made the animal inside rise up on his hind paws and roar so loudly Uriah actually stumbled sideways a little.
Whatever expression he had as he stared at Ivy had her giving him a funny look on her way past him in the forklift.
“Well, shit.” Juliet huffed. “I was really looking forward to talking you into a test drive.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Ivy lay in her bed, staring up at the skylight above her. At the stars shimmering down on her. Stars, that told Astrid more change was coming their way.
The last time Astrid made that kind of vague prediction, Ivy had been kicked out of school and the Little Coven formed.
The looming change could be good; it could be bad. Ivy wouldn't know which way the wind blew until she stood right in the middle of the storm.
She couldn't stop trying to think about everything that happened today.
After Ivy had loaded the last of the soil into Uriah's truck, Charles came out and handed over her paycheck without a single word of bile. In fact, despite the curl of his lip, he'd been downright pleasant.
“The garden shop will be closing early today. My brother would like to speak to you at your earliest convenience.” Through gritted teeth, Charles said two words Ivy never thought would pass his thick lips: “I apologize.”
And then Charles walked off, leaving her standing there, gaping. She'd nearly fallen on her ass when she opened the envelope to find she'd been given a check for nine thousand dollars.
Two months’ pay with overtime, plus a sizable bonus. After hustling to shut down the shop, doing her best to ignore the way Uriah hovered like her damn bodyguard, Ivy hopped in her Jeep and put a call into Henry on her way home.
It only mildly pissed her off to discover Uriah had been the one to narc on Charles, and then she felt guilty for not letting Henry know what his brother was up to. His disappointment in his brother, in her for not trusting he would have taken care of her sooner, made her heart hurt.
Henry told her he'd been considering retirement ever since his wife's death, and in light of Charles’s dedication to ruining the business, Henry was going to close the doors after everything in the store got sold. His sister would be flying in to make it happen. Henry offered to give Ivy whatever she wanted from the shop and hoped she wasn't upset by the news.
Flabbergasted and thrown off balance by the entire day's collective events, she forgot to pick up Rowena's shipping supplies. When Ivy got back to the house and explained, her coven leader was forgiving but eager for the opportunity Ivy's unemployed status now presented.
“Well, guess the Universe is on board with The Blossom Shrine. You ready?” Practical as always, Rowena's response and Henry's generosity gave Ivy the boost she needed to say yes. It was almost enough to distract her from the sucker-punch of Uriah assuming she was human. If a bear shifter couldn't feel or smell magic coming from her, did she really have any?
In the dark, Le Doux's words came back to haunt her. “Having a green thumb isn't enough... your mother was astoundingly powerful... you've shown about as much aptitude for magic as a human.”
Rowena started the Little Coven because she was unwilling to let Ivy be ostracized and alone, and Ivy would be forever grateful. When they performed solstice rituals, Ivy was right there in the circle with the others, and though she could sense the Goddess and the power the six of them summoned, Ivy remained useless, just a body taking up space and lending volume to the spells and chanting.
The others called her a late bloomer, but pushing twenty-eight years old, she should have at the very least been able to do some kitchen magic.
After leaving school and joining Rowena in New Hampshire, Ivy struggled to understand how she would be of any use to the coven. At first, Ivy had taken all the odd jobs that needed doing around the manor. She cleaned up after everyone, cooked dinner, ran the errands, did the grocery shopping.
But as soon as Rowena invited a pair of Brownies to come live with them, the little house Fae had taken well over half the chore list and only left the town errands and grocery shopping to Ivy. It wasn't until Rowena started her online business that Ivy managed to find her own unique way to help.
She already had a small