Kai wet a napkin with the water and put it on the back of her neck. “Is that what breed he is? My little sister calls him Alien Cat.”
“What do you call him?”
Kai shrugged. “Owen, the Pain in My Neck.”
“Seems like a fine title. Ooh, what are you making?” She pointed to the glistening, serpentine mounds of dough. “They look kind of…”
“Disgusting?” Kai offered.
“Well, yes, if I’m being honest.”
“Perfect! That’s what I was going for. Miss Delaney said that I was welcome to experiment when there weren’t any customers and this is my creation. Aren’t they brilliant?”
“What are they?” Verity asked skeptically.
Kai leaned in to share the secret. “Sweetbreads,” she whispered. “Get it?”
Verity put her hands on her hips and furrowed her brow.
“Technically it’s just Monkey Bread,” said Kai. “I tried to make them in the shape of a pancreas or a heart, but they just came out like giant thick blobs, so I decided to go the lumpy-intestine route. They’ll cook more evenly this way too. I thought they’d be the perfect thing to sell in the shop during the Scaresgiving Parade.” Now Verity was staring at her. “You think it’s a terrible idea.”
“No, I agree with you,” said Verity. “They’re positively brilliant. In this fabulous town full of Halloween-crazed nutballs, the tourists are going to be eating these up. Literally!”
Kai clapped her hands together in a puff of flour. “Really? You think so?”
“I do,” said Verity. “And I look forward to sampling this first batch. You go pop those in the oven, and I’ll set up over here. Is that all right?”
Kai nodded. Verity often came into town to write. Roxy’s guest house was cozy enough, but the costumed residents and visitors inspired her, she said. The random splashes of color and cheeriness “pleased her Muse.” Little did she know that most of those costumes weren’t costumes at all.
Verity Mercer was a guest in this town, and human, and therefore not privy to the fact that all of Roxy’s friends and neighbors who spent their days acting like gargoyles and witches and werewolves were actually gargoyles and witches and werewolves. As long as Verity kept drinking the local enchanted water, she’d be none the wiser. So Kai kept her mouth shut and delivered a fresh glass of water to Verity’s table. As far as Verity knew, Kai was just a crazy teenager who talked to cats.
She would never know that Kai heard this cat talk back.
Kai slid the cookie sheet in the oven and then stopped in the bathroom to wash her hands and splash some water on her face. She took off her flour-covered apron and changed into a fresh one. She felt much more composed when she walked back out to the sales floor. “I’m going to check the sweetbreads in about fifteen minutes,” she said to Verity. “Can I get you anything in the meantime? Besides water?”
“A coffee would be great,” Verity said into her laptop, her fingers already flying across the keys.
“The usual?” asked Kai.
“Mmm-hmm.”
Kai walked to the front door and stood by the clear glass. Nocturne Falls was a year-round tourist destination, and Black Cat Boulevard was one of the main drags…but for some reason, this sunny Wednesday afternoon was deader than usual. There was no traffic on the road or cars parked in the street, just Verity’s sea-foam-green Vespa on the sidewalk. For the first time in a very long time, Nocturne Falls looked like an actual ghost town. With no ghosts in it whatsoever.
It also meant that Bellamy would be bored to tears.
Kai waved her arms, trying to get her bestie’s attention. She could have abandoned her post for five minutes and walked across the street, but communicating from one store picture window to another was so much more fun.
Bellamy had her elbows planted on the counter of Hallowed Bean, head in her hands, wings drooping sadly at her back. It was not the fairy who noticed Kai’s wild gesturing but Maya and Kaley, the teen witches who just so happened to be sitting at a table right by the window.
Kai smiled, waved, and pointed to Bellamy. She could have texted, but she wasn’t supposed to have her phone on at work.
Maya and Kaley waved back. Maya walked to the counter and said something to Bellamy, who perked up immediately and ran to the window.
Kai pointed to Verity, even though Bellamy couldn’t see her, and then pantomimed frantic typing.
Bellamy also pantomimed typing and giggled. She made a sign for drinking.
Kai nodded, and then held up two fingers, placing an order for both Verity and herself. Unless some miracle occurred in the next couple of hours, there wouldn’t be many more customers today, which meant that the time would pass by incredibly slowly. A coffee would certainly help with that. Especially one made by Bellamy.
Bellamy nodded back cheerfully, the colorful locks in her honey-blonde hair bobbing like a drunken rainbow. She gave Kai two thumbs up, did a little dance, and blew her a kiss.
And then a cloud went over the sun.
It was as if all the color drained from the world, and only a strange blue tint was left. Out of nowhere, the wind picked up. In the distance, Kai could hear sirens. A tornado in November? Totally not the right time of year. Besides, before a tornado the sky usually tinted green or yellow, not blue.
Without opening the door, Kai strained to look as far as she could down one end of the street, and then the other…and that’s when she saw him. He tore out of the alleyway like a dark streak and sped down the middle of the boulevard. She heard a whistle now, and more sirens. This was bad news.
Keep running, she said inside her head. Keep running. Don’t stop here. There is nothing for you here.
But he did stop. Dead in the middle of the street between Delaney’s Delectables and Hallowed Bean. He put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Chunks of long, black hair fell forward, covering his face.
Danger. She felt the word in every fiber of her being.
Kai looked to her friends at the window of Hallowed Bean. Maya was standing now; the chair where she’d been sitting had fallen over on its side. Kaley’s eyes were wide, as if she wanted to scream, but Bellamy’s hand was over her mouth.
The guy in the road stood up. Seemed to sniff the air.
Not them, Kai’s inner voice went on. If you need a place to hide, it’s not there.
He turned his head to stare right at Kai.
He was the most magnificent boy she’d ever seen. Man. Young man. Like a rock star. Or the son of a rock star. He was swathed in black: his hair, his jacket, his shirt, his jeans, his boots. As he came closer, Kai could tell that the boots were scuffed. The jeans and shirt were torn. The jacket was held together in places with safety pins. Closer. And closer.
He stalked to the door like a death wish.
Kai stepped back, but she could not look away from him. Would not. If he lost interest in her, he might go across the street and hurt her friends. She couldn’t risk that.
His skin was deeply tan. His jaw was square and hard with a shadow of stubble. His nose was cut on the bridge. It might have been broken, and one eye looked like he’d been punched. His eyebrows were thick and shot with a streak of silver. All of this was framed by a mane of wavy, shoulder-length hair.
The bells tinkled as the door opened, but no one was laughing.
Kai stopped moving backward and stood her ground. His eyes were all she could see now. Gray and gold. Hunted. Haunted. The heel of his boot scraped against the polished hardwood floor as he stepped nearer. The air smelled like lightning.
Verity wasn’t tapping on her keyboard anymore, but Kai didn’t dare look away from his eyes. He could have had a knife or a gun…but she couldn’t look away. She heard muffled voices outside the shop: people running in the street, calling out to each other. A lot of people.
There’s no escape for you, buddy, Kai’s inner voice said. Not in this town.
He lifted a hand to her cheek—his knuckles were bloody—but K
ai remained as still as stone. One corner of his mouth turned up in what might have been a smile…but before she could decide, he was kissing her.
He was kissing her and his lips felt soft and kind. He was kissing her and the whole world melted away to nothing. He was kissing her and her heart stopped beating. He was kissing her and warmth spread through her body, all the way down to her toes. He was kissing her…and she was pretty sure she was kissing him back…and it was beautiful. She had never felt so beautiful in her whole entire life.
She heard Bellamy’s voice ring out in the street, signaling the search party, and it pulled her back to reality. She pushed at the stranger’s exceptionally broad chest—all of it muscle—and he broke away without a struggle.
“Proclaim no shame,” he whispered in her ear, his deep voice a cross between a growl and a touch.
The bells tinkled again, madly this time, again and again as the sweet shop filled with people. Sheriff Merrow took one side of the stranger and Deputy Blythe took the other. Together they pulled him to the door. Someone put a protective arm around Kai. Verity.
“Sanctuary!” the prisoner cried. “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”
“I’ll give you sanctuary, kid,” said the sheriff. “Down at the station.”
The rest of the crowd left with the prisoner, but Deputy Cruz stayed behind. “Kai, are you all right?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Was she all right? It had all happened so fast, and yet it wouldn’t stop replaying itself in her mind. She wasn’t sure she wanted it to.
“Let’s give her a minute, deputy,” Kai heard Verity say. “She needs to collect herself. And her friends need to make sure she’s okay.”
Kai let Verity speak for her, because she didn’t seem to be able to form sentences yet. Or words. The ones Verity was using seemed just fine.
Deputy Cruz nodded. “Take your time. Just send her down to the station as soon as she’s ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
The bells tinkled again as the deputy left, but he didn’t get far. Kai heard him ask Bellamy and Maya and Kaley for their statements.
“Honey, tell me the truth now. Are you okay?” Verity rolled her eyes. “What am I saying? That boy kissed you within an inch of your life. Of course you’re not okay. My guess is right now you’re torn between quite a lot of feelings. Am I right?”
Kai nodded. Her whole body felt like a fire doused by a bucket of water, leaving nothing behind but smoke and dying embers.
“What I want to know is, what did he say to you?”
“‘Proclaim no shame,’” Kai repeated. Coming from her mouth, the words sounded flat and high-pitched. “What’s that from?”
“Well,” said Verity, “I don’t pretend to know all the music you kids listen to these days, but back in my time that was a quote from Hamlet.”
It made an odd sort of sense, seeing as what he’d yelled on his way out the door had been Quasimodo’s famous line from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. That one, she did know.
Kai blinked into the daylight that seemed all too bright now. “What kind of delinquent runs from the police and kisses strange girls while quoting Shakespeare and Victor Hugo?”
“Oh, sweetie.” Verity sighed and gave Kai a reassuring squeeze. “The very best kind.”
* * *
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The Truth About Cats and Wolves!
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a fairy godmother, and a geek. She’s known for screwing up the alphabet, making horror movies with her friends, narrating the occasional story, and ranting about fairy tales on YouTube.
Alethea’s published works include novels, novellas, and companions in the universes of Arilland, Nocturne Falls, Barefoot Bay, and Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunters. She is also responsible for the AlphaOops picture books; Haven, Kansas; Wild & Wishful, Dark & Dreaming; The Wonderland Alphabet; and Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome. Her short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in over fifty anthologies and magazines.
Alethea’s YA fairy tale novel, Enchanted, won both the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award and Garden State Teen Book Award. Enchanted was nominated for the Audie Award in 2013 and was selected for World Book Night in 2014. Both Enchanted and its sequel, Hero, were nominated for the Andre Norton Award. Tales of Arilland, a short story collection set in the same fairy tale world, won a second Gelett Burgess Award in 2015. The second book in The Trix Adventures, Trix and the Faerie Queen, was a finalist for the Dragon Award in 2016.
Princess Alethea was given the honor of speaking about fairy tales at the Library of Congress in 2013. In 2015, she gave a keynote address at the Lewis Carroll Society’s Alice150 Conference in New York City, celebrating the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She also enjoys speaking at schools and festivals all over the US. (If forced to choose between all these things, she says middle schools are her favorite!)
Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea currently lives and writes on the Space Coast of Florida. She makes the best baklava you’ve ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie. Find out more about Princess Alethea and the magic, wonderful world in which she lives here: https://www.patreon.com/princessalethea
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Connect with Princess Alethea Online!
www.aletheakontis.com
[email protected] Also by Alethea Kontis
The Truth About Cats and Wolves
When Tinker Met Bell
Haven, Kansas
Fish Out of Water
Wild & Wishful, Dark & Dreaming
Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome
Tales of Arilland
Enchanted
Hero
Dearest / Messenger
Trixter
Trix and the Faerie Queen
AlphaOops: The Day Z Went First
AlphaOops: H is for Halloween
The Wonderland Alphabet
Beauty & Dynamite
The Dark-Hunter Companion (w/Sherrilyn Kenyon)
The Simi’s ABCs (w/Sherrilyn Kenyon)
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Alethea Kontis, Trix & the Faerie Queen
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