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NOT MY GUEST
When destiny knocks, my witchy mentor, Mel, runs for the hills.
Or, rather, the stairs, her boots echoing hollowly the entire way up the steep flight to the second floor.
After waiting all day for the new addition to our coven to arrive, we’d finally given up on seeing him before tomorrow. Mel had changed out of her professional attire back to her basic self, which is way better, in my opinion.
Who needs floaty skirts and blouses when punk exists in the world?
But apparently, she relaxed too soon, and her thumping around upstairs echoes through the house. Good thing she left some clothes in Tris’s room after her move to her new house, or she’d be forced to expose her glory to her unwanted-fiancé, who should have been here three hours ago.
“A bit late for visitors.” Haut considers the cards in his hand and sets a five in the discard pile. “Kind of rude at this point.”
Excited, I pluck a five from my hand, too, set it on top of his, then slap them. “Uno!”
“We’re playing gin rummy, Rowe.” With a wolfish smile, he nudges my hand aside and takes my five, slipping it into the fan of cards he holds.
I mournfully eye the untouched slice of peanut butter pie at his elbow. “Does this mean I don’t win?”
Ros used his vampiric culinary skills to make a pie for dessert. He claims being a vampire has nothing to do with it, but there’s definitely something paranormally delicious about his baking skills that made my slice vanish right off my plate and into my stomach.
Haut had resisted gobbling his up, even though we all know how much dogs like peanut butter, and now he’s taunting me with his slice.
The knock sounds again, echoing through the house.
Ros lifts his gaze from the old journal he holds to peer toward the front door. “Is no one going to answer that?”
“I’m not the one who invited him.” Haut slaps the hand I sneak toward his pie. “Bad puppy. Take your turn.”
I raise my knuckles to my lips and suck on them before answering Ros. “That’s Mel’s problem.”
With a sigh, Owen pushes up from his spot at the kitchen table. “It’s going to be your problem, too, if you upset him.”
As Owen passes behind Haut, he glances at the other man’s cards and holds up four fingers.
A growl rumbles from Haut. “I can see you helping her cheat in the window’s reflection, Mayor.”
“That’s Alpha Mayor to you.” Owen walks backward, his pajama pants riding low on his lean hips and his T-shirt hugging his chest. “And what are you going to do about it? Arrest me, Sheriff?”
The taunt pulls another growl from Haut, and his moss-green eyes flash with his inner wolf.
Grinning, I slap a four down on the discard pile. “Bajina!”
Haut’s focus shifts to me. “That’s not even a card game.”
Tris sweeps into the room. “It can be if we make it one.”
Water still glistens in his sandy-blond hair from his evening shower, and he wears a pair of my pink sweatpants, which are tiny on him and ride low enough on his hips to expose a neatly trimmed line of golden hair.
He had skipped a shirt, putting his torso on full display, which still holds on to the lean muscles he gained from years spent as a cursed wolfdog, then a wolf shifter, before we figured out how to cure him. A pink dog collar with his name on the tag still circles his neck, despite his new witch status.
Haut scowls at him. “You’re not a wolf shifter anymore, so wear your clothes.”
“Are you offended by the view of my beautiful, flawless, witch skin?” He joins us at the table and waves one tanned arm under Ros’s nose. “Looks nummy, don’t you think?”
Ros’s nose twitches, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the grimoire in front of him, the nerd. “Still not happening.”
“What’s a guy gotta do to get a little horny bite around here? So many vampires, and not a taker among you.” Tris snatches the pie from next to Haut and brings it to me. “Sweet for my sweet?”
