Page 13 of Witch of My Heart

“Does anything have to come next?”I mused.

Of course, something had to come next. I couldn’t hide in a window forever. Well, maybe I could, but not even a litter box would fit in this particular window, and I wasn’t fond of them anyway. That was my least favorite part about playing ‘Holly’ while I hid from my deranged sire.

“Cord? You still there?”Starry yanked on my tail over the group link.

“Shit! Sorry! Did it again!”I groaned.

“It’s normal right now. This isn’t a disassociated because of trauma thing. It’s part of the true-mate response. And yes, something has to come next. As long as time and space exist technically something will come next. What comes next is up to you as much as it can be. The mating response won’t go away, but you can choose how you proceed.”

“Do you think he’ll stand out there all day?”I asked Starry.

“I think he’ll stand out there all night if he has to. He’s a Hemlock Wolf who’s smelled his mate. I don’t mind, though. He can live on our walkway. We’ll just work around him or we’ll use the back door instead. It’s up to you, Cord.”

“Isn’t it up to him too?”I sighed.

“Well, yeah, but he’s chosen what he’s doing next. He’s standing on our walkway waiting to see what you want. Want me to send him on a quest to find something rare or impossible to buy you time?”Starry suggested.“Something Sisyphean, perhaps?”

“I don’t think mine is that sort of love story, Starry,”I laughed over the group link.

“It got you doing something more than worrying, though. What sort of love story do you want?”he asked.

“One where Ginger Barrel isn’t involved,”I huffed over the group link.

“Do you want me to call Marcus? I really don’t know what to say to that. Everything I have to say just sounds bad even inside my head.”

“Like I can’t have that one because she’s in my blood?”I sighed.

“No, like you can’t have that one until you resolve your trauma,”Starry said.

I glanced out the window again. The Alphas were still there.

“Shouldn’t Daniel go home to Norbert and Patrick?”I asked Starry, because it was something besides my longing to crash through the window and into Blithe’s arms.

“He’ll go home to his mate and kids soon enough. Shepard is probably still at the meeting house. They should both go to the meeting house and eat,” Starry said aloud.

“You should go back to the meeting house and eat.”

“You should go back to the meeting house and eat,”Starry shot my suggestion back at me.

“There’s two vampires in my way.”

“Two wolves too,”Starry chuckled.“What do you want me to do about them?”

“If I knew, I couldn’t be in a window, licking my paw like I didn’t have a care in the world.”

“Would it be the end of the world if I invited him in?”Starry asked.

“Which one?”I asked, solely to buy myself more time before I had to answer the question.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to get Marcus?”

“What if he doesn’t like me? What if he thinks I’m a lunatic? I mean I did scratch him. I got him good too!”

“Are those real questions or time buying questions?”Starry asked.

“Real. Very real. He might actually think I’m a lunatic.”

“I don’t think so,”Starry said, rejoining me by the window. “Seriously, Cord. You didn’t see how he was trying to get to you. He was like a rabid wolf. Xi had to jump him from the sky to actually get a hold of him. He was squirming out of his clothes and everything.”

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