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Chapter Eleven
“What the hellis that?”
Autumn glanced over her shoulder to grin at Kingston. “It’s a tree.”
He huffed out a baffled laugh. “I can see that it’s a tree. I mean, what is it doing in the middle of your bakery?”
Kingston sat at a table several feet away, staring up at the giant cherry blossom tree his mate had just created. He took a sip of his peppermint mocha latte, then lifted a pumpkin-shaped sugar cookie from the neat stack on the plate his little goddess had set in front of him to enjoy while she worked on her new project.
A project she had insisted on creating herself.
He knew he was sulking a little, but he couldn’t help it. He liked doing things for her, and sitting there drinking coffee and eating cookies while she worked made him feel guilty. However, he would respect her wishes, especially when it came to her god powers.
Kingston took a big bite of the cookie, then washed it down with another sip of the latte. Before he had met her, he’d been a straight black coffee drinker, but once he’d started stalking her, he’d tried all of the various seasonal specials to have more excuses to visit the bakery every day. Now, he actually preferred the flavored coffee since it reminded him of his mate.
She was sweet as sugar, and definitely just as tasty.
Yesterday, she had made a dozen pies and a ton of cookies the old-fashioned way, mixing the ingredients together and baking them in the multiple ovens in the enormous kitchen back at their treehouse. Kingston had kept her company while she’d worked, and he’d had fun helping her decorate the cookies with icing and sprinkles of colored sugar.
Then, they had enjoyed licking the extra icing off one another while they rolled around on the kitchen floor.
She’d gone on a baking binge to prepare herself to meet with her staff today since she’d wanted to personally explain what had happened to her. While she could use her magic to create anything she wanted, physically baking was a way for Autumn to relieve her stress and clear her mind. Kingston hadn’t wanted her to worry, but since he reaped the benefits of her labors, he wasn’t about to start complaining.
He popped the rest of the cookie into his mouth and chewed as a low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Fall had officially hit Mystic, blanketing the city with gray skies, cool temperatures, and brisk winds. Even though he was inside, he could still sense the heavy electrical charge in the air that signaled the impending storm. The reports claimed it had the potential to be fairly destructive, but the new magical wards that surrounded the building would ensure the bakery remained safe.
Kingston admired the way his mate looked in her long-sleeve purple sweater dress and knee-high black boots. The dress hugged her body, showing off her beautiful curves. She’d left her hair loose so it spilled down her back in gorgeous waves, but she had twisted the front into a little braid that acted like a stylish headband.
He had dressed in a black sweater, jeans, and a pair of black and white sneakers for the day. They had also worn long overcoats, which were currently hanging on the rack near the front door. While they were practically impervious to the weather now, they would have garnered more attention walking around the city without coats. Despite being immortal, it was important to keep up appearances.
Gods might walk amongst the humans, but it was best not to make that obvious.
They had started their day off by visiting Fire Chief Colton Varga in the administration building so Kingston could sign the necessary paperwork to officially retire. Since Colton had already known about the decision, everything had been prepared in advance. The chief had been delighted when Autumn had set a pretty apple pie down on his desk, but she wasn’t there just to deliver baked goods.
The chief had asked her to join them since he’d wanted to see if she could use her god powers on the floor that was under construction. He’d specifically wanted to know if the male who had set the fire in the building was really searching for his mate like the rumors claimed, or if he was guilty of some other crime. While Autumn’s revenge powers didn’t work on command, they figured it was worth a shot to see if she picked up on anything.
The three of them had gone straight to the floor in question, but she hadn’t sensed anything. That in itself didn’t seem odd, but what had been strange was she’d realized that she didn’t sense anything at all in the entire building.
No revenge visions, no magic levels of other supernaturals.
Nothing.
The administration building was like some kind of blank zone, and that meant that something was very wrong there. Even with their god powers, she and Kingston hadn’t been able to tell if it was a spell or some other sort of magic at work there, so they had decided to contact Devlin to see if the ancient reaper had ever encountered something like that before.
Unfortunately, by the time they had made it through five different secretaries and assistants, they still hadn’t been able to speak to him. So, they’d just left a message and figured that answers would have to wait.
Kingston and Autumn had visited the firehouse next, bringing several pies and boxes of cookies with them. Huxley, Thayer, and a few other guys already knew what was coming, but the rest of the crew had been shocked when Kingston announced he was quitting. Once he’d removed the dimming spell he had cast on himself and Autumn, no other explanations had been necessary.
The other firefighters still had millions of questions, though. Most of those queries had been funny or ridiculous, and Kingston had enjoyed the way his mate had laughed with his friends. Apparently, almost everyone in the department had known about his obsession with Autumn, so no one had been too surprised that they had turned out to be mates.
Kingston and Autumn had stuck around while the firefighters had demolished the various pies and cookies she had made for them. They had ended up hanging out near the patio tables between the firehouse and the administration building since Kingston had been worried about actually going inside and messing up any of the equipment.
When the alarm sounded and half of the firefighters had taken off, he’d felt slightly disappointment that he hadn’t been going with them. He had to remind himself that he might not be a firefighter any longer, but he was still going to be helping people, just in a different way. Autumn was capable of doing something that no one else could, and it filled him with pride to know that he would be helping her accomplish her revenge duties from now on.
Although they still hadn’t had much luck figuring out what triggered her revenge visions, Autumn had started to recognize the feelings that came with those visions. Smaller incidents came to her in a flash, while more complicated issues of revenge could make her feel lightheaded and disoriented for a moment or two.
A few days ago, Autumn had received a particularly intense revenge vision from a hiker who’d been miles away in the national park. The vision had been so strong that Autumn’s head had felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. The young woman had been pushed off a cliff and abandoned by her new husband during their honeymoon camping trip. She had been minutes away from bleeding out, but Autumn and Kingston had found her in time to save her.
Once she was safely stashed away in the hospital, the young woman had told the authorities the entire story. That night, they had tracked the guy down and taken him into custody. He’d been hiding in the woods, waiting to claim he had gotten lost while searching for help. It turned out that the young woman had recently inherited a lot of money, and her new husband would have gotten it all if she had died.
