Buttercup (Spell Library #10) - Helen Scott Page 0,39

toes, to the crown of my head. It was everywhere.

The more it spread though, the more desperate I became for my mates. I felt like I was simultaneously on fire and freezing cold. My mind was numb to emotion because so many were flooding through it. I tried to ignore them, to only take what I wanted or needed, like Magnus said, but it was so much more difficult now. Everything seemed important, every scrap of emotion deserved to be examined.

I tried to focus on just one emotion, one core thing that I knew each of my mates felt. Love. Whether we all wanted to admit it or not, our lives had completely changed when we identified each other as mates. I knew that we shouldn't love each other yet, after all, we barely knew each other, but still I felt it for them, and as I searched for it in the sea of emotions I found it there as well. Love came from each of them, as well as hope. We would be the family each of us needed, no matter what, but first we needed to bond physically, my succubus demanded it.

14

Casper

The feeling of Buttercup's magic was unlike anything else. Her succubus was strong, and my kelpie loved it. I could feel him writhing within me as though he wanted to take her for a swim, which was a dangerous thing to do with a kelpie.

Her magic pulled on my own, making it flare and try to rise to the surface. Not shifting was an exercise in discipline. I refused to shift where there was the possibility for the echo of my magic to be felt by others.

Kelpies were considered bad luck, sometimes even evil, even humans would feel strange when they were around us, getting bad vibes and the like. It was something that was ingrained though, not something that was actually to do with us. In reality we were just water spirits, well, that was how we started out, then spirits turned into shifters which was something else entirely. That old prejudice didn't go away though. Wherever my people landed we were usually run out of town.

I was hoping Silver Springs would be different since the town was primarily made up of other supes, but that didn't stop the residents getting bad vibes from me. It didn't matter that I'd honed my look so I appeared like the boy next door, Mr. All American, boy scout, wouldn't harm a fly kind of guy. Everything I did, everywhere I went, it had been a battle just to exist, but when I first started traveling in the New England area I stumbled across Magnus and we made a deal.

Part of my soul, for the ability to lose the bad vibes that I gave people. Ever since I’d made that deal life had been different. I'd been able to go into stores and not get dirty looks or be asked to leave for some bullshit reason. The night I met Buttercup in Vee I was so shocked just to be able to stand in a club like that and not have a ten foot radius of space around me, let alone having the most gorgeous woman in the place coming up to talk to me, even if it was about Magnus at the time.

My kelpie had known she was my mate immediately, and I realized as we walked away from Vee that night that the bond must have been what drew Magnus to her. Now we were all here though, and she was an even more magnificent woman than I could have ever imagined. Half succubus, half siren, and all sexy and sweet.

The way her succubus was feeding felt like it was drawing all my emotions to the surface while also projecting whatever Buttercup was feeling—or maybe it was the other guys—back outward. Love and lust were the main things, protectiveness and a touch of possessiveness as well. It was those last two that made me wonder if some of these emotions were coming from the guys, or maybe Buttercup was hiding those stray emotions better than I thought.

The lust was the biggest emotion, and as I looked between us, I could see it wasn't just me that was feeling it. I also saw that Buttercup had changed even more than the last time she fed. Her skin was now mostly purple, and her wings had changed, so instead of being feathered like they had been they were now