by Jade Alters
Freddie shakes his head and comes around to lightly set a hand at my waist as he leads me into the kitchen. “Oh, please. We live for the excitement and we mostly work from home. If it wasn’t this we’d have to come up with some other way to entertain ourselves.” He makes me sit down at a huge kitchen table in a kitchen full of light that looks like it was last decorated in the 1930s. Freddie puts his iPad down and jogs over to the fridge. Before I know it, there’s a sweaty glass of sweet tea in front of me. “Have yourself a cold drink,” Freddie says. “I’m just gonna go get that first aid kit and see if I can find Max. He knows this stuff better than I do. I’m just an accountant.” She watched him jog back out toward the stairs. “Maaaaaax!”
“Are they running a frat in here?” I mutter to myself. I’m kidding if only because Jared and Freddie both look too old to be in college. It’s just not often you stumble upon a mansion full of hot men in the woods.
Not that I’m complaining.
Jared
I had a plan for the morning. I had at least half a plan for the morning. My plan was to work out for a while because it’s arm day, listen to the true crime podcasts I’m behind on, and then go answer all the emails from prospective clients I’ve got piling up.
But like so many mornings, this one took a turn. Most mornings seem to. Although, most mornings take a turn with a problem like Max having to pick up an extra shift at the hospital which means he can’t help out on a case, or Freddie finding a problem with our ledger. But a woman on the run from a panther? I gotta admit, I didn’t see that one coming. But I can roll with it.
Being a professional wizard means that sometimes, you roll with it. Somebody should needlepoint that on a pillow.
I’m also pretty sure this girl is a shifter, but I’m not positive and it’s a tricky kind of question to ask out of the blue when magic isn’t on the table yet. It’s just a feeling I have that’s hard to explain. But I do own my own magical protection business with my best friends Max, Freddie, and Dylan. It sounds goofy and, well, it probably is goofy if you don’t know anything about magic. All four of us are trained wizards and protect our clients when needed using magical means. A few weeks ago we guarded a group of fairies being threatened by a gang of vampires. Yes, for real. When humans ask, I tell them I’m a bodyguard. It’s not totally untrue. It’s just a little more involved than most bodyguarding work.
“Dylaaaaaan!”
This house is huge and I could swear there are some hidden portals in it. My buddies go missing constantly.
“What?” Dylan pops out of his room and I feel foolish. He is wearing earbuds which would explain why he hasn’t heard all the commotion.
Dylan is the youngest and at twenty-three he still seems so young to me. He’s also the shortest so maybe that’s why I think of him as the baby of the group. But he’s tough and he’s a good wizard. Best of all, he’s great with clients. He’s very friendly. Except when he doesn’t want to be bothered...like now. He pushes a lock of his curly blonde hair behind his ear and glares at me.
“Jared, what?”
I’m rubbing my sweaty chest with a towel and I raise an eyebrow at him. “There’s a girl downstairs. Hope. She was being chased by a panther—"
“What?”
“You heard me.” I wrap the towel around my neck and give him a nod. “Max and Freddie are down there patching her up. She got hurt—"
Dylan turns to the stairs and mutters, “Oh, shit.”
“Yeah…” I smile to myself. I know he’s going to want to go see what’s happening too. I don’t know why, but something about this girl seems...special. She’s also cute as hell with her big mass of dark curls, her cupid’s bow lips, and her rosy cheeks. It’s like some kind of modern Snow White came knocking on our door. “I’ll be down in a minute, alright?”
“Yeah, alright,” Dylan mutters, stumbling into the hall in jeans as tight as sin and nothing else.
“Jesus, Dylan put on a shirt.”
He spins around and glares at me. “You’re not wearing a shirt!”
“I had to answer the door!” I say, throwing up my hands. “Now I’m puttin’ on a shirt! Like a gentleman?”
“Okay, okay.” Dylan smirks and rolls his eyes. He backs up into his bedroom, earbuds dangling.
I shake my head and jog into the master bedroom, my bedroom. I towel off and splash some water on my face in the bathroom and comb my hair before changing into a good pair of jeans and a nice shirt. It’s my usual work wear, but I do find myself checking my appearance in the mirror. I don’t know this girl at all. I do know she might need just a little bit of protection if she’s getting chased by panthers on a Wednesday morning. There’s a story there, I’m sure. But there’s just something about her, outside of just being cute as hell. I don’t believe in coincidences, because that’s not how the fates work. This girl is here for a reason. Whatever that reason is, it’s making me want to look a little more presentable.
“So I-I saw a man being...mean to this panther…” Hope is sitting at the table when I walk in, attempting to tell her story. I see that Max has very carefully moved the collar of her top aside in order to look after her wounded shoulder. That’s interesting. Max is a part-time EMT. He’s pretty no-nonsense about that stuff usually. I wonder if Hope was shy about taking off her shirt or if he was afraid to ask.
Max bites his lip as he dresses her wound. Max is stupidly good-looking and like all of the EMTs I’ve met since he became one, he’s super fit. His arms are bigger than mine, though I’m broader. It’s a point of contention between us and he loves to tease me about it. Now, I watch him scratch his head. He has refined features that make an interesting combination with his buzzed red hair and the sprinkling of freckles that mark his skin.
“A man was being mean to a panther?” Freddie says from his seat at the table. “What’s that mean? Was he a hunter? You can’t just go huntin’ panthers around here—”
“No…” Hope frowns. She seems pained. I pour myself a glass of sweet tea and sit at the end of the table.
Wizard, I think. I know a dozen fairly complicated spells that require the sacrifice of a sacred animal. A panther in Florida could be considered sacred.
I swallow and take a sip of sweet tea before meeting Hope’s eyes across the table and then I say very seriously, “Was he doin’ magic?”
The guys look at me, surprised. We don’t usually bring this stuff up unless we’re sure about someone. If it’s a client and they’ve found us, we already know they’re in the club. But a stranger who’s just knocked on our door...who knows? But I just have a feeling…
“Maybe he was,” Hope says warily.
“Maybe so,” I say, shrugging. “Maybe he was a wizard who was doing some kinda dark ritual for who knows what, I’d have to look it up. He needed to kill something big and important. Like a panther. Maybe you stopped it…”
“Maybe I did,” Hope says quietly.
I squint at the scratch on Hope’s shoulder. Max finishes that up and then she lifts her shirt a little to show him another scratch. If that panther caught up with her at all, it’s impossible for me to believe that she got away with a couple scratches, even ugly ones. She also seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing once she got inside.
“You’re a shifter,” I say. “Aren’t you?”
“What! No!” She looks so adorable when she’s trying to lie that I snort a laugh. This makes her blush, and she ducks her head, one of those jet black curls falling in front of her eye. “Okay, yes. Are you guys shifters? Wait, no. I would know if you were.”
“We’re wizards,” Freddie says. “All four of us. Professional wizards.”
“Oooh.” Hope looks impressed by that. “That’s pretty cool. I can do magic. Not as much as I’d like. I was never formally trained.” She looks a little bothered by that and it does make me curious, but seeing as we’ve only just met her, I don’t want to ask too many personal questions. Dylan says that’s a bad habit of mine. I guess that’s
why he’s the one who handles clients in person.
“I wonder if that’s why…” Hope’s voice trails off and I nod at her with interest. Max finishes cleaning up the wound on her side and she smiles in gratitude. She must be pretty tough, this girl. She barely said a word and panthers are no joke. They must have hurt her. “It’s nothing,” she says now. “Just that I had a feeling to run this way, like something was pulling me.”
“The fates work like that sometimes,” Dylan says, appearing in the doorway. She turns her head to smile at him and I bite my tongue so I won’t laugh. He’s put on one of his “good” shirts. It’s the shirt he wears on dates. He’s also giving Hope his “smooth” look and I exchange a knowing glance with Freddie. But I don’t blame Dylan either. This girl is...extremely appealing. And I’ve only known her a few minutes. I just have an urge to get to know her better, and I don’t think it’s only because she’s beautiful. “They know things,” Dylan says, sidling up to Hope who just blinks up at him. “There might be a reason the five of us have...come together and who are we to argue with fate?”
Hope’s cheeks turn red which makes me think she caught that innuendo, and the way Dylan said it, it’s no wonder. He can be so sweet and charming so easily, but when he sees a cute girl, he sometimes loses his senses.
“You’ll have to excuse Dylan,” I say, glaring at him. “I should’ve known better than to let him out of his cage.”
Hope snorts a laugh, but she only looks amused and waves a hand. “That’s alright. He’s funny.” She grins at him, her eyes sparkling and I can actually see the moment when Dylan melts. He swallows and sort of falls into a chair.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Real funny.”
If you ask me, none of this is funny. I’m not sure what it is. But this girl is already getting under my skin and I don’t know why exactly, but I find myself praying that we see her again once she leaves. There’s a reason she found us today. I know there is.
“Shifters heal up pretty quick, don’t they?” Max says, sitting back once he’s done with the first aid.
“Yeah,” Hope says, attempting to smooth her gorgeously messy hair. “Well, quicker than humans. But this one on my shoulder will still take a while.” She attempts to roll her shoulder and winces. “Shit. This is gonna make work a real bitch, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, what do you do for a living?” Freddie says.
“Barista,” Hope says. “Over at Cafe Amour? Where all the rich ladies go for their green tea chai and almond milk lattes.”
“Haven’t tried it yet,” Freddie says softly. “We’ll have to check it out.”
“I hope you do,” she says, smiling.
That sounded flirty to me. But I’m not sure. It sends my thoughts into a tailspin until Max waves at me from across the table. “Jared! Yo, Jared?”
“Hmm?” I say, looking up.
“I said, I’d like to do a healing balm for Hope’s shoulder,” Max says. “Help her heal a little faster. I’ve got all the stuff.”
“Oh…” I like the sound of that. It will take forever. Maybe I can make a connection with this girl while she waits. I’ll do anything to get her to stay a little longer without seeming weird about it. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
“Gonna take a couple hours though,” Max says, winking at Hope. “So unless that’s a problem…”
“Eh, why not?” Hope says, shrugging. “My day is already shot. In fact…” She takes out her phone and grimaces. “I’m just gonna call up work before they send out a search party. I don’t feel too bad, it was my eighth day in a row.”
“Let’s get on that then,” I say, clapping my hands as I hop to my feet. Everybody’s looking at me funny, which is probably fair. I do feel off, but it’s only because I know that this girl is very important to us, all four of us, and it’s freaking me out a little bit.
“Do you need anything?” I say to Hope. “Are you hungry or…?
“I’m fine,” Hope says, smiling warmly. I get a weird tight feeling in my hands.
Lord, she is pretty.
“Okay, then,” I mumble. “C’mon guys…”
It’s probably not a four-person job to get this stuff together for the spell, but I’m used to corralling everyone I guess. They all seem hesitant to leave the kitchen though, trailing after me and looking back at Hope again and again as we make our way upstairs.
This day just got very interesting indeed.
Hope
They’re all hot. All four of them. Seriously, what the hell? I’m just wondering how that even happens. They all seem to be close friends who live in this house together (which is really very endearing and sweet). But now I’m just trying to figure out how they came to be friends. Did they meet at some kind of hot wizard meet-up? Did they work their way through wizard school by modeling? These are all questions that I plan to ask if I end up sticking around long enough or if I can finagle an invitation to hang out with the hot wizard men and ogle them to my heart’s content.
I’m guessing it would be creepy of me to do that. But I’m also guessing I’d be stuck ogling. All four of these guys are so wildly out of my league. I think I’m okay-looking, maybe even cute. But I’m nowhere near the level of attractiveness of these four dudes, not any of them. They’re very sweet to be helping me, and I find all of my intense shifter’s instincts trusting them. My shifter’s instincts don’t often let me down, at least when it comes to reading people.
“Found the book,” Max says, walking in and dropping a big spell book on the table. “This is just an old spell book and we don’t use it much for anything but healing. The rest of it is silly stuff.”
Silly or not, I’m always interested in a spell book and I sit up in my seat, taking a look at the battered, old leather cover.
“Can I take a look?” I ask him.
“Sure,” Max says, nodding at me. “Go nuts. I’ll be right back.”
Max leaves me alone with the book, and I take out my phone to call up work. I hate calling out, somehow I always think I’m going to be in trouble even though I haven’t so much as come in late in at least a year. I figure I should have a lot of goodwill built up at Cafe Amour. I tap Cafe Amour in my contacts and put it on speaker, a little itch of anxiety scratching at the inside of my head. I hear the phone ring three times before somebody finally picks up, and I ready myself to hear Bobbi’s imperious voice. Bobbi is the manager at Cafe Amour. He is actually perfectly sweet and cool, but he puts on a kind of snobby persona for the customers. They seem to get a kick out of it for some reason.
“Cafe Amour?” Bobbi says loftily. “May we help you?”
“Hey, Bobbi.”
“Oh, hey, kid,” Bobbi says, his voice changing instantly. “What’s up?”
“Hey,” I say, tensing up a little. While, yes, he’s usually cool, I know he hates when people call out. “So, I’m sorry but I can’t come in today. I’m not feeling well.”
I want to tell him the truth just because I generally like to tell people the truth, but Bobbi is human. I just can’t imagine that telling him I was attacked by a panther in the woods and only got a bit scratched is going to go over well. Might as well keep it simple.
“Okay, sweetie,” Bobbi says. “Don’t even worry about it.”
“Really?” I perk up a little. “I thought you hated when people call out.”
“I hate when Josie calls out,” Bobbi says, chuckling. “Because Josie calls out every other week. You haven’t even been late in I don’t know how long. You’re a superstar and you got some time comin’ to ya. Just let me know what’s up if you can’t make it tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say, feeling a bit better about things, though my shoulder hurts something awful. “Sure thing.”
“Okay, sweetie. Hope you feel better.”
“Thanks, Bobbi.” I hang up and take a deep breath. I wish there was some gin in this sweet tea but then it’s pretty early in the day. I lean on my hand and slide the spell book over to take a look.
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I have to wonder what kind of library of spell books they have that this one is considered not that great. I’m an amateur myself, but it looks pretty interesting to me as I page through the tome. When I land on an entire section of beauty spells, I sit up a little straighter.
I’ve always been sort of fascinated with beauty spells, but I’ve never tried one and never felt driven enough to give them a shot. Now though…
I can’t help but think if I was just a little bit hotter, I might actually have a shot with one of these wizards. Which one, I don’t know. In my wildest fantasies, I am certainly not above choosing all of them. Assuming they’d be up for that, which is hard to imagine. It’s not unheard of for shifters though. The rare and incredibly lucky shifter female can sometimes stumble upon a bond to multiple mates. I don’t know much about it but...wow. It always sounded like a dream to me to have multiple men in love with you.
But that’s not happening for me any time soon. But maybe...maybe if I was prettier, I might have a shot at just a fling. I chew on my lip and browse the beauty spells in the book. There are spells to change hair color (which look more complicated than just using regular old human hair dye). There are spells for contouring (which seems oddly modern). There are spells to change the shape of just your nose or the shape of your eyes or the whiteness of your teeth. There are spells to make you thinner or make your boobs bigger. And those are just the spells for women. The spells for men are a whole other section. The beauty spells also seem to take much more space than the healing spells do. It would make sense that the wizards don’t see much use in this particular spell book. They’re already all as hot as they could possibly be.
Spell for General Beautification
I stop on that one. It’s supposed to make you generally more beautiful, which makes it more complicated than the spells targeting something specific like a nose or a waistline. There are illustrated examples which aren’t quite as convincing as photographed examples, but it gives me an idea anyway. I tap fingers on the table.
