“And I’m pretty sure that human over there’s a vampire,” Soraya said.

  “Oh, don’t be absurd,” Bygul snapped. “Vampires are just a myth.”

  “That’s not what Nefertiti says,” Soraya argued. “She says vampires used to be avid nature lovers, but then a witch cast a spell and now all vampires get sunburns anytime they’re out in the sun for too long. The sun won’t kill them, of course, but apparently, they turn beet red really fast, so they mostly stay inside now, at least until the sun goes down, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

  “Well, who am I to contradict a queen of Egypt?” Bygul said dryly.

  Muezza snickered. “Please. You contradict them all the time.”

  Bygul thought that was a bit of an exaggeration. “Only when they’re wrong.” He didn’t say what else he was thinking, that Nefertiti was cracked in the head if she truly believed vampires existed.

  She probably thought they had risen from the dead and had no reflections either.

  Ridiculous.

  “This could be good,” Tivali said. “There’s a much wider pool of mate candidates now. Matches can take so long when we’re having to somehow arrange for a human to relocate to meet his or her match.”

  “True,” Bygul said. “I suppose we should get to work. First, we need to match this little guy with his purrfect human companion.” He glanced down at the black and white kitten sleeping at his feet.

  “I vote Pippa,” Muezza said. “She needs a familiar today.”

  “Yesterday would have been better,” Soraya said.

  “Why? What happened yesterday?” Bygul demanded.

  “Well, I’m not positive it was her,” Soraya said, “but apparently several garages spontaneously burst into flames last night.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Muezza demanded. “We just arrived and you’ve been lying down the entire time.”

  Soraya gave a lazy stretch and flicked her tail. “I don’t see why I can’t lie down and still be useful. After all, it was while lying down that I was able to read about the garages.” She rolled over, revealing the newspaper she’d been lying on.

  Bygul walked over and gave the newspaper a quick scan.

  Interesting.

  Apparently, spontaneous combustion of property had become quite common in Zero over the last several months.

  Thankfully no one had been hurt.

  Yet.

  “Right then,” Bygul said decisively. “Pippa it is.”

  Two

  WELL, AT LEAST Pippa wasn’t bored anymore.

  Their spell had worked.

  Sort of.

  It had brought an inordinate amount of people to Zero, all of them paranormals and most of them eligible.

  Most of them because what they hadn’t really considered—and probably should have—was the fact that most paranormals weren’t loners by nature.

  This meant that somehow their sleepy town of seventy-three residents ballooned to over five hundred in a matter of weeks.

  First, a wolf pack moved into the area, then came a vampire coven followed by a coalition of Chameleons.

  “Chameleons,” Tempest said in disgust when Pippa pointed out the newest group had to be chameleons. “There goes the neighborhood.”

  “Oh, don’t be so judgmental, Tempest,” Natalie said. “I have it on good authority that Coalitions avoid running their cons in the communities where they live, so rest assured, we’re quite safe—probably safer, in fact, than if we had no Chameleons in our midst.”

  “As if we have anything of value to steal anyway.” Jo snorted.

  “Personally, if they are chameleons, I’m impressed Pippa figured it out,” Morana said.

  “Oh, they’re chameleons all right,” Pippa assured her.

  “How exactly did you come to that conclusion anyway?” Natalie demanded. “No one ever knows unless the chameleons admit it themselves.”

  Pippa shrugged. “If you just think about it a minute, you’ll realize it’s quite obvious. They can’t be witches, unless we somehow screwed up our spell⁠—”

  “We didn’t,” Natalie insisted.

  “—and the wolves are all acting like they’re part of the pack while the vampires keep demanding to know how the chameleons are able to stay outside so long.”

  “I can’t believe they told them a witch cast a spell on them.” Tempest scowled. “Those damn vampires have been pestering me for the spell ever since.”

  “Personally, I was impressed a witch managed to reverse the original spell,” Natalie said, “and a bit envious of the power it would have taken.”

  “I was, too,” Morana said.

  Everyone else nodded in agreement.

  “I told the vampires there was no such spell,” Pippa said. “Then I told the chameleons that unless they wanted us to out them, they’d better come up with a better excuse for not turning beet red when outside during the day.”

  “We should have specified loners,” Amaryllis lamented, glaring at her shoes. “I’ll never be able to go into town again.”

  “Oh, come on, Amari.” Pippa slung an arm over her shoulders. “There’s no need for drastic measures. Anytime you want to go into town, we’ll go with you. We’ll run interference as often as you need us to.”

  “Just say the word, Amari,” Rowan promised.

  Amari didn’t respond.

  “I heard the bookstore is reopening,” Natalie said.

  Amari peeked up at her, then redirected her eyes back to her shoes. “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” Natalie said. “It’s the one good thing with so many moving to Zero. We’re actually on the road toward having a functional town again.”

  “What I don’t understand is why we’re suddenly overrun with vampires,” Tempest said. “In what world are vampires eligible?”

  “It’s all my fault,” Morana said. “I told you I shouldn’t participate in the casting. My magic did exactly what I said it would—it called the dead.”

  “They’re not dead, Morana,” Tempest said in disgust. “They’re undead.”

  “Yes,” Morana agreed, “and what do you think the undead are, but people risen from the dead?”

  Tempest grunted, a look of dismay on her face. “You mean our spell really did call the vampires to town?”

  “Of course it did,” Natalie said. “Why else would they be here?”

  “I just thought it was a coincidence,” Rowan said.

  “And I really hoped it was one,” Jo said, “because vampires are in no way eligible mates.”

  “Who said anything about mates?” Pippa exclaimed in horror. “Why are you saying mates?”

  Jo glanced around at the rest of the coven, all of whom looked as horrified as Pippa felt. “I thought that’s what we were casting for. Right? Our mates?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Natalie exclaimed. “Tell me you’re joking.”

  Everyone glared at Jo.

  “Of course, I’m not joking. Isn’t that what we agreed to? We all talked about our need for mates, right here at this table, then we went outside and cast a spell calling them to us.”

  “Not our mates!” Rowan snarled.

  “We just wanted a little bit of sexual fun,” Pippa said, feeling quite faint at the thought of a mate.

  One man for all eternity?

  What a nightmare!

  “I’m sincerely impressed you found this place, Corwin,” Jared said.

  The search for new territory had taken entirely too long.

  Five years of living on less than a quarter of their original territory had taken its toll on all the pack members.

  They had fought the ruling, of course, but in the end, the government had won and the pack had been forced to sell the majority of its lands to the government in an eminent domain case.

  Losing the lands had been a wound that would never heal, but seeing the woods the pack had explored for centuries razed for the building of a super-highway had been like a knife to the heart.

  Jared had immediately sent his enforcers to search for a new territory, but the search had lasted for years.

  There just wasn’t that much open space left in the world anymore and what was out there was often unavailable for private purchase.

  That this town in the middle of Kansas had so few non-paranormal residents and so much empty territory in every direction was as unexpected as it was welcome.

  Even so, it had been a traumatic move for everyone involved.

  When their entire lives had been spent on the ancestral lands of their people, and their identity was wrapped up in those lands, leaving them was difficult at best.

  “It’s weird,” Corwin said. “I’d just about given up on Kansas. So much open land, but very little of it perfect for our needs. I was actually heading home when I had this urge to go south instead. An hour later, I drove into town and felt as if I’d finally found the place for us. Woods to the south, prairies to the east, and an almost deserted downtown. So much property available for purchase.”

  “And the rest is history.” Jared grinned. “We’re just lucky we found the town before the vampires and that other pack.”

  Corwin scowled. “A lot of good that did us.”

  Jared chuckled. “You’re not still holding a grudge against that witch, are you? What’s her name again?”

  “Natalie,” Corwin muttered. “If she hadn’t spoken up, there wouldn’t have been any land for the vampires or the other pack to purchase because we’d have it all.”

  “The territory you did manage to buy is larger than all of our ancestral lands put together, even the parts we’ve lost over the years, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Except now we have to share borders with a bunch of witches, vampires and another pack.”

  “Speaking of the other pack, do we know anything about them? I don’t think I’ve met any of them before.”

  “I’m sure they mentioned the name of their pack.” Corwin thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I can’t quite remember what it was, though.”

  “Well, find out, will you?” Jared led the way into the Zero Diner, his stomach rumbling at the smells permeating the space.

  “No time like the present, right?” Corwin nodded toward a table at the back where some of the wolves in question were having lunch.

  “Perfect,” Jared said.

  A few moments later, they were seated with the wolves, laughing and chatting like they’d been friends for years.

  Jared was certain they’d planned to ask the wolves something, but he’d completely forgotten whatever it was.

  No matter though.

  It must not have been that important.

  Pippa was hiding out.

  She’d been planning to go into town to scope out the newest residents and possibly choose her next bedmate, but then Jo had gone and ruined everything.

  So instead of joining the coven as they ventured into town, Pippa had retreated here, beneath one of the weeping willows that ran along the stream at the back of their property.

  Considering how she was feeling at the moment, the closer she stayed to water, the better.

  The problem was she saw no end in sight to this completely unbearable situation.

  All those eligible men wandering around town and Pippa couldn’t risk getting to know a single one of them.

  All she’d wanted was someone to shake the sheets with. Instead, she faced the very real threat of finding her mate.

  At least only Jo was idiotic enough to make that particular casting.

  Maybe they’d get lucky and her magic would only manage to snag one mate—her own.

  Unfortunately, Pippa had never been that lucky, not even once in her life. Instead, she seemed to specialize in bad luck.

  Case in point: her hormones were in complete turmoil, demanding she take action now, while the magic in her well boiled toward the surface, closer and closer to an explosion.

  Worse still was knowing she now had to avoid all the eligible men in town, meaning there was no relief in sight.

  Her frustration was so high, her magic was practically sizzling across the surface of her skin.

  Pippa closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, trying to calm herself down.

  It didn’t work.

  Her fingers tingled with the need to release some magic and she glanced around frantically, wondering what she could safely set on fire.

  Not the willow trees.

  Not the grass.

  Would the stream burn if she ignited it?

  “Meow.”

  Pippa froze in shock as a small, mostly black kitten rubbed its adorable, white face against her knee, then climbed into her lap, stretched out and promptly fell asleep.

  “What? Where’d you come from?”

  The only answer was a loud rumble.

  “Are you—are you purring?”

  She leaned over and peered into the kitten’s face.

  The rumbling got louder.

  It was purring.

  Unbelievable.

  Pippa glanced around, but of course, there was no one nearby and now she was trapped with a sleeping kitten in her lap, unable to move until it decided to wake up.

  She let out a sigh of exasperation. “The least you could do was wait until I got comfortable too,” she informed the kitten. “After all, it’d be nice to take a nap with you.”

  Maybe if she⁠—

  Pippa inched slowly to the right, freezing every couple seconds when the kitten seemed about to wake.

  Finally, Pippa had managed to turn her body enough that she was no longer leaning against the trunk of the tree.

  She then began the arduous task of straightening her legs without dislodging the kitten stretched across them.

  That was an extremely lengthy endeavor because it involved slowly shifting the kitten as well until the kitten was stretched out lengthwise along Pippa’s legs.

  She waited a moment to make sure the kitten wasn’t going to wake up, then slowly began to lower herself to the ground.

  When the kitten let out a rumble of discontent at the movement, Pippa froze, halfway between sitting and lying down, holding her breath as the kitten shifted and stretched, all without opening its eyes, before finally falling quiet again.

  With a sigh of relief, Pippa continued her slow descent until she lay flat on the ground.

  She then closed her eyes and fell into a light doze as she pondered her well and the fact that it had fallen silent and the sizzle and burn that had scraped at her skin had mostly dissipated.

  Endless, lazy moments later, she woke to the raspy feel of a kitten’s tongue scraping across her left eyelid.

  “Ew!” She giggled, rubbing at her eye and scooping the kitten into her arms.

  “Thank goodness my eyes were closed. I don’t think that would have felt great on my eyeball.”

  She could have sworn the kitten smirked back at her, which was just disturbing.

  “So where’d you come from anyway? Do you have a name?”

  No answer, of course.

  “Hmmm. Well, for now I think I’m going to call you Hocus Purrcus in honor of your ridiculously loud purr.” Cradling the kitten against her chest, she climbed to her feet.

  “Let’s go see if anyone’s missing a kitten, shall we?”

  “You’re a genius, Bygul,” Soraya crowed.

  “Well, that’s kind of you to say.” What he really meant was, of course, I am, but he didn’t like to brag.

  Still, it was nice to know the other cats recognized his talents.

  “How did you know she would go to town if we gave her the kitten right then?” Soraya asked.

  “Because all the other witches were already in town, so she couldn’t ask them,” Bygul said. “I did get a bad turn when she decided to take a nap instead of heading right out.”

  “She’s lucky we were there,” Tivali said sourly. “The kitten could have run away if we hadn’t set up that shield to keep him inside it.”

  “Eh, the kitten knows a good deal when he sees one,” Muezza said. “He didn’t even try to run away. He just stayed right beside his human the entire time.”

  “Yes, but she didn’t know that, now did she?” Tivali scowled.

  Bygul knew it was because she worried so much about the earthbound cats and the dangers that surrounded them there, but there was only so much they could do for the cats they matched to human companions.

  At the end of the day, they had to let them all, humans and cats alike, live their lives and hope for the best.

  “Well, I for one, am super impressed,” Soraya said. “Hopefully Pippa will meet some humans in town and we can start narrowing down mate choices for her as well.”

  “I doubt it will be that easy,” Tivali said. “She seems like a difficult woman.”

  Soraya huffed. “You’re just annoyed because you don’t think she’s protective enough of the kitten.”

  “She’s not,” Tivali snapped. “Plus, she didn’t even cuddle him that much and she never kissed him, not even once. What kind of monster could resist that cute little face?”

  “Oh, please,” Muezza muttered.

  “I’m serious, Muezza. This match is beneath us. We should have chosen a different witch, or even better, one of the humans in town.”

  “No way,” Soraya exclaimed. “K.C. will never let us live it down if we fail to match these witches.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Tivali sighed.”But I want it understood that I’m participating under protest.”

  “So noted,” Bygul said dryly. “I’m sure K.C. was exaggerating about how difficult witches are to match, so let’s just get started, shall we?”

  Actually, Bygul was pretty certain K.C. had understated the case when it came to these specific witches, but he wasn’t going to mention that to the others.

  Had to keep their spirits up and all that.

  Even if the matches were doomed.

  Darren, the wolf seated across from Jared, lit up when the diner’s door opened.

  Jared glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

  The woman standing in the doorway was quite the sight.

 

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