AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I slipped into the aquarium through the back door and followed the dark hallway to the main floor. The place was bustling again, with a crowd of Silver Springs school children oohing and ahhing over the stingray tank. They’d returned, then. That was good. I was worried they’d disappear for a while. I didn’t know who was trying to sabotage the aquarium, but I really hoped they didn’t end up accidentally hurting the wildlife.
The vampire brothers, Roman and Levi, were talking with Tripp near the information booth, and I went over to see what was going on. Had another attack happened? I glanced up at the shark tank, and everything seemed back to normal there too. The dolphins had returned to their own tank. I smiled at their happy dance. I loved the aquarium because it felt like home. It was really the only way a sea turtle shifter like me could live comfortably inland.
“You felt it too?” Tripp asked the brothers.
Roman nodded. “We’re linked to her somehow. All three of us . . .”
A cold shiver ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the weather. “Linked to whom?” I asked, edging into their group.
“Hey, Hudson,” Tripp said almost amiably.
I’d been lurking around the aquarium since it opened, but the grumpy Tripp hadn’t even acknowledged me at first. It wasn’t until after I came up with the “Adopt a Sea Creature” fundraising campaign that he started to pay attention to what I said.
“Hi,” I answered, trying to match his casual tone. “Who's she?”
“Delphine of the oh-so-lovely kisses,” Levi said.
A pang ran through my heart. They’d kissed her? My mate?
Roman grinned. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him so much as smile before, and this was a full-on grin.
Tripp had his usual scowl so I expected he didn’t get a kiss.
If Delphine was mated to them—well, at least Roman and Levi—then she couldn’t be my mate too, could she? I swallowed. I guessed it wouldn’t be so bad sharing Delphine with these guys because we all lived and worked around the aquarium. At least we didn’t live on opposite sides of the world or anything. But how was I supposed to figure out my own feelings when I had so much competition?
I sighed. It was going to take me some time to come to terms with all this. I didn’t even really understand it. Realizing they’d stopped their conversation, I changed the subject. “Did you figure out what caused the magic outage?”
“She did,” Levi said.
I blinked. “Delphine?” I’d known she was a witch, but why would she have been attacking the aquarium? Didn’t she and her sister just get to town?
“She’s a null witch,” Tripp said. “Any time she takes off her medallion everyone in range loses their magic.”
“Including shifters and vampires,” Roman said.
That had been the weird feeling I’d had earlier. I’d been human for a short while and hadn’t even realized it. I’d just felt strange. “What an odd power.”
“But it doesn’t mean she’s not responsible for the other magical mishaps,” Tripp said. “She could have other powers or she could be working with someone else. Hell, for all we know, this weird binding magic might be some kind of trick.”
Trick? Could someone fake a mating with a spell? It hardly seemed possible. But these feelings and desires didn’t feel fake. How was I to know? I’d never had parents to tell me about being a shifter, let alone how to know my true mate. I’d have to figure it out on my own.
Delphine
After coffee and a light lunch with the friendly witch Natalie, I picked up my coat from the aquarium and headed back over to Peppermint’s. I was careful not to see any of the guys. My feelings for them were confusing enough without one of them trying to kiss me again.
My sister had only really given me the morning to go check on my dolphin. We’d barely gotten started on the job, but at least we’d finished scraping the paint off the trees. Phoebe had finished pressure washing this morning and now was checking to see if the siding needed any repairs. I’d been tasked with taping up areas like the windows that we weren’t going to paint.
Of course, even as I picked up a tape and started taping off doors and windows, I couldn’t stop thinking about those two heart-stopping kisses and the strange magic. I’d felt some pull toward the guys that I didn’t understand—Roman, Levi, Hudson, even the long-haired owner, Tripp, though I’d barely said two words to him. Was this some kind of weird Silver Springs magic? I knew a lot of the folks I’d met in town—Amber, Pepper, etc.—had more than one boyfriend or husband, but that was just them, wasn’t it?
And I knew better. Getting involved with supernaturals was off the table for me. No super could tolerate my magic full-on, and no matter how much my parents had researched it—and as archaeologists, they were experts in research—they’d found nothing about any other null witches. There were objects that worked or could be adapted to work like my magic, but no witch had powers like mine. We’d tried to figure out ways to control it, but the only thing that had ever worked was the medallion.
And if I was around supernaturals, I could never take it off.
“Are you okay, Delphy?” Phoebe asked next to me, and I jumped, ripping the tape up that I’d been applying.
I blinked. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“You’re applying the tape to the siding instead of the window.” She pointed to my work so far. “I’m pretty sure Pepper doesn’t want a striped house.”
