“And remind me what happened then, love?”

  “You don’t remember the Yule party?” Astrid asked, peering at him with worry in her expression.

  Lorcan glanced heavenward and shuddered. Astrid was referring to the time when Lorcan had gotten piss drunk at Wanda’s Yule party and shoved his undead foot so far into his mouth, he’d almost swallowed the thing. He’d also ignored her warnings about burning the Yule Log. It had resulted in a terrible storm, with Lorcan as the main target. After the goddess had thoroughly punished him for his disrespect, he’d started observing most of her traditions. I’d figured he’d also bought into superstitions in general, but maybe I was wrong.

  “Blimey, I’ll bite then, figuratively speaking,” he said on a sigh. “What’s the superstition then?”

  “Stepping on someone’s grave is asking for it,” Astrid answered solemnly. The effect was somewhat ruined when she opened her mouth on a wide yawn.

  “Yes, you’ve mentioned that much,” Lorcan fired back. “Just how would I be asking for it?”

  She closed her mouth and continued, “When you step on a grave, it disturbs the restless dead within, and they come back to haunt you,” she answered on a shrug. “You have to be especially careful with the newly dead.”

  “If you get a sudden, random shiver running up your spine, that means you’ve stepped on your own grave in the future, or someone else has,” Wanda added.

  Lorcan rolled his eyes. “A haunting? Is that all? Bothersome, but not insurmountable. We do know a handful of ghost hunters, if you’ll recall.”

  “Yes, but,” Astrid started but was interrupted as Lorcan gave her a smile before sitting down on Goose’s grave and nonchalantly opening the flask, before downing a swallow of blood. It didn’t escape me that he sat on the very edge of the grave, instead of the point nearest the headstone. It seemed like the vampire was more afraid of the superstition than he wanted to admit.

  Wanda pursed her lips but, in the end, didn’t chew him out for his stupidity. It seemed she was mellowing out. Or maybe the leech’s grating personality had worn away the more reactionary parts of her. She shrugged as if to say, it’s now ‘on your own head’.

  Meanwhile, a more trivial exchange was happening in the background. Hellcat, Wanda’s bad-tempered familiar, had batted away the dish Libby had brought from Wanda’s house to the graveyard and set on the ground in front of him—all because he’d been moaning about how hungry he was. What appeared to be tuna fish was now smeared all over the place and already stinking to high hell.

  “And what exactly do you expect me to do with this swill?” the awful creature demanded.

  Astrid scowled down at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Eat it. It’s your dinner and Libby was kind enough to bring it all the way out here for you.”

  “I only eat Fancy Feast,” the cat responded in his highfalutin, English accent.

  “We’re out of Fancy Feast,” Wanda called over.

  Hellcat turned to look at her and narrowed his green eyes. “Well, I cannot and will not eat that,” he said, motioning to the tuna.

  “And why not? It’s fish and cats are supposed to love fish,” Astrid demanded, facing him with anger in her eyes. Whereas Wanda seemed to have lost the interest in reprimanding the cat, the same couldn’t be said for Astrid.

  “Because the trollop who prepared it mixed mayonnaise into it,” Hellcat said the word ‘mayonnaise’ like someone might say ‘arsenic’. “As if the tuna weren’t offensive enough—now it’s simply inedible.”

  “Fine then,” Wanda said. “Don’t eat it, but that’s all there is. So, if you get hungry, you can get off your furry behind and hunt a mouse.”

  “Hunt a mouse? Are you daft, woman?” Hellcat spluttered in indigitation. From the look on his face, you’d have thought Wanda told him to roll in used kitty litter. His back arched, fur bristling. “How dare you, bilious hag! You pestilent street walker! You—”

  “Here we go,” Astrid said and scrunched up her nose, glaring daggers at Hellcat.

  “The offense! The indignity! Lo, the shame!” the cat yelled.

  Astrid looked at Wanda. “Can I?”

  Wanda frowned. “Go lightly.”

  Astrid nodded, and I felt the power gather in the air before she struck. So did Hellcat, apparently, because he leaped nimbly to the side as a flash of brilliant white light struck the ground where he’d been standing.

  As a creature tied more closely to the natural world than most, I could sense the magic spiderwebbing across the graveyard. It wasn’t dark magic—there wasn’t a divot in the ground, or blight on the grass around the spot where Astrid had struck. She didn’t seem to have the stomach for truly black magic. Instead, hers was tinged with childish pique, not true spite or malice, and fizzled out about thirty seconds after it hit the earth.

  “What in the bloody hell was that for?” Hellcat seethed at her.

  “A reminder to mind your manners!” Astrid responded. “You don’t talk about Wanda and Libby that way!”

  I wanted to point out that the cantankerous cat did so almost every day, but held my tongue. It wasn’t my place to interject. Astrid had to live with Hellcat day in and day out. She’d earned the right to rebuke him.

  “And what do you intend to do about it, child?” the cat demanded. “Clearly, you’re an exceptionally poor shot. A blind ogre could have done better!”

  Astrid stood, advancing on the cat. Hellcat ran, letting out a panicked mew as the young witch pelted after him, spraying the ground left and right with bolts of electricity. I was more than sure she wasn’t trying to hit him—just trying to make a point. Wanda sighed, stood, and stretched.

  “And I think that’s our cue to retire for the night. I’ve got to make sure Astrid doesn’t hex my familiar into tomorrow. He’s already lost two lives.”

  With that, Wanda stood and followed Astrid back towards the house. Libby and Lorcan were the next to head out, but after a step or two, Libby turned to Fifi and me, assuring us she’d be out in a minute with our leftovers (which she’d insisted we take) wrapped and ready to go. It left the two of us sitting across from each other on the grass. A perfect time to talk, but I couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth.

  Fifi’s eyes were glued to the plans for the new mausoleum, a half-smile on her lips. The plum shade of her lipstick complimented the burgundy of her eyes. And her eyes were stunningly beautiful. I’d never really noticed them before—back when we’d just been friends. It wasn’t like we stared longingly at each other back then. Actually, it wasn’t really like that between us now either, come to think of it.

  I’d always known Fifi was pretty, of course, (I would’ve had to have been blind to think otherwise), but I’d also never allowed myself to go there.

  But... then she’d approached me. She’d kissed me, fed on me, begged for me to take her. And now? Now we were in this weird place where I couldn’t stop thinking about her and she seemed to be avoiding me. Odd to think how this situation had just sort of... happened. I’d simply wanted to take care of a friend. Why? Because she hadn’t been in a good place—she’d been starving herself and she was dangerously close to losing total control over the succubus. She needed someone who could take the brunt of the demon inside her—someone who could withstand her feeding. I fit the bill. I should have been content with that. Yet, I wasn’t.

  She must have felt my eyes on her because hers flicked up to meet mine. When she tilted her head, a few wisps of her shimmering silver hair escaped her high ponytail. I had the almost irresistible urge to push the stray locks behind her ear, to cradle one delicate cheek and—

  No. No, I wasn’t going there.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, annoyed with myself that she’d caught me staring at her. “You just looked happy and I, uh, I like to see you smile.”

  Her eyes shone, and the smile grew. My heart squeezed hard. Damn it. I couldn’t do this—to her or to myself. After Poppy, I didn’t think I could handle another relationship disappointment. And with Fifi… I couldn’t imagine how whatever this was could lead to anything but disappointment. Fifi didn’t exactly have a stellar record when it came to relationships. Well, for that matter, neither did I.

  There was a moment when the tension seemed to crackle between us. There was a hint of crimson in her eyes, a sure sign the succubus was pushing at her. If I kissed her, there was no telling what would happen next. It wasn’t as though we could do anything about it here, with a zombie en route with our food. Not to mention all the dead people in the graveyard. If it was bad luck to step on a grave, it had to be exponentially worse to have sex on one.

  I pushed to my feet, brushing myself off. I’d need a shower when I got home to scrub off the dirt. A very cold shower.

  “I’m going to get going, Fifi,” I said.

  The smile slipped. I could have sworn she looked disappointed. But then she seemed to remember herself and the smile was back, a bit strained but still genuine.

  “Okay, I should probably get going too. Just as soon as Libby comes back with our to-go bags. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” I answered on a quick nod. “Yeah, sure, that sounds good.”

  She’d be back tomorrow—to kiss me and confuse the whole issue all over again.

  Great.

  Chapter Three

  “I’m not crazy,” I said to no one in particular. It wasn’t as though the mattress, the bed, or the side tables could respond. “But shit, they smell like her.”

  I lifted the sheets to my face and inhaled.

  Fifi’s scent was faint but there. I wasn’t sure how. I’d obviously washed them since we christened the bed. And the wall, the table and... I shook my head. Okay, maybe I was crazy. A couple of nights of incredible sex shouldn’t have twisted me into knots. Fifi wasn’t my first lover, obviously, and I doubted she’d be my last.

  Right, so what was this? Why couldn’t I get Fifi and whatever the hell this thing was between us out of my head? What the hell was wrong with me?

  It was the relationship with Poppy and the subsequent breakup and the pain associated with it—that’s why I was so messed up in the head. And that was why I couldn’t get Fifi out of my mind—she was a rebound. Yeah, that sounded good, so I’d go with it.

  I stripped the rest of the bedding and tossed it into the to-be-washed pile. There was breakfast to make, laundry to wash, and a checklist to write. The bar didn’t open until eleven a.m. and there was a lot to do before that happened. Running through a mental to-do list actually helped calm me, steering my thoughts away from Fifi.

  For a grand total of five minutes, anyway.

  I was midway through frying eggs for my breakfast and then thoughts of Fifi came back with a vengeance—memories of her pushing me onto the couch and straddling me, giving me almost no choice but to palm her ass to keep her steady. Her very firm, very shapely ass.

  For the love of all things holy, I had to stop this obsessing thing I was doing. But now that I’d noticed Fifi in a sexual way, I couldn’t think of her as anything but. A possessive, beastly part of me wanted to lock her in the house and rut her until she smelled like me and only me. And yet, another part of me, the part the beastly half couldn’t understand, wanted her to take charge.

  I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I thought about how unbelievably sexy it was when she came on strong and put me in the position she wanted. It ran counter to what I’d always known, who I was. I was a dominant male, an alpha to be cliché. And it wasn’t like that was unusual among my kind. Usually, sexually mature sasquatch men found their mates, defended them from other males, and staked their claim. Females weren’t exactly dominant—yes, they’d fight to defend their young, but they weren’t aggressive by nature. All of my girlfriends before Fifi hadn’t been sexually aggressive either, Poppy included.

  And then there was Fifi.

  But she wasn’t just sexually aggressive. As strange as it sounded, I was starting to think of Fifi as a fairly dominant woman—she seemed to now be going after the things she wanted, excelling and proving herself at Hallowed Homes. She was on top of things in her life. She had a successful business, she had friends, and she was happy. And, really, I couldn’t ask for more than that.

  Except for maybe a definition of what this thing between us was, so I didn’t get my heart broken. Again.

  Goddamn, I sound like a dumbass, I thought to myself as I shook my head.

  I flipped the eggs onto a plate to join the side of bacon I’d already cooked and turned on the radio while I ate. The local talk show was always amusing to listen to. It was full of conspiracy theorists who built on the town’s spooky reputation. The episode on bigfoot two years ago had almost made me wet my pants, I’d laughed so hard.

  The mundanes had no clue. It was almost cute. To cap it off, they’d interviewed Marty’s friend RJ, who was completely and totally obsessed with sasquatches, though he’d never seen one—at least in squatch form. I’d started walking around the woods, leaving footprints to mess with him. Cruel, maybe, but funny, all the same. Maybe that was what I’d do tonight after work. It had been a long time since I’d messed with the mundanes, too busy with my dating life and the politics of running the council. It would be a nice distraction after helping Fifi with the mausoleum.

  Then again, if I resumed beast form, I might just throw her over my shoulder and find a nice private cave somewhere.

  I was pulled from my musings by a scratch at the door. A soft, canine whine sounded soon after. Probably another stray. I had a weakness where the little buggers were concerned; I’d feed them until I was able to find them an owner. Maybe I’d gotten a reputation. Animals could talk to each other. I often understood them.

  As a sasquatch, I had a connection to nature that went deeper than most. Usually, I could tune their conversations out (mostly they were pretty simple: ‘food’, ‘hello’, ‘play?’). The connection was mostly on the surface level. I didn’t have access to their feelings and couldn’t see through their eyes. It was just a conversation—beast sense, some people called it.

  “Door open? Need in. Master need help.”

  The words came through loud and strong. Simplistic, but clear.

  So, not a stray then.

  Regardless, the dog needed my help, so I figured I should call Shelby at the Half-Moon because I was going to be late for work.

  I crossed over to the door and flung it wide, revealing a familiar canine waiting just beyond the screen door. He was a smallish beagle with floppy ears and paws too big for his body. A goose stood beside him and looked up at me in a very odd way—an almost human expression on its face.

  “Yule?” I asked, frowning down at the beagle.

  He was Lorcan’s guardian spirit—at least, that’s how Wanda had described him after he’d showed up on Lorcan’s doorstep during Yule (hence his name). Whatever Yule was or wasn’t was beside the point at the moment because his appearance here had to mean one thing: Lorcan was in trouble.

  “Yule is good dog. He help Master.” The dog nudged the goose, knocking it flat, its webbed feet flailing. “Master said Yule bring him here to see beast so Yule bring him.” He looked up at me as if to say: now, it’s your turn to figure out what the hell’s wrong with this duck.

  “Yes, yes, blimey, enough with the good dog bit,” a familiar voice muttered, irritation ringing in every syllable.

  I stared down at the goose, eyes going wide. This couldn’t be happening.

  “Lorcan?”

  Chapter Four

  “Yes, it’s me, you daft ape,” the goose replied in the grumpiest of all voices—actually, it wasn’t even so much a voice as it was like a slobbering sort of guttural sound. Not unlike Donald Duck. Actually, he very much sounded like Donald Duck, and that was a comparison that pleased me to no end.

  “Now do step aside and allow me entrance into your most humble abode,” the goose continued, looking up at me with irritation. “Traveling upon dogback is quite jittering to the brain.”

  I didn’t make any motion to do anything. I just stood there, still in shock, not even trying to understand how in the world Lorcan had ridden his dog all the way here. That was a story for a later date.

  As it was, I was currently relishing in a thing called karma. Yes, Karma was now standing on my doorstep, craning its little, feathered white head to look up at me as it tapped its orange, webbed foot in exasperation. The goose, er Lorcan, then started to say something that sounded angry because his very strange, orange tongue came out as he hissed, revealing rows of tiny white teeth. And that was what did it—that was the action that absolutely set me off and I couldn’t stop laughing for a good five seconds.

  “Aye, have your laugh—have your fill,” Lorcan, the goose, continued in that weird voice, shaking his head. He hobbled past me and Yule took up the rear. Once they were both inside the house, I shut the door behind them and then pulling out one of my kitchen table chairs, I sat down on it and leaned onto my thighs as I wiped at the tears that squeezed out of my eyes.

  I didn’t even know where to start—what questions to ask, or how to help him, because I just… couldn’t handle the situation before me—it was that comical. “I can’t wait until Wanda sees you—her reaction is going to be priceless. I might even need to get it on video.”

  The goose’s tail feathers started to twitch. “Wanda will have no reaction to seeing me because you’re not going to tell her about this! It is quite mortifying!” he seethed in a quacky yet wet-sounding voice, pacing across the floor in agitation. Actually, the pacing was more of a waddling.

  “Lorcan,” I started, shaking my head. “Wanda has to see you, you dumbass. How else are you going to get yourself out of this… mess?”

  He glared up at me and tapped his foot as he plopped his wings on his wide hips. He was probably three feet tall, but had another three feet in attitude. Yet again, I felt like I was in the middle of an argument with Donald Duck.