The woman was a young blond, probably in her twenties, if I had to guess. The way she was shyly smiling up at my cousin made me want to heave, but I choked the vomit back. Because I was a professional.

  Poor girl.

  If only she knew how futile flirting with Maverick was. The truth was that Maverick had never had a successful relationship that lasted more than two months, as far as I was aware, anyway. Well, that was, until he married his best friend, Chief Taliyah Morgan, to save her from some arranged faerie marriage nonsense. And I was fairly sure it wasn’t just a marriage of convenience on Maverick’s end (not that it had ever been convenient to him). I was pretty sure the sap was in love with Taliyah. Sure, he could say all he wanted to about their marriage being nothing more than a ‘favor to a friend’, but he hadn’t so much as looked at another woman since that day.

  Still, he played his part well—smiling, open posture, raised eyebrow every now and then. He even made an admiring sound when the young woman showed him the pair of shoes she’d been carrying, held against her chest like her first-born child. That admiring sound was all for show because I knew that Maverick cared about shoes slightly less than he cared about dish detergent brands.

  But that’s where he and I differed. Because shoes were as important to me as was breathing. And from where I was standing—wow, those shoes were something else. In fact, I had to do a double take. Yep, they were gorgeous and, what was more, they deserved to be carried around like a baby. I mean, they should have had their own little pillow to rest on. The base of the shoe was the most luscious rose-pink satin I’d ever seen, with the heel looking like it was made out of pure gold. There were starbursts of crystal just above the toes, and little gemstones and beads were laid out in a circular pattern, all gold and gleaming. As to the brand? I wasn’t sure—and that was saying something because I made it my business to be very familiar with my favorite lines. So, yeah, these weren’t a designer I recognized, but whoever had created them was a true artist.

  I slid out from behind the counter, fascinated, and secretly kind of hoping the woman was looking for a trade. Normally people trying to barter with me got laughed right back out the door again. One influencer I’d actually hexed to make sure she never returned, telling her I couldn’t buy fabric with exposure.

  But for those shoes… for those shoes? Yes, I just might make an exception. In fact, I could easily imagine Lorcan’s expression if I wore them with that satin slip dress I’d just finished sewing… Hmm, now to find out if they were in my size.

  “How’s everything going over here? Can I help with anything?” I asked in my most syrupy tone, sliding myself into the conversation with a jab of my elbow into Maverick’s ribs.

  The girl blinked over at me, smoothing a strand of hair back behind her ear. “Oh, I was just telling…” Then she looked over at the man in question.

  “Maverick,” he answered her with a well-intentioned smile.

  “Maverick,” she continued, blushing, “that I was looking for an outfit to match my shoes.”

  “Well,” Maverick said, facing me with the kind of bright cheerfulness that said if there wasn’t a witness, he’d have set my hair on fire for the elbow to the ribs I’d just given him. “I’ll leave you in Wanda’s capable hands.”

  He smiled with way too many teeth, one hand cupped defensively over his ribs, before he turned back to the counter just long enough to grab his jacket and stalk out the door. The woman turned to watch him go with obvious disappointment before she faced me again, a flush creeping up her cheeks. As to women and their obvious interest in my cousin, like I said: I didn’t see the appeal, but then, I’d spent more than ten minutes with him.

  “So,” I said, trying to appear helpful and friendly which really wasn’t an easy thing. “You’re interested in finding something to match your shoes?”

  Most people did it the other way around—they purchased the outfit they wanted, and then went searching for the right pair of shoes to compete the look. But I could see the reasoning here. With shoes like those, she’d need something fabulous to wear, but nothing that would compete too much with her shoes—otherwise she’d end up looking like a disco ball.

  The woman shrugged, still looking a little flustered. “I know it’s a little strange to try to match my shoes to a dress.”

  “Not with those shoes,” I answered, shaking my head. “They’re incredible.”

  She nodded. “I found them in a pawnshop, of all places.”

  “Wow,” I said, shaking my head, because that had to have been the luckiest find in the history of finds. All the while, I tried to quell the disappointment that was still cresting inside me regarding the fact that she clearly didn’t want to trade for them. Well, blast. Sure, I could have magicked her to change her mind on the subject, but that was in poor taste—even for me. No, I’d just have to get used to disappointment. “What, uh, size are they?” I asked, hoping this might be a case of the fox calling the unreachable grapes sour.

  “Eight,” she answered, giving me a strange expression, like she was wondering why I was asking.

  Double blast because they were in my size!

  Wanda, you are not going to magick this poor woman into giving you her shoes, the unpopular side of me piped up.

  Well, I wasn’t thinking of getting them for nothing, I argued back. There are plenty of items in this store that would be a fair and even trade.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “I have a date tonight, and I thought maybe you might have something that would go with them?” She paused for a moment, then extended her hand. “I’m Jenny, by the way.”

  I hadn’t asked what her name was and didn’t honestly care, but that was fine. My mind was already whirling away, sorting mentally through my inventory. Rose and gold, glittering crystal. Possibly the boat cut neckline, bodycon dress with the asymmetrical hem. Ooh, or maybe the champagne number that flowed like water and glittered with a subtle sheen under the lights. It might wash her out though, with her pinky-fair blond coloring.

  “Hmm.” I tapped my finger to my lips.

  Was I still harping on the fact that the shoes weren’t on offer? A little. And if I made a plan to troll through our local second-hand shops looking for rare gems a little more often, well, that was no one’s business but mine. Still, a little spark of excitement flared to life in my chest as I thought about the challenge ahead, pushing back the cold, clinging dread that had been my constant companion lately. Because no matter what happened with the vampires, no matter how much garbage got thrown at me, no matter who was spying on me, no matter how I was expected to just curl up and wither away, this moment right here was something no one could steal from me.

  Because I was damn good at what I did.

  And when that woman and her gorgeous shoes left my shop, she was going to look and feel like an absolute queen. And we hadn’t even talked magical potions yet.

  “Come with me,” I all but purred. “I have just the thing in mind.”

  I had about seven things in mind, technically, but getting to play what was essentially dress up, with a hefty wad of cash at the end, was exactly the thing I needed to take my mind off everything else.

  ***

  After closing, I locked up the store and headed for my Escalade. Part of me wanted to stop in at the coven house, just to make sure no one had managed to burn it down, but being around the coven was always a lot (with so many different personalities), and I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

  Circle Scapegrace was one of the things I was most proud of, and considering I was a skilled witch who had pulled off some amazing schemes in my life, it had some pretty stiff competition. But, yes, Scapegrace was everything I’d ever wanted in a coven—everything I’d wanted to see in one. We weren’t bogged down by stupid rules, or outdated prejudices, or moldy old traditions that made absolutely no sense in today’s day and age. Sure, the circle was made mostly of witches, it was a coven after all, so that was the point, but we weren’t just witches. We also had Lorcan, the vampire, and Poppy, the Gypsy potion maker. And we had Maverick, a Blood Warlock, as a full member and no longer an awkward and barely tolerated hanger on.

  I was fiercely proud of what we’d made together, of how powerful we were as one. Truly, we were able to take on anyone who tried to look down their noses at us. And that was definitely the case. As a group of misfits that didn’t really fit in anywhere else, we were almost, by rule, looked down upon. Until those doing the looking down on realized just how powerful we were. And then they had to second guess themselves.

  But I wasn’t in the mood to stop in now. Truly, if I had to spend even fifteen minutes listening to Olga and Betanya bickering, or Maverick and Imani’s weird frienemy banter, I was going to throw myself into the river.

  Chapter Three

  The house I shared with Lorcan, our little mausoleum of love, was dark when I pulled into the driveway.

  The windows reflected the headlights, backwashing the car in thin illumination.

  Lorcan was probably still at work. He kept late hours at his dental practice—partially to cater to other nocturnal monsters (even some humans couldn’t make bank hours), and partially because he was a centuries-old vampire who didn’t want to spontaneously turn into a charcoal briquette.

  That meant I had a couple hours to kick off my shoes, slip into my silk robe, and relax for a while. Maybe have a little wine, and drive back the feeling of impending doom that had become my constant companion. Scratch that—maybe I’d have a lot of wine. Things always seemed better when I was wine drunk. Right.

  Ten minutes later and newly fortified with a glass of Syrah, I grabbed some grapes and cheese from the fridge so I wasn’t just drinking alone in the dark. I mean, it was never a good thing to drink alone, and I had enough problems, as it was. Currently, half of the fridge was filled with blood for Lorcan, enough that if some random vamp decided to drop by and investigate, seeing all that blood would convince them that I was partaking, too. That was, after all, the reason we’d stocked it so full. Yeah, that might have been a little paranoid, but where these vampires were concerned, you couldn’t be paranoid enough.

  If my gums hurt a little when my eyes strayed to the thick red liquid held in those bags, well, the wine would take care of that strange need eventually. So, yes, wine was definitely a good thing when you were a Blood Witch who was posing as a vampire and had a metric ton of shit on her plate.

  I bumped the fridge closed with my hip and tried really hard not to think of vampires breaking in to rifle through my fridge. If they got that bold, I was going to have to ask the coven to start laying down curses around the house that couldn’t be traced to me, just to remind the vamps of who they were dealing with.

  But not now. Now was for relaxing and getting slightly buzzed.

  I set my snack and glass down on the counter and then my eyes settled on my planner, which was poking out of my purse. With a sigh, I tugged the planner towards me and thought about the fact that I was still riding high after finding Jenny the perfect dress to go with her perfect shoes. But that wasn’t the current task at hand. No, I had some commissions due soon—a wedding gown, a prom dress and a slinky nightie. All for different clients and all coming down to the wire. I needed to make sure I wouldn’t have to order any more fabric or pick up any embellishments in Portland in order to finish them.

  I paged through the book, nibbling on a grape or taking a sip of wine as I went, until a little pink mark caught my eye. I sometimes didn’t have time to write a full note in the book, so I had a key for jotting things down quickly. Pink meant an important date. My eyes narrowed as I tried to remember what it was I was now forgetting.

  It wasn’t a birthday, I was fairly sure. Or an event. Hmm…

  I took another sip of wine. The pink mark must have represented something recurring, like–

  My eyes snapped wide then, and I almost choked on my mouthful of wine.

  An anniversary.

  Oh, spell.

  It was the day that Lorcan and I had gotten quasi-vampire-married. Now, it might sound like a dastardly thing that I’d basically just forgotten my anniversary, but in my defense, everything had been such a huge mess in the last however long. First, I’d found out about my mother’s crimes, then there was the meeting of the covens which resulted in rescuing Maverick and Astrid from death by vamp. Then Astrid actually had turned full vamp when she’d attended Blood Rose and then there was Sybil. Then the whole bit about the vampires wanting me to be fully blooded… Yeah—there was just too much to come to terms with. So, no wonder I’d made myself a little note about our anniversary, so I wouldn’t forget it in the mess of everything else flying around.

  But our anniversary was important. Lorcan was important. And I’d almost forgotten.

  And worse, Lorcan hadn’t mentioned it at all. Had we both forgotten? I wasn’t sure why it seemed so much worse that he might have forgotten it, but it did. I mean, at least I’d left myself a hint, which had eventually led to me remembering. But Lorcan… well, maybe he was as clueless as clueless came?

  Something twisted in my chest at the idea that something like this was so easily discarded. After everything that had happened between us, after everything we’d been through—the demons, the vampire politics, the murderous faeries… didn’t we deserve to celebrate the fact that we were still together? That we’d literally made it for better or worse, through thick and thin?

  Yes, I was hardly a relationship expert. Most witches never dated, much less married. All our most important relationships were inside the coven, with women—our fellow coven members. Since there were a few dozen witches for every man born into a coven, much less a warlock, it wasn’t likely that anything would blossom within the coven itself. And even if something did, witches, as a rule, weren’t monogamous. Olga, one of Scapegrace’s witches, was a notorious outlier and a hopeless romantic, and she was something of a joke among the other covens, hence why she was now in ours.

  Not to mention how most covens treated the male sex, in general. Even warlocks, who at least had magic, were seen as second-class citizens. Witches had no desire to tie themselves down to anyone, let alone a man. Any witch that wanted a child just found a man to impregnate her, and that was that. She might shack up with him for an evening or a few weeks, or months—just long enough to get what she wanted. Daughters were brought up in the coven, and sons were fostered out to human families once they were old enough to be weaned. That was the way it had been for centuries. Longer, even. It was just the way covens worked. It was tradition. Never mind the fact that it was also wrong.

  As it turned out, I was really bad at doing things the traditional way.

  Against some pretty extreme odds, Lorcan and I had found each other. And what had blossomed between us? It was real. It was important, and we deserved to celebrate it, for spell’s sakes.

  My nails tapped against the marble counter as I started to scheme.

  After all, if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself. And I was now determined to come up with the best anniversary date in the history of romance. In fact, I was going to blow other anniversaries out of the water. Ours would be epic, a legend passed down through the generations—something that was talked about for centuries to come.

  Too bad I had absolutely zero ideas on what to do or how to do it.

  What even was a date? I mean… where did people go? I mean, yes, I understood that most dates involved eating food. Well, that was out right off the bat because Lorcan couldn’t eat solids. And there was no way I was choking back reheated blood in an attempt to be romantic.

  Blech.

  Maybe I could do some research—figure it out online. I mean, that didn’t sound very sentimental, but when it came to this romance stuff, I was a fish not only out of water but a fish as far from water as it was possible to be.

  If it hadn’t been for the telltale sound of the front door scuffing against the threshold, I might not have heard Lorcan walk inside. He could be so quiet sometimes—it was annoying. No matter how many times he laughingly told me he hadn’t meant to sneak up on me, I didn’t buy it. He was lucky he hadn’t yet caught a hex to the face—in general, witches didn’t appreciate surprises.

  Of course, Lorcan immediately ruined his stealthy approach by whistling a bright, irritatingly cheery tune as he moved through the front hall and towards the kitchen. He’d started doing that to let me know he was home—probably so I didn’t curse him.

  “I will be your father figure,” he started singing, his pitch and tone completely off. And, no, I absolutely wasn’t smiling—not even a little bit, but I moved my wine glass to hide my mouth, just in case.

  “Where are you, sweetling?” he half sang as he walked through the living room and towards the kitchen. “I know you’re here, my darling! I can smell you, my little thunder cloud. I’ve missed you, dearest—I’ve been focused way too much on enamel fillings and not enough on the curves of your body, my lovely little nightmare.”

  Creepy and corny. A Lorcan special.

  “Put your little hand in mine,” he continued and I was fairly sure George Michael was rolling in his grave.

  I frowned. “Where else would I be?”

  I’d meant my words to come out snarky—I mean, the store was closed, so I obviously wasn’t there. And I didn’t have plans with the Black Cat Cocktail Club, so I wouldn’t be in the living room. And he knew how I loved a little alcohol at the end of a trying day, so really, finding me here was hardly a leap or a revelation. But the words twisted in my mouth, coming out soft and sultry, and I had to force myself to put my wine glass down on the counter, because I almost bit the rim of it when my teeth snapped closed.

  Sure enough, Lorcan swung around the corner with an insufferably wide grin on his face, which made him appear like a little boy, as opposed to the old bastard he really was.

  “You do miss me, then.”

  I gave him a smile that had far too many teeth in it. “With every hex I’ve fired at you so far. But my aim is improving.”