Chapter 4
PEPPERMINT
Dead predator on our territory.
Mother dies again, rather theatrically.
Amateur.
— gus
After a long day on my feet, I’m exhausted and ready to go upstairs to relax for the evening.
It’s almost time. We’re… or, really, I since Gus is curled up around a cake stand on the counter, snuffling as he sleeps…
prepped for tomorrow morning. The leftover goods that haven’t been sold have been bagged up and set aside for drop-off at the Moonburrow food bank for donation; considering how much shifters eat—especially the predators—there’s always someone in need, even in a shifter town that relies on pack and community more than humans do in their suburbs and cities.
It’s my way to help, and if it’s not something I can repurpose or sell as day-old, it goes to supes who will happily gobble up my treats.
The day’s receipts have been reconciled, too, the deposit tucked in the safe.
I’ll drop the money off, plus the donation during my mid-morning break tomorrow before heading back to prep for the lunch rush.
But that’s all tomorrow. Tonight? I’m going to take a shower, throw on some comfy PJs, pick a movie to watch, and zone out with the frozen pizza that’s been calling my name for the last hour or so.
Sounds like a plan. I just need to grab Gus and—
Gus.
Where’s Gus?
Two seconds ago, he was zonked-out, his reflection in the cake stand leaving two slumbering opossums on the countertop.
Now? There isn’t a single one. No large opossum with his coarse whitish-grey fur and adorable ears.
Not on the flour bag he claimed my first morning in the bakery, or searching determinedly for any few stray crumbs he won’t be able to find in the freshly cleaned display case.
“Gus?” I call out. “Where are you, bud?”
Over the slight hum from the lights, I hear a familiar sound coming from the back. It’s mainly the kitchen with my industrial mixers, multiple ovens, and cooling racks, but at the end of the space, there’s an exit that leads out into the back alley where we have our dumpster.
That’s where I find him. Standing in front of the door, his hackles raised and his tail lashing, Gus hisses at it.
“What’s wrong?”
His beady eyes focus on the back door for a split second longer before he turns toward me as though he can’t help himself. After closing the gap between us with his adorable little shuffle, Gus climbs up my leg, my side, my shoulder. He settles there, wrapping his prehensile tail around my throat.
I wait for him to make some kind of sound that might help me understand what upset him, but all he does is nuzzle close to my skin.
I pat his head. “Alright, buddy. Let’s go upstairs. We have an early morning tomorrow.”
Hell, I run my own bakery. I have an early morning every morning—except for Mondays ‘cause we’re off, but still. If there’s something skulking around the back alley behind the bakery, it can wait until tomorrow.
Who knows? It’s probably just Roxy, smirking as she realized that I went to a local hardware shop and convinced the shy if knowledgeable mole shifter owner to teach me how to change the lock on my back door before she can break in to the bakery again.
I smile to myself as I scratch Gus under his chin, flicking off the main lights to the bakery.
That trip took almost an hour before dinner yesterday, plus the twenty bucks it cost for the supplies. When I see the look on Roxy’s face the next time she tries to pilfer some pastries, it’ll be worth it.
Hey. She grew up, but so did I. And while we might be friends-ish these days, I’m not the pushover I used to be—
Gus makes a mild clicking sound.
I cock my head. “Mm? What’s that?”
The clicks become an insistent chittering.
“Okay. If you want eggs for dinner, you can have eggs.”
He rubs the edge of his bare, scaly, pink opossum tail against my throat, Gus’s version of a thanks.
Okay. I’m not a pushover to anyone except Gus, that is.
That’s okay. He’s worth it.
And even if he wasn’t, from the moment he imprinted on me as a young opossum seeing me while I was in my fur, he’s been my loyal sidekick, my best buddy, and the only roommate I’ve had and… wow.
Maybe I do need to get out more.
Prey circle, huh? Well. Maybe I should never say never.
It’s five o’clock in the morning when Gus and I head downstairs to start our day.
Ah. The life of a baker.
Opossums in the wild are nocturnal. They also have a lifespan of about two years or so; four in captivity.
Most of my witchy side is only really good for following Grandma Jean’s recipes.
I can’t cast any spells, not even simple ones like my mom can.
Still, maybe there’s something magical about me since I’ve already had Gus as my sidekick for eight years and he shows no sign of slowing down.
Plus, he keeps to my hours, and if that’s not magical, I don’t know what is.
I found him hiding behind a trash can when I was working in a coffee shop back in Glenville.
He’d been much smaller than—he’s about the size of a house cat now—and all alone.
He hissed at me, but when I quickly shucked off my clothes, shifting to my fur, the abandoned opossum immediately latched onto me.
And I mean that literally. Gus didn’t crawl into my pouch… and, no, it’s not weird that I have a pouch when I’m my opossum since I am a marsupial, after all… but he did scurry up on my back, holding on tightly.
From then on, it’s been the two of us. Honey and Gus, and he doesn’t mind that I spend most of my time in my skin. The big human feeds him, brushes him, and makes sure he doesn’t get the stray tick on him… of course we’re buddies.
He’s riding my shoulder now. As soon as we reach the bottom of the steps and I push open the door that separates the kitchen from the stairs that lead up to the apartment built over the shop, he digs his teensy claws through my oversized pink sweater, finding enough skin that I yip.
“Gus? What’s the matter?”
He curls his tail around the back of my neck, burying his face in the side.
I pat his flank. “I know. It’s early. Why don’t you get comfy while I get to work?”
I move us from the kitchen to the store space, resting my hand on the back counter.
Gus meanders his way down my arm, plopping on the counter, whiskers twitching.
His corner has a brown basket with a fuzzy tan blanket in it.
He’s slept in it maybe twice in the last two months, preferring the ten-pound bag of flour that I’d knocked onto its side once before Gus claimed it as his throne.
Mimicking me when I knead dough, he’s done the opossum version of cat biscuits, making the hard sack comfortable without tearing open the thick paper on the bag. Gus sniffs the flour, declares it acceptable, and curls up on top of it.
I playfully tweak one of his pink ears, then get started on my morning prep.
There’s so much to do and, after rolling up my sleeves, I get down to it.
Proofing dough, getting batter ready, checking on the puff pastry that chilled overnight…
I’m working as the sun comes up, streaking in through the large bakery windows.
Despite so many shifters in Moonburrow, this part of the town is definitely diurnal.
If I thought I could get away with having a nighttime bakery, I would’ve changed the hours, but since Grandma Jean was used to human hours—and so was I after spending so long in Glenville—I kept them the same.
That means that I’m up at four a.m., down at the bakery by five, and in bed by nine at the latest. I spend a lot of time with just me and Gus, and I don’t mind it. No. I’m not lonely. No. I’m not wondering what Max Lobo is doing right now…
Nope. That way lies danger, and instead of letting my mind wander, I change the trash bag out. I’d filled it up during prep this morning, and I prefer keeping it empty unless it’s too busy for me to rush outside to toss it in the dumpster.
Just as I’m knotting the big, black trash bag together so that it doesn’t spill, Gus perks up his head. He sees the trash bag, clicks his teeth, and stretches. Before I can even start for the swinging door that leads to the kitchen, he’s at my heels, chittering in his way at me to hurry up.
I heft up the bag, peering down at Gus.
“You my little guard opossum this morning? Okay. Come along.”
He doesn’t often join me on my early morning trash runs, but something’s been worrying Gus since last night.
Maybe I’m ridiculous. It’s more than likely.
Still, I trust his wild opossum instincts way more than my coddled inner beast. If he thinks something’s up, I don’t mind following him out back into the alley that houses the dumpster.
The moment I unlock the back door and step outside, I shift the weight of the trash bag, using my free hand to cover my nose.
Woof. It smells like a candy cane factory blew up back here.
Peppermint overwhelms everything, and considering the dumpster is only emptied once a week and the trash tends to stink even though it’s mid-autumn, that’s a mighty impressive feat.
I’m an opossum shifter and it completely blows out my nose.
At my feet, Gus is pawing his snout. He doesn’t like it, either.
I use my elbow to gesture behind me. The door’s still open. My voice comes out muffled, thanks to the way I’m pinching my nose. “Go back in, bud. You don’t have to smell this.”
Gus stops pawing his face, the pointed look in his beady black eyes telling me that, if I’m going to drop off the trash, he’s coming with me.
Fine. Let’s get this over with.
The peppermint is giving me a headache. I march over to the dumpster, tossing the trash bag inside of it. There. I turn, ready to head back in—and that’s when I notice a pair of legs… boots… something sticking out from the other side of the dumpster.
My initial impression is that someone is sitting up against the metal side, kicking their legs out. The shadow makes the fabric look dark. Black, perhaps?
“Roxy? If you’re pissed that I changed the lock on the back door and that meant you couldn’t break in, you don’t have to sit on the nasty asphalt and pout about it. All you had to do was knock at the front. I have some leftover almond croissants I saved for you.”
Huh. No answer.
So either Roxy really is pissed, she’s fucking with me, or… or that’s not Roxy.
I should go back inside. It stinks like Christmas in early November, my eyes are watering, and Gus is now pawing at my ankle, his tiny claws snagging on the fabric of my legging. Something’s not right, but I’m also not about to leave someone sitting in the alley when I can help them.
“Rox? Is that you?”
Still no answer.
Wiping my nervous hands on my thighs, I take a few steps and peer around the side of the dumpster.
It’s not Roxy.
It’s…
It’s…
It’s Declan, the wolf who made up the bulk of my sales yesterday.
And he’s dead.
There’s no denying it. Those are his dark blue jeans and his dark boots sticking out, connected to a male body crumpled on his side.
His tan skin had faded to a waxy white. His face is halfway transformed; his nose is a muzzle, and his teeth are fangs.
His lips are a deep blue. His eyes, open and wide and staring, are silver.
His hand is outstretched. In the few seconds that I catalog the scene, I notice that. He might have been sitting up against the dumpster, or maybe he was tossed behind it like trash, but before he died, he’d had one last treat.
Because there, mere inches away from his outstretched hand, is the cupcake I gave him yesterday.
The fried apple and caramel confection I made specifically for Sheriff Lobo, that Declan said he’d bring to the Alpha…
I don’t need my own snout to smell it. I know by sight that the cupcake is mine, as is the small white box stamped with Dough You Believe in Magic’s logo on the top.
The cupcake is missing one bite. A single bite. The near-miniscule smear of light brown frosting stands out against his blue lips. It’s the same frosting as on the cupcake leaving no doubt that Declan ate the magic-free cupcake I made for Sheriff Lobo.
And then, somehow, he died.
He died.
He’s dead, and as the light-headedness in my brain gives way to complete unconsciousness, I just hope that I don’t crack my skull on the asphalt as I drop.
There are acceptable reasons to be in an alley at dawn. Finding a body is not one of them.
It’s even worse when you’re an opossum shifter who ‘died’ yourself upon realizing that there’s a dead predator at your door, and that the only thing that you remember seeing next to him is a cupcake from your bakery missing a single bite.
But you know what’s the real cherry on the top of the crap sundae? Is when you finally come to again, you find two very imposing figures crouched down next to you.
Each male is wearing a cloth mask, protecting their mouths and their noses from the peppermint stink that’s only gotten worse since I fainted. Even so, a very prominent part of me catches a hint of pine and, even half-conscious, I know exactly who one of them is.
Which is precisely why I focus on the other.
He’s huge. I’d guess he’d be tall when he was on his feet, but this male has a broad build with shoulders that might be too wide to fit through my back door.
His eyes are gun-metal grey, his dark hair slicked back off of a deeply tanned face.
His muscles have muscles, and if he clamped his massive hands over my head, he could screw it off my neck like it was a bottle cap.
If that gives the impression that he’s a thug, that couldn’t be more wrong.
His silk shirt molds to his chest perfectly, the color an exact match to his eyes.
This close, I can tell he’s wearing a pair of impeccably tailored dark grey trousers.
He looks like he belongs in a villa in Italy, not in Moonburrow.
He doesn’t say anything, not even when it becomes obvious that I’m both a) not dead, and b) finally conscious again.
On the plus side, they left me where I fell instead of shipping me off to the Moonburrow morgue…
assuming we have one… and the reassuring weight of Gus resting on one of my custom braids tells me that my opossum hadn’t left my side while I was ‘dead’.
He shifts closer, humming against my neck as the big guy to my left turns to look at his companion.
Ah, crud. That means I should, too.