Page 4 of Hungry As Her Python

He was headed back to the Castor’s Corner Firehouse, probably to file reports or scrub soot off the gear. I didn’t ask.

The smoke was stinging my eyes, and my throat felt like I’d swallowed a handful of cinders.

Stinking firebug.

Someone was doing this on purpose.

To me.

I could feel it in my flour-dusted bones. And if I had to hex every last troublemaker in town to find them, I would.

“Petyr? You finished?” I rasped, stepping inside.

“Da, my Witchy. You come now,” he said from right beside me.

I jumped.

“How in the world?—”

A coughing fit cut me off, and Petyr held up a bottle of water.

“Cold will not work,” I waved him off. “I need hot tea. Possibly with brandy. Heavy on the brandy.”

Before Petyr could answer, a car pulled into the lot behind me.

My familiar’s little horned head tilted toward the sound, and he muttered, “He is here.”

Of course he was.

I closed my eyes, willing the intruder away. No such luck.

Six and a half feet of gorgeous, trouble-making man unfolded from the patrol car, all lazy grace, and broad shoulders.

Conrad moved like steam—rising, curling, filling the space between us without touching me.

One second, he was across the parking lot and the next, poof, right in front of me.

“Are you alright?” he asked, and his voice wrapped around me like warm honey with a bite of heat at the end.

Petyr squinted up at him, snarling before glancing back at me.

“Want me to get rid?”

I shook my head slightly at his offer.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine. Thank you for coming,” I said, already regretting it.

The last time I’d seen Conrad, we’d both been coming.

Hard.

Simultaneously.

And ever since, I’d been steering clear like a Witch who knows better than to look into a cursed mirror—nothing good ever comes out of it.

I turned around, ready to dismiss him, but of course, the Shifter was having none of that.

“It’s time we talk, Maribella,” he said, using that full-name tone that made my spine tingle.