The little witch didn’t bother to use the bond to talk. “You’re joking.”
“Unfortunately, I am not.”It was painful to admit. He was a great climber—getting backdownthe tree, though, was another matter entirely.
A laugh escaped her throat. He was already embarrassed enough, and now she was laughing about it?“Keep laughing, witch, and I promise to make you regret it.”
She doubled over in stitches. “You’d,” she wheezed. “You’d have to get down here first.”
Yes, yes, a real fucking knee-slapper it was. A shifter of his caliber should not be stuck in a tree, but heights were still something he was grappling with. Sometimes he could descend just fine, other times not so much.
The tree started to laugh along with the witch, the branches shaking so hard that he clawed onto them for dear life so he didn’t fall.
“Shut up,”Felix hissed, although he wasn’t sure if he was speaking to the tree or her. Both. It was both.
After a minute of guffaw after guffaw, she finally managed to quieten herself, wiping tears at the edges of her eyes.
“What do you want me to do about it?” she asked.
He hated to admit he liked the sound of her name slipping off his tongue. He liked the feeling of her tongue in general.Stupid fucking bond. Stupid fucking tree.
“Just…guide me down. I can’t see where I’m going.”
He couldn’t shift when he was nervous. He looked at the ground for only a moment, and the forest floor swayed as if it would swallow him whole. Heights usually didn’t bother him, but sometimes the little fear became a huge one. He focused back on the witch instead, for some reason, even though she was technically on the ground, it was entirely less frightening. She moved closer to the trunk, tilting her head back until she spotted him. It was at least sixty feet off the ground—maybe more. Either way, if he fell, he would get seriously injured. His shadows could catch him, but sometimes they had a mind of their own.
“I can see you!” she shouted up, even though he could hear her perfectly fine with his sensitive hearing.
“Can you just…go back down the way you came?” she asked.
“Don’t you think I would have done that already if I could,”he hissed.
She decided to use the moment to her advantage. “I will only help you down if you promise to be nice to me for twenty-four hours.” She crossed her arms.
That little witch.He was about to spew profanities at her, metaphorically rip off her head for the audacity. Felix wasn’t nice. There wasn’t a nice bone in his body. His pride cracked in his chest, but he wouldn’t make it down without her; his depth perception was shit, the one drawback of being a cat. He can’t believe he had to ask a witch for help. She had left him no choice.
“Fine,”he bit out.“Will you help me down?”
“What’s the magic word?”
“Now.”
She rolled her eyes. The tree started to shake, his grip loosening on the bark as his claws desperately clung to the branch.“I will turn you into logs, you stupid tree!”
She tapped her foot. The tree didn’t slow down.
“Okay! Okay, stop,”he pleaded.
The rustling of the trees came to a standstill. “Little witch, would you help me out of this tree?”
She smiled, smug. At least he hadn’t said please. He could keep that small bit of dignity for himself. The rest had been devoured like a pig on a spit roast.
Her voice softened ever so slightly. “I can do that.”
He hated everything about this. Hated relying on a witch. Hated that he was bound to one. Hated that he had to depend on the very thing he was trained to kill. He wanted to go back to a time before he had met her. And most especially before he had that kiss.
He shook the thought away, its gravity threatening to pull him back into the memory.
“To your left,” she instructed. “There’s a branch you can lower your paw onto.”
Felix started to lower his back paw, but he couldn’t reach it. He held the key in his mouth as he struggled to find a foothold.
