Page 53 of Blue Moon Mistress

“Yeah. A kid would be great.”

“Just one?”

I’m saved from answering that question when Joshua comes back and hands me my phone. “I did not realize how much of a problem werewolves have been for you.”

“Not me personally.”

“What happened?” Thomas asks, drawing me to sit down on his lap in front of the yellow pieces.

“The spell we did… It’s been done before. Back in twenty eleven, a witch kidnapped a wolf pack and performed the spell without their consent—the first parts, anyway. It didn’t go well for her.” I sigh and draw my card. “There are records of it in the forties and fifties, but they’re incomplete. Just enough information to be sure that it worked… and that you’d all be safe.”

“What happened to the one who kidnaped her wolves?”

“They were never her wolves, and on the next full moon… they killed her. And half of her coven.”

The way Thomas looks away… I’d guess he’s the only one of them who’s killed someone while under the influence. That’s not the sort of thing that can be healed with gentle words… so I don’t offer him any.

“Why does your dad call you ‘bagel’?” Chase asks, mouth twisted as he squints at the board.

Johnny rolls his eyes and stands as I answer.

“Because when I was eight, I would only eat a meal if it was served on a bagel.”

“That’s kind of cute,” Johnny says, handing Chase a pair of glasses.

“Where were these?” Chase asks, pulling the buddy-holly looking frames on.

“You left them in the cupboard above the toaster.”

Chuckling, Chase shakes his head. “That would have been the last place I looked.”

“Where you found them isalwaysthe last place you look.” Thomas snickers and locks his arms more firmly around my waist. “Are we going to play a game tonight? Or what?”

They let me go first and when Johnny asks what I did today, I can only laugh as Thomas answers “me.” Loud and proud.

I let them quibble, their conversations distracting them long enough I can get a substantial lead on my progress around the board, but then, Thomas brings up the sheriff.

“He was being a real dick.”

“True, but he’s mostly harmless.” I watch Chase draw a card and realize he’s further behind than he thought.

The way he studies the pieces still in his start circle tells me he doesn’t know which of us put him there.

“It felt like harassment.”

“The sheriff’s family has a long history of not trusting witches. Not,” I say. “That I thinkheactually believes we exist.”

“It is a little hard to believe.”

“And the people who used to burn us at the stake have a harder and harder time turning the next generation to hate.”

His father or grandfather’s generation had still attempted to murder my mother at one point or another. The fact that he was still alive was either a testament to her generosity, or the old man’s skill.

The fact that he hadn’t come after me in the time I’d been here made me think it was the latter.

“The Jones family and mine have a rather fraught secret history.” I take my turn and have to shake my head. “It’s especially funny to think about the fact that our families’ graves are all within a hundred feet of each other.

“I had noticed…” He winces. “We got there early, I promise I’m not a weirdo who went back to look specifically. But the markers in your family plot all said Mathis. I thought you said there were no boys.”

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