She held out a square business card. He took it with numb fingers and glanced at the words.
Penelope Young, animal psychologist.
His eyes started back to hers. “Is this a thing?”
She winked. “I considered having special ones printed that said Donkey Whisperer but thought that was a little over the top for a single race. And if you’re asking whether there’s a course at a university for animal psychology, sure. It’s called biology, but I’m so much more than that.”
She tapped the card again, and he read under her name:Intuitive Understanding, Behavioral Modification, and Communication.And then under that in tiny letters:A division of Coven Holdings, LTD.
Coven.
He swallowed. Witches had covens. Witches also had animal magic. It was one of the twelve talents, wasn’t it? He also knew the vast majority of witches avoided shifters like the plague. Most witches would take his presence as an extreme threat.
Why didn’t he think this through? Why didn’t he think anything through? His donkeys ran for him because he was a werewolf, not because he was magic with donkeys. He left the territory he knew was safe because it was safe and bumped into a pack of werewolves and a witch.
Two witches.
A younger woman came up alongside the “animal psychologist.” She had strawberry blonde hair tucked under the biggest sun hat he’d ever seen. She was a head shorter, with green eyes and pale freckles covering almost every inch of her skin.
“Penelope, do you want to see the race?” she asked.
The woman turned to her. “Yeah. I think I’ve handed one of these suckers out to anyone within ten square feet of a donkey.”
The girl laughed, and Penelope met his eyes again. “If you ever need anything, let me know. I’d love to help.”
He’d love to let her.
The two women wandered off together, and he frowned. Normally, covens consisted of witches from the same family. He knew not every family member looked the same, but he’d eat that enormous hat if those two women were related by blood. So who were they? Were they a coven or just regular humans who liked fairy tales?
His eyes drifted back to the card. It seemed to pulse in his hand. Could she helphim? If she were truly an animal witch, could she help his wolf?
2
“He could have been a werewolf!” Annie said.
Penn frowned at the younger woman beside her and pulled another business card out of the sparkly bag she’d made that morning from the sleeves of her shirt. Penn had only moved to this coven six months ago and thought she knew the level-headed girl rather well. Annie was normally a voice of reason in the hodgepodge coven.
Take her out of Silver Spring, though, and she saw children’s stories everywhere.
“Do you think any man I talk to might be a werewolf?”
“No!” Annie said, still gaping.
“Okaay,” Penn said.
Annie laughed. “You would never believe I lived on the streets for months, would you? Grew up in New York?”
Penn gaped at her.
Annie rolled her eyes and took a calming breath. “Yeah, the twins have this whole network of moles in social services to pick up kids with weird histories. I’ve lost my touch.”
“So you’ve seen a literal werewolf? For sure?” Werewolves to Penn were akin to fairy tales. Yes, there were packs inPennsylvania where she grew up, but they kept to their territory, and her coven kept to theirs. She could go a full year without thinking about them at all.
Annie bit her lip and turned red. That had to be a yes, right? She had fair skin with an incredible number of freckles that were disappearing as the blush spread. Where the hell was she running into werewolves?
Annie took a deep breath. “No, I never saw a werewolf in any town.”
Penn nodded and then paused. A lot of the world was not town. That felt like a pretty big loophole, but instinct told her to leave it alone.
