Page 16 of His Whispered Witch

“No?”

“Not too spicy?”

“No, it was delicious. You could have added another chili,” she said honestly.

He blinked twice and then nodded as if they would have dinner together again, and he would tweak the recipe.

He brought her dishes to the sink and waved off her offer to help. She was conscious of the fact that she was alone in a room with a shifter far away from anyone. She’d told Annie she was going to the weird ranch with the tin gate, but by the time anyone noticed she was missing and Annie thought to look here, it would be way, way too late.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. Her eyes flared in alarm as he added, “I can hear your heart.”

Well, that didn’t exactly help calm her down. She could hear it herself now and fought to keep her breathing even. Just how sensitive were his senses? And what was he doing eating boatloads of chilies and peppers? It had to hurt.

“I’m fine with spicy,” he said.

He really had to stop doing that. When the dishes were slotted on a drying rack, he opened the door and walked outside. He didn’t say a word, just disappeared, and she stood for a moment waiting for him to return withsomething. An ax?

But he didn’t return, and she stumbled to the door where she found him sitting on a narrow wooden rocking chair on the porch. There was no roof above the porch, so she could see the sky turning from white to purple above them.

The too-hot day now felt perfect. She’d never get used to the changeable weather in the mountains with its massive temperature swings. It could be a blazing hundred degrees, and the moment the sun went down, the temperature plunged.

He pointed beside her, and she saw a matching rocking chair on the opposite side of the porch and sat down.

“Thank you,” she said. There was more room to breathe out here, even though she was just as vulnerable. He had to be faster than her and was definitely stronger than her, but he felt less of a threat in the open.

A chipmunk was chattering angrily in a tree at its mate, which wasn’t moving. She cringed; animals usually had an intuitive understanding of death, but this one seemed to think that his friend was coming back.

She shut down her gifts, surprised they had leaked out, and turned to him.

“So normally I have a, um, questionnaire?”

He nodded once, and she dug in her bag for her phone. She swiped it on and pulled up a spreadsheet of questions.

“I don’t know how many of these are going to apply. They’re mostly about ownership.”

He laughed softly.

“What’s funny?”

“Thatisone of the questions. The question of ownership.”

She frowned. Was there another player involved? Who owned him? Why? It didn’t make any sense.

Focus.

She scrolled through her spreadsheet, blushing when she saw the questions about toilet habits, then laughing when she sawthe questions about playtime and toys. She had questions about routines, leashes, and vet visits.

She put down her phone. As she did, she noticed she didn’t have service and swallowed down a new spike of fear. This was another crazy thing about the mountains. Before, she hadn’t thought there was anywhere on earth her cell could not reach, but she was used to losing service at every other bend of the road now.

“Why don’t you just tell me what the problem is?” she said at last.

He chuckled, but it was about as far away from amusement as it was possible to get.

“How much do you know about shifters?”

Visions of crossbows, monster movies, defensive spells, and blood danced through her head, and she swallowed. “Maybe pretend I don’t know anything?”

“But you believe me that witches made shifters.”

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