Wedding the Werepanther (Ferndale Falls Forever #4)

CHAPTER ONE

Kayla

Magic tingles against my fingers as they curl around the gilt picture frame, and I rear backward, bracing a foot against the wall’s ornate baseboard for extra push.

The picture refuses to budge, and the happy couple’s smiles look triumphant.

I grab the next photo, featuring another couple in full wedded bliss, but it’s also stuck in place as if superglued to the wall.

“Oh, come on,” I mutter, giving another tug.

“I need to do this before they get here.”

There I go, talking to the house as if it can understand me.

A soft huff of laughter escapes me. It’s nothing new.

Growing up, I spent every summer in Ferndale Falls with my grandparents, and this old purple Victorian always felt like a friend, one I could talk to far more easily than the kids at school. Five-year-old me named it Victoria.

Hell, I even wrote a series of video games about living in a sentient house.

Psychologists would probably say something about an emotionally isolated child creating an imaginary friend for comfort, combined with the fact that I’ve always had a super vivid imagination, etc, etc.

But ever since I inherited the house and moved in a year ago, it’s felt… almost alive.

“Focus, Kayla. Today is not the day to get caught up in wild imaginings.” As much as I love this house, it’s flipping huge. If I don’t get at least two roommates, I’ll have to sell, and that’s the last thing I want to do to the only place that’s ever felt like home.

I glare at photos covering almost every square inch of wall space in the entryway.

This isn’t even all of them—they spill down the hallway, too—each picture a testament to the decades the house spent as a wedding chapel.

“The wedding photos have to go. People think it’s weird, and I’m already weird enough. I don’t need any help.”

The purple hair, the video games, the overall Olympic-level of geekiness that is me. And the fact that I’m a witch, too. I’m one big ball of weird. Hell, I’ll be lucky to find one person willing to live with me, let alone two.

I reach for another photo, and a pulse of magic tingles across my skin.

The pictures in front of me slide and jostle, baring a clear area of antique flocked wallpaper until I can clearly see the design for the first time in my life: filigreed burgundy velvet flowers on cream.

The framed photos settle into new positions that spell out the word: “No.”

Shock shivers through me, and I whisper, “Grandma? Is that you? Did you…” I swallow. “Did you not cross over?”

Now that magic’s returned to Earth, my small town has pixies serving pizza, walking tulips, and dragons flying through the sky. Is a ghost such a stretch? And my grandmother was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. If I’m going to be haunted, I’d pick her any day.

The pictures slide again. “No, me. The house.” Another flurry of motion. “Victoria.”

“Victoria? But…” I sputter to a stop. But what?

My palm catches against the wall as I sway forward.

Magic surges within my chest and pours down my arm to sink into the house, which shivers around me.

A feeling of joy suffuses the air, and the sound of opening and closing kitchen-cabinet doors echoes down the hallway like applause.

“Oh, god. It’s been me all along,” I whisper.

“The walking tulips, the rolling pumpkins, the flying paper hearts—all of it me.” I really am a witch, and my power makes things come alive, or more alive, like the tulips, who pull their little root feet from their flower beds each morning and race around the town green, as playful and curious as puppies.

Wonder and awe fill me.

“Yes,” Victoria spells out. “You woke me.”

Living here for the past year, pouring my magic into the house day after day…

“Hello, old friend.” My fingertips bump over the raised velvet of one of the flowers.

Then and there, I decide the wallpaper stays, no matter what anyone thinks.

But the pictures… “Can we talk about the photos? They’re kinda a bit much, and I’m trying to update things so other people will want to live here.

You liked what I did with the kitchen, right? ”

Sometime in the 1980s, the kitchen got refurbished to look stark and “modern,” losing all its Victorian charm. I refinished all the old cupboards and painted them a rich cream, with the island done in the same burgundy as this wallpaper, and replaced all the fixtures with antique brass.

More applause sounds come from the kitchen, but when the pictures move, they spell out: “Photos stay.”

“Why?” I gesture down the hallway. “All of these people are strangers. They got married here, and maybe some of them spent their wedding nights, but they’re still strangers.”

“Not to me.” Wistfulness tinges the air.

“I didn’t realize.” How long has the house been aware?

Victoria spent almost a century as a wedding chapel and bed-and-breakfast, run first by my great-grandparents and then my grandparents.

When I stayed here during the summers, there were at least two or three weddings each week. That’s a shit ton of weddings.

My phone chimes, warning that I only have five minutes until my potential new roommate arrives to take a look at the place.

“Okay, so… you know I love you.”

A feeling of smugness surrounds me. “Yes.”

“But I can’t afford you—not on my own.” I wince.

It’s hard to admit that, even to a house.

I love the thought of being independent and able to take care of myself.

But a massive Victorian that needs work is way more than I can swing on my own.

Last winter’s heating bill was one helluva shocker.

I make decent money as a freelance video game designer, but not as much as I would if I’d stayed at one of the big gaming companies in Seattle.

“I have to find a roommate, hopefully two. So please put the pictures back and don’t move anything while they’re here, okay? ”

“Everyone will love me.”

“No, they’ll think you’re haunted.” I give the wall one last pat. “And they won’t get the chance to fall in love with you if you scare them away.”

Sulkiness weighs down the air, but the photos spell out “Fine” before sliding back into their original positions.

A sigh of relief escapes me. Things really, really need to go well today.

All three of the appointments I set up for yesterday were no-shows.

The one today is my last shot. It’s not as if my small town has a huge pool of people needing a place to live—or at least not humans.

I wonder if wood nymphs like to live in houses.

The ones who run the flower shop Oopsy Daisy seem like the calmest type of fae to potentially live with.

I sure as shit couldn’t handle hyper pixies or annoyingly gorgeous panther shifters.

No, I refuse to think about him.

I blow a stray lock of purple hair out of my eyes and smooth my hands down today’s slogan tee. Most of mine are kinda sarcastic, but this is one of the nicer ones, with Girls just want to have game circling a game controller.

The faint purr of a car engine vibrates through the air, and I hurry across the entry, open the carved mahogany door, and run down the steps.

Humid air washes over my face as the day warms toward the full heat of a New England summer afternoon.

Sunlight dapples the grassy lawn, filtered by the tall trees bordering the yard.

Twin bursts of red flash from the end of the long driveway as the person leaving barely taps the brakes in their hurry to flee.

“Dammit! Why?” I throw my arms wide. “This house is flipping adorable.”

“It really is,” a deep voice says as a wide smile appears in midair on the front walk.

The rest of Shadow slowly forms around it.

He’s annoyingly handsome and knows it, with brilliant green eyes, dangerously sharp cheekbones, and flawless light skin that sets off long, inky black hair that shades to silver by the tips.

The grin grows wider as he stalks toward me.

My head tips back as he gets close, which isn’t something I usually need to do, since I’m almost six feet.

Awareness shivers over me. I’m a big girl, but the werepanther’s larger, with wide shoulders that carry a good bit of muscle and a feeling of coiled power.

“I hear you’re in need of a roommate,” he purrs, his voice velvet sin.

Suspicion crashes over me, and I fling an arm toward the disappearing car at the end of the drive. “Did you do this? Did you scare them away?”

“Who, me?” He tries to look innocent, but innocent is about the last word that could ever describe him, so he doesn’t pull it off.

“You did!” I poke him in the chest, his disturbingly firm chest. Nope! Not noticing how muscly his flipping muscles are! “How could you? I need—” I choke off, all my worries over losing the house too raw to share with someone so callous.

“What do you need?” In a blur of motion, his hand traps mine. His thumb rubs little circles over my knuckles.

Shivers race across my skin. Since when are my knuckles sensitive? I yank my hand free and grit out, “I need a roommate, preferably two roommates.”

“I will be all the roommate you need.” His green eyes meet mine.

“You?” A snort of disbelief escapes me. “Do you have the money? Do you even have a job?” It sure doesn’t seem like it with the way he’s always around whenever I go into town, following me, smiling at me, standing too close…

“I am cat sith.” He straightens, his shoulders flaring wide. “The only fae able to walk the shadow roads. We are the messengers of Faerie. Trust me when I say money is of no concern.”

Trust him? The smirking guy who seriously knows he’s gorgeous and doesn’t take anything seriously. How the hell can I trust him? “Is this all some kind of game to you?”

“Of course it is.” He leans closer, his voice dropping to a seductive purr. “One I plan to win.”