Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 168701 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 844(@200wpm)___ 675(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168701 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 844(@200wpm)___ 675(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
“Sounds good, cat daddy,” Rikki kisses me and then sets the cat food bowls up in a line on the floor. She then pulls three more bowls down from the cupboard and turns the tap on.
I swat her ass.
She gives me a beaming smile. “Can you put their water down? I’m gonna run up and be there when they pull it.”
“Yeah. Do that, baby,” I kiss her and watch her jog upstairs.
As I’m nearly finished frying the second package of bacon, Jessica is back with a big smile.
“Everything good?” I ask.
“All good,” she replies happily. “She looks fifteen or twenty years younger. It was like she opened her eyes and years just melted off. Says she feels great. She’s hungry. I came to help you with the rest of this. What can I do?”
“Toast?” I suggest.
“On it,” she declares.
Danica comes into the kitchen smiling. “That’s why Lucinda is in her nineties and looks forty. Looks like we got more years out of that ordeal for Auntie so it wasn’t a total loss. I need one of those daggers.”
“Nineties?” I ask.
“Yup,” Danica nods.
“Well, shit. We should get hooked up with one for all of us then. It’ll work on any supernatural?”
“Yep. And no kidding,” Jessica replies. “Though, I’m glad Vivi took out that dagger. Ronnie didn’t even wanna set hands on it after touching Lucinda. Says that woman has a story and a half.”
Danica steps up beside me and reaches into the kitchen cupboard. “I’ll set the… oh… there’s no table. I’ll set up here for now.” She pulls plates down and sets them on the island, then starts hunting through my fridge.
“You need a dining room table,” Danica informs me. “But I do approve of your jam selection.” She carries an armful of jam jars to the counter.
“My mother stocked the fridge in time for us to come back the other day. And yeah, I do need a table,” I agree. “Once your sister finds homes for all these plants I’ll make sure we get a table for twelve. I sense there could be a lot of these family meals in the future.”
“You sense correctly,” Jessica says, nabbing a piece of bacon from the paper towel-lined plate. “But, hear this: life with Erica Young? You will always have too many plants in your house from now on. Get used to it.” She bites the end of the bacon strip and gives me an extreme expression.
“I’ll deal. If I can deal with her three cats, I can deal with some plants,” I mutter. “Cats in a fuckin’ wolf shifter village.” My eyes roll.
“She almost always has way more than three,” Jessica advises. “The three she brought were only half of her current menagerie. But she wasn’t about to take them all and leave our house without any. Erica’s mantra is that a house isn’t a home without housecats.”
“Fuck sakes,” I mutter, moving the last of the cooked bacon onto the plate. “One of you wanna put on another pot of coffee?”
49
Erica
It’s a parade of witches led by my wolf shifter toward the town hall from Riley’s house and I can’t get over the spring in Aunt Mimi’s step. She didn’t want to be driven. She wanted to walk, so we walked.
She woke hungry and full of energy after Lucinda’s wand was pulled from her belly and not only was there no blood, the wound vanished instantly. Not even a scar. Over breakfast, she was talkative. She teased that we should’ve left her daggered another twenty-four hours, so she’d wind up looking our age.
She then told us that she didn’t expect her power would revert to her when she woke, but thinks because of all the energy I sent, they’ve both got it. She also told us that Greyson is now an official coven member and as the eldest of our generation, he’ll be the new leader of our coven after she’s gone.
And now maybe we’ll have twenty more years with her instead of just a couple.
Vivi didn’t seem miffed about Greyson leading at all. We’ve never talked succession, have operated as a family unit always, and nobody ever told us about the eldest of a coven taking over as a general rule. I assumed it’d be Vivi as she was the first of us to join the coven, the most experienced of our generation.
Greyson is technically the eldest of our generation as he’s a year older than Vivi and he’s willing to be listed as the head of our coven, but Aunt Mimi says that with his life here, his pack responsibilities, his work, and his new mate, he doesn’t know how involved he can be so wants to start out as a figurehead and see how it goes. He stopped by during breakfast to check on us all, stayed for a quick coffee, and then said he’d see us at the town hall.