Chapter Twenty-Seven-Bella
“Are we really following this plan?” I asked, uncertainty ringing in my voice.
“Yes. It’s a good plan, one sanctioned by Magdelena herself,” Donny whispered.
“I’m gonna be sick,” Evie added, unhelpfully.
“We told you to stay home!”
“No way would I do that to you guys. We’re a team, a Trifecta. We do this together,” she said, breaking off with a cough and dry heave.
The three of us huddled inside a replica dumpster behind the bakery.
The inside was completely clean, of course. I mean, no way would any of us have crouched inside a real one.
Bad enough I had to worry about Evie inside this thing, but she’d insisted and by all accounts, Jaxson had still not told her about her condition.
I’d given the Wolf an ultimatum.
He had till Solstice Eve, after that I was breaking the news.
“Stay close, my Witchy,” Petyr whispered, and I nodded at him.
Good thing our Domovyks were so fiercely protective of us.
The three little fury dudes refused to part from us, concerned we could be hurt.
They used their powers and cloaked us from the mystery menace that had come to our town.
We didn’t know why they were here, but clearly, they had a bone to pick. It was about time we found out what their deal was. And soon. I had other fish to fry.
Conrad and I still needed to have our chat, but first, I had Trifecta business. When Mrs. Gennaro had entered my store, I had no idea the old Witch had something important to tell me.
Never judge a book, or a Witch, by its cover—another of Granny’s infamous sayings.
There were a lot of things wrong with this little undercover operation of ours.
First, trying to catch an arsonist in the act was probably dumb, not to mention dangerous.
Second, we didn’t know if they would even try again so soon.
Third, I was pretty sure I was in love with a Shifter, and I wanted him to mark me with his mating bite, and all of that scared the crap out of me.
Okay, my third point had nothing to do with the operation or the arsonist at all, but it weighed heavily on my mind.
What if Conrad was only fond of the chase? What if me saying no was what turned him on?
All I knew was it was way past time I stopped being afraid of going after the things I wanted.
And I wanted Conrad.
There, I admitted it.
I was just going to have to grab my big girl panties and take that leap of faith—as soon as we finished this sting operation we had going on, I would.
But all of those thoughts came to a screeching halt once I heard the sound of skittering outside the dumpster.
“What’s that sound?” Donny asked.
“Shh,” I whispered, straining my ears to hear.
“Ready?” Petyr asked me as the scratching noises got louder.
Something or things were on top of the dumpster, and they were attempting to open the lid.
Eeek!
We crouched in the not-a-dumpster—seriously, it was a magically enhanced industrial compost bin, but fine, semantics—holding our breaths while the moonlight threw shadows across the alley.
My thighs were cramping, Donny’s hair was glowing faintly like a cursed neon sign, and Evie kept muttering about how she was “too nauseous for this nonsense.”
Then we heard it.
First came the hisses—long, drawn-out ones, like angry tea kettles—and then grunts that sounded furry.
Not your average raccoon-scuffling-in-the-trash furry, but something bigger.
Then came the voices.
Yep, they could talk.
So that was a big fat no to the whole wild animal theory.
“Hey yo, Razor Paws, this here new fan-dangled dumpster top is stuck,” an oddly deep voice mumbled, like a mobster raccoon who’d gargled gravel for breakfast.
“Quiet down, Two Fangs. We needs to set fire before the Draco camera tags our sumptuous round asses,” another replied.
I blinked at Evie.
“Sumptuous round asses?” I mouthed.
She shrugged. “Sounds architectural and decadent?”
“Why you two furry jackoffs still yapping?” a distinctly female voice chimed in.
“Hurry your fluffy asses up. These Witches gotta pay for what they did. No one messes with the Etherworld Fantastic Feline Familiar Union!”
“You got that right, Trashcan Sally. EFFFU is da bomb!” the first one added proudly.
Evie’s eyes went wide.
“FU?” she whispered.
“That’s it,” I said, my patience officially hitting the done button. “Now!”
We didn’t just hit them with magic—we blasted them.
A rush of teal, gold, white, and pink magic shot from our fingers, curling together into one massive wave that made the bin’s plastic lid shiver like Jell-O before lifting straight into the air.
The three on top—now fluffy flailing silhouettes against the moon—howled, hissed, and yelled things like “My tail!” and “Don’t look at me, I’m naked without my smoke cloak!”
We were just getting started.