before long it will feel just as comfortable as Accident.” Of course, the people down my street might not be thrilled that their new neighbor had squirrels and a vulture living in her house, and a dog-thing eating scraps in her front yard every evening. I’d have to organize a big Halloween party or something and have Glenda cater it. After that, no one would care if I had elephants living in my yard or not. Glenda’s food had a way of making everyone happy. Combine that with free beer and all sorts of witchy decorations, and hopefully I’d be accepted into the neighborhood.
The vulture clacked his beak.
“You’re right. Babylon has been living outside the wards since she got out of college and she’s happy. She made friends and has local hangouts where people know her. Plus it’s nice not having to commute two hours each day.”
Drake hissed and I laughed.
“Yes, I’m looking forward to that fall party. Should I make pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting to take?” Glenda was the chef of the family, but I could manage a simple dessert. Besides, it would probably be rude to show up to a party uninvited and empty handed.
The vulture eyed me with a nod of his head. If he’d had eyebrows, he would have been wiggling them.
I sighed. “I’d like to meet someone, but right now my priority is making friends and settling into my new home. If the right guy comes along, then awesome. If not, then that’s okay.”
Heck, at least I had my dream-demon. And if he stopped coming around, there was that vibrator I’d stashed in the back of the drawer in my bedside table.
The squirrels chattered from the backseat and I listened in, amused at their ideas of what an ideal mate for me would be. Seems he should have a very full, bushy tail, a thick gray coat, and be especially skilled at gathering nuts and berries, and evading dogs.
Especially hounds, Rhoid added. They’re very good at tracking you down. If one of them catches your scent, you’d be lucky to get away.
There was an awed silence from the back seat, then Oak asked if Rhoid had ever had a hound after him.
Many times. One almost caught me, but I managed to hide before he caught my scent.
You should mate with the nice-house lady, Maple told the bigger squirrel. You have a nice tail and coat, and you are clearly good at evading dogs.
Rhoid looked up and caught my gaze in the rear-view mirror. Squirrels don’t mate with humans.
There was something odd in the squeaky words, almost as if Rhoid was wishing for a moment he were human. His emotions and thoughts washed over me and without thinking I deciphered snippets of them. Regret. It had been a long time since he’d felt arms around him. Something about paying a price and choices. I glanced in the mirror again and felt sorry for the little guy. Gray squirrels weren’t monogamous by any stretch of the imagination, so if Rhoid was longing for a past relationship, it might have been the one he had with his mother and siblings in the nest. Or perhaps he just wanted to get laid. I’m not sure why he would find that hard to do. The others seemed to regard him as a squirrel worthy of admiration, so I’m sure a female squirrel would as well. Yes, their mating opportunities were limited to a few hours twice a year when a female would come into season, but it wasn’t as if this area was a squirrel free zone. Rhoid should have been able to get it on with half a dozen females each year, no problem.
Maybe he was picky. Or, like me, maybe he had been too busy with work and moving to a new home to take the time to go bust a nut.
I turned my attention back to the road as the squirrels continued to offer up suggestions as to my perfect mate. By the time I’d arrived at Savior Mountain, they were in the process of setting me up with some chipmunks they knew.
Savior was just as beautiful as Heartbreak Mountain, but Clinton’s pack’s new territory had been untended and abandoned to the wildlife for decades. When I was young, I remembered my grandmother saying that a group of elves had once made this mountain their home. Fae were an odd group. Some eagerly participated in the life and community of Accident, while others preferred a