Shadows and Ciders (Moonvale Matches #4)

Chapter 1

Ginger

My entire life changed with the utterance of two small words.

“My mate.”

The stranger stood on the threshold of my pub, the most beautiful and overwhelming man I had ever seen, staring at me like I hung the suns in the sky.

My stomach sank almost painfully.

“My mate,” he declared, his gaze locked on my face, burning into my skin. The words were saturated with awe, soaked in longing, simmering at the edges.

Mate.

My mate.

Huh? No.

No.

Confusion twisted in my brain. “I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong person," I said tightly. I glanced over my shoulder, craned my neck to see if any folk were standing behind me. That was the only logical answer.

Nobody was there.

I returned my gaze to the being before me. I couldn’t even call him a man; his presence was too… vast.

His mouth hung open the slightest bit, his lips parted and inviting. I had the strangest urge to lean in, to discover what those lips felt like against mine.

A painful looking scar marred the right half of his face, stretching from his hairline, through his brow, and curling around his cheek.

The flesh was puckered and tight—it was a wonder he still had an eye.

The mark did nothing to taint his beauty.

If anything, it made him more absurdly stunning to look at.

I forced my gaze to the ground near his feet. His bare feet, I noticed with a start. They were tattered and wounded, covered in a liquid that was shimmering and gold. Was that his blood?

Not all blood was red, I knew, but the color was shocking, nonetheless.

He had probably just stepped in some paint. Gold, shimmery, luminous paint. That made more sense.

“Are you going to invite me in?” the stranger asked in a melodic voice.

My gaze jumped back to his overwhelming face. “Why would I do that?” I asked.

“Because we are married, of course.”

“Excuse me?” Involuntarily, I stepped back.

My fingers clenched against the edge of the door.

My hooves clacked against the floor as I moved, drawing the stranger’s attention.

His eyes traced over me, from my face, leisurely trailing over my body until they rested on my hoofed feet.

I had the strangest urge to hide them, but that was ridiculous.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with my hooves.

He tilted his head, only just. His dark eyebrows raised. “How peculiar,” he whispered. “Folk, with some of the characteristics of the critters.”

I straightened, aghast. “How dare you!” I stammered. “I am just as much a folk as anyone else.” I resisted the impulse to fluff my hair over my antlers in an attempt to hide them from his scrutinizing view.

I was a faun, and I wasn’t ashamed of that. I never had been, and I never would be. Especially not from the comments from a rude, presumptive stranger. No matter how shockingly overwhelming he was.

“Of course, wife. I was merely observing.”

Wife? Wife? I was speechless. That term was horribly outdated, only used in historical texts and romance novels. It was practically scrubbed from the modern tongue. Nobody was referred to as wife. Mate, sure. Partner, absolutely. But wife? Never. Not in hundreds of years. Who was this guy?

Luckily, Tandor saved me. My favorite employee and closest friend. I made a mental note to give him a raise later.

The orc, big and brawny, stepped up behind me, his huge body looming as he gripped the doorway with both hands. Smoothly, he snaked a hand around my middle and shoved me behind him. “What’s going on here?” he asked, his voice tight but neutral.

I said nothing. My mouth refused to release any words.

“I am here for my wife,” the stranger said matter-of-factly.

Tandor nodded once, seeming nonplussed at the use of that word, wife. “Okay. Sure. And who is your wife? Nobody else is here—just our small group of friends—but maybe I can help you find her.”

The dark stranger returned his golden eyes to mine. He lifted his brows in question. I realized with a start that he was waiting for my name.

I refused to reveal it.

“He’s confused,” I said, my voice strained. “He’s looking for someone else. He’ll be going now.”

“No, I don’t think I will go. I would like to enter.” His jaw clenched. “Please invite me in.”

Something about the phrasing rubbed me the wrong way. I nudged Tandor with my elbow, tilting my head backward when he glanced in my direction.

“Right,” Tandor said. “It’s late. You can come back another time.”

“No, I shall enter—”

“Goodnight, sir,” Tandor said.

And he promptly slammed the door in the stranger’s face.

“Really, I don’t want to talk about it,” I insisted for what felt like the hundredth time.

I sat at a table in my pub, uncomfortable, my legs tucked up beneath me. My fingers refused to stop trembling.

The day had started full of friends, celebration, and joy, and it ended in pure confusion.

My lovely Merry Day came to a screeching halt. Not even the joy of my new, mind-boggling gift—the baby dragon—could break through the turmoil roiling in my brain.

“Come on. I know you have something to say,” Tandor urged, swirling cider around in his glass. He watched it idly, the liquid sloshing up the edges and dripping back down again.

“A confused stranger showed up at the door. And that’s it. There’s nothing else to say,” I said, more sharply than I intended. I took a deep breath. “Sorry. That was rude.”

Kizzi, my favorite short, green-haired apothecary witch, chose that moment to chime in. “You’re not rude. You’re never rude, Ginny. This is fucking crazy. He called you his wife! Nobody says that!”

“She’s right. I’d be throwing a fit if I were you, Ginger,” added Fiella, vampire from the trinket shop that I was steadily becoming fonder of.

The two women had always been friends of mine, as were many folk in Moonvale, but more recently, I would consider them dear to my heart.

“I didn’t get a good look at him. Was he cute?” Kizzi asked. “How convenient would it be if your mate actually just walked right into your life like that?”

“I didn’t get a good look at him either,” I lied.

Kizzi shifted her attention to Tandor and quirked her eyebrow expectantly.

He shrugged. “He was rather handsome, I’d say. I don’t know about cute.”

“Handsome is good! We can work with that!”

I sighed. They were always trying to make me feel better. “I just want to forget that it happened. I don’t want to ruin Merry Day.”

“You could never!” Fiella insisted. “This has been the best Merry Day ever!”

Redd, Fiella’s mate and another vampire, nodded in agreement, but didn’t add anything else. He was content to side with his lady no matter what she said.

“Besides,” Tandor said after swallowing the last of his cider.

He leaned back in his chair with a contented groan.

It creaked with the strain. “It’s getting late.

We might as well call it a night, anyway.

It’s been a magical day. And you’ve got a new friend to settle in.

” He nodded to the box on the table in front of me.

The box that held my gift.

My impossible gift.

A sleeping baby dragon.

I settled my hands over the box protectively—I couldn’t help myself.

The dragon was gifted to me (if you could even give a dragon as a gift, I still wasn’t sure about that part) by Fiella and Kizzi, the latter of whom had smuggled three dragons into Moonvale. It was a long, messy story, really, and I still wasn’t sure how they had pulled it off.

Those two were a force to be reckoned with, especially together. And especially when they set their minds to something ridiculous.

It was the biggest honor of my life, and I’d only received the dragon an hour ago. My gut twisted with the responsibility of it all.

I’d never had a pet before. Or a child. Or anything resembling the two. For years, I’d only taken care of myself.

And the occasional drunk patron at my pub, but that was entirely different.

My forehead broke out in a cold sweat. My fingers clenched absently against the cardboard, crinkling the surface.

I fought the quell of panic that threatened to swallow me whole.

What if I screwed it up? What if I didn’t raise the dragon right and it became a beast that destroyed the entire town and everyone I cared about?

What if it destroyed me?

Dragons were thought to be entirely unpredictable and had been extinct for thousands of years. Only recently had they made a miraculous return to the realm, thanks to Kizzi.

As far as we knew, the three baby dragons in Moonvale were the only three dragons in existence.

I reached for my goblet, swallowing a massive mouthful of cider. Those worries would get me nowhere.

“Are you sure you want me to…” I trailed off, glancing between the faces of Kizzi, Fiella, Redd, Tandor, and Mayor Tommins, all sitting at the table across from me. Dim lantern light illuminated the room, highlighting their peaceful expressions.

“Of course, kid. You’re the most responsible one here,” Tommins said matter-of-factly, his eyebrow furrowed, the first time he had spoken in a long while.

“You’ll be fine, Ginny,” Kizzi assured. “We thought this through.”

Fiella nodded encouragingly, grinning with her fangs bared.

None of them objected.

I sucked a deep breath in through my nose and shoved it out through my teeth. I lifted the lid of the box to check on the small green beast. He was curled up, his wings tucked around his body, snoring softly.

Tears pricked the back of my eyes.

So much power, so much potential. A miracle of a creature.

Gathering my courage, I shut the lid on the slumbering creature and stood. My chair scooted back with an audible scrape. “Alright, then. On your way. I’ll lock up behind you all.”

The group slowly rose. A few tired groans echoed.

“Sure, boss. We’ll get out of your hair,” Tandor said as he reached over to squeeze my shoulder. “If you need backup with that one—” he nodded to the dragon, “—you know where to find us.”

“Send a letter to my shop. I’ll save you,” Fiella said with a wink.