Chocolate Furnanigans, page 1
Chocolate Furnanigans
A PAWSITIVELY PURRFECT SHENANIGANS CROSSOVER STORY
PEPPER MCGRAW
Contents
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Excerpt
Thank you for reading
Other Books by Pepper
Anthologies & Collections
About the Author
Chocolate Furnanigans Copyright © 2023
Digital Edition
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
PUBLISHING HISTORY:
Her Dark Obsession | Eat Your Heart Out
Holiday Edition | Peryton Press | December 2023
Cover and inside image from Dreamtime:
Black cat 22 © Svetlana Tyryshkina
Scratching black cat © Bluedarkat
Woman eating chocolate © Melisende
Fire background © Hugolacasse
Paw Prints and Heart © Zsuskaa
Dragon Silhouette © Elena Kozyreva
Pawprints © Fourleaflover
Devil Cat © Roni Markowitz
Edited by J.L. Troughton
PMG Publishing
Description
Kittens. Chocolate. Sexy Shenanigans.
Life doesn’t get much better than this.
As far as Merry’s concerned, life is all about the chocolate: where to find it and how to get more of it. Having only recently discovered this sinfully delightful substance, she’s now determined to try every variation that exists… and maybe a few that don’t.
Sam’s stunned to discover the mate he’s been waiting for is nothing like he imagined. The chemistry may be off the charts, but she’s carting around a box of kittens and is obsessed with chocolate. He’s a wolf, for howl’s sake! Kittens and chocolate are like poison to his kind.
Only the matchmaking cats of the goddesses can save this match now.
One
“SHE’S NOT REALLY a member of the coven,” Bygul protested, “which means she’s not even on our list. I thought we were going to focus on the necromancer next.”
“Are you crazy?” Tivali exclaimed. “I’m hoping if we ignore her, she’ll just go away.”
“Or find her own matches without our help,” Soraya said.
“It’s an excellent plan,” Muezza agreed.
“It’s not excellent at all.” Bygul couldn’t believe the cowardice of his co-workers. “We’re the matchmaking cats of the goddesses! No match is too difficult for us.”
“It’s not about the difficulty level, Bygul,” Tivali said severely. “We matched that grizzly, didn’t we? If we could match him, we can match anyone, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“Merry deserves a match too,” Soraya said.
Bygul sighed. “Then we’ll add her to the end of the list, but there are three other witches ahead of her.”
“If we wait until the end, she might go back to the Underworld,” Tivali protested.
Bygul thought this would be an excellent development. Then, hopefully, they wouldn’t have to match her at all. “Look, all I’m saying is, she’s wreaking havoc all over Zero and Tempest is about two seconds away from committing sororicide.”
“Sorori-what?” Soraya asked.
“She’s going to kill her sister,” Tivali said impatiently.
“Well, why didn’t he just say that?” Soraya twitched her tail in annoyance. “Because then I would have pointed out that Tempest can’t kill Merry if she isn’t even in Zero anymore.”
“Wait, what?” Bygul glared at Soraya. Why was he always the last to hear these things? “Where’d Merry go and why?”
“It was getting a little hostile in Zero for her,” Soraya said, “so I figured we could send her to the fairies.”
“The fairies?” Bygul, Tivali and Muezza all chorused.
“Yes, the fairies. After all, she is one-quarter fairy.”
“I don’t know why she couldn’t just stay in the Underworld in the first place,” Bygul grumbled. “She’s half-demon, for goddess’ sake!”
“Not demonic enough, I guess,” Soraya said cheerfully. “Anyway, I left a brochure in her room about the fairy mall in Jamesville.”
“The fairy mall isn’t in Jamesville,” Tivali said.
“No, but the hotel that leads to the fairy realm is.”
“Hold on a minute.” Bygul felt as if his head was going to explode from all the implications. “You sent a half-demon, quarter-witch, quarter-fairy to Hotel Shenanigans in Jamesville? The one that’s constantly overrun by goddesses, crazy-ass fairies and dragons?”
“Well,” Soraya hesitated. “Maybe?”
Before Merry left the Underworld, she researched the earth realm and its inhabitants, to try and give herself the best possible chance of experiencing all the wonders Earth had to offer while there.
So far, she had discovered the joys of bowling, roller coasters, movie magic and audio books.
Leave it to humans to come up with a way to enjoy books without ever having to actually read them.
Unfortunately, she had also discovered the dangers of rollerskating, the monstrous terror of wasps (demonic little creatures that never should have been allowed to migrate from Hell, not that anyone wanted them there either) and lima beans (nasty bits of cotton, those).
Thankfully, Merry’s adventures in the world of food didn’t end with the lima beans.
Humans were truly ingenious when it came to combining ingredients for consumption and she soon discovered the bliss of pizza, ice cream and Dr. Pepper, the latter of which had the unfortunate side effect of making her belch fire.
This didn’t stop her from drinking Dr. Pepper, of course. It was simply too delicious to give up, which would explain the slightly scorched status of both the steering wheel and the dash of her car.
Beyond the delights of pizza and ice cream and Dr. Pepper, though, she had discovered the most sublime, wondrous invention of the ages.
Chocolate.
Glorious, divine nectar of the demons.
She was pretty certain Satan had invented chocolate to control the masses. Too bad for him, she was his daughter, and therefore, his ability to control her was pretty much zero.
Which made her think of the town she’d just left.
She winced as she remembered the latest fire she’d set from all the belching.
Tempest had screeched the loudest, shouting that even Pippa, the firestarter of the coven, hadn’t caused as much damage in a year as Merry had in a month.
Whatever.
She’d fixed it with her magic, hadn’t she? She’d been so quick, in fact, that the human librarian never even discovered the damage, though she had smelled the smoke and cause a bit of a ruckus, trying to track down the source.
Even so, Merry had no idea why her sister had been so upset.
After all, the library was much better than better, if she did say so herself. Not only had she’d given it a new paint job when she’d fixed the damage, but she’s also created an entire hidden section, devoted to the underworld and demons.
She might also have created a tiny little doorway between the Underworld and that hidden room, just for her and any other demon clever enough to discover it.
She’d made it super tiny though, so really, the only ones that might find it were the pixies. Well, and maybe the hell-kittens.
She thought about that for a moment, then shrugged.
Oh, well.
From what she could see, Zero, Kansas could use a bit of excitement, especially now that she’d left the town in her rearview mirror.
Reaching over for some more of her delicious snacks, Merry was horrified to discover the chocolate covered peanut container was empty.
She tossed it onto the floorboard, where it joined a plethora of empty bags and containers that at one time had been filled with M&Ms, chocolate-covered raisins, candy bars, cookies, brownies, and pretty much every dessert with chocolate she could eat one-handed.
At the beginning of the road trip, she’d tried to eat a giant bowl of chocolate mousse while driving, but found it to be an extremely frustrating experience as the treat didn’t always make it into her mouth.
What a tragedy that was.
Now, with barely an hour to go, all the chocolate in the car seemed to be gone.
Except—she grabbed the chocolate shake sitting in her cup holder and tried to suck up the very last dregs of that chocolatey goodness. Sadly, all she got was a bunch of air.
Damn!
One quick detour later and Merry walked out of a gas station with her arms full. She dumped everything into the front passenger seat, scooped all the trash off the floorboard, glanced around and hoofed it to the bin nearby.
She hesitated for one long moment, arms full of plastic destruction, then dumped it all in the bin, murmuring, “Farewell, you earth-destroying receptacles of delight. You have served me well.”
“Mrawr.”
She froze two steps away and closed her eyes.
“Mrawr, mrawr.”
“Oh, come on!” She glared around her, looking for someone, anyone, who might be better suited to handle this horrifying development. Unfortunately, there were no other cars or people in sight.
“Mrawr, mrawr, mrawr.”
“I can’t believe you, Soraya,” Tivali said severely, her whiskers quivering in disapproval.
“What? It’s not my fault that trucker abandoned a box full of kittens, now is it?”
“That was a hundred miles from here!” Bygul exclaimed.
“I couldn’t just leave them there! That parking lot was full of dangers. This one is much less crowded.”
“They should have gone to the waiting room for processing,” Bygul said. “You’re completely ignoring procedures.”
“Like you’ve never done the same,” Soraya said.
Bygul let out a growl of frustration. The problem was she was right. In fact, Bygul was known for ignoring procedures when necessary.
“Besides,” Soraya said. “It was super simple to just move the box from one parking lot to another, and bonus, our target witch was right there, so obviously, this was the perfect spot for those kittens to find a home.”
“Satan himself failed to convince Merry to adopt a kitten!” Muezza exclaimed.
“Those were hell-kittens. There’s a difference,” Soraya said. “Besides, I don’t get what the problem is. We agreed to match Merry, so obviously, we needed to find the purrfect cats for her. Those kittens were in need and she’s less likely to turn away from a bunch of kittens, don’t you think?”
“I think that crazy demon-witch-fairy hybrid is not a good candidate for cat motherhood,” Bygul said, “which is why we shouldn’t be matching her in the first place!”
“I figured we’d just wait until we know who her mate is and then we can match him to a cat or two,” Muezza said. “It seems the safest option.”
“Unless she mates a dragon,” Bygul muttered, “or worse, a fairy.”
This was so unfair.
Merry had spent years turning away the cutest kittens hell had ever spat out, then months in Zero, Kansas, pretending not to notice how adorable the coven’s familiars were, resisting all temptation to try and score one for herself.
And look what she got for her efforts—an entire boxful of adorable kittens staring her in the face the moment she was on her own, with no one else to manipulate into taking responsibility for them.
Hands on hips, Merry glared down at the box and counted kittens.
She lost count several times due to the kittens’ repeated attempts to climb the walls of the box only to tumble back down, usually knocking at least one other kitten down with them.
She thought there were six of them, but worst case scenario, there might actually be eight of the little buggers.
She groaned. “Fine. You can come with me, but don’t get too comfortable.” She scooped the box up and strode back to the car. “We’ll be finding homes for each of you because I’m certainly not in the market for one kitten, let alone all y’all, no matter how adorable you may be.”
She opened the passenger door and stood there staring.
Okay, now, this really wasn’t fair.
The passenger seat was full of the best treats this gas station had to offer, leaving absolutely no room for a box of kittens. And the box was too tall to fit under the dash on the floorboard.
Seriously?
There was no help for it. She was going to have to move her stash because no way was Merry going to put the box of kittens in the backseat.
That would be a recipe for disaster.
She just knew the minute they were out of her sight, they’d somehow escape the box and then it would be invasion of the claws and the cat fur and the hairballs.
No, thank you.
Heaving a sigh of dejection, Merry shoved all the lovely treats onto the floor board and settled the box on the passenger seat. “Don’t get used to it,” she snarled.
“Mrawr,” was the only response.
Grabbing two handfuls of treats, Merry closed the door and stalked around to the driver's side, examining what she held along the way.
Snickers—so good.
Reeses—always fabulous.
Raisinets—under normal circumstances, raisins were disgusting. However, in this case, Raisinets served as proof that chocolate made everything better.
Oreos—delicious bits of goodness that got stuck in her teeth, turning them black. Snacks for later!
She settled into the driver’s seat, tossed most of the snacks onto the dash, retaining a box that apparently held Milk Duds inside.
She didn’t understand the use of the word Dud in relation to chocolate, nor milk, to be honest.
After all, milk was rather disgusting. More proof that chocolate made everything better. Chocolate milk. Yum.
Five minutes down the road and Merry pulled onto the shoulder, executed a u-turn and returned to the gas station.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said to the kittens as she climbed back into the car, dumping an armful of Milk Duds on top of the other treats on the floorboard. “If you’d tasted them, you’d have gone back too. Trust me, they’re divine. But not good for kittens, which is good news for me, because that means, these are all mine. Paws off, kittens!”
Back on the road, she spent the next hour eating her way through pack after pack of Milk Duds—chewy, divine caramel covered in the greatest substance on earth, chocolate—and chatting with the kittens.
“Look, I know some humans are probably going to be terribly disappointed when they go into that gas station and discover that someone bought their entire stock of Milk Duds, but honestly, I deserve them more than any human on earth. After all, I have an entire lifetime of eating these treats to catch up on. How many years is that, anyway?” She thought about it a moment, trying to count, but decided she really just didn’t care. “It’s a lot of years, all right? And that means, a lot of Milk Duds still to consume before I’ve caught up to even one eight-year-old human!”
“Mrawr.”
“Exactly! Oh, look. It’s a sign welcoming us to Jamesville. How polite. Although, there’s not much here to see, is there? Just woods and more woods.”
According to GPS, if she kept going straight, she’d eventually reach the town square and a bit past that would be Hotel Shenanigans, where she had a reservation waiting.
The only problem was that Merry was more interested in exploring the creepy woods.
“What do you think, kittens? Should we just stay on the nice, safe-looking road or go on an adventure? Oh, look! A turn-off. Adventure calls!”
She turned onto the narrow gravel road and followed it through the very spooky-looking woods. Darkness was just beginning to fall, which gave the towering trees an extra dose of sinister gloom. “Exciting, don’t you think?”
A few moments later, she came upon another road and without thinking much about it, made the turn and wasn’t even surprised when that road ended in a small parking lot.
Right in the middle of the woods.
“Well, this is rather bold for the humans.”
A glance in her rearview mirror showed that darkness had fallen just enough so that she really couldn’t even see the road she’d followed anymore.
“Creepy road, check. Spooky woods all around, check.”
She glanced around, taking note of the only two cars in the lot. “Deserted parking lot, check. Honestly, this is how every horror novel begins, not to mention horror movies. I’m just thrilled.” She leaned forward and grabbed several handfuls of chocolate from the dash and the floorboard, stuffing them into the pockets of her hoodie.
She then hopped out of the car, rounded the hood and grinned when she saw the path just beyond the headlights. It was even paved!
She hurried to the passenger side and opened the door.
Two of the kittens were racing around inside the box, chasing each other, pouncing on each other and wrestling one another to the ground.
