Page 21 of Real Fake Hauntings

The man gave him a thumbs up and began walking toward the nearest statue—a praying angel mottled gray and green with age and, I suspected, bird droppings.

“He’s your friend?” I asked. Alex really had a lot of friends. It was quite impressive.

“We went out a couple of times last year.”

“And he wants to help?”

“Yeah, he’s cool.”

Cool, or hoping to score more dates. “A shifter?”

“Nah, his mother’s a water mage,” Shane said.

The way he said it made me think Allen hadn’t inherited a lot of magic. Should I add him to the suspect list? A young man tired of being laughed at for his lack of power might decide to exact some revenge on the paranormal community.

But then, look at me: low power, no wish for revenge.

“You guys decide on the Garreth shifts yet?”

Shane pointed at Alex. “He’s doing the first half, I’m doing the second.”

Alex looked like he wanted to kick rocks. I bet he wanted the second shift, when everyone was a lot more drunk, and he could get the biggest screams.

“What about you?” I said, punching Ian lightly on the arm. “When’s your turn to play Garreth the Hound?”

Ian sent me a glacial stare that had my inner organs begging for heated blankets.

Shane coughed a laugh, and Alex couldn’t stop a huge grin. Key, seeing the ice stalactites forming on my lashes, came to my defense and announced lunch was ready.

That got the strays’ attention. Alex shouted at his buddy to come eat, and they all went back to the house, an eager spring to their steps. I had no doubt Key would update Shane and Alex on the pentagrams issue the first chance she got.

“Garreth the Hound?” Ian repeated once we were alone, his voice right out of a freezer.

I cleared my throat. “Yes, well, you never know what might take your fancy.”

He looked me up and down. “You don’t say.”

“Sorry,” I said, contrite. “Bad joke.”

Ian never shifted. Never. Not even when he’d been faced with a shifter in wolf form bent on tearing his throat out. There were plenty of rumors about why he wouldn’t shift, but nobody knew the actual answer.

One theory went that he hated shifters because his shifter father had jilted his witch mother for another shifter. But if that were the case, he wouldn’t be working in a city with a big shifter pack nor have given Shane and Alex a job.

Ian had yet to tell me why he wouldn’t shift, and I was too scared to ask. What if the reason was that he had been cursed or poisoned by dark magic and he didn’t think I was powerful enough to help him? I worried my lower lip, avoiding eye contact. Talk about a bummer.

And now that I was thinking about the topic again, a new reason popped into my mind. Maybe there was no magic stopping him from shifting, and it had nothing to do with his family. What if he’d killed his ex-partner in wolf form back when he had discovered his ex-partner had been an assassin for hire? What if the action had scarred him so much he refused to shift again?

The thought brightened my mood. Nothing said happiness like your boyfriend carrying trauma from his own past rather than assuming you were too powerless to cure some sickness.

In my defense, I was a witch, not perfect.

Ian settled an arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer, letting me know his iciness was all for show and he had been messing with me. I snuggled into his side.

Being like this, I could almost forget about the whole forever and ever mate thing.

Almost.

“Want to tell me what you were doing this morning?” he asked, perhaps noticing the slight shift in my mood.

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