Page 5 of Any Witch Wolf (The Smokethorn Paranormals #2)

A Mictlan mandrake.

Perfect.

Ten minutes later, I parked the Mini at Ronan’s Pub. He’d told me to go around back and use the stairs that led directly to his place instead of going through the bar. That way we wouldn’t end up in conversation with someone.

Or maybe he didn’t want to be seen having dinner with the town witcha — striga, incantrix — non grata ?

Whatever the term, I was sure about the non grata, or unwelcome, part. Because I was about as welcome as poison ivy in a rose garden in the Pallás wolf world.

Then again, it wasn’t like I hadn’t spent the entire morning in his bar. I’d even served a couple of alpha wolves. Still, something told me that working for Ronan and going to dinner with him would be viewed very differently.

I sidestepped a clutch of dandelions and surveyed the patchy grass in the small lot beside the stairs.

It heartened me to see plant life here, even if it was struggling. I crouched and pressed my fingertips to the soil. Power moved over my skin like hundreds of tiny, painless pinpricks, and the minerals in the earth glowed like scattered glitter from the street to the far corners of Ronan’s property. The dandelions stood a little taller, the dried grass instantly greened.

It killed me that a stranger’s soil reacted better than my own. Just killed me.

Ronan’s door opened, and he stepped out onto the landing. “Betty. You showed up.”

I stood, dusted my hands off. “I said I would.”

“Are you trying to get the grass to grow? Because I’m open to suggestions.”

“I suggest you water it,” I said.

“Hey, I water it.”

“Not enough.” I started up the stairs. “Flood it. After the soil’s absorbed the water, throw some wildflower seeds out there. Let the dandelions grow. You aren’t using it, and pollinators would love it.”

“I’ll try that.”

“Cecil will get you a nice variety of seeds. He’s good at that.”

“Cecil will probably give me wolfsbane or poison ivy seeds.”

“Fair worry given his history, but an unnecessary one. He’s an ecological anarchist with a violent streak, but he loves plants and pollinators. If he knows you mean well, he’ll help you out.”

“Good to know.”

Ronan stepped back, and I toed the threshold of his apartment. Testing. Last month, Alpha Floyd had the local coven ward his bar to keep me out. Running into a ward unawares was like walking into a door. It smarted.

“Don’t worry.” He shook his head, grinned. “There’s no spell here—not even one keeping out humans. You’re perfectly safe in my home, Betty.”

Funny. I didn’t feel safe. But that was less about possible anti-me spells and more about how damn good the man in front of me looked tonight.

He’d cut his hair sometime this afternoon, clipped it close on the sides. It made the red in the auburn more noticeable, made the green in his hazel eyes stand out. His jaw was dusted with scruff, but it was groomed and had reached the point where it was too short to be called a beard, but too long to leave whisker burns on my thighs—cheek.

Control yourself, Betty.

He’d dressed up, navy trousers and a button-down gray shirt rolled to his elbows to reveal muscular forearms. His feet were bare.

“You look amazing.” His eyes glowed gold around the irises. The fatigue around his eyes was still there, too.

“Thanks.”

He reached out and tapped the flower in my hair. “You wore the camellia.”

“And you dressed up.” I narrowed my eyes. “Didn’t we say this wasn’t a date? I distinctly recall you saying you wouldn’t be asking me out again.”

“You’re the one with the flower in her hair.” He wagged his finger at me. “Don’t go trying to take advantage of the situation, Betty. This is just business. Even if you do look like everything I’ve ever desired in a woman, my clothes are staying on.”

“You are so strange,” I said, and he laughed.

With effort, I dragged my gaze from his and made a show of sniffing the air, though the scent of peppers had been strong enough to reach me on the landing outside. “What’s cooking? I smell something spicy.”

“Enchiladas. I got the recipe from my father’s housekeeper. They might suck, since it’s my first time making them.”

“If they taste as good as they smell, I’m sure they’ll be great.”

“One can hope. Just know my failure is no reflection on Stefanie’s recipe.”

“Do you have cheese and sour cream?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You’d be surprised how far you can get with bad cooking if you pile enough cheese and sour cream on it.” I adjusted the strap of my shoulder bag and managed a smile. The bare feet, the rolled-up sleeves, the teasing—he was looking more and more like everything I’d ever desired in a man. Suddenly, I felt like I was dipping my toe in a pool of shark-infested water.

“You look nervous,” he said.

“Well, I’m not.” I lifted my chin, straightened my shoulders.

“You don’t have to be. It’s just us here.” He reached for my bag, and I let him slide it off my shoulder and set it on a table by the door.

“I told you I wasn’t nervous,” I said.

“Yeah, but you were lying.”

Ronan’s ability to see through me was one of the reasons I refused to get serious about the man. Not that the subject had come up, but I had that excuse tucked into my back pocket for when it did.

And it would.

There was too much resonance between Ronan and me. Our frequencies were too aligned for us not to try to take it too far.

“Disregarding the fact that you said you’d never ask me out again, I distinctly recall you saying this was a business meeting over dinner,” I said, ignoring him. “At what point did you decide to turn this into a date?”

“Almost immediately.” His smile was genuine and the slightest bit apologetic. He touched the camellia behind my ear again. “At what point did you realize it was a date and decide to come anyway?”

I shoved my nervousness aside and boldly stepped up to him, the toes of my shoes nudging his bare toes. We were nearly the same height when I was in heels. With another man, the added height gave me a mild psychological advantage. With Ronan, it made no difference at all.

“Almost immediately,” I said, my lips inches from his.

His eyes flashed gold.

We stood there, breath mingling, neither giving an inch. He was a magnet across from a pile of iron shavings. Fighting the attraction was painful. Everything in me wanted to close the distance between us.

Ronan let out a huge breath and took a step back. He blinked several times and shook his head as if to clear it.

When he looked at me again, his eyes were still the slightest bit gold. The realization that he’d been every bit as affected by the moment as I had made me feel less nervous, though maybe it shouldn’t have.

“It’s not that I’m nervous about tonight.” It was a lie, but only a tiny one. “It’s more that I got some bad news today.” Now that was the truth. “Multiple bad news. Bad newses. Bad newsies?”

“Multiple reports of bad news?” Ronan offered with a smile.

“That sounds way better.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I like the way you said it. What’s the bad newsies?”

“Well, today I learned several disturbing things. One of which is that I have a dangerous plant—” I stopped, held up a hand. “You know what? I’m not talking about that stuff at dinner. I’m just going to sit here and eat your experimental enchiladas and talk only about happy things for a while.”

“Is someone making trouble for you?” His eyes glowed gold, again, for the briefest of seconds.

I gave him a stern look. “Enchiladas and happy talk, Pallás.”

“But if something’s going on?—”

“Enchiladas,” I repeated. “Happy.”

“Fine, okay, but you know we can talk about anything. Doesn’t have to be happy.”

“After dinner. You said you had business to discuss then anyway. I assume it’s nothing good, so let’s bundle up our bad news and dump it out after we eat.”

“All right. After dinner.” He glanced into the kitchen and back at me. “I need to check the oven. Make yourself comfortable.”

“Thanks. Where’s the bathroom?” Not that I needed to go. I just wanted an excuse to snoop around his place.

“Through the bedroom. Want a glass of wine?”

“More than you can possibly imagine.”

“Got it. It’ll be waiting for you.”

I hadn’t expected a loft over a bar to be so nice. Ronan had decorated the place in calming shades of gray, from charcoal to dove, and it made for a cozy yet contemporary living space. A backdrop for vibrant splashes of color in the form of paintings, glass sculptures, and books.

The tiny foyer spilled into the living area where a wall of floor-to-ceiling tinted windows stood behind a gray sofa with clean lines. I hadn’t noticed the windows from the outside of the building, which made me think they might be spelled not to show.

So the man didn’t have a security spell, but he had one for decorative purposes?

A quick left from the entry would take me into a u-shaped kitchen with lots of cabinets and stainless-steel appliances. The small, but cleverly designed, area was divided from the living area by a breakfast bar. There was no dining table. No room for one.

I veered right and slid open the pocket door that led into the other half of the place. Except, half was wrong. This area was easily three times the size of the rest of the apartment.

A queen bed lay beneath a cluster of rustic Mexican star lighting fixtures. The colorful glass bubbles in them cast soft, beautiful blue light all over the room. The walls here were white, the flooring, as in the rest of the place, was worn wood. Probably original to the place. The only furniture in the room was a set of nightstands and a bookcase crammed with sci-fi and mystery paperbacks. A lonely succulent sat atop the bookcase. I dug my fingers into the soil and found it well-watered.

“Oh wow, a fireplace,” I said.

“Electric,” he replied from the kitchen, reminding me that his hearing was very, very good. “I wanted a wood-burning one, but it didn’t work in the space, according to my contractor.”

The sleek gas fireplace was double-sided, and visible from the bathroom, where a huge glass shower, another tinted floor-to-ceiling window, and a freestanding, over-sized slipper bathtub greeted me. It was gorgeous . I wondered if Ronan would let me rent the place sometime for a spa day. Ida would love it.

“That’s settled then,” I said, after I’d washed my hands and strolled back into the main room.

“What’s settled?”

“I’m officially moving into your bedroom. You can have my trailer.”

He laughed, handed me a glass of wine. “Tempting, but no. I like my bedroom.”

There was no crack about sharing it, which I’d expected. I mean, I’d left myself wide open for it. Instead, he told me about all the issues his contractor had with his fireplace idea and how they’d landed on the glass inset, see-through version as a compromise.

“Why were you so hell-bent on having a wood fireplace?”

He set decorative clay bowls of sour cream, salsa fresca, and crumbled Cotija cheese on the counter and served up two plates of salad and melty, gooey, cheesy enchiladas in red sauce. He took the seat beside mine at the breakfast bar and indicated with a nod that I should dig in.

“My mom, stepdad, and I had one when I was kid. My parents were running a cafe, and we lived above it.”

“Was it like your place here?”

“Bigger, actually. It was a two-bedroom apartment with a family room.” He spooned salsa onto his plate. “I loved it. It was the only place I ever really felt at home.”

“Is your stepdad still running the cafe?” I knew his mother had passed away, but I’d never heard him mention a stepparent before.

“No. He died a few years before Mom. In the cafe, actually.” He forked up a bite of enchiladas then set it down without tasting it. “I’ve never told anyone here that.”

“Why not?”

“I guess because the pack would see my sentimentality as a weakness. It’s never good to show weakness. Not in their world.”

“Well, we aren’t in their world right now,” I said.

“Is that right?” He picked up his fork again. “What world are we in?”

“ Our world,” I said. “It’s okay to show weakness, pain, sorrow, fear, and anything else because we make the rules here.”

He chewed and swallowed. Softly, he said, “I like our world.”

“Me, too.” I slid a forkful of enchilada into my mouth and smiled. A second later, the enchiladas hit the back of my throat and set off an inferno.

“ Ronan .”

Tears filled my eyes and dribbled down my cheeks. I grabbed my wine glass and downed the contents in one big gulp. Then I grabbed his glass and downed it, too.

“Betty? What is it?”

“How many chiles did you put in that sauce?” I croaked.

“The recipe called for two guajillo and two ancho peppers with the seeds and most of the membrane removed. That didn’t seem spicy enough, so I doubled the amount.”

My lips went numb.

“I took out the seeds,” he said. “Isn’t that the hottest part?”

“The pith is where most of the heat is, not the seeds. But, even so, those are mild chiles.” I grabbed the bottle of wine and chugged it.

“I threw in a handful of habaneros, that might be it.”

“What’s the matter,” I gasped, “out of ghost peppers?”

He jumped up and grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge and poured me a glass.

Milk and wine. Watch out, stomach.

Instead of drinking the milk, though, I went around the bar and gargled it over the sink. It helped. It took a few minutes, but my mouth finally cooled.

Ronan winced. “Sorry about that.”

“No problem. Think of all the money I’ll save on lip plumper,” I said, and coughed out a laugh. “How much sour cream do you have in there? I might need more than you set out.”

“We’ll try enchiladas another night.” Ronan whisked my plate away. “How do you feel about pizza? I promise, no jalapenos.”

“Normally, that would be a deal breaker, but tonight it sounds just right.”

The pizza joint around the corner made a special delivery and, in under twenty minutes, we were eating cheese pizza and the rest of Ronan’s salad on the sofa, while comedy YouTube videos played on the flatscreen TV. The circles under his eyes were less pronounced now, and his smile was broader.

I’d kicked off my shoes, and we’d switched to drinking water. My head was pleasantly light, and I’d be wearing a sober charm for the drive home, but otherwise, I was back to normal.

Ronan set the TV to a digital music service, and the soft strains of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel floated through the room. An omen if ever there was one.

“What business and also personal thing did you want to talk to me about?” I asked.

Ronan lost some of his lightheartedness. “I got a call late this morning about a missing wolf.”

“Why wouldn’t the person call your father? He’s the alpha leader.”

“So many reasons I couldn’t possibly state them all in the finite amount of time we have on this planet.” The words were flippant, but Ronan’s attitude was anything but. “Do you know Sylvester Shaw?”

“Not personally. Ida went out with him once or twice. He dated one of Ida’s poker pals a while back, too. The man’s got a reputation as a Lothario of the highest order. Ida said she heard he once took out ten different women in the same week.”

“Wow. At first, I wanted to find him because he’s one of our wolves,” Ronan said. “Now it’s so I can get a list of the supplements he’s taking.”

I smiled. “Who knows if that story is true? The senior world is full of tea, and not the kind you find in a pot. Who told you he was missing?”

“Calvin Holland, his roommate, called to tell me Sy didn’t come home again last night. He’s been gone for two days.”

“Could he be warming someone’s bed?” From what Ida had said, it seemed a solid possibility.

“I thought the same, but Calvin said Sylvester always checks in if he’s staying out. And he always comes home to change clothes and tend to things around the apartment.”

“Could he be wolfing out somewhere?”

“I want to be offended by that term, but it’s accurate, so I’ll let it slide. No, he couldn’t be wolfing out anywhere. Sylvester’s wolf is not only beta but very weak. For him to shift, he needs the help of a strong alpha.”

Ah, I was getting it now. “He always comes to you when he needs to shift, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Because he doesn’t trust your father. That’s also why Calvin called you?”

“Calvin’s a fox shifter. My father wouldn’t even take his call.” The bitterness in his voice was echoed in the downturn of his mouth. “He tried.”

I cursed. “When are you going to challenge that wolf for the pack?”

Ronan stared unblinking into my eyes, his voice and mouth still bent with bitterness. “Never.”

“Why?” I wanted to shake him. He was clearly the best choice for Paloma pack alpha. There was no contest. Why couldn’t he see that?

He leaned back on the sofa and shook all over, as if ridding himself of his dark mood. “I’m not alpha material. I just want the wolves to be cared for better.”

“Which makes you alpha material,” I said.

“There’s more to being an alpha leader than caring about the welfare of the elder wolves in the pack, trust me.”

“It’s a good place to start.” I set my empty water glass on the coffee table. “This will come to a head eventually. You’re too smart not to see that. You’re a stronger alpha, you care about these wolves, and Floyd isn’t a fool.”

“I mean, he’s not the sharpest pencil in the box, either.” Ronan cracked a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Well, no.” I leaned in, tapped my index finger on his knee to emphasize my next point. “But he’s exceptionally good at one thing. Holding onto power.”

Ronan’s smile slipped. “I know. Betty, I need you not to say anything about?—”

“ Never . I will never tell another living soul what you told me. Not Ida, not Fennel, and certainly not Cecil. Not even if you betray me. My keeping my word isn’t about you. It’s about my honor.”

“And you’ve got boatloads of it. You’re an extraordinary woman, Lennox.”

“It’s the bare minimum, Pallás. You could trust me with a lot more than that.”

“Speaking of…”

“You want me to look into this.”

“The alpha forbade me to investigate. Gave me a direct order.”

“That’s not suspicious at all,” I said. “Why?”

“He said running around after a weak old wolf was beneath me. That I needed to focus on more important things .”

“What an asshat.”

He dragged a hand down his face, blasted out another world-weary sigh. “Hell. I shouldn’t ask this of you.”

“It’s not that big an ask. I’m an odd jobs kind of witch.”

“Yeah, but I assumed that meant you mostly made charms, healed people of curses, cast protection spells, things like that.”

“Shows what you know. This isn’t even my first missing persons investigation.”

Technically, it was my third, and one of them was for a beta cat shifter in Amarillo, Texas who’d gotten stuck in animal form. I set out spelled bowls of her favorite cat treats in her known haunts then tracked her to a cat rescue. Caught her seconds before her spay appointment.

“Have Calvin get in touch with me. That way, as far as the pack is concerned, you’re out of it.”

He nodded, though he looked uneasy. “Betty, if things look dangerous, back off, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I’ve faced down worse than an octogenarian womanizer wolf, Ronan.”

“Yeah, but I’m not worried about you facing down Sylvester. I’m worried about whatever he faced down coming after you.” He drank the rest of his water and slammed the glass on the coffee table beside mine. “Damn it. This feels wrong. You know what? Never mind. I can?—”

“Thanks for your concern, but I’ll be fine.”

He searched my face as if looking for clues that I was lying. I wasn’t. I’d be fine.

“If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. I won’t hold it against you.”

I scooted closer and batted my eyes at him. “If I decline, can I still have a spa day in your bathroom?”

“Sure.” He grinned. “I’ll even supply the bubble bath.”

“So, if I do take the job, can I have two spa days? And homemade enchiladas that don’t incinerate my trachea?”

“Now you’re just being cruel. I worked hard on those.”

“Stick to the recipe next time, Pallás.”