Werewolves Like Pink Too (Pixie Pink Book 1), page 1
Werewolves Like Pink Too
PIXIE PINK - BOOK 1
D.N. HOXA
Contents
Also by D.N. Hoxa
Sign up to D.N. Hoxa’s mailing list
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Also by D.N. Hoxa
Copyright © 2022 by D.N. Hoxa
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of
America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or
artwork herein is prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely
coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Also by D.N. Hoxa
The Dark Shade Series (Completed)
Shadow Born
Broken Magic
Dark Shade
* * *
Smoke & Ashes Series (Completed)
Firestorm
Ghost City
Witchy Business
Wings of Fire
* * *
The New Orleans Shade Series (Completed)
Pain Seeker
Death Spell
Twisted Fate
Battle of Light
* * *
The New York Shade Series (Completed)
Magic Thief
Stolen Magic
Immoral Magic
Alpha Magic
* * *
The Marked Series (Completed)
Blood and Fire
Deadly Secrets
Death Marked
* * *
Winter Wayne Series (Completed)
Bone Witch
Bone Coven
Bone Magic
Bone Spell
Bone Prison
Bone Fairy
* * *
Scarlet Jones Series (Completed)
Storm Witch
Storm Power
Storm Legacy
Storm Secrets
Storm Vengeance
Storm Dragon
* * *
Victoria Brigham Series (Completed)
Wolf Witch
Wolf Uncovered
Wolf Unleashed
Wolf’s Rise
* * *
Starlight Series (Completed)
Assassin
Villain
Sinner
Savior
* * *
Morta Fox Series (Completed)
Heartbeat
Reclaimed
Unchanged
SIGN UP TO D.N.HOXA’S MAILING LIST!
* * *
You will receive new release emails and giveaway alerts. No spamming ever, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
* * *
SIGN UP HERE!
* * *
www.dnhoxa.com
Chapter One
Teddy De Ver
* * *
“I got this,” I told the wall in front of me. “I so got this.”
My hands shook a little and my palms were a bit sweaty, but I had this. This wasn’t nervousness—it was excitement.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I touched my forehead to said wall. It was cool against my skin, and it distracted me for a second…before I remembered where I was again, and my empty stomach threatened to come right out of my mouth. But I’d been prepared for this. I’d seen it coming, hence why I hadn’t eaten breakfast at all. Prepared. And, yeah, I was panicking, but it wasn’t going to last forever. Possibly about two weeks, and then I’d be just fine.
Taking in a deep breath, I turned around and pressed my back to the cold wall, my palms against it. The button of my jacket was still in my hand—a tiny thing painted golden that had fallen off just minutes ago. Not sure if that was the reason why I’d run and locked myself in here, but I could sow it back on. As soon as I got home, I would make it look brand new again. I was a pixie. I could sow a button in my sleep. No need to freak out.
The room where I hid was dark, no windows anywhere, and barely any light slipped from under the door. So I was hiding in the janitor’s closet—so what? It was my first day at Orion’s Department of Protection, and I was entitled to running and hiding at least a couple more times this week. That wasn’t going to change the fact that I was here. I’d made it. I, Teddy De Ver, was in New York City, over eight thousand miles away from home, all by myself. Probably not the first pixie to live in a big city but definitely one of the very few.
“I made it,” I said to myself and started pacing in the small space in front of the door. I talked to myself a lot, but I wasn’t crazy or anything. That’s just how I gave power to my thoughts. That’s how I convinced myself that I was not going to drop dead any second now. “I made it. I’m here,” I mumbled, and the movement of my legs felt mighty fine against the panic. “I’m going to be okay. I’ve got the Ds. I’ve got everything I need. I made it.”
Another couple of minutes of saying those words to myself, and I’d be ready to return to my desk.
But…
“You might dig a hole in the floor if you keep pacing like that.”
I froze.
The voice of a man came from somewhere deeper in the rectangular room. I looked at the darkness, tried to see a head or a body or anything moving, but there was nothing there.
Light. I needed light.
Moving back to the door, I searched the wall to its side until my fingers found the switch. I flipped it up, and the white overhead lights almost blinded me.
But a couple of blinks later, I could see.
The man sat on the floor at the end of the room, back against metal shelves full of detergent bottles, mops, buckets, and toilet paper. His elbows rested on his knees as he watched me, completely calm. A loud sigh escaped my lips. Not a three-headed monster about to tear me to pieces and eat me raw. Just a man sitting in the dark by himself.
“I’m sorry,” I said, breathing a little easier, then looked at the white tiles of the floor. “Is that really possible? Is this a special floor? Like magical or something? Does it actually get spent?” I’d heard a lot of tales about this place back home, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find anything on those tiles that said they were about to fall apart.
The man stayed perfectly silent. He stared at me, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. He looked positively shocked.
I stepped a little closer and squinted my eyes at him. “Why aren’t you talking?” I whispered. He’d talked before, hadn’t he? I didn’t imagine his words—he’d said them. I was ninety-nine percent sure of it.
The man blinked once, then pulled his lips inside his mouth. “It’s just an expression,” he finally said, and it was almost like it pained him to say those words.
An expression.
“Oh!” I said, slamming my hand on my forehead. “Of course! Of course, it’s an expression.” I couldn’t dig a hole in the floor if I tried. I barely weighed a hundred and five pounds—which was a lot for my kind actually but still not enough to even chip those tiles with my steps. “I’m gonna have to learn all about those, too.” Expressions were important. If I was going to fit in, I needed to know everything.
“You will,” the guy said. “The most important things are the Ds, and you apparently got those.”
I laughed. “I sure do. Determination. Dedication. Discipline,” I counted on my fingers. That’s what the pamphlet said I needed, and I had all of it. I had what it took to be here. So what if I was the first of my clan to actually leave home and work for the ODP? No pressure.
“You look nervous,” the guy said again.
“No, no—just excited. I’m…I’m excited, not nervous.” I read somewhere that the body reacted the same way to both emotions, so all we had to do was trick ourselves into thinking that we’re excited when we’re nervous, and voila!
Except I was already exhausted—and a teeny tiny bit suspicious that that was, in fact, bullshit. Resting my hand on the wall for some support, I sighed. Nervousness, excitement—it was all the same, wasn’t it? It sucked out your energy completely.
“Sorry,” I mumbled to the guy who kept analyzing me. I must have looked like a fool to him, so I straightened up again and cleared my throat. “I’m Teddy, by the way. I’m new.”
“You don’t say.”
My lips opened and closed a couple times. “I, um…I just said, actually.” His thick brows shot up, and heat crawled up my neck to settle on my cheeks. “An expression. Right,” I said with a nod, feeling smaller by the sec
I pressed my back on the wall and slid down to the floor, too. If he could sit there, I could sit there, too. My legs were shaking, anyway.
“Why Teddy?” he asked, and his voice didn’t change. It was all low and rough, and while mine rose and lowered a couple times within the same sentence, his was composed.
“It’s short for Theodora. My mom said I looked like a teddybear when I was a baby. The tip of my nose turned pink when I cried.” It still did, actually. “I guess it just stuck.”
The guy nodded like that made perfect sense to him. He turned his eyes to the closed door and rested his head on the shelf behind him. Like that, the light illuminated all of his face, and I saw every detail on him. His hair was so black it shone blue at the tips. He kept it on the longer side, some strings touching the nape of his neck. His short beard was the same color, like a shadow covering his cheeks and chin…and his lips. They were a dark red, like he’d spent the past hour biting on them. That could have very well been the case because they looked swollen, perfectly outlined with a knife-sharp cupid’s bow. His eyes were the same way—two uptilted slits, swollen halfway shut, like he’d just woken up seconds ago. I couldn’t see the color in them, but they looked dark.
My God, he was beautiful.
My eyes scrolled down his body next, since he was still looking at the door. He was massive—wide shoulders and long legs, big clean hands, and large feet. The more of him I noticed, the more it felt like someone had lit a fire in the pit of my stomach because the heat in there almost burned me.
I swallowed hard and looked away, too, trying to remind myself that it was normal to be, erm…surprised by the looks of this man. My whole twenty-one years of life, I’d only lived in my clan, surrounded by my kind. Pixies, like most fae, were different from humans appearance-wise. We were on the smaller side—I was considered very tall back home, and I stood just over five feet. Most of them had hair and eyes in a shade of purple. Not me, though. I was pink. My hair was pink, my eyes were pink. Even my skin had that pink undertone to it, and if I so much as blushed a little bit, it turned bright pink everywhere.
Needless to say, I hated pink with a passion. Ironically, the color suited me best, even better than black.
After a few more seconds, I straightened my back, feeling a bit more confident to look at the guy again.
“So, you work here, too?” I blurted, and my eyes squeezed shut the next second. What a stupid question. Of course, he worked here—why else would he even be in this building? “Why are you sitting here in the dark, sulking?” I asked next before he could answer with the obvious.
He turned his eyes to me, never moving his head. “I am not sulking.”
“Yes, you are.” He was most definitely sulking. What would a guy who looked like that be sulking about? “And that’s not a very good idea. You need to focus on the positive to attract the positive.” His lips parted again, and his eyes glistened. What was going on in that head of his? Why wouldn’t he just talk more? I cleared my throat. “So…how about a smile then?”
His lips pressed together again, and yes, I noticed how perfectly aware of them I was, but it would be rude to turn away from him now, wouldn’t it?
“No smile?” His answer was to squint his eyes at me. “I bet I can get one out of you.” Not for me, mind you, but because he really looked like he needed a smile. Did he ever stretch those lips? Faces were made to smile, my dad said, and this guy didn’t look like he did it often. Dragging myself a bit closer to the shelf, I said, “It’s not hard, I promise. You just need to think about something positive.”
His brows shot up. “Like what?”
“I…I don’t know.” Heat gathered in my cheeks again. He had a million positive things he could pick—like his eyes or his tan skin or his mouth or his hands… “How about your shoes? They’re…black.”
“Black,” he repeated.
“Yes. Black is good. Right?” Oh, no. Black was not good. Black sucked the color out of…well, colors. It didn’t represent anything positive.
The guy closed his eyes for a moment, like he was trying to compose himself. He didn’t say anything.
“You’re not a man of many words, but that’s okay,” I continued. At this point, it was impossible to even try to tell myself what I was feeling was excitement—I was plain nervous. And a bit mortified. Still, I kept on going because when had I ever known to keep my mouth shut? “I have this thing where I sense vibes. I’m going to figure you out, mister.” I smiled, but he didn’t return it. “What’s your name? Better yet—what’s your sign?” It could be…I raised up my hand. “Wait, don’t tell me. It’s Aquarius, isn’t it?”
I waited a heartbeat, then two. Not a single sound.
“You’re not giving me much to work with here,” I mumbled and leaned back against the wall. The truth of this whole thing fell on me like a brick wall—I had no idea what I was doing. I’d come so far away from home, thinking I had what it took to make my place here, and the first guy I talked to wouldn’t even hold a conversation with me.
But no…that wasn’t right. I couldn’t let myself think like that. This was my first day, for God’s sake. It wasn’t over until I won.
Man, I’d really overdone it with archiving those quotes on Instagram these past few months, and I was starting to annoy my own self with them.
I sat up straight again and looked at the guy. “I’ll trade you, then.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “You’re not going to stop, are you.” It wasn’t even a question.
“Nope.” Not until I win. “But I’ll trade you for that smile. How about it? It’s something…” What was I even going to give him? “…something small and golden, and really, really just…you won’t be able to resist it.” I held onto the button in my hand tightly.
“Oh?” he said, finally a bit curious.
I grinned. “Catch!”
I threw the button in the air, and he moved so fast, it was kind of surprising. He caught it in his massive fist and brought it down again, shoulders rigid, brows narrowed in caution. He opened his fingers slowly and looked inside. His shoulders relaxed instantly.
“A button.”
“A button,” I said with a nod.
And then, the most wonderful thing happened.
He tried—oh, how he tried to keep his face neutral. It looked a bit painful, too, but his lips stretched and stretched, and the corners turned upward, and his white teeth peeked out, just a tiny bit.
A smile.
“Aha!” I shouted, pointing my finger at his face that was now already smile-less again. “I saw that. I saw it!” I’d won!
He closed his fist around the button and shook his head, eyes shut tightly. I fell back against the wall again, feeling a million times better for that win. It was small, but it was mine. And it proved that I could, in fact, do this. If I could force a smile out of a guy like that, I could take on the ODP in my sleep.
But the feeling didn’t last.
Suddenly, the man moved. He leaned forward and he looked at me, and I expected his name or a thank you or anything other than, “You shouldn’t be here, Teddybear.”
Unfortunately, that’s what I got.
“Oh.” I tried my best to keep up my smile, but it melted off my face within seconds.
