every day. She did not. The witch-turned-cat lived with Trixie.
“Where’s Trixie?” I demanded, slamming the door shut behind me.
The cat blinked wide greenish-yellow eyes at me and yawned. I was ready to shake the answer out of her when she finally spoke. “At home in bed.”
“Then what the hell are you doing here? You scared the shit out of me!” I snarled, collapsing on the sofa beside her with my coat still on. As the adrenaline rushed out of my system, I found that I was so tired my body had begun to shake. The world had become a nonstop roller coaster and I longed for nothing more than a turn on the merry-go-round. Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes, willing my body to relax just a bit before I dragged myself back to my nice dark bedroom.
But I wasn’t going to get the blissful nothingness for a couple hours. Sofie moved beside me, her small, lithe body barely making indentions in the cushions as she walked over. She climbed into my lap and sat on my legs. Out of habit, I lifted my hand and gently scratched the top of her head. It had taken a little while, but I’d finally gotten over my hang-ups about treating the witch like a cat. If she was going to eat out of a cat food bowl on the floor, use a litter box, and lounge across every surface like she owned it, I was going to scratch her head every once in a while.
“What’s going on, Gage?” Sofie demanded, half purring her question.
“There’s a lot going on, Sof,” I sighed, dropping my hand back to the arm of the couch. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.”
“Trixie. The elf. The woman you’re attempting to date, and rather poorly I might add.”
I glared down at the large Russian blue feline in my lap and briefly thought about punting her across the room. Even as a cat, the witch could get on my nerves. Hell, I think she’d gotten better at it since she’d been cursed by another witch. Stuck living among the rabble of the world, Sofie had seen it as her lot in this existence to manage my life—particularly my social life.
“What about Trixie? Did she send you here to talk to me?”
“No. I came to talk to you because she refuses to tell me what’s going on.” The cat rose up on her hind legs while pressing her front legs against my chest so that her face was now inches from mine. “For more than a week, she has made all these strange phone calls and been packing up her things. I’ve stuck by my promise to you to stay out of her head, but you need to tell me what’s going on.”
My stomach sank a little at her description, but then I wasn’t that surprised to hear of her preparations. I had hoped that Trixie might give me a little more time, but things kept getting worse instead of better. Could I really blame her? No, I thought, mentally sighing. “Trixie’s pregnant.”
“Oh!” Sofie looked genuinely surprised, or rather as surprised as a cat could look without the same human features. “Is that because of Gaia fixing that mess I made?”
“I like to think that I had something to do with it as well,” I snapped, but my anger slipped away almost as quickly as it appeared. “But yeah, Mother Nature helped too.” God, I was tired.
“Well, I’m sure this was something of a surprise, but it doesn’t seem as if either of you is particularly happy about it.”
“No, actually, we are happy.”
“Then is she planning to move in with you? Is that why she’s been packing?”
“No.”
“I don’t—”
“Trixie is planning to go back to her own people. She’s leaving Low Town.”
“I don’t understand. Why? I’m sure the doctors here could handle a pregnant elf just fine.”
“It’s not safe,” I murmured, wishing this conversation was finally over. It was like Sofie was determined to pull small strips of my flesh away with every question she wanted me to answer, and I was so exhausted from thinking about this.
“Low Town is safe enough.” Sofie dropped back to sit on my lap and I could easily imagine her frowning up at me. “Well, it’ll be safe as soon as the killer has been captured.”
“No, it’s not safe because of me.” Groaning, I picked up the cat and dropped her on the couch beside me before getting