Page 10 of The Witch's Werewolf
I nod.
“You could have just said hello,” she teases.
She has a softer look in her eye now, which might have something to do with the fact that I’m carefully massaging the parts of her shins that aren’t wounded.
“After your Friday shifts at the candle shop, you head straight to the Chinese restaurant and pick up fried noodles and egg rolls, then you go home to your little cottage at 934 South Fifth Street, where you lock your doors and draw the blinds. Not a lot of humans lock their doors here, but it’s a habit you continued from growing up in New York City.”
Her eyes grow larger the longer I talk. “On Saturdays, you hike through the woods to visit your grandmother, Morgan, up on Colony Hill. You frequently spend all day up there,sometimes spending the night and not coming home until Sunday afternoon, your arms loaded down with fresh spell supplies and baked goods.”
After a long pause, I expect her to run right out the door. I can feel her blood pressure elevating in fear. “I should have a restraining order against you, but you haven’t actually done anything illegal.”
I give a slight grin. “Yet.”
“Oh goddess. Why am I not running and screaming yet? Why don’t these protection spells work?”
“If you want to go, you can go. But there’s more.”
“Really? What now?”
“Your dad is Oscar, the son of Morgan and Adam. Oscar moved to New York to get away from all the talk about witchcraft. He hated everything about it. Oscar endeavored to live his life and raise his family as a typical human. You, Cherry, were shielded from all of that. Until it became impossible to ignore. You had questions about your upbringing, your ancestry. You started making drinks explode at the bar you worked at, simply by letting your emotions get out of control. The truth came out, and at the age of 28, you moved to Birchdale to understand who you are. You rent the cottage in town rather than live with your grandmother up in the witches’ village in the woods because it’s still all too overwhelming for you.”
She blinks at me for a long moment as my fingers run over her sore feet.
“How do you know all of that? And don’t say magic.”
I smile. “Some of it is because I work in genealogy online. I have access to outrageous amounts of documents. The rest of it comes from reading your emotions and your pheromone secretions. Some of it’s extrapolation, and some of it, well, your scent has a history.”
“My scent … has a history? Make it make sense.”
“Feelings come out in your pheromones. Ever since I became a werewolf, I can smell people’s aura. And if I concentrate enough, I can pick up on things. Past trauma. Daily habits. Diet. Triggers. And, of course, arousal.”
Cherry blows out a breath. “Arousal. Obviously.”
I smirk. “Still not illegal.”
“You are a walking red flag.”
“I’m also a scurrying, bounding, clambering, skulking red flag.”
“Who makes excellent breakfast smoothies,” she adds, swirling the straw.
My gaze lands on her mouth as she takes a drink.
Cherry finishes the smoothie, and I take the glass, disposing of it in the sink.
When I return from the kitchen, she’s fixing her hair in the bathroom mirror.
“You should be resting those feet, Cherry.”
She rolls her eyes. “Next question: how come I’m not running away? Like, why am I not scared of you?”
“Well, you’re injured, for one thing.”
“That’s not what I mean, Timber.” She steps toward me as I linger in the doorway of the bathroom.
Cherry’s hands rest on my forearms. “Why didn’t you just introduce yourself? Why didn’t you just try to talk to me?”
“Because I needed to be sure.”
