkins bounce across the green, the tulips running after. Babybelle gives a happy bleat and races over to them, the pups following. They yell for Autumn to join them, and she leaps up, ready to play.
They go whizzing past, my fire’s hair streaming out behind her like a glorious flag of flame, the twins darting in to tickle her hands, making her laugh even harder. Autumn gives her whole being over to the delight of making the pups happy.
Seeing it makes my heart skip.
And right then and there, fated mate or not, I know I love her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Autumn
Mrs. Greely arrives at the farm on Friday afternoon, an hour before the hay maze officially opens. Rune helps her from her car, making sure she’s got a good grasp on her cane, since the ground is more uneven than town sidewalks. She’s in full fall festival mode, wearing her pumpkin-orange velour tracksuit.
Rosie and a couple of the other women on the events committee pile out of the passenger and back seats.
A niggle of dread goes through me. They can’t take this year’s hay maze away from me—it’s far too late for that—but they can decide to never let me host it again.
Nope. Nichts. Not going to happen—I won’t let it. I lift my chin and plaster my biggest smile all over my worries.
I spent all morning with Skye and Kayla at the bookshop, practicing controlling my magic. Some of it was unexpectedly fun, like when Skye wished for one of the lostlibrary books, and it popped into her hands, snatched away from wherever it had been for years. In quick succession, she asked for several more, beaming with joy to see the books returned. It felt amazing to realize my magic might be good for something after all.
Then Kayla reminded us to get back on track, and the rest of the session didn’t end up being nearly as successful. Time after time, Kayla wished for one of her wands, and I tried to stop the wish. But no matter how much I effing strained, I couldn’t do it. The last couple of times I seemed to… maybe slow the wish down a little? It felt like I got a couple of seconds to inspect the wish and think about how to satisfy it instead of it happening automatically, but I’m not sure.
Then I ran out of time, needing to get back to the farm to finish setting up. I harvested all of the pumpkins from the farm’s vegetable patch. We don’t sell produce commercially, but we have a small garden full of easy-to-grow vegetables we can eat and use to supplement the goats’ food supplies. Have a neighbor who constantly tries to foist extra zucchini onto you? They clearly don’t have goats, is all I’m saying.
Now those pumpkins decorate the entrance and exit to the maze, along with cornstalk bundles and selections of colorful leaves I gathered from the forest and preserved.
