Chapter 5

I need you. Bring diapers.

Serena’s text dinged into my inbox as I locked the office door behind me. When had I become everyone’s bloody errand girl? Pick up milk, bring diapers. Didn’t they know who I was? Didn’t they understand they were talking to the daughter of Cupid, the carrier of the Bow of Destiny? My job included spreading love throughout the greater Port Harbor area, not delivering fripperies to former enemies.

Feeling thoroughly put upon and misunderstood, I left the car running, tossed an anti-theft charm on it, and dodged into the drug store where I spent ten minutes staring at way too many diaper options.

“Help you find something?” A cheerful smile lit the face of the perky brunette who had stopped stocking shelves with shampoo to ask if I needed help.

I might have brushed her off, but for the symbol hovering over her head. She’d feel the sting of my arrow soon. Okay, she wouldn’t, because my arrows are painless, but the intent was the same and her true love was out there, waiting. The symbol registered itself in my memory with a click and turned her to a blip on my radar so that the next time she and her intended came in close enough proximity, I’d be there to finalize the deed.

“I’m not sure what size to get,” was what I admitted, but it was more than that. I felt weird standing in an aisle that supplied a product that wasn’t in the cards for me to ever need for myself. Maybe if things had worked out with Kin we might have made a family. A little girl with his dimples and my eyes.

Since that was a Lexi dream and none of mine, I shoved it away with a vengeance, ignored the sigh that echoed through my head, and returned to the task at hand.

The clerk cocked her head at me and pointed toward the clearly labeled age range on the nearest package. “How old is the baby? They go by age to determine sizing.”

“And that works? I mean, don’t babies come in all sizes even if they’re the same age? Or is it a one size fits all thing? Like socks.” She did not want to get me started on the sloppy method for designating a three-size range for socks. Nine to eleven? Really?

Casting my mind back, I didn’t want to admit I had no idea how old Kaine was now. Work, then more work, had filled the days between my nephew’s dramatic birth and today. “Two or three months, maybe. Last time I saw him, he was about this big.” I held my hands out to indicate a length. “That was a couple of weeks ago, I think. They’re for my nephew.”

She shot me a raised eyebrow that let me know I’d fallen short in the aunt department and waved toward the middle shelf before going back to work.

Grabbing three packages of various sizes and figuring one of them would do, I got in line behind a man with curly blond hair and the posture of a husband or boyfriend who did not wish to be seen buying the decidedly female items he’d placed on the belt. The witch swam up from the depths of our psyche and our heart skipped a beat until he turned to pay and I caught his profile.

Not Kin.

Not Kin, Lexi echoed and, ignoring my sniff of disgust at what I considered to be a whining tone, sank back down to wallow in her misery some more.

Men. Who needed them? Look what they did to a woman. Lose one and end up a fractured soul. That would never be me.

It already is. How stupid are you? At least there was some heat to Lexi’s tone. It gave me hope.

I’d admit to a fine sense of irony, given romance was my stock in trade but I had no personal desire to mire myself down in it. Look what happened when it went wrong. The witch half of me was an emotional wreck and I was on my way to visit a single mother who’d ended up that way after making the horrible decision to get romantic with my idiot half-brother, Jett Striker, who was currently on the supernatural naughty list and serving time somewhere.

Serena yanked the door open before I managed more than three steps onto the porch. “It’s about time you showed up.” With one deft motion, she thrust a blanket-wrapped, squirming bundle of baby into my arms and nipped the bag of diapers out of my hand. “C’mon in. You can’t keep a baby out in the cold too long. What are you doing just standing there?”

“But I didn’t—” I tossed at her retreating back and resigned myself to going inside. My intention of dropping off the diapers and claiming I was too busy for a visit went up in a breath of powdery-soft, totally intoxicating baby-head scent.

Drawn like a moth to a flame, my gaze dropped down to meet Kaine’s. “Who’s a little cutie?” I cooed at him. “You are. Yes, you are.” I could have stared at him all day just to watch the way his precious lips curved into a perfect O when he smiled.

Inside me, the witch stirred. You think you’re so cold, but you’re no better than the rest of us. The mighty bow-hunter Alexis reduced to a baby-talking puddle of goo.

She snorted in my head. How mortifying.

No matter how I tried to stop myself, more babble kept falling out of my mouth. “I could just eat you up. Yes, I could. In one big gulp.” A chubby hand popped up to grasp my nose and Kaine’s giggle slid through the last of my defenses. There was a goofy grin on my face as I planted kisses all over his rosy cheeks. Complete with smooching sounds. His laugh tickled over me and took me under.

It was the sight of the baby’s mother doubled over and hooting that brought me back to my senses enough to realize something wasn’t quite right.

Being pointed and laughed at rated nowhere on my list of lifelong dreams. But Serena didn’t seem to care. “He got to you too.” She took the baby away from me—nearly had to pry him out of my arms.

“I’ll just put him down for his nap so we can talk.” Serena’s tone carried a hint of derision and, oddly, resignation. Minus the baby, Serena returned only moments later.

With Kaine out of my sight, it was as if the world opened up again, but the cuddly puppy feelings he’d let loose refused to completely dissipate. For a moment, I reveled in them, and I could feel Lexi’s resolve to remain mired in her misery waver just a little. And then I felt her slam the metaphorical door back shut.

If you’re fine with missing out on the good in order to avoid the bad, stop acting like the victim. I snarked at her. Coward.

For once, she remained silent, and it bothered me that this was the moment the witch had decided to shy away from. I finally managed to regain my composure, and when I did, I noticed the state of Serena’s house—or, more accurately, Serena’s mother’s house.

“You’ve been busy.” I assumed the change was her doing, anyway. Once a dingy tan, the walls looked ten times brighter in a muted gray that made the room seem warmer and set off the deep burgundy of the sofa and matching chair. “New furniture?”

“What?” Confused, she glanced around the room. “Yeah. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting to talk about the decor. Daddy moved into his building downtown, so it’s just me and my mom. But that’s not the point. You see what I’m going through, right? It’s becoming a problem and I don’t know what to do about it. You have to help me.”

I followed Serena to the kitchen, which had also had a bit of a spruce, and took a seat at the table while she pulled a bottle of fizzy water from the fridge. A year before, it would have taken a herd of wild unicorns or a bulldozer to drag me into my archenemy’s house. Now, here we were, calmly sitting together and not spitting insults at each other. It boggled the mind.

As did her plea for help.

“What?” I said, failing to see the problem. “You have an adorable child. I'm not seeing that as a crisis.”

She plunked her glass down hard enough for some of the contents to splash out. “Not a crisis?” Her voice went up an octave. “Not a crisis?”

With Kaine out of the room, his effect on me had begun to fade from memory. “Isn’t it normal for people to go gaga over a cute baby? At least they’re not looking for a polite way to avoid saying he has a face only a mother could love.”

Serena burned me with a look.

“I can’t take him anywhere without it turning into a mob scene. I was craving those amazing garlic knots from Pastabilities the other night. Easy in, easy out. I mean, the place is a ghost town on Tuesday nights. I even called ahead. But no. We were in there for an hour and a half while every person in the place oohed and aahed over him. I got all the way home before I realized I’d never even made it to the counter, and I really wanted those garlic knots.”

Still, there were worse problems to have, and I ran a finger through the condensation drops forming on the outside of my glass while I tried to find a way to frame a statement that wouldn’t send us back to our former relationship.

“Is it a Fate Weaver thing?” she asked before anything came to me.

My mouth popped open to answer with an automatic no. Surely, if there’d been a similar disturbance, the faeries would have turned the story into one of the family legends. But then again, if they thought all babies rated an entourage, there would have been no reason to point out how my childhood had been different. “I’ll have to check with the godmothers and get back to you on that, but I don’t think so.”

Plus, I didn’t want to check with the faeries. Not after I’d finally managed to create some much-needed boundaries.

“Lexi,” her voice dropped to a hush, and I didn’t correct her on the name, “I think he’s going to be a lot like you—spreading love, softening hearts, and I think he’s more powerful than he should be. Do you think it’s because of what happened when he was born?”

Why was she whispering? We were alone in the house except for the baby, and what was wrong with him being like me, anyway? Spreading love and softening hearts didn’t seem like bad things to do. Then again, the first rule of witchiness is that intentions matter. Kaine was too young to direct his, and if Serena was right about his level of power, I could see why it might be a problem.

But I didn’t have an answer for her. “My Gran and Aunt Mag said there might be repercussions from mixing our blood talismans, so it’s possible. I got the impression they weren’t sure what would happen, but it had been the only way to ensure a safe birth. Look, he’s a darling child and you’re a strong witch. You’re not alone; we’ll handle whatever happens.” Kaine rated my best efforts no matter which half of me was running the body.

My assurances smoothed some of the worry lines around her mouth, but not all of them.

On my way back to the car, a case of the creeps stole over my body, starting with a tingling ripple of hair rising on the back of my neck. Someone was watching me. Or Serena’s house. But probably me.

One thing that came along with the Bow of Destiny—which quite frankly hadn’t been such a joy to own since I’d acquired it—was the enhanced vision that allowed me to zero in on targets from a distance. Until now, there’d been no occasion to use the sight unless I was framing a shot, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t, and so I tried.

There’s nothing dignified about marching along with one eye squeezed shut. What’s more, when it kicked in, the sight in my right eye zoomed in and out fast enough to bring on a bout of nausea. If there was an enemy lurking, tossing my lunch at their feet probably wasn’t the scariest thing I could do.

Instead, I reached under my coat to scratch at my shoulder blade, focused on staying casual, and hoped I looked less wobbly than I felt.

Stirred by the light wind, bare branches clacked together like the finger bones of the long dead, the noise chilling in the waning light of winter day. Daylight saving time. What a lousy idea for full dark to set in before most people ended their working day.

Snow banked on either side amplified the crunching of my booted feet over the sidewalk, but not enough that I missed the muffled sound to my right. Maybe the low growl of a dog, or the nicker of a horse. My feet froze and the dream came back to me in all its adrenaline-infused glory.

Do you feel that?

Lexi, alert again, funneled magic through me—or us, depending on how you looked at it—and my power, while not strictly magical, fed the flame she called into our palm. The itch on my shoulder blade increased maddeningly and I felt like the cork on a champagne bottle with the bubbling pressure building, and I was about to pop.

Reflex was the only thing that saved the harried mother and son from being scorched as they rushed out their front door and hurried toward the sedan parked behind my car.

“Do you have your skates?”

“Mo-om, I’m going to hockey practice. I’d be pretty dumb to show up without them.”

The car doors thunked shut and hockey mom, sliding a little on the icy slickness, took off as the sense of danger dissipated. When her taillights rounded the corner, I was, once again, alone in the street.