Tiger Lily

by May Dawson

  I thrust the book into my purse and carried it with me as I clattered back down the stairs.

  My grandfather was just walking into the house from the backyard, where he must have been watering his plants.

  “Lily, what’s wrong?” he asked, frowning. “You looked so happy just an hour ago—”

  “I can’t,” I said, my voice coming out choked. I forced a smile, but his frown only deepened. I must not be very convincing.

  “See you soon, Grandpa,” I said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before I headed out of the house.

  For once, he didn’t shout anything after me.

  I wasn’t in the mood for last words right now, anyway.

  29

  I pushed open the door to Juniper’s shop. The magical dildos above the door began to sing, which normally would have shocked me and made me smile in equal measure, but today I barely registered them. I looked around a cute little store with shelves filled with all kinds of sex toys. Despite myself, I can’t help but think this would be a fun place to come browse with the guys…if they are my guys at all, that is.

  I marched past the dildos to where Juniper stood at the glass-topped counter, arranging a display of magically flavored condoms. I wasn’t sure if I would want pudding flavors under those conditions.

  “Hi Lily!” Juniper called out.

  “Hi.” I didn’t even manage to smile back. “I have a few questions for you.”

  “Is this about the flower panties? There are a few options, vibrating or—”

  I can’t cope with magical panties right no. “No, not that. Do you have a spell or an object I could use to take away someone’s memory?”

  “Whose memory?” she asked. “Your own or someone else’s?”

  I planned to erase Brad’s memory of shifters, of magic, of Silver Springs itself.

  But suddenly it occurred to me that life would be easier if I didn’t remember the guys. If I could erase all that shared history that had made it so comfortable for me to tumble into bed with them, maybe those memories wouldn’t torment me during the achingly lonely nights I imagined stretching away into my future.

  Magic never lasts forever. I had to find a way to break the spell and let them go free. No matter how much it hurt.

  She was looking at me closely, and I shook my head to clear it. “Someone else’s.”

  “There’s some tricky ethics there,” she said. “Deleting someone else’s memories.”

  “It’s my ex-boyfriend, and he really doesn’t deserve magic,” I said. Thinking back to how he’d mocked me in our apartment right before we broke up, I added in a whisper, “Or me.”

  “Excuse me?” Juniper’s dark eyebrows arched, and I could feel her bristle. I had a feeling she hadn’t even heard my whisper, and I frowned at how annoyed she suddenly seemed. “How do you know someone doesn’t deserve magic?”

  She gestured around the shop. “Maybe the world would be a better place if everyone did have some magic!”

  “You must be the only one who thinks that way, since Silver Springs is warded to keep everyone else from finding out our secrets,” I snapped.

  “I can’t change that,” she said. “But maybe someday, Silver Springs shouldn’t be a secret anymore.”

  I scoffed at that. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people are terrible. They hate anything different than them.”

  “Yeah, many do,” she returned. “I’m a dark witch. Supes have feared and hated me all my life because of it, but that doesn’t mean we should hide. Magic wasn’t meant to be locked up.”

  We were going to find out if magic was meant to be locked up, because Brad would tell everyone about Silver Springs. He would try to ruin the last good things in my life—even this town itself. I could just imagine how this place would change if everyone knew what it really was.

  “If you won’t help me, then I guess I’ll just go murder him myself,” I said. “I guess I can’t dump his body in the springs. Cause the Kelpies would totally turn me in now.”

  I sounded glib and sarcastic as ever, but my eyes filled with tears at the thought of anything happening to Silver Springs. “But maybe I could drive him out to the woods? But ugh, my car is in the shop. I’d have to, like, put him on the handlebars of my old bike—”

  I could never really hurt Brad. I didn’t even enjoy imagining how I’d get away with his murder.

  As I fought back tears, Juniper’s face changed, her lips parting, her eyes softening sympathetically, although I could only see her through a sudden haze.

  “Lily, what happened?” she asked.

  “He was a terrible boyfriend,” I sniffled. “He made me feel small and stupid all the time, and you know what, I can’t even argue that I’m not, because I let him, you know? And now I don’t know how to just be normal and nice with these guys who—I mean, if they weren’t under some kind of spell, how would they even put up with me?”

  “Normal is overrated,” she said, suddenly hugging me. I leaned into her hug, my arms closing around her back.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I whispered. “But I shifted in front of him. I just couldn’t handle being human anymore. And now he knows about Silver Springs. Because of me.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes were full of understanding. “And now you feel like you need to fix it.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I made this wreck and I need to fix it—but I do need your help.” I pursed my lips to one side. “If you will. I didn’t mean—”

  She waved her hand. “It’s all right. I’m sorry I yelled at you. We’ve all got our own stories, and sometimes it’s hard to hear someone else’s over the way our own yells at us.”

  “Maybe you and I could talk about it over a unicorn hot cocoa sometime?” I asked.

  “I’d like that,” she said. She seemed to hesitate, as if she were thinking something over, then she said, “Okay, Lily. I’ll make you something. This sounds like something you need to do.”

  “Thank you.” My voice was full of relief, but I still had more questions. “One more thing…”

  I pulled Love Blooms out of my purse, and her eyes went wide. Well. Definitely something going on there, then.

  I lay the book on the countertop between us. “Is this book cursed?”

  “Cursed?” she scoffed as if I was ridiculous. “No, it’s not cursed.”

  I let out a long breath of relief. The guys’ affection for me wasn’t all a joke.

  “It’s enchanted,” she went on, hovering her hands above the book as if she could feel the magic from here. “But in the best of ways, Lily.”

  I closed my eyes as a lump swelled in my throat.

  “Lily, are you all right?”

  “How do I break the spell?” My voice came out dull.

  She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Lily, just because there’s an enchantment doesn’t mean that something is a lie, either. Sometimes magic gives us the strength to see what was there all along—”

  “Okay,” I agreed, because I couldn’t bear to hear anymore.

  She studied my face, then heaved a sigh. “But if you believe you’ve found fated mates through the enchantment, and you need to break the spell…”

  “Yes?” I expected some big quest. Go pick this flower from the mountains, get this object from the Kelpies in the spring…as if they’d ever help me.

  “All you have to do is reject your mates.”

  All you have to do.

  I imagined their faces when I hurt them, and my own heart squeezed painfully.

  But they’d get over it. Breaking up with Brad had hurt, and yet I’d already moved on.

  Part of me thought, well, what did I have to lose? I could go right back to my old life in the city. I could find another job. Hell, Brad had come here for a reason—either he wanted the lowdown on magic, or he wanted me back. Maybe I could go right back to the way life used to be.

  But I didn’t want that life again.

  I’d have to find something new.

  “Do you
have any spells for a girl trying to find a new life for herself?”

  She smiled at me sadly. “Do you want to change your face? Change your identity? I can print you up a fake passport if you give me ten minutes. But I suspect what you’re asking is something you’ll have to do for yourself.”

  I sighed. Of course there were some things magic couldn’t fix.

  She held the book out to me. “Just because something is beautiful and magical doesn’t mean it’s any less real. People get too caught up in believing that the gritty and ugly and cruel things in this world are the true ones.”

  “I’ll try to think about that later,” I promised, slipping the book back into my bag.

  Sometime later when it didn’t feel like my heart was breaking.

  “Do you have anything for a broken heart?” I asked, with a lightness I didn’t feel.

  “Memory loss, but I won’t cast that on you. Sometimes it’s better to remember even when it hurts. That makes us grow.” she said gently. “Sometimes broken hearts are telling us something.”

  “You’re a lot less helpful than I expected a witch with a dildo shop to be.”

  She shrugged. “If you’re having men problems, buy some dildos and vibrating panties. That’s how I solve broken hearts. Forgetting and running don’t help.”

  “Maybe not, but it sure sounds easier,” I said.

  The worst part of this whole thing wasn’t having my own heart broken.

  It was knowing I was about to go break their hearts. Blake’s, and Archer’s, and Dylan’s.

  But soon enough, they would know it was never real, and maybe they wouldn’t feel anything at all.

  That thought was a hollow ache in my chest as I waved goodbye to her and walked out of the shop.

  30

  When I walked into Hot Wheels, Archer was sitting behind the desk, checking a customer out. When he looked up at me, his face brightened, and my heart broke a little more.

  He gave them their keys, walked them to the door, then once he’d shut it behind them, he crossed the empty lobby and gave me a big hug.

  “Was Juniper helpful?”

  “Yes and no.”

  His smile crinkled the corner of his eyes. “That sounds like a witch. Always so complicated.”

  “Sometimes I think just being human-ish means everything is complicated,” I murmured.

  In Juniper’s shop, rejecting them had sounded so simple. It would break the spell and the magical bond between us.

  But now, facing Archer, I had no idea how to do it. I was glad it was just the two of us.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, sliding his finger under my chin to tilt my face up toward his. His ocean blue eyes were full of concern. “Lily?”

  “I don’t want to see you anymore.” The words came out rough.

  Pain shot through my body, washing my skin hot as if I were burning up with fever, then cold. From the agony that flashed across Archer’s face, he had the same experience, as the magic between us shattered.

  He went very still, but didn’t pull away from me. He’d never pull away first. I wasn’t sure why that thought ran through my head, but I felt as if my heart was cracking in two.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Hot tears spilled over onto my cheeks. “This was never real.”

  “I assure you, Lily, what I feel for you is very real. It always has been—since we were kids.”

  I sniffled, swiping at my tears, pulling my chin out of his grip. “At least you have Heart Portal. You can find someone else.”

  So many women would throw themselves at Archer. Strangely, that was a comforting thought at the moment, because he looked at me with those vivid blue eyes as if his heart was breaking too. I thought he might actually cry too, although he didn’t, his jaw tightening as if he were fighting the impulse, and suddenly I felt like the worst human being to ever walk the planet.

  “I don’t want someone else!” he said.

  Yeah, definitely the worst.

  “It wasn’t real,” I whispered. “It would never last when it wasn’t real anyway, Archer.”

  Dylan came in just then, saying, “Hey, can you get me a part—”

  He broke off abruptly as if he felt the tension in the room. “What’s going on? Lily, are you okay?”

  He crossed to me in a few quick strides, giving Archer a look as if he’d kill him if he’d hurt me.

  But in a minute or two, he’d realize that Archer was not the one ruining everything.

  And Dylan would never look at me the same way again.

  “Dylan,” I said softly. “We have to break up.”

  Then I realized we never even talked about dating—we never made anything official. “I mean—not that we’re dating—”

  His eyes went wide. “Lily, what’s wrong? Is it Brad? Is it Hot Wheels?”

  “It’s not real,” I said.

  “You keep saying that,” Archer said. “What do you mean? Where’s this coming from?”

  I hadn’t felt that same spike of pain with Dylan.

  Not yet.

  I turned to him, crossing my arms so I wouldn’t reach out and touch them. It hurt to be so close and to put this wall up between us—which was weird, because usually I put up all kinds of walls and didn’t think twice.

  “I don’t want to be with you,” I told Dylan, each word falling heavily. “Not as your girlfriend, or your mate—or even your laundry partner.”

  There. That should cover everything.

  Sure enough, pain burned through me. Dylan stiffened, then reached for me. “Are you all right?”

  I ducked his outstretched hand.

  The two of them traded looks, but made no move to intercept me as I headed toward the garage. Instead, I could hear them talking behind me, trying to figure out what had just happened.

  Blake smiled at me when I walked into the garage. “We’ve got one more project and this baby will be ready to go.”

  He patted the hood of my grandfather’s car.

  He knew what made me feel better. Normally, working on the car with him would have been like lip balm, smoothing over the chapping that came from dealing with Brad.

  But today, I just said dully, “Maybe you could do it without me. I can pay you…”

  He frowned. “What are you talking about, Lily? You don’t have to pay me…” His eyes widened. “Did Brad promise you things would be different? Lily, don’t walk away from Hot Wheels.”

  “I don’t care about Brad’s promises,” I said, and relief swept over his features. That just hurt more. “I care about yours.”

  “You know I mean everything I say to you.” He took a step toward me, and I held up my hand. If he came too close to me, I was afraid I’d crumble.

  Blake was always so in-control, so confident, but there was worry written across his face now that wrung at my heart.

  “I’m not your mate,” I told him. “Not your girlfriend. It’s over, Blake.”

  “Lily,” he said, his voice lost. The pain etched across his face echoed the pain that burned through my own body, and I swallowed a sob.

  Hs voice sounded the way I felt.

  I turned and headed for the doors, my vision blurring with tears.

  “Lily!” he called behind me, but I didn’t dare look back.

  I walked out through the open bay door into the bright morning sun, but the light and the fresh air didn’t feel beautiful anymore.

  31

  I spent most of the day hanging out with Lupine, who had plenty of experience seeing me through heartbreak. The incoming texts from our friends made me laugh, even though it was shaky, as Brad did indeed careen through Silver Springs.

  This guy came into my shop and just let me tell you, he does not deserve dildos. Working on something….

  Um, I think I found your creep. He came into the pet shop and looked at all the cats. He had so many questions. I am so squicked out!

  He must have somehow heard about the Pumpkin Spiced Lattes because he
downed three. One right after another. No one loves PSL that much. That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!

  And then, finally, a text from Juniper: I’ve got your potion ready.

  I texted back, You’re my hero. I felt terrible that she’d seen me at my bitchy, whiney worst earlier today.

  Juniper texted back a few seconds later: Remember, he came into my shop too. I’m on your side, girlfriend.

  Juniper came by. She and Lupine and I all sat around Lupine’s table. Lupine made another round of tea. Then she went in the freezer and carried over a bag of frozen green beans.

  I glanced at Juniper, wondering if the frozen green beans were for her. That was definitely not my snack of choice.

  Lupine reached into the bag and pulled out a box of Thin Mints. “They’re better frozen,” she explained, “and better safe from the kids.”

  My girlfriends knew I didn’t want to talk about my feelings. Instead, we hung out drinking our tea and eating cookies for a few minutes, making small talk that had nothing to do with my guys.

  Although the mere mention of kelpies made me choke up, and Juniper and Lupine traded a horrified look.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “The kelpies may hate me now, but it was the best night—nevermind. Do you have anything for Brad?”

  Juniper nodded, reaching into her black fabric purse and pulling out a small bottle.

  “Can you get him to drink this?” She held up a small bottle. The blue liquid in it seemed to glow.

  “Can I mix it with a pumpkin spice latte?” I asked. “Because if I can, yeah, I think that won’t be too difficult.”

  “That would work,” Juniper promised.

  I frowned. “Does it taste like anything? Is it going to turn his drink blue?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Once he drinks it, he’ll forget about any magic he’s seen to that point. And as a bonus, he should feel an aversion to being in Silver Springs.”

  “That is perfect!” Gratitude washed over me, but then I remembered his confident smile in the coffee shop and I heaved a sigh. “That means I have to actually….talk to him.”