Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“Oh, wow,” I say, seeing my marigolds and pansies look even better than they did the day I brought them home from the nursery. Nik rubs his hands together and sprinkles green and blue faery dust on another wilted flower. “And go ahead and say it.”
“Say what, milady?” Nik looks up, eyes slightly narrowing. “I told you so? Because I would never do that. And I’d never remind you that the stores put out flowers too early just to profit off people like you who get over-excited, plant things before the frost is gone, and then have to go out and buy more, wasting your money and making the plants suffer. Nope. I wouldn’t say that at all.”
“Hah. And you were right. Thank you for helping.”
“I’m glad I can. At some point things can be beyond my scope of magic.” He moves onto the next section of flowers, and I turn, looking at a truck going down the street. It slows in front of my house and turns down the driveway, but I’m annoyed, not concerned.
“Fucking Donna,” I huff and can’t help but roll my eyes. Donna lives down the street and is judgmental, nosey, and has a can I speak to the manager haircut with the entitled attitude to match.
“I wonder what she wants this time?” Nik wipes his hands on his pants and we both go down the sidewalk.
“Hey, neighbor!” Donna calls as she gets out of her car.
“Hi,” I reply. “What, uh, brings you over?” This time, I grumble in my head.
“You have a dog, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I say slowly, shifting my gaze to Hunter, who’s laying on the porch. “Hunter.”
“And he’s never leashed, is he?”
I clench my jaw, taking a breath before answering. This isn’t the first time she’s given me shit about it. “Not when he’s on my property.”
“Hmm.” She pulls her phone from her purse and steps around me, putting one hand on my hip as she looks at Hunter. “Nope, it can’t be him. He’s too dark.”
“Can’t be him?” Nik echoes.
“Look at this.” She thrusts her phone forward, showing us a still image captured from her doorbell camera. “This is the fourth time we’ve seen it. Scared our livestock and my kids half to death!”
The sun is shining on the screen, making it hard to see the picture. I hold my hand up, shielding my eyes and move closer.
“It seems about the same size as your dog,” Donna goes on, holding the phone right up to my face. “Maybe even bigger. We don’t have wolves around here so someone must have gotten one as a pet and wasn’t able to handle it. They’ll be fined for this, you know.”
“Do you have more footage of it?” I ask, surprised to see that she’s not exaggerating for once. The image is a little blurry, but there’s no mistaking the wolf-like creature in her yard.
“Yes and take a look at this. That thing is probably rabid. I’m going to start keeping my pistol in my purse.” She pulls up another video. This one was taken at night, and the wolf is sniffing around the yard and then sits right in the middle of the path leading to their porch. It’s staring at the camera, and I swear it’s doing it on purpose. It stays like that, unmoving, for several seconds and then turns and trots off, eyes flashing red for just a millisecond.
Anyone else would have chalked the red flash up to some sort of reflection from the porch lights, but I know better. That wolf is someone’s familiar.
Chapter
Fifteen
“When did you first see it?” I ask, watching the video loop play again.
“We got footage on Thursday night, but the kids say they’ve seen it for well over a week now. We found tracks around the barn, and I told Animal Control someone’s large dog was off leash and wandering my property, but they didn’t believe me. But they will know that we have video evidence,” Donna explains, looking rather satisfied with herself for having this information.
And she either didn’t realize or doesn’t care that she just admitted she called Animal Control thinking it was Hunter. Given what I know about Donna, she just doesn’t care.
“Have any of your animals been attacked?” Nik asks.
Donna shakes her head. “No. And I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Donna. I live down the street.” She holds her hand out for Nik to shake.
I grit my teeth again. She has met Nik before, and we ran into each other about a month ago when Ethan, Nik, and I went to dinner. Donna picked and pried for information about Nik, making it known how “modern” we were for “having a male houseguest” and how “surprised” she was that Ethan didn’t feel threatened.
“I’m Boris,” he says shortly, annoyed with Donna just like I am. “And I’m new in town,” he goes on, talking with an accent with a straight face. “Visiting from Russia for first time.”