Page 2 of Shadows of the Soul

The wards used to outline my property, including the stables. Now they looped around the main house and gardens but excluded the main gate and stables, so the shifters were able to traipse back and forth as they pleased.

Hudson arrived at the edge of my wrap-around porch. The barrier was seven feet off the ground. He tensed and jumped clean over the white fence, landing lightly in front of me and Rebecca. I scrunched the letter in my hand tighter, folding the paper so it disappeared into my palm.

“Ladies,” he drawled. His southern lilt was faint, but smooth like warm whisky. It made my insides melt, and my heart pitter patter a happy dance against my ribs.We talked about this,I reminded the useless organ.He would tear you to tiny, tiny pieces after touching our soul.

“Steps not good enough for you?” I asked, jerking my head toward the steps six feet away.

His lips twitched. “Steps are overrated. I took the most direct path to reach you.”

I sighed. “Principal, what can I do for you?” See, I could be nice. My heart rolled its eyes and sulked.

“Can I borrow a whisk?” he asked, leaning back on the banister. It creaked, but held. Kudos to the solid workmanship, holding Hudson up was no mean feat. His ego doubled his weight.

“I’ll get it,” Rebecca said, rising to her feet and floating away in a swath of pale yellow cotton. She was ethereal, timeless, classic. Rebecca was a vampire princess and conducted herself in a regal manner that was bred, not learned.

“What does the Principal need a whisk for?” I wondered.

Hudson grinned. “Pancakes, would you like to come over for breakfast?”

I opened my mouth to decline. This was also a game. He came to ask for something, sugar, flour, a whisk— invited me for a meal and I politely declined the offer. The paper in my hand tripled in weight and I pressed my lips together. If I had breakfast, I could report back to my Grandmother and she would see I’d done my duty.

“I make fabulous pancakes. Blueberries are my speciality,” he ventured, sensing my hesitation.

“Fine.”

He blinked and folded his arms. “Fine?”

I gazed up at him, the sun haloed around his head in the cloudless sky. “Fine, I’m a sucker for blueberry pancakes, and if I come this once, you can leave me alone for a month.”

He grinned. “A week at most and I’m sure we can upgrade ‘fine’ to ‘exceptional.’”

I rolled my eyes. “Let it go.” I’d once informed him the man who stole my heart would have to be exceptional—he’d been making a big deal out of it ever since.

Rebecca opened the front door and brandished a shiny metal whisk at Hudson. “Your whisk.”

He plucked it from her fingers and smirked. “Tomorrow morning at seven?”

Rebecca’s mouth fell open.

“Fine,” I gritted out.

I’ll survive breakfast. It was the smallest and quickest meal of the day. Get in, get out, and report back. Nothing to see here, Grandmother. My brain slow clapped at my cunning plan. Hudson turned and jumped over the fence again, landing with the feral grace only seen in cats.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he called out. “Prepare to savor it, Cora. Every single morsel will be an experience.”

“Breakfast is a necessity, not an experience.”

“Then you are doing it wrong. Breakfast with you will be entertaining.”

“I’m not your entertainment.”

“Of course not. But what follows should be.”

I groaned and leaned back as he slunk away. We were doomed.

“You’re eating with the Principal?” Rebecca mused. “Is that after a night of hot and sweaty kinky shifter sex, or is it a fuel up before a morning of hot and sweaty shifter kinky sex?”

“There will be no hot and sweaty, kinky, shifter sex.”

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