Untamed Mate (Feral Shifters 2)

Amora

When I arrive,The Bruja’s Cauldron hasn’t opened yet. I stand in the too-bright sunshine and bang on the door until Rue appears from the back room. She catches sight of me through the glass door, and her thin, shapely eyebrows rise toward her hairline as she opens the door.

“I thought the building was on fire,” she drawls, stepping back to let me inside.

“How much longer will it take?” I demand, halting just inside the door, my fists clamped around the straps on my backpack.

Rue stares at me, her brows arched toward her widow’s peak hairline.

My body is tense, and my mind is screaming at me that time is running out. It’s probably not true—the three feral shifters have been searching for their rift for ages, so there’s no reason to believe they’re going to randomly find the right place now.

But I can’t get past the sense of foreboding.

Honestly though, that doesn’t excuse my being an asshole. So I try again, a little more politely this time. “Sorry. Good morning, Rue. How much longer will the spell be?”

The dark-haired woman turns over her thin wrist and shakes out a gold watch to read the time. “Perhaps five more hours. But I have to open the store.”

“No, you don’t,” I say, crossing my arms. “Take a day off.”

The witch mimics my pose, but her lips are curled in amusement. “You’re asking me to lose income just because you’re too impatient to wait?”

“If I told you the fate of the world is at stake, would you believe me?”

“No,” Rue says simply, then locks the front door and heads toward the back room.

I pass through the door into the back right behind her, and heavy incense smoke tickles my nose. A low cloud hangs over the room from four incense burners billowing smoke from various corners. Rue’s altar now holds a single panel gas stove, and a cast iron cauldron rests over the open flame. My shifter ears can hear the bubbling of the liquid inside.

I make a face and slouch into the same metal chair I occupied yesterday. “Please tell me this isn’t something I’m going to have to drink.”

I’ve been there, done that. The potion that cured the shadow poison inside me was barelypalatable.

Rue chuckles, picking up a feather from the table and dipping it into the mixture. “No. Just one of the many steps necessary to make a tracking spell that works. Have you eaten?”

I blink at her, startled by the question. “Um. No?”

“I made huevos rancheros,” she says, laying the soaked feather on a cloth next to the stovetop. “Do you like eggs and beans?”

“Sure,” I say, the word coming out slowly. Is she really offering to feed me?

Rue leaves her cauldron bubbling on the altar and goes to the tiny kitchenette. “You’re lucky I stayed here overnight to get started, or you’d have even longer to wait. Coffee?”

She changes subjects so fast, I can hardly keep up. “Coffee would be great. You stayed up all night?”

“I slept between steps in the spell.” She pulls a coffee carafe from the brewer and pours me a mug, then carries it over. “Sugar? Milk?”

“Black is fine,” I assure her, slightly weirded out by her attentiveness.

She goes back to the kitchenette and pulls a bowl out of the mini fridge. Peeling off the saran wrap, she says, “I guess I felt a calling to help you. You’re tracking down a man, right?”

“How’d you know?”

Rue shrugs and cracks an egg over the bowl. “Just a guess. He hurt you?”

“A few times,” I say vaguely, annoyed that she’s some kind of damn empath. “I’m not, like, a jilted lover or some shit.”

Although, if I’m being truly honest with myself, I sort of am a jilted lover. Just not in the way most people mean.

The witch pops the bowl in the microwave, setting it for two minutes. “I didn’t say you were.”

“Good, because I’m not,” I repeat, aware that my tone is a bit heated. I pause for a moment to drink a bit of coffee, hoping it’ll chill me the fuck out. It’s surprisingly delicious.

“I make it myself,” Rue comments before I can even say anything. “My father owns a farm over the border.”

“That’s a ways from here.” Taos is in northern New Mexico, nowhere near the border.

Rue shrugs. “I visit a few times a year.”

“Is he a witch?”

“No. Plain old human. My mom was the witch. She died when I was young.” The microwave dings, and Rue turns to remove my bowl. She adds a dollop of sour cream, some queso fresco, and what looks like fresh pico de gallo. The silverware drawer squeaks as she extracts a knife and fork, then she brings me my food.

“I didn’t know humans could breed with witches,” I tell her.

“It’s rare, but it happens,” Rue says as she walks back to the altar. “When it does, the witch is usually kicked out of the coven for it.”

“That’s why you’re covenless.”

She shrugs. “Among other things.”

I dig into my meal, surprised by how delicious it is. Cheesy sauce, black beans, eggs, salsa, and sour cream make for an explosion of flavor. I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I’m halfway through my food and almost out of coffee before Rue speaks again.

“So if you aren’t a jilted lover, why are you tracking this man down?”

I glance over at her. She’s rolling the potion-covered feather into a ball and securing it with tiny pins. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her it’s none of her damn business, but I’m not that much of an idiot. Payment or not, she’s doing me a favor. The least I can do is make small talk for the next few hours.

But Jesus, that sounds like torture.