Chapter 9
Colette
I’m also going to ride this sad horse if I get my way, I think as I walk across the gathering room toward Kaya. The baker’s light hair is knotted high on her head and she is still wearing an apron destroyed by flour as if she didn’t remember to take it off before coming over here.
“Why are you cackling?” Kaya hands me the list of charity donations as I approach the charity table.
“Oh, nothing.”
Kaya’s mate, a dragon shifter named Cyrus, lifts a hand in greeting. “I doubt that.” Though in this form, he has mostly smooth skin, rows of golden scales line his cheekbones and reflect the light of the fire. “I would recognize a sexy mischief face anywhere.”
Kaya slaps his arm. “Colette might not want to be teased by you. You two just met.”
I laugh. “I’m fine with it. And yes, I am up to sexy mischief, but don’t tell anyone.”
Cyrus and Kaya pretend to lock their lips with imaginary keys.
Cyrus leans over the table, his tail swishing behind him. “I bet it’s about that vamp, eh?”
“Archer is very handsome,” Kaya adds, wiggling her eyebrows.
We have similar coloring, Kaya and I. I like to imagine we are long-lost sisters, though I’d never tell her that.
I always wished for a sister. Aila is my stepsister now, and I adore her, but she’s so much older that she feels more like an aunt.
I have talked to Rychell several times now, but she’s a little hard to read.
I do have Lysandra and Tully as new friends, but I’d love to add Kaya to that list. The more the merrier!
I nod at Kaya. “He tries to ruin it with his grumpy attitude, but he’s a complete failure.”
We cackle together and Cyrus shakes his head.
“The male is doomed,” he says.
My stomach swoops, I rub my hands together, and I bounce on my toes. “It’s definitely happening.”
“How can we help?” Kaya smiles at a pixie who has walked up to the charity table and is reading the information I inked out earlier.
Waiting until the pixie has handed over her coins for the cause and left us, I reply with as much as I’m willing to say.
“Would you be against rigging the Snowlight name draw? Halvard and Rychell told me about the tradition.”
The day before Snowlight, the old tradition calls for everyone in town to come together at the oak at Mayor Rustion’s estate.
Every name is written on a large piece of parchment.
Tully magicks the list into sets of partners, then the partners join hands and exchange the Snowlight spell.
Rychell said the spell puts you in someone’s mind for a brief moment, helping you to understand them fully.
It’s meant to encourage empathy in the townsfolk.
That’s nice and all, but I plan to show that stuffy vampire every naughty idea I’ve had about him since the day we met.
Kaya clasps her hands and smiles. “Tully’s spellwork on Snowlight is amazing.”
“Does that mean yes?” I ask, hoping I’m not pushing too much.
Cyrus trades a look with Kaya and shrugs before looking back at me. “I think we can cook something up. Let us talk to Tully.”
“Eh, boss!” Dew waves, smiling from the front steps. A cold wind blows through the open door.
I hurry over to see her lifting a tiny maplecat who shivers and mews. The inn thrusts its doors shut.
“I found her beside the step. She’s nearly frozen!” The fairy’s yellow wings flutter anxiously.
“Here, give her to me. Go get a blanket and some warm water.”
Dew hands the kitten over. “Of course. So cute…”
I am shocked at how chilly the little thing is. I curl her into my chest, and she purrs weakly. I thread my fingers through her thick mossy green and maple syrup-hued fur as I sit by the fire. The flames dance over her shiny coat. She’s shivering and it breaks my heart.
“It’ll be all right, little one. You’re safe now.” I wonder where her mother is.
Cyrus and Kaya have followed me.
“I’ll ask Sios to share his fish catch,” Kaya says, leaving.
“Who is Sios?” I ask Cyrus.
“Her talking maplecat.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Yep. He’s old and from a specific ancient bloodline of powerful maplecats that can speak on occasion. Kaya will have to tell you the whole story sometime. Regardless, Sios will share because he cares for his fellow cats.”
I shake my head. We get the kitten all warmed up and fed, and soon she’s riding on my shoulder as I zip this way and that, making sure the small kitchen staff is dealing with the new supplies schedule all right and that our guests are happy in their rooms.
Later, in my innkeeper office at the back of the first floor, I finish tallying the coin we took in the past two days.
The office is nice and warm thanks to a crackling fire in the little hearth beside me, and the kitten curled up on my lap.
I scratch the back of the cat’s ear, and she purrs so loudly that I have to laugh.
“You’re the best Snowlight gift I’ve ever received, Mossette.”
I named her that because of the touch of green in her fur. It’s not unheard of in the breed of maplecats here in Leafshire Cove, but it’s rare. I love the color—orange going into that fresh green of soft moss.
Jotting the total down in the proper line of the accounts book, I hum a Snowlight tune about a ship sailing through a storm to dock just in time for the candle lighting.
It’s an old one, one my tutor taught me when I was young.
I blow the ink dry, then close the book.
Satisfaction rings through me. I have a scene to share tonight with those who show up for the reading, and I’m finished with the dull numbery part of my day job.
I remember when I first told my family I wanted to run an inn and also keep writing books.
They thought I was mad. They were probably right.
This is a lot. But with the right staff here and the inn helping me out by magically cleaning the sheets after each client checks out, it is definitely doable.
I always have too much energy, so running two careers works for me.
“Dew!” I call out the door to my new employee.
Dew appears in a flash, eyes bright, and her purple hair in a tangled knot on her head. “Yes?”
“How many are here?”
“For the reading? Well…” She chews her lip.
“Out with it. It’s all right if no one came.”
Dew guffaws. “It’s not that at all! The room is packed out here. There’s not a place left to even stand.”
“Oh. So Archer and I are still the talk of the kingdom, eh?”
“Guess so.”
“And he didn’t…” I glance at the room behind her.
“Show up? No, sorry. Want me to go get him? He’s probably at The Gold Coin with Halvard. Or maybe at the Goat and Dragon.”
“Definitely not.” I prefer to see how this scene flies on my own. Less awkward.
I hand Mossette over to Dew, who coos at the little thing and trails me into the main room of the inn. It’s like the entirety of both Leafshire Cove and the nearby towns are all here. Maybe even part of Kingstown. I gulp, but it’s mostly excitement I feel in my bones.
“Greetings, everyone!” I call out.
“Where’s Master Darkheart?”
“Ah, sorry, but he couldn’t make it tonight. Maybe next time.”
There’s a small groan at the news, but then more folks are lifting a hand or locking eyes with me to ask a question.
I answer as simply as possible with a lot of—no, we aren’t going on tour for this short story. Scheduling would be an issue, I’m afraid. Yes, we first met at the book faire. No, we are not mates. Just friends. Acquaintances. Professional, yes.
Finally, they quiet down and I read out our scene.
The crowd gasps and snickers and swoons in all the right places.
I’m shocked, actually. The scene was rough, uneven.
But they applaud, and I bow with a flourish of my stack of parchment, and the event concludes with a toast to the story in progress.
Lysandra finds me with a drink at a small table in the back near my office. “Hello, love!”
I stand and hug the faun tightly, avoiding her pink horns so I keep my eyes. “I didn’t see you come in. Did you hear the excerpt? I wasn’t excited for this project, but I’m honestly enjoying it a little now,” I whisper as I pull out a chair.
She sits opposite me. “It was wonderful. And I’m sure it will be easier to write once you get used to one another’s styles, right?”
“I hope so. The crowd liked it, but it isn’t at my usual caliber. Or at Archer’s.”
A group hurries past on their way to the privy out back.
“But I wonder why the vampire didn’t show up,” one of the group says. “I bet he isn’t as into this as she is.”
Lysandra looks to me and grimaces. The group is gone before I hear anything else and I wave a hand in the air to dispel the yuck of their vibe.
“They’re not from here,” Lysandra says. “Tourists. Some don’t seem to care how rude they are when visiting.”
“Right. I’ve seen plenty of that in Kingstown. Not to worry. After publishing for as long as I have, I’ve grown pretty tough skin.”
The librarian is smiling again and nodding. “Of course,” she says as Dew walks up and asks us what we might like. Lysandra orders a mead, then turns toward me as Dew leaves. “Do you have a title for this upcoming bestselling short story?”
“Not yet.”
Lysandra frowns and cocks her horned head. “Caught up in the story?”
“More like caught up in one-way flirting.”
“Oooo, do tell. I had thought that you wanted to leave that kiss in the past.”
I exhale, still feeling silly about that accidental kiss. “I did, but, well…”
“Out with it.”
Dew arrives with the mead and hands it over to Lysandra. The faun takes a long sip and makes a yum sound.
“Now, come on,” Lysandra says. “Tell me what’s up, Colette.”
“It’s pretty obvious that the stuffy, too-smart-for-his-own-good vamp has a thing for my breasts.”
A bark of a laugh comes from the faun and I join her in chuckling.
“I know. He tried to cover it,” I explain. “He acts annoyed with me, with the project, with everything. But his eyes are telling a completely different story, and you know what? I’m going to see if I can melt his cold heart.”
“But he’s not awful, right?”
“Not at all. I think he’s very kind. He’s just isolated himself for some reason. He has walls taller than the king and queen’s. I’m going to break them down.”
Lysandra is clapping now. My cheeks hurt from grinning.
“I cannot wait to see this,” the faun says.
“For a librarian, you are very saucy.”
She waves off my comment and takes another drink of her mead. “You should know by now that the bookish ones are sometimes the hottest under the collar.”
I laugh and raise my own mead. “A toast to seducing the vampire,” I say, whispering under the rumble of the room’s lively conversation, most of which is about Archer and me.
Lysandra clinks her mug to mine and we drink.
Life is good.