Chapter 13

O…kay? Luna thought, as she stared at the man who’d suddenly appeared before them.

Blinking, she swept her eyes over him. The green smoke had been impressive, she had to admit, but he really didn’t look like any wizard she’d ever imagined before – he wasn’t, for example, wearing a purple robe with golden stars on it, or a tall, pointed hat. He didn’t even have a staff. He did have long hair, though – pulled back into a ponytail. And he was pretty tall, she had to give him that – he was also quite thin and weedy, and he was wearing glasses. Old, ragged jeans, a rather tattered t-shirt, a denim jacket and dirty sneakers completed his wizard ensemble.

Not that there’s anything wrong with guys having long ponytails or wearing old clothes,Luna thought. They had just… uh, summoned? him – since she assumed that’s what the sudden appearance and the green smoke was all about – at a moment’s notice. Maybe he hadn’t had time to put on his wizard’s raiment before teleporting here. It was just a tiny bit surprising to see an apparently fairly powerful wizard looking like some of the guys who used to stand around arguing with each other at her local comics shop when she’d been a kid.

But she’d at least been right about something: the moment Sally-Anne had asked him to come, he’d come. Now, they just had to get him to understand that he’d cursed the wrong person – and also, that cursing people was just a bad idea in general.

They unfortunately seem to have quite a lot in common on that score,Luna thought, a little sourly.

Well, she hoped this would be a lesson to them both to deal with their hurt feelings in more constructive ways. Because going around cursing people, regardless of whether it backfired or not, was just not an appropriate way to cope with rejection.

Especially if you send self-aggrandizing text messages to go with your curse!

Really, it just seemed like both Sally-Anne and Dorian had a lot of growing up to do before either of them was ready to be in a relationship, either with each other or anyone else.

But that was a problem for Dorian and Sally-Anne – right now, Luna was really mainly concerned with getting her curse lifted. And explaining the situation to Dorian, before he got the wrong –

Suddenly, Dorian gasped, his eyes falling on Luna’s face. “You!”

Sigh. Too late,Luna thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. The only positive thing she could take out of this was that he had, at least, dropped the all-caps from his speech – she had actually been able to hear the capitalization in his words when he first entered the room. She suspected that he may have been magically enhancing his voice to make it have a booming quality, but it really didn’t go with the whole jeans-and-t-shirt look – and now that he’d been distracted, he’d forgotten to keep it up.

Sheesh. Is being a wizard really so much effort?

“Madame Fortuna!” he bellowed unimpressively. “At last, we meet!”

He started rubbing his hands together, and an eerie green light began to fill the room.

Oh, crap.

How on earth was she going to explain it to her editor if she got put in hospital by a vengeful wizard? Would her healthcare plan even cover this?!

“Stay back.”

Henry was in front of her before she knew it, a growl in his voice and his body positioned protectively, an imposing barrier between her and danger. His eyes smoldered with fury, and, despite the wizard with glowing hands standing only a few feet away, Luna couldn’t help but feel protected – right now, Henry looked like a freight train couldn’t move him.

Okay, I knew he worked in security, and I knew he was a hellhound, but… wow.

She peeped around his side, just in time to see Dorian reaching one hand into his sleeve. Henry tensed, clearly ready to shift into his hellhound form if necessary, and Luna flinched as Dorian pulled out…

Some flowers?

Some FLOWERS???

“My love!” he cried, going down on one knee and thrusting the flowers out before him. “I have held on to my grievances for so long, but seeing your pulchritudinous visage again has made me realize the error of my ways! Take these blooms as a lowly token of my affection, and become my beloved once more!”

I’m going to kill this guy.Oh my GOD.

She didn’t dare turn around, but she thought that Sally-Anne’s face probably had a pretty interesting expression on it right now… and she wouldn’t blame her, to be honest. It had to be rough, seeing the guy she was carrying a torch for profess his undying love to a complete stranger.

Henry, a line of tension still clear in his shoulders, seemed to be staring at the flowers as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or throw them in Dorian the wizard’s face.

I think I better sort this out as quickly as I can, Luna thought, as she stepped forward to stand by Henry’s side.

“That’s all very nice,” she said to Dorian, “but those aren’t for me. You don’t even know me.”

Dorian looked confused for a moment, but then rallied valiantly. “Of course I know you! I have known you since the dawn of time, and will know you until the death of the universe! How could I not know the other half of my soul?!”

It was hard to believe that she was having this stolen-photo-on-a-dating-app conversation for the second time in an hour, but apparently this was her life now. And this time, her patience was considerably lower.

“I’m not Madame Fortuna – she is.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “She stole my photo, just like you stole his.” This time, she jerked her head in Henry’s direction. “Don’t try to deny it – we already know the full story,” she said when she saw Dorian’s mouth opening, indignation written all over his face, as if he were about to try to – no doubt wordily – rebut the accusation. “The two of you need to sort your issues out, and leave us out of your lovers’ tiffs.” She raised her voice just a little. “Oh, and take this curse off me right now!”

Dorian blinked in confusion, looking around from face to face, wobbling precariously as he remained perched on one knee, bouquet in hand. Normally Luna would have been more sympathetic, but this pompous idiot really had been making her life difficult.

Now, however, far from having far too much to say, he’d apparently been reduced to complete silence, his face going redder than a tomato as he realized he’d been totally busted.

But after the last few weeks, Luna’s patience was officially at an end.

“Hey.” She stepped forward, waving her hand in front of Dorian’s reddening face. She realized that he wasn’t really looking at her, though – he was looking past her, to where Sally-Anne was still seated at the diner table. He seemed to come back to himself as she waved her hand at him though, his eyes darting back to her face, his somewhat clouded expression clearing.

“Yes?” he asked, as if Luna was the one who was importuning him.

“Curse. Remove it. Now.”

Luna was a little surprised even by her own abruptness, but right now she simply didn’t care. She was officially sick of witches, wizards, and curses of all kinds. And she was especially sick of being dragged into other people’s romantic entanglements. As if her own weren’t complicated enough!

Well, not that that’s quite true,she thought, glancing up at Henry. The road there might have been a little winding, but now that she knew the full truth about what she and Henry were to each other, it all seemed remarkably simple.

Or perhaps, simple when compared with the ridiculous situation Sally-Anne and Dorian had created for themselves.

Dorian blinked up at her. “C-curse?” he said, as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.

This guy is unbelievable! Luna thought as she stared at him. But then, comprehension seemed to dawn on him.

“Oh – oh, I see. Yes, I do seem to have made some kind of blunder in the course of my romantic endeavors. Allow me to correct that at once.”

He made a quick gesture with his hands – it amounted to nothing more than a quick wiggle of his fingers, a little snap of his wrists.

“There. You have my apologies, madam.”

Luna frowned, before looking down at her own hands. “Is – is that it?” she asked, still looking down at her palms. She hadn’t noticed anything at all, and she didn’t feel any different… but then again, she supposed that she’d never noticed being cursed, either.

She turned to look at Henry, who looked a little skeptical, but mostly relieved. He put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll get Caleb or Gale to check your aura later. Hopefully he’s telling the truth.”

“Hmph.” While she was glad to – hopefully – be free of the curse, she was a little put out that she didn’t get the whole magic show to go with it. Especially since this guy was such a show-off in every other respect!

On the other hand, she did have the world’s weirdest soap opera playing out in front of her, so that had to be worth something, at least.

She turned to watch, entranced, as Dorian wobbled to his feet and approached Sally-Anne, who was watching him as he came toward her, a strange mixture of trepidation and longing on her face.

“So, this is… Madame Fortuna?” he said dubiously. “A likely name.”

Sally-Anne’s lip curled. “About as likely as Dorian.”

Luna winced. This wasn’t going well! Obviously Dorian’s professed feelings had not been quite so pure as he claimed, if he couldn’t deal with Sally-Anne looking different than he expected. She could have understood it a bit more, if Dorian hadn’t pulled the exact same stunt!

“It’s an old family name,” Dorian sniffed. “I have merely revived it.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sally-Anne looked unimpressed, but Luna could hear the faintest waver in her voice, and see the tension in her jaw where she was clearly trying to keep her chin from wobbling.

As Luna watched, Sally-Anne’s eyes narrowed suddenly. “Hang on, I remember you. When you stood me up –”

Dorian bristled. “I did no such thing! You stood me up!”

They glared at one another. A small, petty part of Luna wished that she had some popcorn.

“When you stood me up,” Sally-Anne repeated firmly, “I saw you – as in you, how you look right now – sitting over at the bar.”

“I was waiting for you!” Dorian exclaimed. “I waited for an hour! My time is a precious commodity! How was I supposed to know that you looked like – like that?”

“Me?! How was I supposed to know that you looked like that?!”

Dorian, at least for the moment, had the self-awareness to look a little abashed. “Well,” he muttered after a moment or two. “I am aware that I am, perhaps… not as ruggedly handsome as my forays into the televisual medium have led me to believe that ladies prefer. But I was hoping that, once you saw me, the true light of my affection for you would render outer appearances meaningless.”

Sally-Anne blinked. “Oh,” she said slowly after a moment of silence. “Okay.”

“Are they really this clueless?” Henry murmured.

“Apparently,” Luna muttered back. She was starting to wonder why they were helping these people at all… but, she supposed, everyone had to start somewhere. Maybe these two crazy kids could make it work. One day. After a whole bunch of therapy.

“Anyway,” Dorian huffed, “I suppose that these are for you.” He held out the flowers in a decidedly unromantic fashion, and Sally-Anne took them with a sneer… though her face did relax just a little as she looked at them.

“Thank you,” she said grudgingly. “They are nice.”

“I picked them from over my neighbor’s fence with my secateur spell,” Dorian said, pride evident in his voice. “He is a renowned grower of dahlias. These are prize-winning flowers… well, they would have been, had I not spirited them away for you.”

That’s sweet… Luna thought, before everything he’d said caught up with her. Wait, what?!

Sally-Anne’s hesitant smile softened into something much more natural. “They’re… they’re lovely.”

Luna looked up at Henry’s face, to see a flabbergasted expression that she was sure was mirrored in her own.

“Perhaps I should apologize,” said Dorian thoughtfully. “I suppose that I am not entirely blameless in this matter.”

Luna couldn’t help but laugh under her breath, exchanging an incredulous glance with Henry. She could tell he was thinking exactly the same thing she was: Geeze, you think?

“I suppose I could have… been more honest myself,” Sally-Anne muttered, lowering her eyes. “I just… didn’t think you’d keep talking to me if you saw the real me. And… I really liked you. Your profile made me laugh. And… and when I saw the list of spells you can perform and how dedicated you were to your magical studies… I just… didn’t want to risk blowing things. But I guess it wasn’t right of me to pretend to be someone else.”

“I, too, was impressed by your profile,” Dorian said. “I must confess… I barely looked at your photo gallery. In fact, I do not think I looked at it at all. Such things are unimportant to me – I care only for craft, for resolve. For the seeking of magical knowledge. The thing I remember from reading your profile was your passion for your work, for the striving to become a better witch. That was why I responded to you – not because of anything so trivial as a photographical image. What can a photograph tell me of your soul?”

Luna blinked. She could feel her lip twisting as once again, she looked up at Henry. “So you mean… all of that was essentially for nothing? They didn’t even care what the other looked like?”

“Seems like it,” Henry said, sounding as bemused as he looked. “I guess that’s… kind of heartwarming, in its own way? Maybe?”

Luna thought she probably deserved to be able to reserve judgment on that score. These people had almost ruined both her and Henry’s lives, after all!

But having said that… I guess all this ridiculousness brought us together in a way as well. Sort of.

Luna wanted to shake her head to clear it – she could definitely feel a headache coming on. Right now, she just wanted all of this to be over.

“Your own magical skills are pretty impressive,” Sally-Anne said shyly, looking up at Dorian from beneath her eyelashes. “And your teleportation spell was amazing. I didn’t know that anyone knew those spells anymore – they’re pretty rare. Do you think I might be able to learn how to do that?”

Drawing himself up to his full, spindly height, Dorian preened. “Under the tutelage of a prodigy such as myself, it is theoretically possible that you might someday be able to master such an art.”

Luna would have been extremely cranky if someone spoke to her that way, but Sally-Anne merely batted her eyelashes, looking slightly awed. “Oh – you mean you’d teach me yourself?”

“Indeed… if you prove an apt pupil,” Dorian said, and, as Luna watched, his face started once again to turn a bright tomato-red. He was clearly trying to cover up his flustered state with bluster – though honestly, perhaps it was just that ‘bluster’ was his default setting.

“And I must admit,” he continued, “I have longed to be able to forecast the mysteries of the future. But I have never been able to unlock those secrets. Perhaps… perhaps, therefore, an exchange might be of interest to you?”

“You mean, you teach me yours and I’ll teach you mine?” Sally-Anne asked, her eyes going wide.

“Precisely!” Dorian beamed. “I would be most delighted to study under you, if you would have me.”

Oh my God! That is definitely enough!

But before Luna could open her mouth to ask them to please kindly take this elsewhere, Dorian bowed with an exaggerated flourish.

“My lady, would you do me the honor of wandering the festival and sampling its plebian delights with me?”

Sally-Anne smiled, wide and genuine. “Nothing would make me happier.”

The two of them linked arms and strolled out of the diner without even a word or a backward glance, leaving the door swinging in their wake.

Luna turned slowly toward Henry, taking in his stunned expression. She was pretty sure she didn’t look much better, her mouth hanging open to the point where her jaw was surely dragging on the ground.

After a long silence, Henry finally spoke.

“Did we do a good thing today, or a bad thing?”

Luna shook her head. “I honestly do not know.”

They stood there for a few moments longer, not quite sure what had just happened. Glancing out the window, Luna saw Caleb and the others peeping inside, looking as confused as she felt. She gave them a wave to signal that everything was okay, and Caleb acknowledged it with a nod, before they all wandered off to presumably give Luna and Henry some space.

Turning back to Henry, she slid into his waiting arms and leaned exhaustedly against him, closing her eyes and resting her head against his chest, and listening to the slow, steady beat of his heart. Now that it was all over, it was probably soon going to start sinking in just how absolutely insane the past couple of days had been.

And here I thought coming to Girdwood Springs for a small-town festival would be my chance to have a break from high-stress assignments!

She reveled in the feeling of his hand stroking her hair for a few minutes, just letting it soothe away her troubles.

Is that it? Is it really over?

Of course, in many ways, it was only just beginning. She’d come here to write about food, not to fall in love with a quaint country town and find out that she was fated to be the mate of an amazing, caring, extremely handsome man who could also turn into a ferocious hellhound, albeit one that actually looked like it might also be quite cuddly.

It was clear that she was going to have to reevaluate a lot of things about her life that she had always just assumed were set in stone. But that was okay – better than okay. Even if it was a bit scary.

She was ready for a new chapter in her life.

Despite how much she wanted to stay curled up against Henry’s warm chest forever, she pulled herself away from him with an effort, looking up into his gorgeous eyes.

“I don’t pretend to know exactly what just happened,” she said. “But I do know that I’d like to get out of here for a while. And I’d like to check that our curses really have been lifted.” She smiled, all tension gone from her body. “Would you like to go have a wander around the festival with me? No bad luck, no crazed animals, no worrying about work. Just you and me, having a nice time.”

Henry smiled back, his whole face lighting up in a way she never could have imagined when she first met him. “That sounds amazing.”

He’s mine. He’s all mine. And I’m his.

Forever.

She took his hand, and together they stepped out into the sunshine.