Chapter 10

“This looks like the place,” Henry said as together, they made their way down the path through the woods. At the end of the path stood a wooden building with stairs leading up to a brightly painted door – and since there weren’t any other structures around, Henry had to assume this was the ranger’s hut they’d been told by Gale to meet him at, along with the other shifter residents of Girdwood Springs and their mates.

“You said you met this… this dragon guy before,” Luna said, glancing up at him.

“I did. It was while I was chasing off that bear I mentioned,” Henry told her. “He must have sensed me and come to investigate. Dragons can be… pretty territorial, I’ve heard. I haven’t actually met many.”

“Well. I’ve never met even one,” Luna said. “So this’ll be an interesting new experience for me, I guess.”

Henry laughed softly as they made their way up the stairs to the bright red door of the cabin. “Don’t be too sure – there’re more shifters around than you’d think. You could have been talking to one and never known it.”

“Okay, that’s… well, I don’t know if that’s a comfort or not,” Luna laughed. “But you’re right – if you hadn’t told me you were a hellhound, I never would have guessed.”

Henry smiled. “Well, that’s good to hear.” Before he knocked on the door, he glanced over his shoulder one last time.

No bears, no deer, no raccoons, no squirrels. Nothing stirred. He was safe.

“It really does seem like when you’re nearby I don’t have any problem with animals,” Henry said. “Nothing’s bothered me all day.”

“Well, except for that one moment when I ducked away to grab some napkins at the bakery and that bird flew into the window,” Luna pointed out. “Luckily it didn’t seem hurt – it did look pretty annoyed when I came back though. And it yelled at me.”

Henry laughed softly. “It certainly did do that,” he said, recalling the way the large black bird had let out a loud, indignant shriek before it had unruffled its feathers and taken off again, disappearing into the forest.

Luna hadn’t even gone very far away – clearly, whatever effect she had on the curse, it was only effective when she was pretty much right next to him.

“Anyway, are you ready for this?” Luna asked. “Do you think they’ll really be able to help us? And, um. There’s not anything I should be warned about that’s rude to say in front of shifters, is there? Any topics of conversation I should avoid?”

“Not that I can think of,” Henry said. “And honestly, shifters are pretty used to having to blend in with people – even if you did say something, I’m sure no one would take offense. They get that you’re new to all this.”

Luna nodded, but Henry could see she was still a little nervous, her hands clenched by her sides.

Comfort her, you clod,his hellhound growled – and for once, Henry was happy to admit his hellhound probably had a good suggestion.

“Hey – it’ll be okay,” he told her – and before he could second guess himself, he reached out, stroking his fingers over the soft roundness of her cheek.

She shuddered, and for a moment Henry was worried he’d made a misstep – before realizing she wasn’t shuddering in horror, if the slight flush that was creeping over her face and her sudden quick, sharp intake of breath were anything to go by.

“Um. We should go in,” Luna said quickly, her hand coming up to squeeze his fingers with her own before letting them drop again. “Before you make me do something inappropriate.”

“Well, I probably don’t want that… well, I mean, just not right here, at this exact moment,” Henry stammered out, before internally cringing.

Wow. You are so bad at this,his hellhound felt the need to inform him as, before he could say anything else stupid, he knocked on the door of the cabin.

The door was opened a moment later, and Henry found himself looking into the face of a woman, who looked almost exactly like what he would have imagined if anyone had ever asked him to imagine what a park ranger looked like. Her long dark hair was pulled back into a sensible ponytail, and she had a spray of freckles over the tanned skin of her face – she was clearly someone who spent a lot of time outdoors.

“Ah, you must be Henry,” she said, stepping back to let them past her. “Oh, and Luna – sorry, I didn’t see you there at first. My name’s Kira – Kira Dearborn. Sylvie probably already told you a little about me.”

“She did,” Henry said, nodding. “I really can’t thank you enough for letting us use your cabin to talk about… well, whatever it is that’s going on here.”

As he entered the room, glancing around, he saw Caleb as he stood up from one of the chairs in what was clearly a children’s common room – it was lined with bookshelves housing books about nature and animals, while children’s drawings of trees and a map of the park were hung up on the wall. Clearly, the ranger’s cabin was used as much for education as it was for Kira’s base of operations.

“Nice to see you again, Henry,” Caleb said, with a quick grin. “And nice to meet you for the first time, Luna.”

Luna nodded, staring up at Caleb – and he was tall, even taller than Henry, and Henry was used to being the tallest person in the room.

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Luna blurted out a moment later. “I forgot my manners. It’s nice to meet you too. I just. Uh. Well, it’s just that. Um. You don’t look like a dragon…” She suddenly scrunched her face up in mortification. “God, sorry. I was just saying to Henry I hoped I wouldn’t say anything rude, and the first thing I do is stick my foot right in my mouth.”

Caleb and Kira laughed, seeming completely unperturbed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Caleb told her. “I get that a lot. Or rather, I don’t. Which is how I know I don’t look much like a dragon.”

Henry swallowed as he glanced around while Luna and Kira started chatting amicably. Sylvie and Gale must have already told Kira and Caleb that he was a hellhound, and so far, they didn’t seem to feel too weird about him. But he guessed they must just be doing a good job of covering it up, since they’d been forewarned.

“Well, it really is great that you’ve found each other,” Kira was saying, a twinkle in her eyes as she looked at Luna. “How are you dealing with the whole ‘fated soulmates’ thing?”

“Um. I think I’m getting used to it,” Luna said, glancing up at Henry. “Or else it just hasn’t quite hit me yet. It’s a lot to take in. I mean, hellhounds and dragons are one thing, but finding out we’re soulmates? That’s… that’s something else.”

“Yeah,” Kira told her, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, though – it’s best if you just go with it. That’s what I found – and I haven’t regretted it for a moment. I know you’re only in Girdwood Springs for the festival, and I have a lot going on while we have so many extra people in town, but if you ever want to talk about things from a non-shifter perspective, then I’m sure we can find some time to chat.”

“I’d really, really like that,” Luna said, perking up. “I mean, it’s just so comforting to know there’s people around who know how I feel!”

“Believe me, I was grateful I had Sylvie to talk to,” Kira laughed. “Not that Caleb here isn’t great and all, but you know, they grew up as shifters, and this is all totally normal to them. Sometimes you just want someone to quietly freak out to, even if it’s good freaking out.”

“Well, I’m very happy to hear I’m freak out-worthy,” Caleb said smoothly. “But before we get to that part, perhaps we should discuss this curse business.” He frowned as he ran his eyes over Luna. “Because I can definitely see you’ve got one. Not a bad one, but a curse nonetheless.”

Henry, who had been glowing with happiness as he watched Luna and Kira chatting happily, suddenly felt his mood dampened. But it was good to be reminded of why they were actually here, even if he wasn’t totally sure how Kira and Caleb could help them yet.

“Hmmm,” Caleb mused, turning his eyes to Henry. “Did you know you also have a curse on you?”

Henry nodded grimly. “Well. I didn’t know. But I definitely suspected. Gale didn’t say anything about that at the café, though.”

“Maybe because it’s also a pretty weak curse,” Caleb said. “But also… well… if I can put this in a kind of indelicate way, it’s probably also because you’re a hellhound. Hellhound auras can be… pretty intense. It’s hard to see anything else. But dragons are like wyverns – we can see these things a bit clearer than other types of shifters.”

Henry guessed that made sense – dragons and wyverns were pretty closely related after all, and wyverns were known for being especially magical.

“The curse doesn’t seem to have much effect when I’m standing close to Luna, though,” Henry said. “For some reason.”

“It might be the kind of curse it is.” Caleb cocked his head. “Unfortunately, I’m a bit of an expert on curses.”

“Caleb was cursed when he met me,” Kira explained, laughing. “A real doozy. A generations-old dragon curse on his whole family line. It took some doing to get rid of that, let me tell you.”

“Oh,” Luna murmured, sounding about as gloomy as Henry currently felt. “Is… is it going to be hard, then, to break it?” But then, a thought seemed to occur to her, and her face hardened. “But wait – why do I have a curse on me? Is it just random, or did someone… put it on me?”

“That’s usually how it works,” Caleb said, nodding. “You don’t happen to know if anyone else in your family was cursed, do you? That’s how I got mine – I inherited it.”

“Um. I don’t know,” Luna said, blinking. “I really can’t think of anything that would have made me think someone was cursed, and I don’t remember anyone in my family just being really clumsy or having really bad luck, like the kinds of things that have been happening to me. I just have no idea why anyone would curse me either! Do you think this is because I gave someone a bad review, and now they’re out for revenge?”

“It’s possible,” Kira said. “I suppose if you only just found out about shifters and magic, then it’s probably not very likely you would have noticed if any place you reviewed was run by the kind of person who’d curse you over it.”

“No, not really,” Luna admitted, and Henry was relieved to hear the tiniest hint of a laugh in her voice. “Obviously if I’d known, I’d have talked them up! I mean, what’s my integrity compared with avoiding a cursing!”

Caleb laughed. “Well, hopefully we can rid you of this curse, and then you can be curse-free and keep your integrity.” He looked at her curiously. “Just what kind of curse are you under, anyway? What kind of things have been happening?”

Luna’s face fell a little, though she also looked kind of… embarrassed? “It’s just kind of small stuff, really – like how that chair broke this morning when I sat on it, and the person standing in front of me at the festival bought up all the food. Things like that.” She frowned. “It sounds stupid, when you say it out loud.”

“Not at all.” Caleb almost looked excited. “You’re saying you’re under a bad luck curse?”

“Caleb knows all about those,” Kira chimed in. “That’s the kind of curse he was under when we met.”

“Believe me, they’re not fun,” Caleb said seriously. “You have my sympathies. I just hope this one is easier to break than mine was. But it should be – like Kira said, mine was a generations-old family curse, but yours is just recent, right?”

“Yeah.” Luna nodded. “Just these last few weeks. Also somebody’s been sending me weird text messages whenever something happens, which is the only reason I didn’t think it was just a regular run of bad luck.” She pulled out her phone and swiped the screen, before handing it over to Caleb.

Henry had to admit that it was pretty funny, watching Caleb and Kira’s eyebrows rise higher and higher as they scrolled through the messages.

“Wow,” said Kira. “This guy’s…”

“Unhinged,” finished Caleb, shaking his head.

“It’s hard to know whether to be scared of him, or to just laugh,” Luna said. “But either way, he’s annoying!”

“Most definitely,” said Caleb. “Okay. And you, Henry – what was your curse?”

“Maybe it’s easier if I just demonstrate,” Henry said, feeling self-conscious. He got up and wandered across the hut, opening the door and stepping outside. He felt foolish standing there, but he knew it wouldn’t be long –

Right on cue, he heard rustling from the woods that surrounded the cabin. A moment later a large deer with some truly enormous antlers emerged from the trees, looking around with wide eyes as if searching for something. The moment it laid eyes on him it let out a high-pitched call of what sounded almost like joy before it came hurtling toward him. It looked like it wanted to give him a giant hug rather than hurt him, but he was pretty sure that the hug would be painful in and of itself.

Henry glanced over his shoulder to the window at the side of the cabin to see if Kira and Caleb were watching, and, on seeing their surprised faces through the glass, he hoped they’d gotten the message.

Before the deer could actually bound its way up the steps, Henry quickly jumped back inside the cabin and bolted the door, hurrying over to stand next to Luna. There were scratchings at the door for a few moments, before the deer apparently gave up and wandered off with an exasperated noise.

There was a long silence, before Caleb cleared his throat.

“Well, that one’s new,” he muttered. “The others are going to be annoyed that they missed this.”

“Oh yeah – they wanted me to pass on their apologies. They got caught up with work, what with the festival and everything,” Kira explained. “Hopefully they’ll be here soon.”

“I can’t believe we’ve got two curses at once,” Caleb murmured to himself. Henry thought that he was probably a little too excited by this… but he supposed that it was pretty interesting, especially for someone who hadn’t had much to do for the past few months while his business was closed for the winter.

“What should we do next?” he asked, feeling a little helpless.

“Have you forgotten?” Caleb said with a smile. “What’s the one thing dragons are known for? Besides being strong, smart, and devastatingly handsome, I mean.”

“Breathing fire?” Luna tried. “Hoarding treasure? Uh, flying?”

Caleb looked a bit sheepish. “Besides that.”

Henry felt his spirits lifting as he put two and two together. “They’re known for having uncannily good luck.”

“Bingo.”

Luna blinked. “You have the power of good luck?” She sounded a little awed.

Inwardly, Henry’s hellhound seethed. As if a dragon is half the beast a hellhound is. I could have all the good luck I wanted, if I felt like it.

Henry tried not to roll his eyes, even as he felt just a little jealous of Caleb’s range of powers. I’m sure she’s just being polite.

Still, Henry sounded a little sharper than he meant to when he said, “Luck? I was never sure how much of that was real, and how much of it was just tall tales.”

“It’s definitely real, though it’s not like it’s just running 24/7,” Caleb said. “I have to decide to use it before it’ll take effect – things don’t just fall into my lap willy-nilly. But here, let me show you.”

He pulled out a deck of cards from a drawer and handed them to Luna. “Shuffle these, and then tell me what card you want me to draw.”

Blinking, Luna gave the cards a quick shuffle and then fanned them out, face-down. “Uh… clubs?”

Caleb plucked a card from the deck and turned it over – and sure enough, it was the two of clubs.

“That was a bit easy,” he said. “Drawing a card of clubs was still a one in four chance, which is pretty high. Be more specific.”

“Okay.” Luna shuffled the deck again. “King of hearts.”

Henry watched, fascinated, as Caleb pulled out a card with seeming indifference, before flipping it over to reveal exactly what Luna had specified.

“Huh!” Luna said, shuffling again. “Okay… ten of diamonds.”

Once again, Caleb drew the correct card, seemingly without hesitation.

“Ace of hearts!” Luna said this time. And, once again, to the surprise of nobody, that was exactly the card Caleb drew.

“You know,” Luna murmured as she absent-mindedly shuffled through the cards, “it says something about the day I’ve had that I can actually find it easier to believe that you have powers of good luck, than that you’re counting cards or something.”

Caleb laughed. “Yeah, counting cards is definitely beyond me.”

For the first time since all of this started, Henry felt a glimmer of hope. “So you’re saying that you might be able to use your luck to help us?”

Caleb nodded. “I’m hoping so. I’ve just got to work out what it is we need to actually get lucky about.”

“Okay.” Luna nodded. “So, what now?”

“Well, hopefully the others will turn up soon, and we can pool our resources,” Kira said, as she filled up a kettle. “But in the meantime, I’m going to make some coffee – does anyone want some?”

“Sounds great,” Luna said, offering Kira a smile. “I feel like I could do with something to drink right about now. I was thinking hard liquor, but coffee would probably be best.”

“Save the drinking until we have this curse thing sorted out,” Caleb said, laughing. “But since we’re waiting for the others anyway, would you object to me trying a little experiment?”

“What kind of experiment?” Henry asked, cocking his head. He did trust that Caleb wanted to help, but his hellhound was making it clear that it definitely wanted to be consulted about anything involving their mate.

“Oh, nothing bad,” Caleb laughed. “I just thought I’d test how far I could push my luck. I can try it out with your curse, if you like? I can’t promise it’ll do much, though.”

“Okay, sure,” Henry said. He felt a little more comfortable trying out whatever Caleb was suggesting on himself, though he doubted it would involve anything that would put them in harm’s way. “What were you thinking?”

“It’ll probably sound stupid,” Caleb said, as he crossed the room to where a nice, modern-looking computer sat on the desk by the bookshelves. “But I was thinking… I could Google it.”

Henry frowned, not sure he understood. “You mean… Googling who put a curse on me?”

“Um. Do you think that would actually work?” Luna asked, exchanging a glance with Henry. “I mean, wouldn’t that just turn up… I don’t know, the website for some TV show or a book or something?”

“Maybe,” Caleb said as he sat down in front of the computer. “But it’s worth a shot, right? The worst that happens is we get some new TV or book recommendations, I guess.”

“Well, sure, I can’t see how it’d do any harm, anyway,” Henry said, coming around to stand behind Caleb at the computer.

He had to admit, however, that he didn’t really have much hope that this would do any good. How could it? Internet search engines didn’t work like that, so far as he was aware.

But then again, I don’t really know how dragons’ luck works,he had to admit as Caleb started typing. He frowned. Or internet search engines either, for that matter.

“Have you ever tried something like this before?” Henry asked.

“Not really,” Caleb said. “Though one time I asked Siri where I’d put my car keys, just to see what would happen, and it did actually tell me.”

“So… it’s not totally outside the realm of possibility, then?” Luna asked, the hope obvious in her voice.

“I can give it a go, anyway,” Caleb said. “Now, I have to concentrate for this next part. I’ll really be pushing my luck for this, so let’s see if it works.”

Quickly, he took a deep breath, scrunched his eyes up, wriggled his fingers and then typed into the search bar: who’s behind this curse?

The results didn’t pop up instantaneously. In fact, it seemed to be taking an awfully long time to load the results page in general.

This won’t work,Henry’s hellhound sniffed, even as he tried to tell it to have a bit of patience. As if a dragon could help us –

“Oh. Hello,” Caleb said. “This seems… interesting.”

Henry blinked, leaning forward to look at the computer screen.

At first, he wasn’t sure what was so interesting about what was on it – it seemed to be a link to a fortune-telling website, or at least that was what he was guessing from the title of the webpage.

But after a moment, he saw what Caleb meant. That was the only result. And Henry didn’t have to know much about internet search engines to know that wasn’t usually how it worked.

“Huh,” Luna said, her eyes wide. She read off the screen as Caleb clicked on the link: “‘Madame Fortuna will tell your fortune, predict your love life, tell you who is working against you and stopping you from achieving your dreams. A qualified witch at your service.’ Um. Is this for real?”

“Seems like it,” Henry murmured, as Caleb scrolled through the website. It was pretty nice, actually, done up in purple with pictures of crystal balls and arcane symbols.

Ugh, I cannot believe that actually worked, his hellhound huffed, as Henry internally shushed it. We could have done that, if we’d wanted to.

We absolutely could not have, and you know it,Henry told it. If you don’t have anything helpful to say, just be quiet.

“Look at this,” Caleb said as he clicked on a link that read Services Provided. “It says here she can both break and cast curses. Do you think this might actually be who we’re looking for?”

“I suppose it’s hard to say for sure,” Henry said. “I definitely have never heard of any Madame Fortuna though, and I have no idea why she’d ever have heard of me. Do witches go to nightclubs a lot? Maybe I refused her entry one night, and now she’s angry.”

Kira laughed a little as she crossed the room, putting cups of coffee down in front of Luna and Henry. “Oh, I’m sure some witches must go to clubs,” she said. “Where else would they meet rock star vampires?”

Henry had to laugh at that. “Okay, good point.”

“It still doesn’t really explain why she’d curse you though,” Luna said, sipping her coffee, her eyes still on the screen. “Unless that actually is the reason.”

“I doubt it,” Henry said. “We’re not really a fashionable enough place to attract vampires. Or witches, I wouldn’t have thought.”

“Hey, it has a profile for her,” Luna said, pointing to the bottom of the screen. “Perhaps it’ll tell us something interesting? I’m not sure what, though.”

“Well, let’s read it,” Caleb said, clicking.

And then, in the next moment, they all sucked in a quick, shocked breath through their teeth.

“Wait,” Luna said, sounding just a little faint. “That’s – but that’s – in the photo –”

“That’s you,” Henry confirmed grimly.

And it was true – there was no mistaking that breathtakingly sunny smile, those waves of auburn hair, those sparkling coppery green eyes. The woman in the photo even had the same freckles as Luna – there was a dark one just on the bridge of her nose, which was there, perfectly replicated in the photo of Madame Fortuna on her ‘About Me’ page.

Henry had pretty much had every aspect of Luna’s appearance committed 100% to memory from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, and there was no way this was just a case of someone looking kind of similar to her, or it being a photo that somehow distorted Madame Fortuna’s face to make her look like Luna.

They were, in every way, identical.

“Okay, I just want to state for the record that I am not Madame Fortuna, qualified witch,” Luna said, her voice shaking just a little bit. “I didn’t make this website. I didn’t even know about shifters, or witches, or anything else until yesterday. I swear, I have nothing to do with this.”

“I believe you,” Henry said quickly – and he did. He didn’t have to think twice about it. He knew Luna wasn’t deceiving him, or anything even slightly similar. No, whatever was going on here, whoever Madame Fortuna was was the one behind it.

“I feel like my parents would have mentioned it if I had a secret twin sister, or something like that,” Luna said, clearly trying to sound light-hearted, but Henry could still hear the shake in her voice. “And we’re really not a mysterious enough family for them to have secretly sent a twin out for adoption or something like that.” She frowned suddenly, learning forward again to inspect the photograph. “But… um, now that I think about it, that’s my photo from the staff page for the online magazine I work with. It pops up next to my byline, it’s just usually really small so I don’t look at it much. But the one on the ‘About Us’ page is much bigger.”

“Well, I think it’s pretty clear, in the absence of a secret twin who was adopted at birth, that Madame Fortuna just stole your photo off the website and is using it as her own,” Kira said, cocking her head. “I mean, Occam’s Razor and all that.”

Luna laughed. “No… you’re right. I guess the last couple of days have just made me go to the most convoluted explanation possible. I mean, she might have stolen my image using magic, right? But no, I think it’s what you said. She just stole the photo for her own website.”

“But why would she do that?” Henry asked. “Why not just use her own photo? It’s her website – what’ll she do when she meets a client and turns up looking nothing like the photo?”

“Maybe she doesn’t meet in person?” Caleb suggested. “Although it does say here she’s available for in-person bookings. So it seems like she wouldn’t be able to maintain the illusion.”

“This is just getting weird,” Luna muttered. “Of all the people, why me? If she wants to look glamorous on her website, can’t she use, I don’t know, some pop star’s photo?”

“That would be pretty easy to spot, I guess,” Kira pointed out. “I think people would pretty quickly be tipped off this isn’t her if she slapped up, I don’t know, Beyoncé’s photograph all over her website.”

“All right, good point,” Luna laughed. “But still – how do we fix this? Does she have a complaints box? And if she’s the one that cursed Henry, why is she using my photo?! It’s just too freaky!”

“Okay, that is one hell of a coincidence,” Kira agreed.

“If there’s one thing dragon’s luck has told me, it’s that there’s very few things in this world that are actually coincidence,” Caleb said, a little grimly. “But without talking to Madame Fortuna, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to find out more.”

“I’m not sure she’ll respond to emails about it,” Luna mused. “She’ll probably just take the photo down and steal someone else’s. And we still won’t have an answer about why she cursed Henry.”

Henry shook his head. He supposed he should, perhaps, not be feeling quite so confused right now – after all, he was a shifter, and he was well aware that many people would consider his very existence extremely confusing and very unlikely. But he was having a really hard time wrapping his head around this.

“Maybe if she was using her own photo I would remember her,” he murmured. “If I’d seen her somewhere, or offended her somehow. But I really don’t remember doing anything that would piss someone off enough to curse me.”

“Even if, as curses go, it’s a pretty adorable one,” Luna said, grinning at him. “If it was only a matter of attracting little squirrels and chipmunks, I’d be tempted just to tell you to leave it alone.”

“You’d think it was cute, but it gets pretty old pretty fast,” Henry said gloomily, remembering the chipmunk he’d had to extract from his jacket pocket when it really had not wanted to be extracted. “Anyway, it’s not just cute little animals – it’s bears and deer and cougars as well. I don’t think it’s worth the price.”

“All right, spoilsport,” Luna said, playfully rolling her eyes. “Shatter my dreams of my boyfriend, the human fuzzy little animal attractor.”

Henry had to admit, Luna was taking all of this in stride – though maybe that was because she seemed to have decided to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. He really could take a leaf out of her book, he decided.

But – wait. Did she just call me her boyfriend? Just like that? Like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to say?

Henry almost wanted to ask her if she’d meant it – but clearly, he thought, as he watched her turn to say something to Kira, she’d just said it without a second thought, like it had just come naturally. Would it be weird to ask her to say it again?

Yes, it would,his hellhound snapped. Just accept it – can you not just take a good thing when it’s given to you? Of course she called us that. She is our mate. We are hers. What else is she supposed to call us?

And for once, Henry decided he’d definitely take the hellhound’s advice.

“Well, since looking at her photo – though it’s not her photo – isn’t really getting us anywhere, perhaps we can try this,” Kira said, pointing to a link at the bottom of the paragraph outlining Madame Fortuna’s qualifications as a witch that read Click Here to Book Me for Your Next Event or Gathering!

“Hmm. Do we actually want to book her?” Caleb asked, glancing up at his mate as he clicked the link. “Is that a good idea?”

“We do need answers,” Luna pointed out. “And like you said, I’m not sure she’s going to respond to an email or an impassioned plea on social media.”

“I’d like to find out exactly what I did,” Henry added. “Whatever the case, I can’t go on like this, especially not now that I’ve found my mate. It was my plan to just stay in hellhound form – since animals don’t seem to like me so much like that – and live in the woods until I’d sorted things out, or stuff went back to normal on its own. But that would mean living apart from Luna.”

He swallowed, wanting to add And I just don’t think I can do that anymore, but his throat was too tight to let the words pass. He hoped Luna understood him without him having to say the words – and when he looked at her, he could see from the shine in her beautiful green eyes that she did.

And not only that she understood him, but she felt exactly the same way he did.

We were meant to be together. And there’s no way we’re letting these curses come between us. We’ll do whatever it takes.

“Well,” Luna said slowly, licking her lips. “Call me crazy, but I have an idea. But it wouldn’t really be my place to say whether it can go ahead or –”

“Hey guys, sorry we’re so late. That was a crazy day – I never thought I’d get the last customer out!”

Luna was interrupted by the sound of the door of the cabin opening, and then the sound of Sylvie’s voice. They turned in time to see Sylvie herself walking into the cabin, followed by Gale, who they already knew from the bakery, and then two other people Henry had never met before, but he guessed must be Natasha and Kieran, the owners of the BB Luna was staying in.

Yes, definitely a griffin,his hellhound sniffed as he took in Kieran’s tall, broad form and the mop of golden hair. Natasha herself wasn’t any less impressive, in her own way – a tall, slim, dark-skinned woman who was absolutely immaculately put together, exuding class.

But a moment later, Henry had forgotten all about how they looked – because an incredible, delicious smell suddenly hit his nostrils.

“I hope you’re all hungry, because we brought leftovers,” Sylvie said, as she plonked a huge box down on one of the tables that lined the room. “And there’s plenty for everyone. Everything from diner food from Eula’s to gulab jamun from the Indian sweets shop.”

“Oh my God! I didn’t get to try those yesterday!” Luna said, perking up.

“Well, now’s your chance,” Sylvie laughed. “I’m afraid there’s nothing from me – I was absolutely cleaned out – but everyone else was very generous with what they had left. So let’s dig in.”

“And maybe you can tell us about your idea while we eat,” Kira said to Luna, as together, they started unboxing the packaged food Sylvie and Gale had brought with them. Each box seemed to contain a new treasure – from fresh, glistening, salted fries to candied apples, fresh bread and cheese to Luna’s coveted gulab jamun.

“Luna, can you grab me a plate?” Sylvie asked, laughing as she almost lost a stack of fried green tomatoes. “These things are tricky! And what’s this about an idea?”

“I think we found out who put the curse on Henry,” Caleb explained, as he stood up from behind the computer. “Well, perhaps. But we need a way to find them and confront them, and Luna was about to tell us how she thought we could do it.”

“You can tell us over dinner, then,” Natasha said, business-like. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m absolutely starving.”

Henry had to admit, he felt the same way too – his mouth watered as he watched the feast unfolding before him. He was on the verge of going over to help, when his eyes landed on Luna where she was laughing with Natasha about something-or-other.

Perfect. She’s perfect.

The thought momentarily left him breathless with the force of how true it was. Luna took his breath away, left him feeling light-headed with adoration. It was like nothing he’d ever known before – and he knew he’d never feel anything like it again.

It was all for Luna.

He watched, enchanted, as she picked up one of the gulab jamun with her fingers and bit into it, closing her eyes in delight and making a satisfied sound, her lips glistening with the sweet syrup. If this Madame Fortuna thing turned out to be a bust, Henry thought that he could handle being cursed for the rest of his life, if the trade-off was that he got to see Luna smile.

“Meeting your mate changes everything, doesn’t it?”

He startled at Caleb’s quiet voice next to him. Tearing his eyes away from Luna, he turned, to see Caleb smiling at him. He smiled back helplessly.

“Yeah, it does. I know everyone always says how life-changing it is, but I never really comprehended it. It’s impossible to understand until you’ve experienced it.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Caleb clinked his coffee mug against Henry’s and drained it, before both of them went over to join the others in laying out their magnificent feast.

“Now,” Kira said, as the eight of them sat down at the table, the food wafting its delicious scent through the room, “Luna, tell us about this idea you had.”