Lily changed into her oldest jeans and a worn, long-sleeved Buckeyes t-shirt, and then pulled her hair back into a knot, because she certainly wasn’t trying to impress this guy. No matter that he was totally hot, wickedly sexy, and clearly smart. No, her problem was that he was interesting, and she was a sucker for interesting in a world filled with dull.

Dull men with dull jobs and dull lives, talking to her about their dull cars or dull money or dull exes, wanting to have dull sex with her in dull places. But interesting was a problem—interesting had gotten her involved with Harry, who’d taken interesting to its extreme: the psychopathic, kidnapping, murderous, drug-dealing scumbag that he was.

She’d had enough of interesting. So Special Agent Interesting could just do his job and get the hell out of her house--and her life--as soon as possible.

She headed back down the hall and grabbed her keys.

“Let’s go get a pizza.”

“I like pizza,” her birds said in unison, and she laughed.

“I know babies. I’ll bring you some home, okay? Back soon. Let me know if anybody tries to break in or—worse--visit.”

Damon stood by the door, his hands in his pockets and a different pair of shoes on his feet.

“You keep shoes in your car all the time?”

A slow, devastatingly attractive smile spread across his unfairly handsome face. Those cheekbones. Goddess. Totally unfair.

“I never know when I might run into a fire mage with anger management issues.”

“Funny. Fine, let’s go get pizza. I’ll be able to think better when I’m not hangry.”

He nodded. “Sounds good. But what about…”

She rolled one hand in a “keep going” circle. “What about…”

He cleared his throat. “What about the birds? I see you don’t keep them in a cage—”

The parrots let loose with an eardrum-damaging squall of angry shrieks at the word ‘cage.’

“We don’t say the C word,” she told him, when they finally calmed down.

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” Mugging said, ominously, from his new perch on top of the light fixture about six inches from Damon’s head.

“Heard and understood,” Damon said, holding his hands, palms out, to the side. “My apologies.”

“They’re magical birds,” Lily explained, when she was able to quit laughing. “They sort of pop in and out when they need to…do their business.”

His eyebrows rose. “Pop in and out? Are you telling me that your parrots can teleport?”

“I guess I am. But let’s keep that between us, okay? The last thing I need is for the news to get out and one of the damn supernatural creature smuggling rings to get wind of it. They can teleport, but they’re no good at self-protection beyond that.”

Mugging flew down to the counter, landed next to Hugging, and ducked his head under one wing, as if embarrassed by the revelation. A wave of guilt washed over Lily. She knew the birds, especially Mugging, were still upset that they hadn’t been able to help her escape Harry.

“But you do a great job taking care of Hugging, baby,” she said reassuringly. “It’s my job to protect both of you, okay?”

Hugging trilled out a long, melodious, bit of tune, and rubbed her head against Mugging’s neck until he popped his head out from beneath his wing.

“So. Pizza?”

Damon nodded. “Pizza.”

Lily locked her door out of habit, even though the Cardinal witches’ enclave in Garden City was one of the safest neighborhoods in the country. Maybe in the world. There were so many safety, anti-theft, and anti-predator spells laid on the grounds and homes that they’d had problems with the city over it. When one of Sue Cardinal’s protection-against-bad-intentions spells had zapped a mailman so hard he’d nearly died of electrocution, they’d all had to dial it back. They’d learned that the guy had a gambling problem and had been planning to steal his wife’s engagement ring to go to Vegas, which is how he’d triggered the bad intentions spell.

Nothing about this story, which had left Lily in tears from laughing so hard, had amused the city officials, who’d still been mad about the unicorn incident, anyway.

This and many, many more bits of Cardinal family lore had regularly arrived in her email inbox, courtesy of her cousins. Rose had been pretty good at writing before she’d married Alejandro, gotten knocked up, and started a potions business with a troll. Amy only ever wrote sporadically, and even more rarely now that she was on an around-the-world trip with a vampire named William who was searching for a cure to his curse.

Lily grinned. Only Amy would get involved with a vampire who was allergic to magic. How would that work?

“Penny for your thoughts,” Damon said, walking along next to her with the easy lope of the cat he surely was.

“Bobcat?”

He laughed. “Not even close. Are you really curious, or just trying to distract me from asking about your thoughts?”

“Both,” she admitted. “But it wasn’t anything exciting. Just about my cousins and how they’ve always written to keep me informed about what’s going on here in Cardinal Village, where everybody knows your name, and nobody will stay even an inch out of your business.”

She took a deep breath in spite of herself, breathing in the familiar scents of home. Flowers, all things green and growing, and the occasional whiff of meat being grilled in backyards. Small town Ohio was every bit of what you expected it to be, even when magic filled the air and homes. The barbecue grill might be lit by an incantation instead of a lighter, but the burgers and hot dogs would taste just as wonderful.

Damon made a noncommittal sound, so she was surprised when he spoke, a few moments later. “Sounds great.”

She glanced up at him. He’d sounded . . . wistful.

“It’s not. It’s awful. Intrusive and annoying and really no fun at all. I could never, ever get away with anything growing up. Every mom and dad in the neighborhood would call my parents and report in on me.” She shook her head ruefully, remembering. “I once had the perfect date planned with a college boy. I was sixteen. I’d planned how to sneak out, how to cover my tracks—everything. But I’d no sooner climbed out the window when my dad showed up on the lawn beneath me with his arms crossed and a gleam in his eye. I was grounded for a month.”

Damon’s lips quirked. “For a month? For a date you didn’t even go on?”

“Wellllll. He was a warlock.” She shrugged. “I guess that was a big part of it.”

“A warlock? As in black magic?”

“Yes, but he was only in college! He hadn’t even done any blood magic yet!” Even as the words left her mouth, she realized she sounded like she was still sixteen and stupid.

“If I ever have a daughter, and a warlock even thinks of coming anywhere near her, I’ll end him,” Damon said. “So I’m on your dad’s side in this.”

A little shiver of awareness and something else—something dangerously delicious—lifted the hair on the back of her neck at the idea of Damon as a dad. He’d probably be great at it, all fierce and protective.

Argh. No. She immediately put the smack-down on all Damon Jones shivers, delicious or otherwise. She was not in the market for shivers. No way, no how.

Anyway, the smell of Italian ambrosia told her that they were almost to Gianni’s, and her stomach started rumbling in happy anticipation. The sight of the familiar red awnings cheered her up by an unreasonable degree, considering her new house had just been commandeered, Harry was soon to be back in her life, and her belongings were probably lost for life or at least getting a Brazilian wax.

Damon’s long-limbed shapeshifter glide never seemed to speed up, but he was suddenly in front of her opening the door.

“After you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t try to be nice to me.”

She just knew he was laughing at her, even though his face stayed expressionless. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They walked in and the smell of delicious Italian goodness surrounded them, making Lily’s stomach growl. By the time they sat down at their table, she was practically drooling. She had to quit skipping meals.

Damon looked down at the one-page menu, which was written in Italian, and then back at her. “Can you read this?”

She grinned at him. He was just so darn appealing when he looked confused. “Do you trust me?”

“Not even a little.”

“Ha! Too bad.” She waved the cute ginger-haired waiter over, only realizing when he turned to fully face them that it was Ricky Mastroianni. He was one of Gianni’s many, many great-grand-somethings, and had gone to high school a few years behind Lily. Part Irish, part Italian, and part something magic that she wasn’t quite sure how to classify. Celtic magic, Granny had said. Granny was usually right.

“Hey, Lils, long time, no see. What’s up?” He leaned over to kiss her cheek, and she was amused to see Damon tense up.

“Just got back in town. Bought Mrs. Prince’s old place.”

He grinned at her, displaying the twin dimples that had gotten him a lot of action, or so she’d heard, all through school. “Great to have you back. Why don’t you dump this loser and let’s go see a movie for old times’ sake? I’m off in an hour.”

Damon’s eyes flashed gold again and—for a split second—she could swear his pupils narrowed to vertical slits.

“This loser isn’t going anywhere,” he said, in a low, dangerously silky voice.

Ricky stepped back away from Lily, fast, but then he tried to look like he hadn’t been intimidated. A red flush darkened his cheeks, but when he opened his mouth Lily butted in before they could whip them out right there and start measuring.

“We didn’t exactly have any old times, Ricky.” She grinned at him. “But if you bring me a super-sized artichokes and meatball pizza, I’ll forget to tell Gianni that you’re hitting on the customers again.”

The tension at the table dropped about ten degrees, and Ricky finally, reluctantly, smiled. “Aw, Lily, don’t tattle on me. You don’t want me to have to tell him who set our delivery of Garden City Pale Ale on fire several years back, do you?”

“I was practicing my fireballs in the park,” she told Damon. “I wasn’t very good at it then. Anyway, that delivery truck came out of nowhere!”

Ricky grinned. “Even?”

“Okay, we’re even. But pizza, please.”

Damon nodded. “And a couple of those ales, too.”

Ricky winked at Lily. “Fine. Can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?”

Damon tapped the table with one finger. “Technically…”

Lily cut him off. “No harm, no foul. Thanks, Ricky.”

After Ricky ambled off, probably to hit on some other customer, Lily half-shrugged an apology to Damon. “I told you. Everybody has known me forever. It’s stifling.”

“I can’t even imagine what that’s like. My dad was in military service, and we moved every couple of years. I never knew anybody for long enough to have a history with them.”

“How is that possible, being a shifter? And the Non-Human Species Protection Act has only been around since 2006. Didn’t your parents have to worry about being discovered? Also: tiger?”

He smiled. “Nope. But I know a tiger. Jack Shepherd. I hear he’s settled down in Florida; some dead end town. I hope he finds some happiness. He sure as hell deserves it.”

One of the waitresses brought their beers and glasses of water, smiled, and then took off to be efficient elsewhere.

Damon took a deep drink of his ale and Lily watched his throat work, fascinated in spite of herself. She tried not to notice how well he filled out his shirt, but failed miserably at that, too.

Just because the kitty cat is gorgeous doesn’t mean the nice witch needs to take him home to play. Down, girl.

Damon put his mug down on the table and smiled at her, clearly unaware of her inner turmoil and hormone-induced stupidity. “Delicious ale. My parents? My dad was human. Only learned mom was a shifter a couple of weeks before the wedding, but he loved her enough to figure it all out. They got married, but it was a few months later than originally planned, and then a few years later she had me. No brothers, no sisters.”

“Where are they?”

Gold rolled across his eyes, and his hands clenched slowly into fists on the table. When she glanced down at them, he noticed, so he relaxed his fingers and wrapped his hands around his mug again.

“They died.” His face darkened, and everything about his body language closed off, shut down, and screamed back away. “They died badly.”

She hadn’t expected that. “Both of them? How did they die?”

His eyes flashed gold again, and her senses screamed danger at her—the cold, deadly sense that here was a predator of unmatched ferocity. She wasn’t scared of him, exactly, but she was suddenly sorry she’d tread so hard on this obviously painful memory.

“I’m sorry. I’m stubborn and pushy, and those are two of my better qualities. I didn’t mean to pry. Hey, here comes our pizza.”

Damon’s shoulders relaxed, and she caught him giving her a surprised glance before she turned to Ricky and their glorious pizza.

Damon whistled. “That pizza is the size of a submarine porthole.”

Lily leaned forward, intrigued. “Submarines have portholes? So you can watch the fish and whales and mermaids swim by?”

After the pizza was safely ensconced on the tabletop stand, Ricky turned to Damon. “When were you on a submarine, man? I’d be totally claustrophobic.” He shuddered. “No way to touch the ground, no way to feel nature. Not for me, dude.”

Damon gave Ricky a look, and Ricky quickly decided there was someplace else he needed to be. Lily shook her head.

“How do you do that? I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to teach me the magic look that makes people go away. And I’m not even going to guess house cat, after that. You’re more something scary that goes hunting in the night.” She picked up a giant slice of pizza and sighed in satisfaction. “I might have a mini-orgasm right now, so please look away. This is the best pizza in the world.”

His eyes flashed hot and another of those slow, wicked, and positively dangerous smiles spread across his face. Those smiles of his ought to be illegal. “Trust me, when you have an orgasm with me, I’ll be looking right into your eyes, and there will be nothing mini about it.”

Lily choked on her pizza, and a hot little flash of tingles shot straight to her special lady parts. “Wow,” she managed, when she quit coughing. “You’re pretty damn arrogant for somebody whose shoes just got melted.”

Damon’s eyes widened when he bit into the slice of pizza, and she could have sworn he moaned a little. “Damn, that’s good. And you’re lucky I’m not planning to send you a bill for the shoes.”

“Send me a bill. I’ll file it somewhere between the sixth of never and kiss my ass. So, tell me about the submarines.”

He finished the slice in one bite and grinned at her. “Submarines don’t have portholes, Lily. Also, I’ve never been on one. I don’t mind water, but I sure as hell don’t want to be under a billion gallons of it, trapped in a tin can.”

She shuddered a little bit at the thought. “I’m not a fan, either. I was never claustrophobic before that asshole locked me in a room. Now I can’t stand the thought of being trapped in any kind of enclosed space. My cousin wanted to try an escape room for fun, and I nearly started hyperventilating at the thought.”

“What’s an escape room?”

“It’s a new craze, apparently. You and a group of friends get locked in a room and you have to solve the clues in order to get out. “

“Who locks you in the room?” Damon’s eyes widened. “That’s stupid. Not to mention it violates several local, state, and federal laws.”

“Well, it’s not—”

But he was just getting started. “Also, how sturdy is the lock? I can’t imagine an ordinary lock would keep you in a room, or any of your family. Even garden spells can unlock doors. Plus, with your fire magic—”

She tilted her head and stared at him. Talk about overreacting. “I don’t—”

“I’d like to see this person who tried to lock you in a room,” Damon said, leaning back in his chair and looking smug. “See how he likes it when I lock him in a very dark hole for a very long time, with nothing but—”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Damon. Stop interrupting me. There’s no actual locking. There’s no danger. It’s a game, like a murder-mystery, dinner theater kind of thing, but without the murder or the dinner.”

He shot a glance at the people nearby who’d started staring at them, and they all suddenly decided they had something else to look at. Then he shoved his hair out of his face, looking disgruntled. “Sounds stupid.”

“It’s entertainment,” she pointed out. “Most of it is stupid. Remember the bungee jumping thing?”

His eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah. I hung a suspect off the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge on a bungee cord for almost half an hour one day. He was so happy to talk when Zane finally made me pull him back up. You should have seen the guy’s face. It was kind of a weird purple, but a little bit green at the same time—”

“You’re a lunatic,” she said wonderingly. “A full-on, major-league crazy person. Now I’m thinking hyena, instead of cat.”

He blinked and then started to laugh. Unfortunately for her too-long celibate hormones, his laugh was rich and deep and made her think dark, delicious, naked thoughts.

Damn it. She shoved back from the table.

“Okay, I’ve had enough. We should go. What if the idiots are sitting in front of my house right now with my moving van?”

She caught Ricky’s eye and motioned for the check. Damon tilted his head and gazed at her with more than a little speculation, but he didn’t call her out on her abrupt change of subject.

“They have your number, but sure. I’ll get the rest of this to go, because I’m not letting it go to waste. I might be in love with the chef.” He slid the rest of the pizza into the complimentary box the waitress had dropped off. Few people ever managed to finish one of Gianni’s pizzas in one sitting.

“I’ll be sure to let Gianni know,” she said dryly. “It is hyena, isn’t it? That’s the first one you didn’t deny.”

“No, not hyena, but hyena shifters get a bad rap. One of our best analysts is a hyena, and her reports are always brilliant. We had to have a little talk with her about the lunch refrigerator, but ever since she stopped putting her roadkill in it, everybody gets along with her great.”

She froze. “You’re not really with the FBI at all, are you? You’re some kind of weird Candid Camera comedian who’s here to drive me insane so you can steal my…my…”

She had to stop and think of anything she had worth stealing, other than her birds, who would disappear if anybody tried to lay hands on them. Solitude? Peace of mind? Virtue?

Yes, please, steal my virtue, her crazy side whispered.

No, no, no, her sane side shouted.

“Your?” His lips were twitching, and she could tell he was fighting not to laugh at her. Not that she blamed him, because she sounded ridiculous.

“Nothing. It’s been a long day, okay? And I still don’t have any furniture, and the prospect of sleeping on the floor or—worse—having to bunk with one of my family is making me cranky.”

Ricky showed up with the check, and Damon handed him cash before Lily could pull out her wallet.

“You can always bunk with me, Lils,” Ricky said slyly. “I’m sure I can find a spare pair of PJs in your size. Or, if not, you can sleep in your altogether—”

“I’m altogether sure I can find a better use for your time than standing here annoying the customers,” Gianni said as he walked toward them, scowling. “Damn fool. Don’t you know better than to annoy a lion? And a Barbary lion at that, unless I miss my guess.”

Lily’s fingers went numb, and she dropped her phone.

Lion? What the actual hell?

Only Damon’s superior reflexes saved her from donating another several hundred dollars to the great gods of Apple. He snatched it out of the air and handed it back to her. “Careful, Cardinal. You nearly lost any chance of getting in touch with Dumb and Dumber, certified moving specialists.”

“You’re a lion?” She heard her voice rise to a pitch so high that probably only dogs and dolphins could hear it, but she couldn’t help herself. “You’re telling me that you’re a lion, and you’re in Ohio?”

“No, I’m not telling you anything. Gianni told you, and now you’ve told everybody in range,” he said mildly, looking around the restaurant, probably trying to intimidate everybody.

Everybody stared back at him, not intimidated at all. After all, Gianni was standing right next to them, and everybody knew Gianni was a badass.

“This is Cardinal witches territory, hairball,” Gianni growled, baring his teeth. “Nobody is afraid of you.”

Damon sent him a measured glance. “Your kind was old long before King Arthur met the first Barbary lion, weren’t they, Tuatha Dé Danann? I offer no threat in this place of neutrality.”

Lily looked back and forth between the two of them. “What the heck is going on? Neutrality? Tuatha Dé Danann? Gianni, is he telling us you’re Fae?”

Gianni’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer.

“All most people see is a short, middle-aged man wearing a dark suit, don’t they?” Damon showed Gianni his badge. “P-Ops. You’ll be in my report, sir.”

Ricky raised his hand. “Um…”

Suddenly, power flooded the restaurant, all of it centering on Gianni. So much power that Lily’s hair started to float back and away from her face. Lily gasped, and the restaurant owner glanced at her and then immediately shut down his magical tornado, or whatever the heck that had been.

“Fae?” Lily felt like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole. Gianni was Fae, her furniture was in a strip joint, and her date—date? No, not date, more like captor—was a freaking lion shifter. How could the day get worse?

She groaned and smacked herself in the forehead, and everybody looked at her. “Never even think the expression ‘how could things get worse,’” she told them. “I’m an idiot. So. Fae, huh?”

“An old and dangerous type of Fae, too, if I’m not wrong, so I don’t know where the Gianni came into it,” Damon said, moving his big body just far enough to put himself between Gianni and Lily.

Lily put her hands on her hips and blew out a deep breath. “Give me a break. Gianni has known me since I was in diapers. If he wanted to hurt me, he could have done it a million times over, so calm down.”

Gianni bared his teeth at Damon in what might have been a smile, and then leaned forward and patted Lily’s arm. “Next time, I’ll give you a free pizza. You come in without this one. Lions have always been blowhards. You can do better. Get a different boyfriend.”

Lily almost swallowed her tongue. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Damon looked equally horrified. “I’m not—we don’t--"

“Hey, Lily!” Across the room, a teenager with sparkly gold glitter in her short blonde hair held up her phone and took a picture of them, and Lily groaned.

“Of course it’s Astrid. Come on. I don’t need this right now.”

Astrid shot them an evil grin.

“You’re in for it now. I just texted Granny,” the annoying teenaged witch called out.

Lily stared hard at the floor, wondering how hot she’d have to go to burn a hole through it big enough that she could fall in. Probably too hot.

Gianni would never let her have pizza again if she burned down his restaurant.

“Granny?” Damon asked.

“We’re doomed,” she told him. “Doomed.”