Her Secret by Tara Fox Hall Page B

mudroom. Sitting
down on the stone bench, we pulled on our boots. Terian locked the
door behind us, then checked his gun before slipping in into his
shoulder holster. We walked over to the edge of the woods in the
direction of the werecompound.
    “Tell me everything,” I said eagerly. “How
did you meet?”
    “I went to a festival one weekend,” Terian
said hesitantly. “She was there. I caught sight of her a few times.
Although I noticed her, she didn’t talk to me.”
    “Festival?”
    “A kind of gala for people like me...well,
people who are interested in sorcery, or who practice it.”
    “Real witches?” I said skeptically.
    “About half and half,” Terian admitted. “Some
pretenders were there, but that’s normal. I wasn’t looking for
friends, anyway, but for local ingredients. Buying online is fine,
but it’s safer to see what you’re paying for before you’ve paid for
it.”
    “Don’t tell me you’ve ordered eye of newt
online and gotten eye of gecko?” I teased.
    “In another second I’m not going to tell you
anything more,” Terian said, frowning at me.
    “Sorry, I’ll stop. Tell, please. Did you ask
her for her number?”
    “No,” Terian said proudly. “She gave it to me
without me asking.”
    Was this another stripper? “Where?” I
managed. “In the parking lot?”
    “When everyone went and got pumpkins,” Terian
said. “Right after your condition presented itself. You and Theo
didn’t go, remember?”
    “I remember. Danial told me about it that
Saturday I stayed over.”
    Danial, Elle, and Theoron had gone with
Terian, Cia, Aran, Aran Jr., Janice, and Ivan to a local pumpkin
farm, leaving the rest of the foxes behind to watch the estate.
They’d had a great time. Elle had picked out a huge pumpkin, and
even Danial with all his strength had to have Terian help him lift
it into the Expedition. Later that night, they’d set to carving in
the great room. When everyone was done, Danial had set them all up
together on a table, and taken a picture, which he’d shown me.
    Terian had carved the classic face, with
triangles for eyes, then used magic to make the pumpkin grow horns.
Elle had treated the pumpkin as a canvas, carving the headless
horseman. Danial had helped Theoron make a bat. Cia had made a cat
silhouette, and Janice and Ivan had seen the competition and also
carved classic faces, though Janice had made her face look
distinctly fox-like. Ivan’s for some reason had huge bushy
eyebrows.
    I’d been dismayed about missing that night,
and Danial had seen it. With a soft smile, he’d produced another
large pumpkin. On it had been carved a fox walking through the
snow, leaving footprints behind it, looking over its shoulder.
    “You gave it my eyes.” They weren’t green,
and there was nothing else to say they were mine, yet somehow I
knew they were.
    “That gave me the most problems,” he
admitted.
    “I didn’t know you had so much talent,” I
said, awed. “But now I understand why you encouraged Elle so
much—”
    “Sar!” Terian said loudly, breaking into my
memories. “Are you listening?”
    “Sorry,” I said, flushing. “Danial never
mentioned you met anyone that night.”
    “He didn’t see her. I noticed her, and smiled
at her. She returned the smile and came over. We talked about
Halloween, and costumes, and then she gave me her number, and said
she wanted to see more of me.”
    “Did she, now?” I grinned widely. “What has
she seen so far?”
    “You’re bad, even when The Lust doesn’t have
hold of you,” Terian said, shaking his head. He stopped walking and
turned to me. “We’ve kissed a little, that’s all. But I like her a
lot. Maybe it’s because she’s the first supernatural girl I’ve been
with.”
    I gaped. “What?”
    “Somewhere in her family line there was
something other than human. What that was, she hasn’t said.”
    A woman who wasn’t fully human would likely
find it easier to accept Terian’s half-demon nature.