Page 27 of Watch Me Burn

The mayor waited until he’s out of earshot before he grins up at Elise and me. “Come with me. I’ll show you around your new house.”

CHAPTER 9

BLOOD

Ididn’t know much about Alaska before I got shipped off here with Elise. It doesn’t take long for me to realize that all the research in the world wouldn’t have prepared me for Dyea.

It started with Mayor Lou. If I thought a skunk shifter—like, he’s a man sometimes, and then he turns into askunk—was the weirdest thing I’d find in the village, I couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, once I got used to the smell… well, kinda… I understood why he was picked to be in charge in the first place. He’s friendly and welcoming, from showing us our assigned house and helping us unpack to giving us a tour our first day, introducing us to everyone who came out to say hi to the new arrivals.

Then we met Jenny, who seemed nice enough until Elise flashed her fangs in her smile, the young brunette yelped, then keeled over. One second she was on her feet, the next she was on her side, arms and legs outstretched, visibly dead.

Only she wasn’t dead. Jenny is an opossum shifter, and when something spooks her, she plays ‘dead’. Facing an unfamiliar vampire was enough to set her off, and when she woke upagain twenty minutes later, she sheepishly tracked us down to apologize and welcome Elise to Dyea.

There was also Kevin, who is a hedgehog shifter, and Haley, who turns into a bunny and has the white hair and pink eyes in her human form to prove it. Oh, and I can’t forget the ornery Gertie, who is a porcupine who shoots quills out of her hands if anyone comes too close to her cabin.

Turns out, Dyea is a sanctuary for a certain type of shifter: prey animals who don’t fit in anywhere else. There are still some predators, too. At least seven vampires who call the sanctuary home, though they keep to themselves mostly; themselves, and their respective human donors. No other witches, though Mayor Lou makes reference to other supes who don’t really interact with the rest of the community. Supposedly there is a centaur living in the woods nearby, and a yeti that prefers his space further into the wilds.

And then there’s Conall.

Freaking Conall.

We’ve been in Dyea for a week. For the most part, I’ve done what I came up here to do. I didn’t want to test the rules too soon, so I haven’t gone searching for the underground caves or the fire opal yet, but I’ve held onto my temper. It’s not that difficult. As Elise’s human, I’m practically invisible. The villagers all have been told the same story: Elise is hiding out from a male insistent that he is her beloved. I’m here to feed her. Since that seems to be my only purpose, all of the other villagers act like I’m not here.

All of them—except Conall, who acts like my presence is an insult to him.

I don’t know who he is.Whathe is. The more I catch him following me around the village, the more I can’t shake that he knows I’m hiding something. Worse, if there is a witch hunterhiding somewhere near Dyea, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him.

Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking because, if he was, I could at least explain why I seem to annoy him as much as I do.

Especially since the feeling? Totally mutual.

With a little more force than necessary, I set the two bottles I’m carrying down on the coffee table in our living room. Elise is curled up under a blanket, reading a book she borrowed from the village library. As the bottles hit the wood, she glances up, an amused smile tugging on her lips.

“Have a nice trip to the commissary, sweetie?”

I huff, and Elise laughs.

I point at her. “It’s not funny.”

Her eyes dancing in amusement, telling me just how funny she does think it is, Elise uses her finger as a bookmark. “What did he do today?”

That’s the problem. Conall doesn’tdoanything. Not really. As the head of security, he takes it upon himself to patrol around the village borders, making sure no one is starting any trouble or sneaking out. It’s just that, whenever I leave our shared cottage without Elise, he’sthere. Like he’s my shadow.

Has he said a word to me? No. But unlike the others, who look right past me, I know he’s watching me. I know heseesme. Always with this slightly puzzled, slightly pissed expression on his face, and just when I want to flip him off and tell him to leave me alone, he does something inexplicably nice.

Like today. In the village, there is a commissary, where prepared food and some goods are imported from the human world at a huge mark-up. Then there’s the canteen, a small kitchen where the village chefs serve daily meals for cheap. We have a small grocery for fresh food that’s even more expensive than the commissary, stocked with food from Gladys, anotherwitch who—wither her grandson, Charles—is our point person to get in touch with the covens.

I went to the commissary because I needed shampoo. I grabbed a bottle, muttered when I saw that they didn’t have any conditioner, and went to the counter to pay. I saw Conall slip into the small store after I did, did my best to ignorehimwhile I was shopping, and left as soon as I was done.

I hadn’t made it three houses away from the commissary before he was catching up to me, his long legs eating up the snowy ground before I could get away. Without a word, he tapped me on my shoulder, shoving a matching bottle of conditioner in my face.

So startled, I didn’t even ask where he got it from, or how he found conditioner in the store when I couldn’t.

Instead, I blurt out, “Did you steal this?”

Obviously Conall didn’t steal it. He bought it for me, and looked almost insulted when I tried to pay him back for the bottle.

When I’m done telling Elise about how he stalked off, leaving me holding the shampoo and conditioner while resisting the temptation to bean him in the back of his skull with one, all she says is, “That was nice of him.”

---