Page 6 of Prayers for the Prickly

“Yeah, you make sure you do that before he burns your kitchen to the ground and half of mine, too.”

“Something tells me that it’s that half of yours that you’re truly worried about.”

“Perhaps.”

“But I doubt that’s the reason for the dreamy look you got when I mentioned hoglets.”

“Maybe I’ll tell you, after you dish on who you were talking to that made the day so great after the way you stormed in here this morning,” August offered. “What was that all about, anyway?”

Ever groaned and shook his head. “I’d rather talk to you about the conversation in the shop. If I start telling you about this morning, I’ll just get pissed all over again.”

“All right, then tell me who put that smile on your face,” I insisted.

Ever’s cognac-hued gaze brightened like they held a piece of the sun, his grin growing even more.

“Oh my god, he was hot, and a total sweetheart,” Ever said with a sigh that was, well, about as dreamy sounding as he claimed I looked.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, even if he did smell a little like something vicious.”

“Vicious how?” I asked, suddenly very alert and a little worried for my brother, who’d gotten himself into trouble more than once by trusting the wrong shifter.

Unlike me, Ever was an Alpha. Over the years he’d had to struggle to assert himself among those who scented him as prey and gave no consideration to the rest of his designation, assuming all prey animals to be Omegas. They weren’t, but try getting an Alpha lion shifter to respect an Alpha hedgehog and you’d soon have a good idea of how stubborn and immoveable some predators were.

“Just, you know, he smelled like a predator, but only just a little, like maybe he’s only half,” Ever said, shrugging. “He didn’t act like one, though. He was bouncy and did this little shimmy in front of the display case when he got a look at what was inside. He was totally into the chocolate, like, I swear I saw drool on the corner of his lip before he licked it away.”

“Sounds like you fought a cocoa connoisseur,” I said.

“Dude, first he asked me if I had a slice of chocolate-covered heaven, at which point I showed him the Boston cream cake truffles, then the triple chocolate cake ones, then he asked for chocolate-covered sin,” Ever said. “So I told him that every one of my chocolates was sinfully delicious but if he was looking for sin dipped in chocolate he’d have to come back after we closed.”

“You didn’t!”

“Oh my god, I did and I don’t feel the least bit bad about it, either,” Ever said. “You didn’t see this guy.”

Snorting, I decided to keep my lips sealed and wait to see what else Ever revealed before I divulged what I knew.

“So what did he have to say to that?” I prodded, when Ever fell silent and just started grinning again.

“Well, he didn’t get all grumpy and act like I was being too forward if that’s what you want to know,” Ever said. “He just asked when that would be, so I told him seven, and do you know what that crazy bastard said?”

Shaking my head, I slowly tapped my fingertips on the counter. “Nope, I’m waiting for you to tell me.”

“He said he’ll see me at 7:05 with a steak dinner as long as I promised him some of that sin-dipped dessert.”

Chuckling, I shook my head, because I could picture Olly saying that and wondered if his brother was as prone to rash and impulsive decisions as he was. I sure hoped so, because I intended to drop in on the growly Gregor soon in the hopes of figuring out why the man’s scent, and demeanor, were so appealing.

“So, how exactly do you plan to pull off this date and Uncle Gene’s espresso beans?” August asked.

Ever froze, mouth half open as he glanced from the clock, to me, and then back over to his shop, where our cousin Iris was manning the counter and the small line that had formed there.

“Shit,” Ever muttered, then shrugged, his devil may care grin coming back full force. “I guess it’s a good thing I told him to wear clothes he didn’t mind getting dirty. Either way, I have a date tonight.”

“Well, from the sound of things, teaching him to make a bit of chocolate might go a long way toward saving his wallet from the hit I’m sure it took after you finished ringing him up.”

“It may not have been as big of a hit as it should have been,” Ever admitted. “I slipped a few things in that I may have forgotten to charge him for.”

Chuckling, I couldn’t wait to find out if I was right about who it was that Ever had met. “You didn’t happen to get his name, did you?”

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