Chapter 1
Twelve Years Later
Felix rubbed his freckled temples, elbows digging into the blotter on his desk, silence thick in his ears. He pushed back in his plush leather chair, one of many self-serving, sinful indulgences the former mayor had pissed away tax dollars on, and stared at the suspended ceiling above.
That was bowed and had a steadily growing water stain across it.
“How?” he asked his secretary. “How is a clusterfu—I mean a problem of this magnitude possible?”
“It’s the weres,” Lorraine said matter-of-factly from her mobility scooter parked in front of his desk.
Her wrinkled lips pruned. “Alway stirring up trouble. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
Decent, God-fearing folk don’t truck with all that alpha nonsense.
Criminals and bullies, every last one of them. ”
Felix’s eyelids fluttered as he prayed for strength.
Lorraine shook her cane to emphasize her point, though Lord only knew why the unpleasant old woman had one, aside from using it to threaten the populace. He was more than a little convinced she’d melded with her Lark to become a terrifying geriatric cyborg.
She sniffed at his silence, her self-righteous frown making her look even more like an ill-tempered bulldog in a wig than usual.
Breathe, Felix. Trying to correct her speciest bullshit wasn’t going to do anything but compound his headache. He blew out a slow breath, dispelling the power he’d inadvertently manifested. He didn’t need that kind of karma tipping his scales.
He had enough problems, as evidenced by the four hundred pages of calamity Lorraine had just wheeled in, levying formal charges against Havers-by-the-Sea for the willful misappropriation of magical resources.
“Has the town’s lawyer seen this yet?” Felix asked, riffling an edge of the stack.
“Our lawyer?” She pushed up the side of her glasses, sending their pearl chain swinging. “No. The Montgomery boy was on retainer—against my recommendation, I’ll have you know—but he up and resigned after the mess that Westside pack of his put us in.”
And it just kept getting better.
But it tracked. Felix pursed his lips with a slow nod. Who would want to come back here after getting the stuffing beaten out of them and landing in traction for eight-plus weeks?
Yeah, not it, and apparently Patrick Montgomery felt the same.
“Okay,” Felix said slowly, drumming his fingers on the edge of his desk. “Do we have any local candidates for the position?”
Lorraine opened her mouth, then closed it quick, shaking her head hard enough to knock her wig awry.
Felix cocked a brow as she wiggled it back into place.
He was sure that meant there was, but for whatever reason, they didn’t have the Lorraine Murklin stamp of approval.
Without it, he didn’t have a chance of prying a name out of her.
Felix raked a pale hand through his flaming curls.
Maybe someone else at town hall would spill, but either way, not having a lawyer available to look at this mess was a problem.
He steepled his fingers, trying to channel authority. “If there’s no one local, then we should probably be advertising the position outside of the church bulletin and the Pizza Palace community board.”
“We put an ad in the paper…” She looked at him blankly. “Or do you mean like the library?”
“Sure.” Felix tried very hard to remain calm. She’s like a trillion years old. Be nice. “But we’d probably have more luck on one of those internet job sites. In fact, I’m pretty positive there’s one specifically for municipal openings.”
Lorraine’s eyes narrowed. “The only thing you’re going to find on the internet is a bunch of hoodlums asking for money and showing their feet.” She scowled, probably thinking he was one of them.
Wasn’t a bad idea, actually. The hours would certainly be better, and he could write off his pedicures.
“Okay,” Felix drawled, putting a pin in that as a future career possibility, “but how about we post something and just see how it goes? Get me a copy of what we placed in the Havers’s Herald, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Fine, but it’s on your head.” She muttered something about perverts, threw her scooter into reverse, and backed into a chair. She glared at him like it was his fault, then floored it, heading out of his office at a disdainful mile-per-hour crawl.
Felix pinched the bridge of his nose. Heaven help him, but it shouldn’t be this difficult.
Though, he suspected he should be lucky he had a secretary at all, considering the pittance the last mayor had approved for her salary.
That was also a problem. They didn’t have the budget to hire the kind of legal counsel they abruptly needed.
Could he be more in over his head with this?
Fingers crossed, maybe they could find someone to do the work pro-bono, or pay them in reclaimed granite curbing.
Public defenders were a thing, right? Felix raked a hand through his hair. Whatever.
Worst case, so were foot videos.
God. Yule might almost be here, but everything that’d happened on Samhain was the gift that kept on frickin’ giving. He glared at the ferret cage in the corner of his office. “I hope you’re happy.”
The previous mayor-turned-weasel poked his head up and chittered at Felix with zero remorse. The coven should’ve let Matilda turn him into a frog. That cage was far cushier than Chambers deserved, and that was even before this lawsuit had hit Felix’s desk.
He fell back in his chair and closed his eyes.
What had ever possessed the man to use iron in those turbine foundations instead of the approved materials…
Whatever. What was done was done, and glutton for punishment that he was, Felix had stepped up to deal with the fallout from the previous administration’s disruption of the leyline’s flow of magic into the neighboring town of Fayet.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t actually taken into consideration that it would mean having to interact with the miserable municipality.
He’d put his neck in the noose because he wanted to help put Havers-by-the-Sea back together after Chambers, Malcom, and the Westside pack had done their damndest to flatten it.
Yep. Wouldn’t be making that mistake again.
What they should be doing was advertising for a new mayor.
Approved overtime or not, whatever civic duty Felix might’ve felt had long since evaporated, and his qualifications were sketchy at best. Being Chamber’s assistant had not prepared him for any of this.
Any inroads he’d attempted to make with Fayet on Havers’s behalf had hit a wall before they’d even begun.
He couldn’t even see frustration in his rearview mirror he was so far past it.
The animosity between the two towns was thick, and starving out their magical practitioners hadn’t improved the situation.
Now with this lawsuit alleging…? There was zero chance of settling out of court.
In short, they were screwed.
The alarm on his phone beeped, and Felix’s headache was abruptly that much worse.
Time to trade one clusterfuck for another.
He silenced it and stood, grabbing his parka from the little closet.
He didn’t care if Jena said the white, puffy coat made him look like a man-mallow, it was warm and outside was freezing.
Felix ducked into its collar, shoulders around his ears as he slipped out town hall’s side door.
He swore as an icy blast of wind hit him, and he headed across the street to Haver’s elementary school, rock salt and sand crunching beneath his checkered loafers.
He grumbled down at the sidewalk, a frown marring his lips.
If he hadn’t already been in a shitty mood, the weather and having to deal with his sister Felicia’s drama would’ve more than finished the job.
That entire situation was beyond untenable.
The way his parents were constantly enabling her bullshit made him nuts, and getting sucked back into her crisis-of-the-week was trashing his mental health.
As soon as the holidays were over, he needed to put his foot down.
If his parents wanted to raise Felicia’s kids, that was on them, but as of January first, he was out.
She needed to understand there were consequences to her actions, and his parents weren’t doing her any favors by picking up the slack.
Hah. Slack. More like the full monty. Felicia and responsibility weren’t even tangentially acquainted. Yes, there were “reasons” but her growing the fuck up and getting sober would solve ninety percent of those.
A line of cars waited outside the elementary school, and parents milled around in tight little groups, their breaths clouding as they gossiped.
Felix hunched beside a sandwich board trying to keep out of the wind.
He scanned the announcements on it reminding everyone of the impending winter break and upcoming pageant.
Groan. They were doing A Christmas Carol.
Someone was getting a medal for originality in their stocking.
Felix rolled his eyes, but judging by how animated the soccer moms were, the production was a hot topic of conversation, and everyone was waiting for opening night with bated breath.
Bully for them. He’d rather gouge his eyeballs out with a—
“Hey, Felix.”
He glanced up from the announcements and a molten coffee gaze caught his. His pulse jumped, and he scowled at his heart jumping, looking away. “Liam,” he muttered, kicking a patch of ice.
“You here picking up Axle and Sway?” the were asked, his hands jammed into his big corduroy barn jacket. A thick, red scarf was wrapped around his throat, and his messy cherry cola waves just brushed his collar. More than one person waiting changed their stance to check him out and preen.