A Short Story of the PretVerse
Greta’s heat cycle was about to hit. She was craving everything from purple jelly beans to pickles, popcorn, and ice cream. And oh yes, chocolate. Chocolate in every form and cocoa percentage from white to dark. Chocolate milk to truffles. She ran her hand over her firm stomach. Good thing she had a magic metabolism. Eating anything she wanted and never getting fat––without an eating disorder––was a gift she’d taken somewhat for granted. Meanwhile, her human friends struggled and battled the scale, always asking her secret.
She wasn’t about to say, I’m a werecat. Cary Town had strict policies about humans being in on the supernatural woo woo that went on. Also, she hated the term werecat, much preferring the more PC therian.
Greta packed the munchies away as Dayne hooked up the new DVD player. She’d broken the last one chasing Mink while in her cat form. Mink was the real house cat and didn’t like it when she had to fight for kitty attention.
“Werewolf movie marathon time,” Greta said as Dayne popped the first disc in.
He grimaced. Dayne wasn’t a fan of the genre. As a sorcerer, he didn’t get the werewolf humor quite like another shifter would. But she was in full mood-swing mode and he’d been indulging her antics because in just a few days, if she elected not to take the pills that suppressed her cycle, she’d be in full-blown heat. As long as she was in her human form. And that meant lots of rolling around in 800 thread count. Always a good thing.
They’d barely gotten through the opening credits of the first movie when a knock sounded on the door.
He arched a brow. “Were you expecting someone?”
“Me? Why me?”
He sighed and got up. “Just a moment.” He turned to Greta. “I never had nighttime visitors before you showed up. Now they’re practically lined up to the mouth of the forest.”
She stuck her tongue out as he went to answer the door.
“Esmeralda,” he said, his tone icy. “It’s been a while.”
Oh no she didn’t. Greta craned her neck, feeling like a cow with an open gallon of ice cream on her lap and popcorn crumbs on her cheek. One of Dayne’s ex-lovers shows up and of course Greta has to look like a trailer park housewife. She even had flannel PJs and mismatched socks.
The witch breezed in, her long black curls bouncing as she walked. She was wearing evil makeup. The kind that makes a statement, to scare off all the people who can’t handle lots of black eyeliner in their visual field.
“Oh, just about a hundred years,” she said with an obnoxious, flirty wink.
Greta started making gagging noises.
The witch was being literal. Magic users could live a really long time, hundreds of years. About like therians. Though danger found most sooner rather than later, and few of any species lived to old age.
Esmeralda was Greta’s least favorite ex from the brief run-down Dayne had given her once she’d moved in. Hey, women needed to know this shit. It’s important to know the enemy.
The witch stopped in her tracks, giving Greta the once-over. “Is this the new girlfriend?” She said the word this as if she must be the subject of a practical joke. Esmeralda tossed her hair back and recovered her composure. “She’s . . . cute.”
You bitch. Greta glared at her, itching to shift to cat form to claw her eyes out. A happy little fantasy trotted through her mind of burying the witch’s eyeballs in the back garden underneath the hydrangeas. Hopefully the evil wouldn’t wilt them. She smiled at the witch as the fantasy went on instant replay.
Esmeralda sneered and rolled her eyes as if she could walk out the door with Dayne right now and leave Greta alone in the cottage for the next hundred years. “Anyway,” she said, “I need your help.”
The woman turned the damsel-in-distress eyes on Dayne, and Greta made a face. When a woman gave him that look, he always lost his common sense and went charging into the fray. He’d done it with Greta after all.
Dayne was already starting to soften to the woman’s pleading eyes. Really? REALLY? When Greta had come to him for help, and . . . actual help, not evil-help, he’d played his badass sorcerer rep and had tried to get rid of her. Now he was already caving. The witch gave him a look that held sexual promise, memories, and inside jokes that weren’t family friendly.
“What do you need?” Dayne asked.
Greta eyed the DVD player now on pause, tempted to accidentally break this one too.
Esmeralda bit her bottom lip and twirled her hair. “Well . . .”
“Oh, out with it!” Greta said, tired of the theatrics and also feeling more than a little jealous of the attractive witch that seemed to hold her man in some magnetic thrall.
“Greta, that’s rude,” Dayne said, turning away from the witch.
Esmeralda smiled broadly as if she’d just scored a point, but quickly shifted back to her sad face as Dayne turned back to her. “May . . . maybe I should just leave. I’m sorry, this was a bad idea.” She’d worked the perfect amount of trembling and softness into her voice. She was a real pro. Was Dayne’s taste in women really this bad? Greta excluded, of course.
He put a hand on the woman’s elbow, and Greta thought she might go into orbit. “No, what do you need?”
“Well . . .” she looked uncertainly in Greta’s direction, milking the scene for the Oscar. Then she turned watery eyes back to Dayne. “Werewolf blood is hard to get, and they won’t sell it to just anyone. Clarissa at the occult shop said they don’t have any in stock, but that they gave you some a few months ago to keep your business . . . after they didn’t have your werecat blood.”
“Therian,” Greta hissed.
Esmeralda raised an eyebrow. “Oh. So it’s like that? Decided to take a walk on the wild side, Dayne?”
Dayne ignored the taunt. “Yes, I do have werewolf blood downstairs, but it’s volatile and dangerous.”
“Please . . .”
Greta rolled her eyes. “He’s not giving it to you.”
“What do you need it for?” Dayne said.
A small light of triumph flitted across her eyes, then it was gone again. “I just got out of a bad relationship. I need to do a protection spell.”
“With a werewolf?” Dayne shouted. “Why in god’s name would you get involved with a werewolf?”
“Why are you involved with a werecat?”
“Therian!” Greta said.
“The point is, I need werewolf blood for the protection spell. Please. You know how well they can track. I’m barely cloaked now, and the protections I have in place won’t hold. He’s psychotic. He’ll rip me to pieces.”
Greta was so tempted to say, What’s the bad part in that scenario? But she wisely stayed quiet.
Dayne sighed. “All right.”
“What?!? You can’t be serious. You can’t give her werewolf blood. Let me count the ways that can go wrong. And if it does and they trace you as the original source, we could be in deep shit. Why are her relationship troubles our issue?”
Looking over at Esmeralda, Greta could see that the witch wanted to murder her right here. Dayne excused himself with a tone that meant he wasn’t going to be dissuaded. What? He was just rescuing everybody now? The two women stood with their glares locked until Dayne returned with the vial of blood.
“It is very volatile. Be careful with it.”
She slipped the vial into her purse with a little smile and was on her way.
“I can’t believe you’d give her that.”
“Greta . . .”
“You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”
“That was over a century ago. And she cheated on me. Why on earth would I still be in love with her?”
Greta shrugged, in full sulk now. “You touched her elbow. You were all gallant. When I came to you for help, you threatened me.”
“I hadn’t been around people for three decades!”
She turned on her heel and marched over to the counter where the cordless phone had last been left. She dialed the number by heart, then waited as it rang. “Mandy, I need you to run the bookstore for a couple of weeks. I’m going on vacation. Don’t call unless it’s something apocalyptic.” Greta disconnected the call before the girl on the other end could say no.