Manticores and Macarons (Shifters and Sweets #8)

Chapter 1

Poppy Laxton let out a defeated sigh as she considered the spoon before her.

The spoon that, one minute ago, had been perfectly normal… but which was now bent at a nearly ninety-degree angle, courtesy of the world’s most rock-solid, over-frozen tub of ice cream.

It had been a mistake, stopping in at the crappy convenience store on the corner, with its notoriously temperamental freezer.

She’d known it was a mistake at the time.

Had been able to feel the ice cream’s sheer density through the ice-frosted tub, hard as a diamond.

It wasn’t so much a frozen confection as a deadly weapon.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. And Poppy was pretty sure that losing her job out of the blue counted as desperate times. If finding oneself suddenly unemployed didn’t count as the perfect time for an emergency dose of sugary comfort, what did?

So she’d grabbed the crappy ice cream and made a beeline for home before she could scream in frustration at the unfairness of it all, or start sobbing on the sidewalk in the rain, or quite possibly both.

As it was, she’d barely made it inside her apartment before the tears started pricking at her eyes. She’d swiped angrily at her face, forcing her emotions back down.

But now, staring at her newly remodeled spoon and the rock masquerading as a dessert, she found that the tears were threatening to overflow once more.

I just need one thing to go right today, she thought despairingly. Just one.

Stomping out of the kitchen, she peeled off her wet shoes and flung them into a corner to dry, before doing the same with her clothes.

Really, she needed a nice, warm shower… but it all seemed like too much effort right now, and so she settled for clean pajamas and a towel for her rain-soaked hair, topped off with her warmest slippers and her tatty old robe, which these days probably consisted more of cat hair than actual robe.

Speak of the devil…

Re-entering the kitchen, she caught the source of the cat hair on the kitchen bench, taking a leisurely sniff of the ice cream before turning up her little pink nose at it.

“Yeah, you keep on walking, missy,” Poppy said, unable to bring herself to scold the cat for being where she knew full well she oughtn’t be.

Looking up at her with big yellow eyes, the cat, Geri, reached up a paw to tap her on the shoulder – and Poppy scooped her up with a sigh, kissing the top of her head and feeling the contented rumble of her purr.

“What are we going to do with you, hey?” she murmured, rubbing Geri under her chin as the purring doubled in volume. “I guess you’ll be seeing more of me from now on. Though whether you’ll think that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I’m not sure.”

Indifferent to her musings, Geri suddenly yowled to be let down, apparently done with being sociable, and so Poppy obliged her.

It was always best to bow to her whims, after all – especially since she wasn’t shy about unsheathing her claws when she felt she wasn’t being obeyed with sufficient hastiness.

One of Poppy’s old roommates, Krystelle – who had had a somewhat quirky streak – had bequeathed the name Geraldina upon the cat when she and her claws had first showed up on their doorstep.

Krystelle had said that the name meant Rules With Spear, claiming that it was an appropriate name for such a fearsome warrior.

Poppy couldn’t really argue with that. Geri had mellowed a lot in her old age, but she was still a force to be reckoned with.

Staring at the ice cream – which, improbably, appeared to have somehow frozen into an even harder state – Poppy racked her brain for a moment, suddenly feeling so overwhelmed that she was barely capable of thought.

What do I do now? What on earth will I do? I have no job. How am I supposed to get a good reference when the company has gone under and my boss has skipped town? I’m doomed.

Oh, God.

Dragging her mind painfully back into gear, she wrapped the frosty ice cream tub in a tea towel and set it down on the kitchen table with an almighty thump, before grabbing a new spoon.

Flopping down into a chair, she began the careful task of scraping some of the ice cream off the top with the very tip of the spoon, working hard to extract even the tiniest hint of something edible.

At last, after several minutes of careful excavation work, she held up her prize: a tiny sliver of hot-pink substance that quivered on the edge of the spoon.

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered, before tentatively putting it into her mouth.

The first thing she could taste was simply mouth-numbing cold. It was several seconds before the flavor started to filter through: allegedly Strawberry Delight, but in actuality just Horrible Chemical-Laden Fruit-Adjacent Melange.

Throwing down her spoon in disgust, she let out a yell, attempting to grab her hair in exasperation before remembering that it was wrapped in a towel.

The towel fell to the floor, leaving her wet, thick, curly hair exposed to the open air – and oh, wasn’t that going to be a fun pile of frizz to deal with when it dried?

Just one thing! I just need one thing to go right! Please!

She buried her face in her hands for a long, long minute, letting the frustration and rage flow through her – before eventually taking a few slow breaths and trying to get some perspective.

She wasn’t the kind of person to lose their cool like this.

She’d been the one holding the company together for all these years, after all, taking care of the accounts and making sure everything was ship-shape.

She’d been the one to realize that there were shady things going on, and who had informed Lucy, the CEO.

And Lucy, of course, had turned out to be the one who had been responsible for the shady things going on, and had therefore fired everyone this morning and run off with whatever money had been left in the company’s accounts.

Poppy had reported her to the police once the shock had worn off, but it probably wasn’t going to lead anywhere.

Screw you, Lucy, she thought viciously. This is what I get, after I sorted out the absolute mess that your company was in?

It was all so completely and utterly… unfair.

Poppy knew she sounded a bit like a toddler who’d just found out things didn’t always turn out for the best, but she still thought it was a bit rich that her reward for having pulled so many all-nighters getting the business’s books sorted out – or so she’d thought – was unemployment.

But okay.

She’d had some… well, she’d tried to have some ice cream.

She’d had a bit of a frustrated yell.

And now, Poppy decided, it was time to take action. Sitting around moping never got anyone anywhere, and she wasn’t one to let her emotions get the better of her.

I’m going to look for – and find! – a new job. But first, I’m going to go do something fun. I have enough savings for a short vacation before I have to put my nose back to the grindstone and start looking for work. One last tiny bit of happiness before the misery of job hunting sets in.

Poppy was pretty sure that she wouldn’t be able to convince anyone right now that she was going to be capable of having fun any time soon, but, well, she knew she definitely wouldn’t have any fun if she was stuck in her apartment for the next few days, staring at the rain through the window and eating the world’s crappiest ice cream.

Reaching across the table, she grabbed her laptop and flipped it open. There was a discount travel website that she liked to look at sometimes, when she dreamed about the time when she would be able to take more than a day off.

Lucy had been bizarrely strict about taking vacation days, somehow always seeming to find some sort of excuse to deny everyone’s requests.

Everyone had had to work through the Christmas and New Year’s period – everyone, of course, except Lucy, who had just had to take the time off for ‘personal reasons’.

Well, Lucy wasn’t here anymore to tell her what she could and couldn’t do with her time. Lucy could go suck an egg, as far as Poppy was concerned. A large one.

Warming up to the idea of actually being able to do whatever she wanted with her own precious time, Poppy scrolled through the vacation specials, trying to work out what sounded nicest while not blowing out the budget.

Indecision gripped her, tightening around her chest – her life was always so meticulously planned that the idea of getting up and leaving on a whim was alien to her.

What do I want to do? Where do I want to go?

A sudden flash lit up the room, followed less than a second later by a crash of thunder that sent Geri scuttling under the couch, and Poppy’s heart did a little hop, skip, and jump.

Somewhere warm and sunny, she thought decisively, the mental image of an idyllic beach popping into her mind. Palm trees, and pina coladas, and manatees…

First things first, she told herself firmly, snapping out of the daydream. After all, it wasn’t like she could just leave Geri here on her own while she splashed around in a crystal-blue ocean or lazed by the pool in a giant hat.

Pulling her phone out of her purse, she started typing out a message to her little brother, Brett.

He and his partner Mateo were currently living with Mateo’s parents while they saved up for an apartment, and Poppy was pretty sure that they would welcome the opportunity to have a little space to themselves for a few days…

though she knew that they would also miss Mateo’s mom’s cooking.

Sure enough, Brett’s answer was instant and enthusiastic, not to mention surprised at the fact that she’d actually managed to get some leave approved. Poppy hadn’t mentioned the whole My place of work no longer exists thing, feeling like she just couldn’t deal with the sympathy right now.