“I’VE GOT A brilliant idea,” Soraya announced out of the blue.
Bygul did not like the sound of that.
To be clear, he never liked any of Soraya’s ideas. Mostly because they tended to end in disaster.
Even the ones that worked out went places they never anticipated and never wanted to go again.
“Maybe we should—” he began.
“You don’t even know what it is,” Soraya said. “It’s genius, I tell you.”
He sighed. “Fine. Let’s hear it.”
“Yay! First thing we have to do is recruit Moonbeam to help.”
Muezza and Tivali both groaned.
“Moonbeam isn’t going to help,” Tivali said. “She’ll just make things worse.”
“We’re lucky she didn’t castrate the wolf,” Muezza grumbled.
“Okay, that’s a little extreme,” Tivali said. “But I agree, we’re lucky the wolf wasn’t injured more than he was.”
“We’re lucky he was wearing jeans,” Bygul said.
“You guys aren’t being fair to Moonbeam,” Soraya said. “Bygul, you’re always telling us to use the earthbound cats because it gets them invested in the match. So let’s do it. We haven’t even approached Moonbeam since dropping her off. Let’s get her involved. Make her feel sorry for the wolf.”
“Sorry? For the wolf? In what world makes you think any cat, let alone that cat, has empathy?” Bygul shook his head.
If the goddesses could hear Soraya now, they would question whether she was the right cat for this job. After all, an effective matchmaker had to understand her matches, all the way down to their bean-toes.
“It’s all a game to Moonbeam,” Soraya said. “So we present it to her as a game.”
Huh.
That was surprisingly perceptive.
“What kind of game?” Tivali asked suspiciously.
“A matchmaking game, of course!”
* * *
“Well,” Corwin said. “Speaking of your loving furball, she appears to be stalking you.”
“What are you talking about?”
He leaned into her and nodded toward the space under the table.
It was the only warning Natalie had before Moonbeam leapt into her lap and from there onto her shoulder.
Before Natalie could even pet Moonbeam, the cat had snatched her witch’s hat from her head and lunged to the floor. “Hey!”
Moonbeam bolted for the door.
It was truly unfortunate that one of the chameleons opened the door at that very moment, allowing Moonbeam to drag her prize out of the diner.
Natalie bolted from her chair and raced after the cat.
Corwin shook his head in dismay.
He should probably be following his mate right now, but the thought of being roped into chasing after a cat to recover that ridiculous witch’s hat just made him cringe.
He’d never hear the end of it.
A wolf chasing after a cat like some common dog.
It was enough to keep him seated for several moments longer, but eventually, with a frustrated growl, he lunged to his feet and stalked out of the diner, a roar of laughter following in his wake.
It didn’t take him long to track down his mate.
She was across the street in the town square, trying to coax the cat down from a tree she’d somehow managed to climb with that stupid witch’s hat.
Moonbeam now sat high above their heads, staring down at them, smirking.
She had her paws on top of the hat and didn’t appear inclined to move.
“She’ll come down eventually,” Corwin told Natalie. “Come on. If we ignore her, she’ll probably come down faster.”
Natalie gasped. “I can’t just leave her. She could fall from the tree or get hit by a car. Anything could happen!”
“I thought cats always landed on their feet,” Corwin said.
“Propaganda,” Natalie scoffed. “If she falls from that height, landing on her feet will not save her.”
He sighed. “Well, I’m not climbing the tree, I can tell you that right now.”
Natalie glared at him. “Nobody asked you to.”
With that, she set her staff against the trunk of the tree and began to climb.
“Now I’ve seen everything,” Sal said with a laugh.
Great.
The entire damn diner had come out to watch.
“Corwin Anthony O’Neill!” His mother’s voice cut through the crowd, causing Corwin to cringe.
Seriously?
Was it too much to ask that his mother not be around every time he screwed things up?
“You’re not seriously making your mate climb that tree, are you?”
Corwin hadn’t taken his eyes off his mate, who was pretty high in the tree at this point, so he saw the way she jerked at his mother’s admonishment, causing leaves to fall from the branches all around her.
If he wasn’t so worried about his mate, Corwin would probably be strangling his mother right about now.
* * *
“Well, that didn’t exactly go as planned,” Soraya said.
“Ya think?” Bygul asked.
“Oh, come on!” She said. “There’s no way I could have possibly predicted that Natalie would be the one to climb the tree. I honestly thought Corwin would climb it, recover her hat and become a hero in her eyes.”
“Seriously, Soraya?” Tivali demanded. “Did you learn nothing from the polars?”
“The polars? What polars?”
“The bears!” Muezza exploded. “Don’t you remember the giant thump that bear made on his way down?”
“And he was an instant hero to his mate. Instant! He saved the cat! Besides, he’s a bear. Of course, he’s no good at climbing trees.”
Bygul sighed. “Whatever. Moonbeam did enjoy stealing her hat, so there’s that, at least.”
“Yes, but if the witch falls, I will never forgive you, Soraya,” Tivali said.
“Worse, Moonbeam will never forgive you,” Muezza growled.
And there it was—the consequence that actually worried Soraya. “I’m sure the witch will be fine. Right? Bygul, right?”
Bygul just shook his head, unable to offer any platitudes as they watched the witch climb higher and higher.
What had Moonbeam been thinking to go so high in that tree?
“It’s the alligator thing again,” Tivali muttered. “I swear, that cat treats every obstacle like it’s an alligator to be smacked around.”
* * *
Natalie was trying desperately not to think about how high she was off the ground when someone far below screeched at Corwin about letting his mate climb a tree.
The words landed like a bomb and for one interminable minute, Natalie was certain she was going to fall.
At the last second, she managed to catch her balance and then just stood there, frozen on a limb, clutching the one above her for dear life, wondering if she was going mad.
Surely, she hadn’t heard what she thought she had.
It just wasn’t possible.
Was it?
She thought back over the last couple days and how weird Corwin had been acting.
Ever since the ceremony, now that she thought about it.
A ceremony he’d interrupted because of a text she knew he’d never gotten.
Holy shit.
Something must have happened during the ceremony that convinced him she was his mate.
That’s why he’d been acting so weird ever since.
Silly wolf.
First, she needed to speed up this rescue.
Then she’d set that wolf straight.
Bedmates, maybe.
But fated mates?
No way.
Except.
Oh, dear goddess.
That damn spell.
The spell that Jo had screwed up by casting for their fated mates instead of bedmates.
And who had been the first to walk into town after they cast that spell?
Corwin fucking Anthony fucking O’Neill, who was looking for new territory on behalf of the Wildfire Pack.
What exactly had the coven cast for again?
Oh, right.
Non-witch, eligible paranormals looking for a new start.
Jo just happened to add in the phrase, “fated mates.”
Dear goddess.
The wolf might actually be her fated mate.
Natalie glanced down, way down, at the crowd of diners, at Corwin who was watching her with fear on his face, at the woman beside him, who was waving her arms and lecturing (probably his mother) and kept searching.
There she was.
“This is all your fault,” Natalie shouted.
Jo looked surprised. She glanced around as if to ask whether Natalie was talking to her.
“Of course, I’m talking to you. You screwed up our casting and now I’m mated to a freaking wolf!”
Jo shrugged and cupped a hand around her ear as if she couldn’t hear what Natalie was saying.
Well, maybe she couldn’t.
Things were getting a bit loud.
Natalie glanced around.
What the hell was going on anyway?
She squinted toward the woods that stood in the distance.
Something was crashing and moving in their depths.
Something big.
“Okay, Moonbeam, time to get down, darling.” Natalie pulled herself up to the next limb above her and held her arm up toward Moonbeam who was just beyond her reach.
Moonbeam looked at her, then at the hat beneath her paws, then back at Natalie.
“Just leave the hat, baby. It’s not that important. But we do have to get down off this tree.” She glanced over at the woods.
Dear goddess, what was that?
“Now, Moonbeam. Now!”
Moonbeam grabbed the hat between her teeth and tossed it down.
By sheer luck or some kind of familiar magic, it landed directly on Natalie’s head.
Moonbeam then shot toward the trunk and raced straight down it.
Natalie rolled her eyes, glanced back toward the woods and felt a chill race down her spine.
Surely, that wasn’t what she thought it was.
Still.
Time to get off this blasted tree.
Trying not to think about how much it would hurt if she fell from this height, she climbed down as quickly as possible, though still significantly more slowly than Moonbeam had.
When she got near the ground, Corwin caught her around the waist and lifted her the rest of the way down.
Natalie immediately whirled to the crowds gathered around. “You should all take cover, especially you,” she said to the woman she was pretty certain was Corwin’s mom.
“Oh, dear, I’m so happy to meet you.” She grabbed Natalie’s hands in hers and squeezed tight. “We’ve waited so long, I’d begun to give up hope.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, nothing. I’m just so happy for you and Corwin.”
Before Natalie could even think of an appropriate response, a loud crashing sound came from down the street and then people began to run.
“What the hell is that?” someone screeched.
Shit.
That sounded like Blade. He already avoided Morana like the plague.
Goddess only knew how he would react if what Natalie had seen coming from the woods was what she thought it was.
“Come on.” Natalie grabbed her staff with one hand and Corwin’s hand with the other and dragged him down the street toward where Blade stood frozen, staring into the distance.
“Shit!” Blade shrieked, whirling and racing toward them.
How a vampire could get his voice that high, Natalie had no idea.
“Run for your lives,” he screamed.
“Blade.” Morana seemed to appear out of nowhere and stepped right into his path.
Blade skidded to a halt rather than veering around her.
That was progress, Natalie supposed.
Sort of.
“What’s the matter?” Morana asked.
“I should have known you’re the cause of this!” He glared at her. “Stop raising the dead!”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t used my powers at all today.”
“Then why are the trees walking around like extras from Lord of the Rings meets The Walking Dead?”
“Well, it is one way to clear out the dead limbs from the forest,” Natalie observed as entire trees, root systems, limbs and stumps stumbled down the street toward them.
“And thankfully, they don’t have faces, so they can’t eat our brains,” Tempest said.
“You guys are nuts,” Blade accused. “First spiders, now trees. I don’t even want to know what’s next.”
Morana leaned forward and murmured into his ear, “I can raise a whole lot more than just the dead.” She leaned back and smiled at him. “In case you’d like a demonstration sometime.” She trailed one long, black fingernail down his cheek, then turned and sauntered over to where Natalie and Corwin stood.
Blade, Natalie noticed, just stood there a moment as if stupefied into silence, before meekly following Morana to stand at her side.
Oh, yes.
That was definitely progress.
“So what’s the plan?” Morana asked.
Natalie shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“I do,” Corwin said and he started stripping.
Right there, in the middle of the street!
“What are you doing?” Natalie exclaimed.
“Don’t worry, baby, I got this.” He slid a hand around her, dragged her close and kissed her breathless.
She was drowning in heat when he set her back, winked, then lunged away, shifting and landing in his wolf-form in a fraction of an instant before hurtling toward the line of lumbering trees.
He aimed for one that had to be hundreds of years old, it was so huge.
“What are you doing?” Natalie shrieked after him.
He leapt up and caught a limb in his teeth and swung around to land on another one. He scrambled all around that tree, leaping from limb to limb, chewing up branches and leaves and generally acting insane.
Natalie stormed forward and shouted up at him. “Would you stop that, you idiot wolf? You can’t win against a frigging tree!”
“Wow. Your mate’s not the brightest wolf in the bunch, now is he?” Morana chuckled.
And that was when the entire freaking pack barreled past, all of them in wolf form, howling in glee like—well, a bunch of idiot wolves.
Natalie whirled toward Morana. “Okay, at least the trees are slow and lumbering, but there’s no way those wolves are going to take them down.” She winced as one wolf, then another went howling through the air, only to hit the ground, slide for a bit, then lunge to their feet and bolt back into the fray.
“Dear goddess, this is madness. Madness, I tell you.” She glanced around at the rest of the coven, but they just shrugged helplessly. That was when she noticed Pippa had joined them. “Where’s Jared?”
“Where do you think?” Pippa asked dryly, gesturing toward the howling mass of wolves in trees.
“Ugh,” Natalie groaned. “Okay, Morana, come on. You’ve got to have some ideas here. How do you stop the dead once they’ve risen?”
Morana shrugged. “Usually I just tell them to rest in peace. Sometimes it works.”
“And when it doesn’t?”
“That’s what fire’s for,” Pippa said.
“All right then.” Natalie lifted her staff and pointed it straight at the army of trees littered with wolves. “Here’s hoping they don’t crush the wolves on their way down.” She dragged in a deep breath, then shouted, “Rest In Peace!”
Red light shot from the staff and barreled through the town, lighting up the dead and dropping them where they stood.
Natalie spent the next several moments, focused on somehow saving the wolves from bone-breaking falls or being crushed by falling trees.
By the time everyone and everything was on the ground, the wolves were all howling in victory as if they had somehow defeated the army of trees, and Natalie was utterly exhausted.
“Wow,” Morana said. “I need a staff like that.”
“Yeah. Except now we’ve got a huge mess on our hands,” Tempest said.
Natalie sighed. “This day just keeps getting longer and longer.”
Several hours later, the town square and all the surrounding streets were finally cleared of debris, and everyone was back at the diner, collapsed around another table, eating their weight in food.
“If I never have to face another army of the dead, it will be too soon,” Pippa groaned.
“Sorry,” Morana said. “I mean, I know it wasn’t my fault this time, but since the only reason Natalie can raise the dead is because of my power, I feel kind of responsible.”
“That’s because you are.” Blade glared at her. “Necromancer.”
She grinned. “All you’re seeing are the negative sides to my ability. Trust me. There are positives as well.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Uh, hello. Have you seen my pickup? It’s the 1973 Chevy C10.” She nodded out the window toward the parking lot. “Still runs like it came off the line yesterday.”
He just looked at her, suspicion written all over his face.
Pippa giggled. “Ever since I met Morana, my watch battery never dies.”
“Forget the watch,” Tempest said. “Ever since I met Morana, my vibrators are immortal.”
Everyone at the table burst into laughter.
* * *
“I can’t believe you made Corwin go home alone,” Tempest said with a giggle as they entered the coven house later that night.
“Are you kidding me right now? Did you see the tornado we generated the first time we kissed? Or how about the army of trees I raised when I realized he believes I’m his mate?”
“He believes you’re his mate?” Tempest asked. “Are you sure it didn’t happen when you realized he’s your mate?”
Natalie groaned. “Maybe, but even if that’s true, how the hell am I supposed to have a mate, if every time we kiss, chaos happens?”
“I’ve got a theory about that,” Jo said.
“What kind of theory?” Natalie asked suspiciously.
“I don’t think it’s the wolf causing your powers to go haywire. I think it’s simply the learning curve that comes with inheriting the power of the staff.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve had the staff the entire time we’ve been a coven. Longer, even. Why would the powers start acting up now?”
“Because now is when you’re finally accepting your role as High Witch of our coven,” Jo said.
“Oooh, and now is when your familiar came to you and bonded with you,” Tempest said, “which everyone knows is a sign you’re finally coming into your power as a witch.”
Natalie had been prepared to scoff at Jo’s theory, except it actually made sense.
Damnit.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Amari asked.
“What’s that?” Natalie asked, thrilled Amari was finally coming out of her shell, at least when surrounded by the coven.
“It means, all you really have to do is accept your mate. It’s the final piece to truly controlling your power. At least, that’s what the legend says.”
“What legend?” Rowan asked.
“The legend of the Witch Queen and her mate.”
Oh, dear goddess. “Don’t tell me you actually listened to those silly stories, Amari.”
“Of course, I did! They were so romantic. I used to dream of growing up one day, only to discover I was the Witch Queen with a destined, fated mate and a love that would span the ages.” She sighed, a faraway look in her eyes.
Natalie stared at her.
This was the most she’d ever heard Amari speak at one time and it was to swoon over stories Natalie’s grandmother used to tell her.
Stories of the old Witch Queens and their immortal loves.
She’d always thought it sounded like nonsense.
Then again, she’d absolutely believed in the power of the blessing Morana had cast for Pippa and Jared, gifting their love with eternal life, so that even death could not end it.
Was the fairy tale Amari had dreamed about as a child so very different from that blessing?
“Tell us the stories, Amari,” Jo said. “Exactly the way you heard them told to you.”
And so the evening passed with Amari sharing the stories she’d been told, with Natalie occasionally contributing little details her grandmother had shared that Amari hadn’t known.
It was a beautiful way to end a rather hectic, exhausting day.
When they finally stumbled to their beds, Natalie fell asleep with her head full of stories from those long-ago queens and with a tiny spark of hope kindling inside, that perhaps one day soon, she too might find herself blessed with a legendary, immortal love.