Page 44 of The Pregnant Wolf Omega Next Door

Emre turned in the direction of that voice, his senses prickling. “Should I be alarmed?”

“Yes,” Zenith said severely. “You should be very alarmed.”

The front door burst open.

11

THE BUTT(LER) INVASION

Emre yelped,grabbing Abbie and tucking her between his front paws.

He had to get to his feet. He had to keep her away from the threat—

Zenith sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Huxton.”

Emre paused.

That wasn’t the typical reaction to a threat.

“Huxton?” he echoed.

The invader straightened. He was tall—taller than Emre but shorter than Zenith. He had bright orange eyes and curly grey hair, and he wore a vintage pilot outfit, complete with flight goggles.

Who invaded a home while wearingthat?The man looked as though he belonged at a Renaissance Faire. Or in a comic book.

“Yes, Scribbly Master?” the home invader said.

Emre frowned. “Scribbly... Master?”

Zenith groaned. “Ugh. Don’t call me that. Emre, this is my butler, Huxton.”

Emre gaped. “Yourbutler?Why... Why did you say I should be alarmed, then?”

Huxton gasped loudly and pressed a dramatic hand to his forehead. “Has Scribbly Master not said anything about me? At all? How very dare!”

Zenith gave Emre a pointed look and gestured toward Huxton. “You see what I mean?”

“Pshaw!” Huxton flapped his hand. “You love me!” Eagerly, he said to Emre, “I’m his butt-ler. With two T’s in the butt. Scribbly Master scribbles on everything—napkins, cereal boxes, probably even your skin.”

Now that he mentioned it, Emre had noticed the sheer number of paper scraps all over the apartment. Pages of different colors and sizes had been torn out of notebooks. There were pieces of cardboard, cloth and paper napkins, even a length of toilet paper. All of them had been scribbled on. These paper scraps were stuck to the fridge, pinned to the walls, and there was a stack of them on the coffee table, weighed down by a heavy book.

Emre froze. “Are those all fireproofed?”

Zenith and his butler shared a look.

“Not all of them,” Zenith said slowly.

“But they’re your book ideas, right?” Emre yelped. “Surely you’d fireproof them?”

Zenith sighed. “Typically, books are fireproofed as a whole object, with the spell anchored to either the spine or thecover. When pages are removed from a spelled book, they’re disconnected from the spell. Likewise, no one fireproofs disposable items like napkins, cereal boxes, and toilet paper. They’re usually discarded too quickly for fireproofing to be necessary.”

With the sheer amount of loose pages scattered around the apartment, and with everything else already fireproofed, it made sense that Zenith never got around to fireproofing the individual pages.

Except Abbie was here now, and she had already set fire to her blanket and toys.

“I’ll have Uriel come by for some emergency spellwork,” Zenith said when he saw the look on Emre’s face. “Don’t worry about Abbie setting fire to my things.”

“But what if she sneezes between now and... whenever your mage shows up?” Emre asked worriedly.