Page 111 of Stubborn as a Shadow

I didn’t know what the demon saw in Gary’s mind, but he didn’t look impressed.

I stepped closer to Morgan and pulled him against my side.

“Oh right,” Morgan said with a laugh. Little bubbles floated through the air. “You haven’t met my mate yet. This is Nelson.” Then he waved to the table. “And these are his friends. A lot of them used to work for the Supernatural Council.”

“The Supernatural Council? Fuck, Morgan, you can’t be here.” Violet paled.

She looked ready to throw Morgan over her shoulder and haul ass out of here. At least with her, I figured it was because she was scared for my little unicorn. Gary, on the other hand, lost just about as much color as Violet, and I didn’t think it was because he was worried about Morgan.

“Morgan’s safe here,” I said, narrowing my eyes at Gary.

“Morgan is part of the family now,” Jeremy piped up from behind us at the table. “Willow Lake is like that. You can be family too, Violet, if you want to be.”

I noticed he didn’t make the same offer to Gary.

It looked like we were all on the same page. Now I just needed to find out what the asshole’s problem was. If I was right, and he had something to do with my mate’s problems, well… He wouldn’t like the consequences.

No one ever saw a shadow coming after them until it was too late.

40

RED MEANS DANGER

MORGAN

“Wow, I would have sworn that was real,” I said.

My breath hung in the cold morning air like a little cloud. I shivered. I would normally want to stay inside on a day like today, but Nelson was showing me some of the geocaches he’d placed around Willow Lake. The whole thing was fascinating, and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

I tugged off the mitten I’d taken from my borrowed stash of clothes and brushed my finger over the cap on the top of a fence post.

“It isn’t even metal,” I whispered.

“You can look inside,” Nelson said.

The park was empty—the cold was obviously keeping everyone else inside this morning. But I glanced around to make sure no one was watching anyway. I didn’t want them to find the cache just because they saw me doing something with it. That’d be cheating, even if Nelson had taken me right to this cache.

This one was the exception because I was learning. The next one I’d find all on my own.

I lifted the fake cap from the post and squealed at the treasure inside. There was a small shiny stone, a pin advertising the Willow Lake Pub, a magnet with a wolf on it, and a small toy RV.

“Holy crap, this is so cool. I never would have imagined you could fit so much stuff inside.”

Nelson looked at the contents. “I don’t think anyone has found this one yet.”

“Because this is all stuff you put here?”

He nodded. “When someone finds a cache, they will often exchange something in it for another item. The cache changes over time.”

“Like it has a life of its own, changing and evolving,” I said.

He shrugged.

I oohed and aahed over each little thing, before putting them all inside the container again. Before I closed it up, though, I tucked in a glittery sticker of a unicorn that I’d picked up from Sparkle and Spice, a little gift store on Main Street.

When Nelson and I had been talking about caches, I decided I needed a signature bit of swag. For now, it was unicorn stickers because that’s all I could find in Willow Lake. Maybe I’d get some little plastic unicorns too. Or rainbow keychains. Or…

Honestly, there were so many possibilities it almost made me giddy with anticipation.