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Cassandra eyed the cat. The cat stopped grooming herself to stare right back.

“How long has she been hanging out here?”

I glanced at the ceiling, considering. “Since February, I guess. She appeared shortly after Selina left.”

“And she won’t leave this shop?”

I shook my head.

“Do you think she was Selina’s⁠—”

“Hello? Anyone in here? Hello-o-o-o!”

We both turned toward the front of the shop. Not that we had much in the way of crime around here, but we probably should get those windows fixed sooner than later. Oh, and maybe lock the door once in a while so the locals would stop simply walking into Cassandra’s space.

A moment later, a figure darkened the doorway. Well, part of it, anyway. The figure was short and stocky, with dusky skin and a mop of curly hair. He had the face of a twelve-year-old, once you got past the full beard and the tuft of chest hair sticking out of the collar of his shirt.

“Krishna,” I said, intending to introduce Cassandra to the resident werewolf.

Before I could get another word out, Krishna wolfed out. One moment, he was a weirdly childlike adult humanoid, the next he was a fuzzy werewolf small enough to be carried around in a purse.

And there were tattered bits of clothing everywhere.

Krishna barked up a storm, bouncing on his tiny furry paws like a stuffed animal on crack. If he was trying to be scary, he was failing miserably.

Although the cat was certainly put off. She arched her back, her fur stood on end, and her tail was as straight as a flagpole.

“Oh no,” Cassandra murmured, diving for the cat and scooping it into her arms.

Was it wrong of me to wish she were scooping me into her arms?

The cat immediately calmed down. Not only that, but it wrapped its front paws around Cassandra’s neck like it was giving her a hug and curled its head underneath her chin, purring so loudly I could hear it over Krishna’s incessant barking.

“Krishna, stop,” I snapped.

He abruptly stopped barking and glanced down at himself. No doubt he’d just realized that he’d shifted. With his clothes on.

Which meant he could not shift back unless he wanted to give us a show.

Pretty sure I could speak for all of us when I say we did not want to see that show.

Although, honestly, Krishna could do whatever the hell he pleased, because I was too busy staring at Cassandra, who was smiling and cuddling the cat.

Her eyes were so bright they practically glowed. Maybe they were glowing. And there was this ethereal light around her that made her look like an angel.

She was—yet again, in a word—breathtaking. And I was, in a word, a goner.

Okay, that was two words. But they were fitting.

This was so not good.

Chapter

Seven

Cassandra

“She’s a familiar,” I murmured, closing my eyes and rubbing my cheek against the cat’s soft fur.