Page 5 of Dragon’s Golden Mate (Shifter Nation: Enchanted Over Forty #2)

Kendrick stepped up to the door of The Crystal Cauldron. Through the window, he could see displays of sage bundles, tarot cards, and wands mixed with jewelry, framed prints, and soaps.

He also saw Maeve.

His dragon lurched as he opened the door and stepped inside.

Kendrick was immediately wrapped in the soothing scent of sandalwood and the sound of meditation music.

Though the shop was painted in dark colors, the displays were well-lit.

It made him feel like everyone could only see the merchandise and not him.

Clearly, Tina knew how to create an experience for her customers.

She stood at the counter, speaking with her mother.

Maeve was on the customers’ side of the counter, with her silvery hair streaking down her back.

Kendrick dared to take a look at her figure and the way her long, soft dress skimmed over her hips.

Corbin might call her Granny, but she sure didn’t look like one to Kendrick.

Spotting him, Tina smiled and waggled her fingers. “We were just talking about you!”

“Is that why my ears were burning?” Kendrick stepped up next to Maeve. “It was all bad, I’m sure.”

“Absolutely,” Maeve agreed with a small smile, her brown eyes sparkling a little in that perfect lighting. “You’re early.”

“Which means I’m right on time.” He tugged his gaze away from Maeve, aware that Tina was watching them closely.

He’d seen the way all the women had turned to stare when he’d shown up at the covenstead the previous day.

Though he knew they were curious about him and what he might have to do with their High Priestess, it would be easy to be intimidated by so many watchful eyes.

“Tina, Maeve tells me you might have some good information for me.” He smiled at her, noting how much she looked like her mother. Her dark auburn hair was cut short, and a pair of slim wire frames was perched on her nose, but her eyes and facial structure were very similar.

“I do, but not out here. Give me a second. Nia? Colette?” She lifted her head to look through the shop.

Two girls appeared a moment later, and Kendrick thought he’d seen them at the covenstead the previous day.

Nia had dark hair and eyes, and was dressed very conservatively.

Colette’s dishwater blonde hair had been dyed blue and red on the underside, and she sported two gold nose rings and plenty more in her ears.

“Could you girls work on the inventory and mind the cash register? I’ll be in the back room for a minute, but we had a big shipment come in,” Tina explained as she pulled a folding knife out of her pocket and flipped open the black blade. She sliced open a couple of boxes and put the knife away.

“Yay, new stuff!” Colette instantly dug her hands into one of the boxes, sifting through the packing material.

“Tina, did I tell you Gavin’s band got booked for a big gig?” Nia asked before her boss could walk away.

Colette made a face. “Girl, you’ve told everyone and anyone who will listen, and maybe even some who won’t!”

“I’m excited!” Nia explained. “Several other bands are playing who already have a following, and it could be a huge break for them. Anyway, Tina, I was wondering if he could post a flyer for the show here.”

Tina shrugged a little as she considered it. “Sure. Why not?”

Nia squealed. “Thank you! I want to help him get as much exposure as possible. I just know he’s going to make it big.”

Colette was pulling bundles of incense out of the box. “I guess you’d better get me his autograph so I can sell it for big bucks,” she retorted with a little smile.

They left the girls to run things, and Tina led them to a wooden door with raised panels. It was painted black and was hardly even noticeable. She opened it and stepped aside, making room for Kendrick and Maeve to enter before she shut the door behind them.

“Well, now.” Kendrick was surprised to find himself in what resembled a small and very old library.

Cabinets lined the perimeter of the room, with shelves on every inch of wall space above them.

These were laden with books of all kinds, many of them bound in leather.

Lamps illuminated the corners of the room, and a large table took up the center.

“When you said we were going to be in the back room, I was expecting a stock room with your extra inventory.”

Tina moved over to a shelf and began running her finger along a row of books.

“I have one of those, too! This is a place for more elevated witches, if you will. Those who know a little bit more than basic spells. Anything I sell out front is safe for tourists to mess around with, whether they know what they’re doing or not. ”

“I mentioned the church to my sister, Lucille,” Maeve told him. “She’ll check for any information at the library, but the books here are more like a library of the occult. Most of them were written by hand and are one-of-a-kind.”

“So how do we know where to start?” Kendrick peered at the spines of a few books, but some of them had faded and were hard to read.

“You leave that to me,” Tina said simply. She began laying books out on the table. “Have a seat.”

Two chairs were on this side of the table, so Kendrick pulled one out for Maeve before he took one for himself. He took one of the tomes Tina had set out. “Sacred Sites of Salem. That sounds promising.”

Before he knew it, he and Maeve were carefully paging through numerous old books. A notebook and a pen appeared at his side, probably put there by Tina, and Kendrick was jotting down anything that seemed significant. He lost track of time as he pored over old stories and accounts.

“Listen to this.” He leaned over toward Maeve and read out loud.

“Father Kinsella, newly appointed to the church, was said to be very happy with his new position. John, the groundskeeper, let him in to get himself situated and then went about caring for the lawn and flower beds. Only a short time later, Father Kinsella came running out through the front door. He pointed behind him and tried to speak to John, but all that came out of his mouth was gibberish. Father Kinsella ran down the street, his priestly robes flying behind him, and never returned.”

“Hm.” Maeve tapped the back end of her pen on her chin. “I wonder what he saw in there.”

“Kinsella is an Irish surname. I wonder how close he was to his roots and if perhaps he knew what the runes meant. That was decades ago, though. I don’t think we’d find him now.”

“Probably not,” Maeve agreed, “but look at this.” The crude, hand-drawn map she showed him was supposed to be a representation of the city, or at least part of it. Numerous blue lines were drawn across it. Several of them converged at the location of the church. “They’re supposed to be ley lines.”

“That would make sense, given my dragon’s reaction when I was there,” Kendrick said with a nod. “I do feel like it has to be more than that, though. I moved our whole clan here to account for shifting ley lines, so I know what those feel like.”

Maeve tapped her pen on her notebook. “That’s too bad. I was hoping it meant more.”

“Does it say what that star means?” Kendrick leaned close enough to point to the little blue star that was drawn at the location of the church, right where the lines converged.

His eyes were focused on the book, but Maeve’s scent curled around him like a silk scarf.

The brightness of lemon, then aromatic rosemary.

Underneath it all was something deep and earthy, like patchouli or sandalwood.

“Let’s see.” Maeve flipped to the next page. Her eyes flicked as she scanned it. “Ah. Here. It just says, ‘a source of great power.’ That doesn’t tell us much.”

“Is this the place?” Tina had still been looking through the shelves, and now she turned around with what appeared to be an old photo album. She laid it on the table before them.

The sepia-toned photo looked like it was at least a hundred years old.

The church would’ve already been around for a while at that point, but the background was much different from what he’d seen the day prior.

A large tree shaded one side of the building.

The photo showed a grassy lawn surrounding it, but now, an asphalt parking lot took its place.

“It had a little more charm to it back then,” Kendrick noted.

“And there’s one of the gargoyles you mentioned.” Maeve pointed, careful not to touch the old picture.

“Wait a minute.” Kendrick brought the album closer. “That’s not where I saw it yesterday.”

“What?” Maeve looked at him and then back at the photo.

“I saw four of them.” He closed his eyes, recalling each one. “One was up there on the steeple, but it was on the west side looking down at the front doors. This is the same carving, but look. It’s facing south.”

“A prank?” Tina theorized. “Or maybe it got moved around during some sort of reconstruction or remodeling.”

Kendrick folded his arms in front of his chest and tried to think. “I would agree with you if I hadn’t seen what I saw yesterday.”

Maeve tucked some of that long, silvery hair behind her ear. “What did you see?”

He was focused on the slim chain of her earring with a bit of moonstone at the bottom, and the way it dangled so close to her neck.

Kendrick blinked and sat back. “On my first round through the building, one of them simply wasn’t there.

Then it was when I came back through. I know that sounds crazy, and I know stone carvings don’t just get up and move, but it definitely wasn’t there the first time. ”

“That reminds me.” Maeve looked up at her daughter. “Do you have anything about runes? Ogham, specifically?”

“Right here.” Tina laid a slim volume on the table.

The two of them reached for it at the same time, their hands brushing. Kendrick felt the warm softness of her slim fingers beneath his, and his dragon urged him to pull her hand into both of his. He fought the instinct hard and pulled away instead. “I’m sorry. You go ahead.”

“No, really. You should,” she insisted. “You were the one who saw the runes.”

Reluctantly, Kendrick pulled the book over and flipped it open.

He tried to recall exactly which symbols had been carved on the little statues, but his mind refused to concentrate.

Maeve was the perfect person to help him with this.

She was smart and attuned to magic. She knew the area, and she had access to better information than he could find in any library or public records.

She was also consistently reminding him of his intention to stay single.

The rest of the clan really hadn’t been too far off when they’d said he’d made a vow.

Kendrick wasn’t interested in going through all of that heartache again, and he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t.

He’d been lucky enough to have more than one fated mate already in his lifetime, so it would only be pure selfishness if he paired with another.

Wouldn’t it?

A gentle knock sounded on the door, and Nia poked her head in. “Uh, Tina?”

“Yeah?” Tina had sat down on the opposite side of the table and was flipping through a book with gilt edging. She didn’t look up.

“I, uh, I have an inventory issue.”

“Are we missing something?” Tina kept her hand on the book as she looked at her employee.

“No.” Nia blushed a little and chewed her lip. “I just don’t know where to put something.”

Tina’s brows scrunched together. “That’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I told you when you started working here that I’d much rather you ask me if you have any questions instead of making assumptions, so you’re doing the right thing.”

Nia took a deep breath, seemingly preparing for something. She stepped into the room. Her eyes darted toward Kendrick for just a moment before she held up a large phallus made of rose quartz. “I don’t know where to put this.”

Kendrick cleared his throat. “I didn’t know this was that kind of store.”

Maeve and Tina burst out in laughter.

“It’s not!” Tina assured him. “That’s not what that’s for at all!”

“No.” Maeve’s eyes were watering, and she ran her finger underneath them. “It’s symbolic, and it helps with infertility or other sexual issues.”

Now Nia was laughing, too. “I really hated to come and ask you when you had people in here, but I didn’t think I could just put it out with the towers and spheres.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tina assured her. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a set of keys, and tossed them to her. “You can put it in the locked glass case up by the cash register. Otherwise, someone will swipe it within a couple of days.”

“Okay. Thanks. And sorry again!” Nia ducked out of the room.

Maeve was still giggling a little. “The poor girl. The look on her face!”

“How much do you want to bet she asks Colette to lock it up instead?” Tina snorted a little. “Those two girls are like night and day, but I just love them. Anyway, are we making any progress on this old building?”

Kendrick had managed to get back to his notes on the runes, but his concentration was completely shattered now. “Some, at least, although I’m not sure where it’s going.”

“I’d like to get a feel for the cathedral myself,” Maeve said as she flipped through her notes. “Books and pictures can be helpful, but something’s missing. I guess I just want to feel that energy for myself, if you think that would be all right.”

“It’s not far. We could walk there right now, if you’d like. I could use some fresh air.” The tension he felt between himself and Maeve was far greater than the odd currents of energy he’d picked up on at the church, and this dark little room was starting to feel cramped.

“That works for me. Tina, let me help you put all of these books away first.”

“No, don’t worry about it.” Tina shooed her mother’s hands away from the stacks of books laid out on the table. “I’ve noticed that some of them need to be organized a little better, anyway. Go on. Take those notebooks with you, too. I don’t need them back.”

“You’re very generous,” Kendrick told her. “I thank you for your time and for letting us explore what you’ve got here.”

Tina’s grin was a little too wide as she looked at Kendrick, then Maeve, and then back at Kendrick again. “I’m happy to.”

They stepped out of the room, and Kendrick was grateful that they didn’t linger in the shop before they went out onto the street. A nice walk out in public was probably going to be a much safer way to spend time with Maeve. When the breeze lifted her hair, though, he was no longer sure.