Page 27 of Witches and Wine (The Mythical Mates of Arcane Cove #1)

Chelsea’s touch still left an imprint on my horns, the way she’d grabbed, yanked, and rubbed them.

If I had known she would grow such a fascination for them, I would’ve shown them to her a long time ago—hindsight and all that bullshit.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that someone was impersonating the High Priestess.

She was never one to meddle, especially with her own kind.

Whoever it really was enjoyed watching others in emotional pain.

The fact Chelsea had gone for days thinking her magic was manipulating me must have been torturous, and it killed me inside.

I never wanted her to hurt or feel anguish of any kind.

Even if my godly powers could do nothing to spare her, perhaps once we accepted the bond, her being my mate would help somehow.

I’d ported us to the Crone’s cottage, making no motion to knock or announce our presence.

I recalled Chelsea trying to pretend as if she hadn’t wanted to see me break down a door with brute force.

Grinning to myself with Chelsea close behind me, I slammed my shoulder into the door, cracking the frame and making it swing open.

“Oh, Crone,” I called out, unleashing my claws and scraping them together.

I’d have thought her gone were it not for the bubbling pot of stew on the hearth or the freshly lit candles that had yet to spend even half their wax.

“Do you think they knew we were coming?” Chelsea asked, peering into the steaming pot on the fire with Riley propped on her shoulder, glaring at its contents.

“Of course, I knew you were coming,” the being pretending to be the High Priestess croaked, shuffling into the space from a back room. “How else would I be the Priestess if I couldn’t see into the future, hm?”

The horns itched against my skull, the beast begging to attack, to protect. If I wasn’t so focused on the potentially dangerous fraud in front of me, I might have put more thought into forgetting the horns weren’t hidden.

“The Crone is a witch, not a seer,” I countered, my shoulders tensing from the unpredictability hanging chaotically in the air.

Cressida pressed a hand to her chest in a feigned insult. “You talk to me as if I’m not the Priestess. Whoever would I be if not?”

Chelsea slid closer to me, her hand finding one of my belt loops and hanging her finger from it. Riley, halfway hidden behind Chelsea’s neck, hissed at the impostor.

“Why don’t you tell us and save me from forcing it out of you?” I snarled my words, turning my claws so they’d catch the firelight, aiming the glint in the impostor’s direction.

The Priestess bit back a smile and wiggled a withering finger at me. “Oh, now Dionysus, since when did you fight with your claws? Whatever happened to your thyrsus?”

Chelsea tilted her head at me as if she had no idea what a thyrsus was, and why would she?

Out-stretching my arm, I produced the golden staff of giant fennel covered with ivy vines and leaves, winding the rod and topped with a pine cone. “I’ll most certainly beat it out of you if you prefer.”

The Crone’s maniacal laughter gradually morphed into a horrendous cackle.

“Wait a minute,” I started, pointing the pine cone at the fraudster. “I recognize that fucking cackle.”

“Who is it?” Chelsea asked.

“Yes, yes, wine god, pray tell, who am I ?” The impostor widely grinned and pressed their fingertips together.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” I mumbled, annoyed that the infamous trickster somehow wound up in the Cove.

He let out another cackle before spinning on his heel and transforming himself back into his true form.

A pair of golden eyes peered beneath two grey, bushy, and high-arched brows.

His deathly white skin was textured and grooved, with long pointed ears with several hoop and bauble earrings that poked from the sides of his head, a large, slanted nose drooping so far it almost touched his paper-thin upper lip.

Rumpelstiltskin dusted himself and picked lint from his feathered cloak before acknowledging our presence.

“You know, for a party god, you really can be such a buzzkill, Dion.”

“What the Tartarus are you doing here, Stilts?” I hadn’t lowered my staff yet, keeping the pine cone tip pointed at him in case he tried any funny business.

Rumpelstiltskin paraded the room, picking up random objects to shove in his pockets like he was selecting souvenirs.

“By here, I’m going to assume you mean Arcane Cove and not the Crone’s cottage and to answer that, I’m not here of my choosing, I assure you.

A sorceress banished me here, and hexed me so I can’t leave.

I got bored, and such a lovely distraction plopped itself in my lap.

” He leaned to the side so he could see Chelsea and gave her a fluttery wave with his gnarled twig-like fingers, black pointed nails forming the tips.

“Why would you say all those things to me?” Chelsea spat, venom lacing her tone.

Rumpelstiltskin tapped a finger over his thin lips and sauntered toward us, extending a hand to Chelsea. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced, love.”

Growling, I shoved the butt end of my staff to Rumpel’s sternum. “Don’t you come any closer to her.”

“Hush, hush,” Rumpel mused with a toss of his long grey hair, motioning for me to remove my staff, which I didn’t. “Put your knot away, frenzy god. I’ve already had my fun with her. I promise to behave.”

“Your promises are worth about as much as a werewolf’s promise to shave, Stilts.” I jabbed him with the pine cone.

Riley stood on his haunches, hissing and baring his teeth at Rumpel.

Rumpel snarled at the ferret, making him leap from Chelsea’s shoulder.

Instead of cowering away like any other small animal in the same situation, Riley snatched a small bread knife from the table.

It happened so quickly that I barely caught it, and within moments, he was back on Chelsea’s shoulder, the blade proudly clamped within his teeth.

Chelsea folded her arms, stepping to my side from behind me. “Care to challenge my familiar still, Rumpelstiltskin ? And, of course, I’ve heard of you.”

“Ah, yes. From all the stories I imagine?” Rumpel leaned away from the knife-bearing ferret. “They only got about half of it right.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Chelsea repeated with more fire in her voice, her stance widening, fists clenching at her hips.

That spitfire at my side was mine .

“Love, I thought it was obvious. I toyed with you for my own amusement.” Rumpel scoffed, dragging a hand down the sad excuse for a grey beard grown on his pointy chin.

Chelsea took another step forward, and I struggled with an internal battle of convincing her not to provoke him or sitting back and watching the damn show. “So, none of it was true? None of it?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. You are a moon witch.” Rumpel swiped an iron spoon from the table, held it to the hearth’s light, shrugged, and slipped it into his pocket.

Slowly, I lowered the staff but kept it poised in Rumpel’s direction.

“How would you know that? You’re not the High Priestess,” Chelsea argued.

Get him, Red.

“I may be no Crone, but I am a warlock.” Rumpel bowed with a flourish. “We appear to be woven from the same cloth, Chelsea.”

“We are not the same,” Chelsea spat.

Rumpel cackled, revealing rows of rotting, yellowed, and blackened teeth. “That’s right. Because I know how to use my magic.” He raised his hand as if getting ready to snap, and I lurched forward. “Ta.”

I lunged with the staff but only met with air as Rumpel disappeared.

“Well, shit.” Chelsea flopped her arms at her sides. “Where is the real Priestess?”

Using the pine cone to scratch my head, I grimaced. “Suppose we should’ve led with that one, huh?”

“Any idea how we look for her? If he’s this powerful of a warlock, she could be virtually anywhere or appearing as anything.

” Chelsea paced a square on the wooden floor.

“If only I could use my power.” Frustratedly, she fanned her hand, sending a sizzle of starlit magic at the hearth, igniting the flames.

Frowning over her dismay, I lifted my fingers toward the raging fire, dousing it with trickling water, my maroon magic coiling around my arm. “That was a good start.”

“I almost burnt down an ancient witch’s cottage, Dion.”

Leaning on my thyrsus, I tilted my head. “Semantics.”

Letting out a cub-like growl, she stomped past me toward the door. “I’m going to check the surrounding woods.”

“Then that’s what I’m doing, too.” I beat the butt of the staff against the floor, bouncing it into my grasp to use like a walking stick.

Chelsea whirled around, her cheeks flushed with crimson, lips parting to protest, but I stopped her with a kiss. She melted against me, whimpering into my mouth.

“Baby, I know you can fend for yourself, but I’m going to ask you to let me help protect you.

Can you do that for me? Rumpelstiltskin is nothing compared to what could be crawling in those woods.

Not everything in the Cove is righteous.

That’s the whole point of this place acting as a refuge for anyone magical.

” I lifted her chin with my knuckle, flashing her a pleading, hooded gaze.

It was also an uphill battle trying to mask the unease I’d felt from a ferret with a blade in its mouth staring at me.

“Alright,” Chelsea whispered, slipping her hand into mine.

“We’ll watch each other’s backs.” She urged Riley from her shoulder, encouraging him to stay in the cottage, promising that we’d be back for him.

He whined, still clutching the knife with his teeth, but soon relented and curled into a ball on a chair.

There was no telling what I would’ve done if she hadn’t agreed so easily.

We’d yet to accept the mating bond, and already I felt such an overwhelming need to protect her—to kill anything who dared harm her.

I secretly prayed no one would ever dare threaten her.

Chelsea met the beast, but she’d yet to witness it untamed.