Mind Mates (Pull of the Moon Book 2) (12 page)

“I have something better, dear. A snoop filter on the kitchen.”

“That must’ve taken a bit of power.”

“I spent weeks knitting it together. Sophia helped. Come back to the kitchen, dear. I’ll fix you a nice cup of tea—you look like you could use it.” Linda trotted toward the back of the store and disappeared through a doorway curtained in beads.

Picking through charms, trying to find the best for fighting, Gabriel paused. Tea sounded good. Comforting.

Ah, fuck it. He grabbed a couple double handfuls of talismans, stuffed them in various pockets, and followed her.

Pan stalked alongside. “I want everything, from the time we left the boat.”

Gabriel knew his familiar was ordering him around to cover for being worried sick. But when Aunt Linda’s head popped back through the beads, her expression was mischievous.

“I have a comb, if you want to borrow it. Although I do like that fresh-out-of-bed look.” She double-bumped her eyebrows, Auntie’s version of wink-wink nudge-nudge.

Yikes. Gabriel swallowed embarrassment—and a touch of alarm. Aunt Linda wanted the pitter-patter of little witch feet to the point that she’d been matchmaking for him and his sister since they knew what kissing was. To hear it from Linda, she’d been instrumental in getting Sophia and Noah together. Though Sophia had already started on the Blue nursery, Linda still wanted a few Lights.

Emma would make pretty little witch babies.

Ryder. Taboo. Headsman’s axe. After Linda heard what was going on, she’d put dynastic ideas on hold, and hopefully his libido would too.

Inside the kitchen, his nose filled with the comforting smell of freshly baked bread and citrus soap. Linda bustled around the old-fashioned stove, setting the kettle on and opening a tin of tea that nibbled his nostrils like orange Pekoe. Any embarrassment faded in the soothing, homey odors.

He sat at the table and scanned for Auntie’s fat yellow tabby familiar. “Everything that happened since the ferry…that’s a long story. I need everyone to hear it together, so we can form an escape plan fast, especially for Emma. Where’s Mr. Kibbles?”

Though Pan often took human form, Gabriel had never seen Mr. Kibbles as anything but a cat. As children, Gabriel and his sister had tried to make him change, teasing him unmercifully and hiding his food dish. Gabriel felt bad about it now, but they’d just been kids. Besides, Mr. Kibbles’s reaction was to leap onto the biggest recliner in the reading area as if it was his personal throne, turn his back on them, and settle down for a nap—with enough of a twitching tail to say
Do you feel lucky, punks?
He may have been a familiar, but as a haughty cat, he was darn near stereotyped.

Though Auntie had said more than once that Mr. Kibbles was as wise as she was scattered—which made him wise indeed.

Gabriel’s own familiar, pouring honey into the sugar bowl from Auntie’s matching sugar-and-creamer set—a boy and girl kissing, natch—paused to give him a strange look. His golden eyes cut toward the open refrigerator.

Auntie had a gentleman caller. A handsome, auburn-haired older man straightened from where he’d been digging out a carton of cream. He brought the carton to the table and poured thick ivory liquid into the creamer of the set.

The man looked up at Gabriel and blinked at him with green eyes…which developed slit, cat-like pupils.

Gabriel startled. Auntie’s fat yellow-tabby familiar was
this
man?

“Emma Singer?” Auntie said from the stove. “That nice young wolf shifter?”

“Yes. I need a way to get her out of town. Pan, buddy, I need the van.”

“Can’t,” the familiar said starkly. “The steering wheel started wobbling as I drove it off the ferry. The last few miles into Matinsfield, the front end was clanking and clunking like a middle school drum line. When Mason got it up on the rack, he found a cracked tie rod. The van’s still there, waiting for a new part, or rather parts, because I guess you have to replace both left and right at the same time.”

Gabriel’s exasperation rose in his chest and came out as an
argh.
“Get Mason to put the old part back on and drive it over here. We’ll get it fixed later.”

“Can’t do that either. The tie rod broke when he took the thing apart. We
might
be able to adapt a mend spell for you to use—”

“I don’t have the power.” Gabriel lifted his pant leg to show his ankle limiter.

Pan blinked golden eyes. “This is going to be quite some story, isn’t it?”

“Your aunt can’t work tetchy electronics like you can,” Mr. Kibbles said. “But she can loan Emma her car.”

“Is it even working?” Gabriel goggled. Auntie had an antique Edsel that ran as often as Alabama got snow.

“Yes. For now. I’m fairly certain.” Mr. Kibbles returned the cream to the refrigerator.

“So spill.” Finished with the honey, Pan reversed the chair kitty-corner to Gabriel’s and sat with a glower straight to the guilt gland. “What happened?”

Gabriel recounted events as Mr. Kibbles and Auntie made tea, from meeting Noah through exiting the B-and-B, omitting only his and Emma’s explosion of desire preceding their escape.

Pan growled, “
Ryder?
”

Dread hit Gabriel at the name, despite knowing the strength of Auntie’s snoop filter.

“He’s an Enforcer now?” Pan shook his black head. “Guess the Council has lowered their standards.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “There might’ve been a worse Enforcer to take the call about my sister, but I can’t think of one.”

“Who summoned him?” Aunt Linda brought four steaming mugs to the table.

“Very good question.” Mr. Kibbles settled next to her. “No one local would give up Sophia and Noah to the Council.”

Okay,
two
things Gabriel hadn’t admitted. “He said a member of Noah’s pack ratted Sophia out, but I don’t believe him.”

“Ryder always was a little twit.” Pan grabbed a mug and poked a second in Gabriel’s direction.

Mr. Kibbles said, “Jail talismans aren’t created by twits, however. They’re enchanted by the cream of Council witches, and always in teams for quality assurance. You should not have been able to escape a Council jail. Are you certain this Ryder is a real Enforcer?”

“Absolutely.” Gabriel took a sip. Hot tea burned his mouth. He hastily set down the mug. “He hit me with a multilevel neutralize and the limiter—neither would have worked without the Council’s authority behind them.”

“Then how did you get out?” Mr. Kibbles raised an auburn brow, its high arch worse than a finger-shake.

“My question exactly.” Pan raised an identical chiding brow. “Council jails are inescapable.”

How did we get out? The best sex of my life…
Gabriel grabbed the creamer, dumped some in, and stirred ferociously, sloshing tea onto the table. Even so, the liquid was less agitated than he was. “We just did.”

Linda
tsked
at the spilled tea and fetched a damp cloth from the sink.

“Perhaps a burst of wild magic?” said Mr. Kibbles.

“All the theories say it’s impossible,” Pan noted.

“Yeah, impossible,” Gabriel said. “Look, a portal opened up without Ryder being there. I didn’t ask questions, I jumped.”

“Hmm.” Pan sipped his tea as Linda wiped the table. “Guess I’ll have to ask Emma. See if your stories line up.”

“She doesn’t know anything.” Whipping off his glasses for extra impact, Gabriel glared icicles at his familiar.

“I
see.
” The words were underscored by the panther’s low reproachful growl, the one that made employees break out in a sweat and admit to pocketing office supplies or pilfering from the break room fridge.

That growl shredded even Gabriel’s nerves. He snapped his glasses back on his face, not appreciating Pan’s tactics turned on him. “She
doesn’t.
She’d never heard of magical theory until today, much less pocket dimensions. Don’t bother her. She has her own problems.” Dropping an elbow onto the table, he bent his head and dug a hand into his hair.

Mr. Kibbles said, “You’re not thinking clearly, or you’d have realized we’re only trying to help.”

“You are,” Pan snorted. “I think he’s withholding. Probably has to do with him reeking satisfaction like a bordello.”

“Because of course
you
know exactly what a bordello smells like.” Gabriel lifted his eyes for another glare at his nosy familiar. “Frosted fuck bombs, Pan, it’s private.”

The panther’s irises began to glitter a don’t-screw-with-me gold. “Private or not, we need to know.”

“You
don’t
need to know—”

“Dumbass,” Pan said starkly. “We
do
, because if we can’t get your sister out on bail, maybe we can use your information to figure out a way to trigger her portal—and spring her before Noah does something stupid.”

Gabriel clenched his eyes. He didn’t want to expose his roiling feelings, but for Sophia and Noah’s sake, looked like he had to. He straightened, wrapped both hands around the mug, and brought it to his lips for a sip. Linda brewed her tea hot and dark and flavored it with honey and love.

Fortified, Gabriel said, “First of all, we didn’t trigger Ryder’s portal—we opened a completely separate wormhole.”

“A
second doorway…?
” Pan clunked down his own mug. “Impossible.”

Mr. Kibbles frowned thoughtfully. “But it raises intriguing possibilities.”

Pan cut the other familiar a penetrating look. “Fine. Let’s go with that. How’d you do it?”

Gabriel wrapped his hands so tight around the mug he thought he’d crack ceramic, but he forced a light tone. “Here’s your chance to be brilliant,
mon sorcier familier
. The portal opened when I…when Emma…when we…”

He meant to give it to them straight, but when it came right down to it he couldn’t quite manage.

Didn’t matter. Apparently he got his meaning across clearly enough.

“The horizontal boogie?” Pan said dryly.

“Ooh.” Linda’s eyes were bright. “Both of you, together?”

Even Mr. Kibbles was grinning, in a distinguished sort of way.

Gabriel sighed but took it like a man. “Not horizontal, but essentially correct. Um, especially the
together
part.”

Pan whistled. “Simultaneous orgasms? The holy grail of sex.”

“Not that hard.” Mr. Kibbles sipped tea, but his gaze, meeting Aunt Linda’s, was sparkling.

“
But,
” Gabriel butted in before anyone could cluster-fuck this situation worse, “I don’t see how that helps us. It was a random triggering of magic. How could we use it for Sophia? You want Emma and me to go around the B-and-B, testing every room, trying to make another portal in the right place?” It would severely try his stamina.

“And yet you’re smiling, dear,” Auntie said innocently.

He wiped his face fast.

“You’d like the excuse, wouldn’t you?” Pan said. “Doing the nasty in every corner of the B-and-B until a random portal opens.”

“Sex on every surface?” Mr. Kibbles said, both damned eyebrows raised.

The teasing was getting acutely uncomfortable. Gabriel said plaintively, “Can’t we ask Noah where Sophia is jailed?”

“He wasn’t there,” Linda said. “Apparently the Enforcer wanted to speak with her alone. Nobody was expecting trouble. That was before any of us knew the identity of the Enforcer.”

“All right, let’s think this through. Emma can escape in the Edsel. Hopefully. But how do we get Sophia out?”

“I think it’s obvious we need more information,” Mr. Kibbles said.

“Time for research.” Pan nodded. “Best approached by a familiar or two. That,
mon ami sorcier,
is me and Goodwin.”

Gabriel raised his own questioning eyebrow. “Who’s Goodwin—?”

“Open up!” Pounding came at the back door. “Open this house in the name of the Council.”

Ryder’s voice.

“
Now,
” chirped his cricket. “We got a warrant.”

“Oh dear.” Linda sprang up and bustled mugs to the sink where she started scrubbing. “If he stretches, he’ll be able to see you through the backdoor window.”

“Correction. Research later. Hide now.” Pan grabbed Gabriel’s shoulder, jerked him to his feet, and thrust him into motion, the two of them dashing through the rattling curtain into the bookstore.

“Linda Blue, you have received your mandated warning. I’m coming in.”

The back door slammed open, loud enough to echo in the bookstore. Gabriel knew he had mere seconds to hide, not long enough to get to either the front door or the side stairs. Screeching to a halt before the big oval mirror, he grabbed Pan’s shoulder and whispered, “Your workout room opener. Now.”

Pan, to his credit, simply produced the silver talisman, activated it, and leaped through the opening iris. Gabriel hopped through tight behind him, even as boot heels clacked through the kitchen.