Witches Get Stitches

by Juliette Cross

  A soft gray throw on the sofa—my heart thudded—the same sofa from my vision of us snuggled together. I forced myself to move on.

  I’d learned visions were only possible futures. Different decisions had different outcomes. So I wasn’t going to ogle that couch and dream of snuggling with the werewolf. Especially when my original reading of us together haunted me daily.

  Moving on, there was a coffee table with an open notebook and pen set aside. I could just make out on the page that there was writing and scratched-out words. Another freaking guitar on a stand in the corner. Several guitar picks in an ashtray on another end table with a pretty silver lamp. And yet another guitar, but this one mounted on the wall carefully in a place of honor.

  “Is that one special?”

  Nico glanced up from where he was whisking eggs in a bowl. “My Dad gave that one to me for my twelfth birthday.” He kept his eyes on the bowl as he poured in a little milk then kept whisking. “It’s a Gibson Les Paul once owned by BB King.”

  “Whoa. That must’ve cost a pretty penny.” I sat on a stool at the bar.

  He nodded distractedly. “I started playing when I was about nine. Dad knew that music was my thing.” His voice slowed and softened with affection when he spoke about his dad, then he glanced up. “You want an omelet?”

  “Love one.” I beamed, which got me a smile. “And by thing, you mean your insane talent at music.”

  He huffed a laugh. “Yeah. That.”

  I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it. We’d always steered away from too many personal things, but I needed to know. “What happened to your dad?” I stood and walked around the counter to wash my hands.

  “He died when I was thirteen. That’s when I went to live with Mateo, my uncle, and my grandfather.”

  I rinsed the soap from my hands and dried them on a towel, leaning back against his sink. “Sorry, Nico.”

  “It’s okay.” He gave me a smile that was small but genuine. No pain there. Or, at least, none too deep. “It was a long time ago. He’d lived a nice, long life for a werewolf. His heart just gave out.”

  “Really? How old was he?”

  “Seven hundred and two.”

  “What?!” Most werewolves were lucky to live to five hundred. “Shit on a cracker, how old are you?”

  “Only a hundred and three, Violet.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Old fucking man. Why didn’t I know this about you?”

  “You never asked.” He poured some of the egg mixture into his hot pan, and then dropped mushrooms, cheese, crumbled bacon, and purple onions on top.

  “How do you know I like all that?”

  He looked at me like I was dense and rolled his eyes. “You order a double bacon cheeseburger, add mushrooms, from Red Dog Diner every Friday.”

  Oh, yeah. I did.

  “So what’s going on with Fred?” He folded the omelet then slid it onto a plate. He handed me the plate and tapped my hip, nudging me toward the dining table. “Go sit.”

  I did. “Mmm. There is nothing that smells better than bacon and melted cheese.”

  His gaze slid to me. Hot gold rolled through his eyes before he focused back on the skillet where he was making his own omelet.

  “I figured you liked savory for breakfast.”

  “I like anything for breakfast. Love sweet, too. Chocolate chip pancakes is a particular favorite.”

  “I’ll remember that.” He watched me take my first bite. “Tell me about Fred.” There was a tad of a growl in his voice now, and I wasn’t quite sure why he was getting wolfie at the moment. Not because I’d brought Fred, I hoped.

  “So you see, Devraj got this dog—”

  “Archie, yes, I know.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Devraj and I see each other every week at Sunday dinner. Or didn’t you notice?”

  True. Jules had started a tradition of hosting Sunday dinner at the restaurant for us and the Cauldron family, if they weren’t gathering with their own families. And now that included significant others like Mateo and Devraj. Nico had been invited one Sunday by Evie as an extension of Mateo’s family, so he was kind of a permanent fixture there, too.

  “Violet,” he said my name with force and emphasis.

  I startled, sitting up straight, my heart pumping just a wee bit faster at the aggressive mention of my name. I knew in that very second that he would be super dominant in bed.

  Stop it! I’d already nearly sniffed his nipples and was now conjuring images of him on top of me, saying my name with that deep, husky voice of his, talking dirty and making sexy demands.

  He sat with his plate on my left at the head of the table and gave me an expectant look.

  “Okay.” I took a sip of juice he’d set on the table for me. “Archie keeps mysteriously escaping their yard into ours and chasing Fred and making him lose his fucking feathers. I don’t want to close him in the pen with his chicken coop because he’ll get depressed, and Fred is a very old rooster. He’s delicate, even with Isadora’s healing sessions, so I was hoping you might possibly allow him, because you love and adore me so much, to stay here in your courtyard while we figure out how the hell that Tasmanian devil is getting out of the yard.” I put my hands together in begging style and did just that, “Pleaaase, Nico. Just for a few days. They’re getting cameras and crap to catch Archie in the act, then we can solve the problem. And I’ll bring him right back home.”

  For a minute, he simply stared at me, soaking in every part of my face, roving with painstaking slowness.

  Shit! He was going to say no.

  “Of course, he can stay.”

  “Really?” I may have squealed.

  “Sure. But I’ll be gone a few days around the full moon. You’ll have to come and check on him.”

  “Oh, I’ll be checking on him every day.” I shoveled more of his delicious food in my mouth. “You’re a nice guy, Nico.”

  His brow pinched. “You say that like it shocks you.”

  “Nah.” I smiled and wiped my mouth with a napkin. “I just feel like I’ve been a total fuckface to you lately, so I guess I expected… I don’t know.”

  “That’s what friends do. Help each other out, right?” His expression was even, blank, though a muscle jumped in his jaw. He was so strangely serene and yet tense at the same time this morning.

  There’d been weird vibes between us for the past week, and I was well aware that a good part of that was my fault. The strangest was that moment after the reading when he handed me my phone. “Handed” being a loose term here because he’d all but captured my wrist and screamed with his eyes that I was the other one involved in his Lovers premonition.

  And don’t think for a second that I hadn’t jumped to the same conclusion. We’d built a solid friendship over the past year. And even though I knew because of my readings of us that we’d only crash and burn, the fight to keep from tying him to a bed and having my wicked way with him was becoming increasingly difficult.

  I’d managed to restrain my lusty thoughts and longings before we went into business together. But now that I was with him so often, he was all I could think about. And let’s not even get started on the wet dreams.

  But then, there were moments like now when I wasn’t getting any sexy vibes. Only Nico vibes. Usually one and the same, but he was radiating more walled-off aggression from behind a calm veneer. It was almost creepy.

  “Yes, definitely,” I finally answered him. “Friends.” I smiled then leaned over and punched him in the bicep. That tight, muscular bicep. “You’re the tits, Nico.” Then I dove back into my omelet.

  “You’re so odd,” he said with more lightness than earlier. “If that’s a thank you then you’re welcome.”

  “It is,” I said around a mouthful of deliciousness. “Tits are great, right? Possibly the greatest body part on man or woman. So if you’re THE tits, then you’re like the best of the best.”

  He eyed me with those raised brows, and hell no, I didn’t mi
ss the fleeting glimpse at my boobs before he muttered, “You’re the strangest girl I’ve ever known.”

  “But also the coolest. And most badass. And amazing.”

  “Absolutely,” he agreed with too little enthusiasm for my taste though his lips quirked with amusement.

  He finished his omelet before me and took his plate to the sink. Then he returned and set a single key on the table next to me.

  “What’s that?”

  “A key to my place. You’ll need to store that bag of feed you left by the door in here.”

  “How did you know—?”I shook my head. “Werewolf olfactory senses, I presume.” I took the key and looked at it. A single thread of magic zinged along my skin. Not sure why. It was just a plain, silver key, but my psychic abilities were stirring as I held it in my palm. “You knew what I wanted when I came in the door,” I accused.

  “Pretty much.” He was leaning back against the counter, legs casually crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his fine chest.

  “I could leave the feed in the shop and bring it over.”

  “You may need something. Keep the key, Violet.”

  It was a command that saturated my pores and lodged somewhere in the middle of my chest.

  “Okay.” I licked my lips and put it in my back pocket as I stood, pretending I hadn’t just been punched with werewolf dominance that was now buzzing sweetly between my legs. I picked up my plate. “If you insist.”

  He stepped forward and took the plate from my hand. “I do,” he said nice and low, his fingers grazing mine. A wave of tension rolled between us in those two seconds, his gaze hot and hard, then cool and distant in a flash.

  “Guess I’ll see you in the shop.” I backed up a step.

  “Sure thing.” He was at the sink, rinsing our plates.

  “Thank you, Nico,” I said sincerely as I stopped at the door. “I really do appreciate it.”

  He looked over his shoulder, soaking me in with a brief flicker of sharp green eyes. “Anytime.”

  The word was soft and deep, but also hard and smooth. How? I have no fucking idea. It wasn’t the words that Nico said, but how he said them. How they sounded coming out of his mouth that made me weak-kneed.

  I’d tried like hell to ignore my attraction for the man, but it was getting impossible to pretend I didn’t have a huge crush. Infatuation. Borderline fixation.

  But let’s be real here. Any warm-blooded woman, or man for that matter, would be attracted to Nico. Take Lindsey, for instance. A flicker of a noticeably green flame burned at the center of my chest at the thought of her all googly-eyed, batting her lashes at him. Especially after he admitted he found her pretty. She was also really nice and a very talented artist, which I loathed to admit.

  Wait! Was the Lovers card for Nico and Lindsey?!

  I buried an overwhelmingly nauseous feeling behind a layer of fuck-it-all. Swallowing the painful thought of Nico and Lindsey together, I strode to the shop to submerge myself in work where I could try to ignore all of these unwanted feelings. That niggling voice told me I wasn’t going to be successful.

  Chapter 7

  ~VIOLET~

  * * *

  I filled in the final white touches on the face of the barn owl on the hip of my client Tia. She was Isadora’s best friend as well as Aunt Beryl’s niece, a Conduit witch, a healer like Isadora.

  “I was going to work on a spell for Conduits next, for you and Iz, but I can’t help but feel like I have to work on the werewolves first.”

  “And by feel, I assume you mean your magic is telling you so.” From her reclined position, Tia stretched her neck to watch my progress on her tattoo. Her shoulder-length black curls were pulled back with a red bandana folded as a headband. The white ink on her taupe skin was a beautiful contrast. And though the white ink would fade some as it always did, it would remain a striking image on her smooth skin. “Then that’s what you have to do,” she stated as fact.

  “I’m working on it. I’ve been meditating on a vision I had earlier this week. I had it while tattooing Nico and talking about a scar he got from his wolf losing control.”

  “Interesting. What was the vision?”

  “It was all witch sign.” I paused, wiping the excess ink from her hip. “Like my magic was trying to voice the spell but through witch sign. And it wasn’t completely clear, so I was hoping to recapture it, but I haven’t yet.”

  “Hmm. Does Jules have any books on witch sign?”

  My head snapped up. “I’m an idiot.”

  “Not most of the time.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.” Sitting back, I shook my head at my own stupidity. “We only have the rarest book of witch sign ever recorded. The Etymology and Definition of All Known Witch Sign by Marigold Lord. It’s a compilation of ancient knowledge and rare, even forbidden, witch sign. Ruben acquired it through Devraj when Mateo had that spell put on him and we needed help.”

  “Well, there you go. Pull that sucker out and comb it till you find the answer. Aunt Beryl’s talked about that book, though she doesn’t own a copy. Your answer should be there.”

  Feeling relieved, I finished Tia’s tattoo then cleaned and taped her up and wiped down the chair while she checked it out in the mirror.

  “So cool, Violet. Your shading skills are killer.”

  “Thanks.” I was really proud at how far I’d come from when I’d first started. It was good to hear her say that. “Let me walk you up front.”

  I gave Tom a little wave as I passed the doorway of his partition. He’d come in after I’d already started on Tia. He was working on his artwork on his Mac for the website, which Livvy had asked for.

  Livvy said a soft opening with family and friends as clients while she got our website up and running would be best. Let us get our feet wet slowly, then make a big splash on social media to reel in new clientele and line up the calendars. We were of course listening to Livvy, the PR expert.

  As we ambled to the front, Sean was already eyeing Tia. “Where’s the tat?” he asked, dark eyes roving all over Tia. “Let’s see what you got.”

  Tia laughed but pulled down the waist of her loose sweatpants anyway to show him.

  “Ooo, nice.” He grinned, leaning forward on the counter. “So, you’re a witch, right?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  Narrowing his eyes, he assessed her carefully. Or seemed to be anyway. “You’ve got that aura of mystifying beauty.”

  She smiled wide then licked and pursed her lips. “Bullshit.”

  “What do you mean?” But he was laughing as she pulled out her credit card and set it on the counter.

  “You’re a fucking grim. And you’re also a Blackwater, which means not only do you know every basic thing about everyone within a hundred-mile radius, but you probably know every deep dark secret about them, too.”

  Henry Blackwater worked for Ruben. He was Sean’s older brother and seemed to collect every minute piece of information on every person living in the lower Garden District. He had his hands in everything but was also tied to no one.

  I’d given his little brother a job here as a favor to Devraj who’d asked on Henry’s behalf for some reason. I was pretty sure it was paying back the favor for Henry’s help in that whole blood trafficking ring debacle.

  And the fact that I knew Henry’s name made me utterly gleeful. Grims didn’t even like people knowing their names. They were…odd. The strangest of the supernaturals by far. They collected info like data-drive hoarders and yet wanted no one to know anything about them at all.

  Sean rang Tia up, still grinning to himself. To be honest, he wore a perpetual grin. He reminded me of a jackal toying with his prey. I had no doubt that when he grew older he’d become less scavenger and more predatory.

  “Tell me, Tia.” He handed back her credit card. “What does my aura do to you? What does it make you think about? Naughty things, right?” He winked.

  Tia took the card and slipped it back in
to her bag then signed the receipt and asked me, “He’s not even eighteen yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Get ready, Violet. You’re gonna have your hands full.”

  “I already have my hands full. He’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

  “That’s a lie,” interjected Sean, completely amused. “I talked two girls from my class into getting their bellies pierced when only one did at first. Doubled that sale.”

  “Bye, Tia.” I waved her out the door. “Maybe you are useful,” I told him. “When you aren’t being a pain in the ass.”

  “Maybe?” That perpetual smirk suddenly dropped, and his eyes darted toward the entrance.

  “What?” I glanced toward the door, but no one was there.

  “I think you should go get Nico,” he said steadily, his voice gone stone-cold.

  “Nico isn’t home. Said he had errands to run before he came in today. What’s going on?”

  But before Sean could say a word, the door opened, and four werewolves walked in. The guy in front was the blond I’d met with Nico that first night in Austin, the one he’d shown up at the party with. All four were covered in denim and leather and dripping with dominance.

  Nico and I had never talked about his time with the pack in Austin or why he left. But something about the cold look in the blond’s eyes and Sean’s distinctly defensive stance had me labeling this little encounter an immediate threat.

  Still, I wasn’t afraid. Sure, werewolves could rip out a witch’s throat faster than she could blink, but he’d have to actually reach me first. These guys had no idea what I was capable of, and I preferred it that way. Let them think that they were the actual threat and not me. Made things easier.

  Blondie might’ve been putting off ultra-alpha vibes, but his aggression didn’t seem to be projected at me. I was suddenly thankful Nico was out of the office, running errands.

  “Hello, there. Can I help you? We’re not open to walk-ins yet.”

  His smile widened, reminding me how handsome he was. If he wasn’t stalking through my door, seeming to be looking for trouble, I’d say he was charming. The big werewolves behind him didn’t bother smiling or playing it cool. They stood at his back, searching the place as if waiting for someone to jump out and attack.