Chapter 1

“Ms. Sniffer?” Leila asked, the concern in her voice drawing me back to the present.

I shook my head, hoping the images violating my personal space would disperse, but alas, Kenny’s morning masturbation session was still fresh in my mind. Don’t get me wrong, good for him, but yuck. I had no desire for the visual.

I rubbed my cursed nose and sighed. “Sorry?”

“Are you okay?” Leila asked. She had stopped me outside of my classroom to talk to me about something, but my mind was distracted.

I did my best to ignore Kenny and any lingering scents in his vicinity. He was standing a few feet away, eavesdropping on the conversation between my student and me. If knowing my coworker’s morning activities wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t help but wonder if they involved me. Shudder! He’d asked me out on numerous occasions over the last year, but I’d never been interested in him.

Objectively speaking, he was a nice-enough-looking man and had no weird habits. If he did, I would know, with my quirky gift of involuntarily sniffing people’s secrets and future events. I could thank my witch mother and beagle Shifter father, and I knew the irony wasn’t lost on me. I was weird, even for a witch living in Assjacket, West Virginia.

There was no spark for me where Kenny was concerned. I preferred living happily single than being a part of a relationship that didn’t fit me.

“I’m fine, Leila, just a squirrel thought. Can you repeat the last bit?”

“I asked if you’d sign off to be our new coach for the running club,” Leila said.

“What happened to—Oh that’s right. Mr. Gram’s moving.” Most residents didn’t leave their supernatural community, so I was tempted to ask him how he was managing his escape. “Um, the thing is, Leila, I’ve never coached. I wouldn’t even know—”

Leila waved her hand dismissively. “We run for fun. We just need an adult to do it with us, no coaching required.”

I pursed my lips in thought. My own runs could be switched to the afternoons, and my planning to the mornings. I furrowed my brows, realizing my brain wouldn’t be firing on all cylinders with that plan.

As if she could read my mind, Leila blurted, “Everyone is okay with running in the mornings instead! I know you run in the mornings, and we don’t want to mess up your schedule. To be honest, mornings are better for a lot of us and—”

Chuckling, I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Breathe.”

Leila’s eyes rounded, and her lips pressed into a thin line.

“I’ll do it. Tell the group to meet me after school tomorrow for a quick meeting. I’ll talk to the principal and let her know I’m stepping in.”

Leila bounced on her feet twice, the grin filling her face reminding me she was a fox Shifter. “Thank you!”

I started nodding and nearly fell over at the impact of Leila’s sudden embrace. Before I could react, Leila took off down the hall and out the double doors.

“Technology teacher by day, granting wishes by afternoon, and now running coach by mornings,” Kenny said, drawing closer to me.

“It’s rude to eavesdrop, Kenny.”

He shrugged. “It’s not my fault she spoke loudly.”

I rolled my eyes at his weak excuse. “What if she’d been talking about her period?”

Kenny grimaced at the topic, shivering for added effect. I opened my mouth to remind him it was a normal biological function, but he spoke first.

“All right, I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I was waiting for the girl to be done.”

“Did you need something?” I asked.

“I wanted to know if you were interested in grabbing a bite at the diner with me?”

The man refused to take any of my hints. “Oh, yeah, I can’t. I have a stack of essays that won’t grade themselves.”

“Can’t you cast a spell or whatever and be done with it?”

My eyes widened in horror. “That would be abusing my power! How dare you suggest such a thing? Baba Yaga has enough on her plate. She doesn’t need me—a teacher— setting a poor example!” I snapped and looked up and down the hall, waiting for the head witch to pop in at the mention of her name.

Kenny raised his hands in defense. “I—I’m sorry.”

Huffing out a breath, I shook my head. I shot him the hardest look of disappointment, which I normally reserved for the kids I caught cheating, before turning on my heels and walking away. My cheeks burned with heat as I pushed the door open and was hit with fresh air.

To be frank, I had used a spell on occasion to make my life easier. Most witches did. The dishes wouldn’t clean themselves otherwise. Usually when I found myself doing that, it was because I was buried under a stack of papers I needed to grade. Kenny suggesting it may have bothered me, but it also gave me the out I wanted from another unwanted dinner invite.

Adjusting my messenger bag filled with papers on my shoulder, I turned toward the center of town. I parted my lips slightly and did my best to prevent my olfactory gift from kicking in, by mouth breathing. Yes, it was gross but so were images of Kenny jacking off. The joke was clearly on me, when I was blessed with the ability to see visions of the past, present, and future. The kicker of it all was the fact it was triggered by my nose. I blamed my beagle father for that.

With each passing minute, my frustration grew. By the time I reached Bougie Treats, my cousin’s bakery, a sheen of sweat covered my skin and I was out of breath. Pushing the door open, the bell hanging off the glass announced my arrival to anyone inside.

Cami turned toward me, and I launched into my tirade. “Why do men not get it? Why do they need to push and push and push?” My hands flew through the air, stabbing at an imaginary Kenny. “Oh! And who the hell do I need to curse for my gift.” I bit out the last word before telling her about the vision I had been graced with that morning, nose be damned.

My cousin set a chocolate croissant on a plate and rounded the long counter. “Aileen, you need to breathe,” she whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” I asked, taking in the empty tables.

“We can talk about that fucktwad in a second, but I really think you should know—”

A sound drew our attention toward the hall that led to the single bathroom, office, and eventually the stairs to the apartment above the bakery. My brows pinched together. “Who—”

Time stilled. My body went cold, then flared with heat at the familiar man who appeared at the entrance of the hall. A gasp filled the air—my gasp from the hike of my shoulders. I blinked once and then again when the image moved closer.

“Hey, Lee,” Grayson said as if we were still sixteen. His voice was slightly deeper than it had been when we were kids. The dark hair on his head was longer than I remembered, but his piercing, blue-green eyes had not changed. Not one friggin’ bit.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted, then noticed a dark stain on his red T-shirt. “And why is your shirt all wet?”

“You look great,” he said, and damn butterflies took flight in my stomach.

My hand went up between us. “Grayson!”

“The shirt was my fault,” Cami said.

His lips pulled into a frown, and my heart squeezed. “You’re not happy to see me.”

I ran my hands against my face and sucked in a calming breath. “That’s not it. Damn it, Grayson. You can’t show up here after however many friggin’ years and just—you left!”

Me, I wanted to scream. He left me.

Needing a moment to process the pain squeezing my heart, I turned toward Cami. “What do you mean the shirt was your fault?”

She shrugged. “I poured my iced tea on him.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset either of you. I’ll just go—”

“No!” The single word flew past my lips and vibrated off the walls. I swallowed thickly. “Look, it’s been a hell of a day, and I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

His lips thinned and his eyes glinted, reminding me of the panther he was. “I didn’t mean to make your day worse.”

Before I could stop myself, I looped my arms around his waist and enveloped him in a tight embrace. I pressed my cheek against his chest, and my breasts smooshed against him. Embarrassment flooded my cheeks. Okay, it wasn’t all embarrassment. I lifted my face from his firm chest to pull back, but his arms wrapped around me and held me in place.

A low rumble vibrated in his chest a second before he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

The two words were spoken against my ear, low and clear. The ice around my heart where Grayson McCune was concerned thawed a little without my permission.

Unable to think with his heat around me or his comforting scent of pine and peppermint wafting up my nose, I forced my feet to move.

Grayson shoved his hands into his pockets as I hugged my middle. “How long are you here for?” I asked, staring at my feet and doing my best to ignore the shards of pain piercing my heart at the mere thought of him leaving again.

“Indefinitely.”

My gaze flew to his, and the world around me spun and swam as countless emotions hit me at once. Sadness, anger, jealousy, resentment, loneliness… all punched me in the chest. Image after image came into view in my mind, each more confusing than the last, the vision choosing the most inconvenient of times to knock me off my feet.

As sudden as the visions had come, they left. I found myself cradled in Grayson’s arms a moment before I rolled away in time to upchuck the contents of my stomach.

“Aileen!” Cami cried.

“Shit,” Grayson said, pulling back handfuls of my hair.

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