This Strange Witchery. Michele Hauf

keep weapons in your closet?” she guessed. “I didn’t see any when I was—well, you know.”

      “My closet is a sort of personal stronghold to me.”

      “Where you keep all things most important to you.”

      He winced. “It’s not so much that—give me another few minutes.” He strode into the closet.

      And Melissande followed.

      “I said to give me a few,” he insisted as he spun to stand before a small panel on the wall he’d opened. She hadn’t noticed that when she’d been in here earlier.

      “You have a secret weapon stash?” She slipped around him and studied the panel, which consisted of a few round buttons. “What does the red one do? Sound the alarm? Send out the hounds? Alert the dragons?”

      Tor sighed and gripped the little door that had concealed the buttons. “It reboots the system should an electrical failure occur due to lightning or power outage.”

      “Oh.” Melissande dropped her shoulders. Sounded a lot like her place. It was an old house in desperate need of new wiring. There wasn’t a storm that occurred that did not leave her sitting in the dark, from a few minutes to hours. Not that she minded. Candles were always better than electric lighting. “So show me. Oh, come on—it’s not like I don’t already know your secret identity.”

      “My secret—” Shaking his head, Tor pressed the topmost button, and the panel that displayed his ties in neat rows swung open. Inner fluorescent lights flashed on to brightly illuminate another room. He waggled an admonishing finger at her. “No touching.”

      She sighed dramatically, then conceded with a nod and followed him inside.

      This secret closet was as big as the clothes closet. The longest walls, parallel to one another, were covered with a mosaic of weapons. Melissande’s jaw dropped as she swept her gaze over pistols, rifles and semiautomatic weapons in all sizes and calibers. The knife section boasted the smallest pocketknife to a machete the size of a man’s arm. Garrotes were neatly coiled and hung with precision on the gray microfoam-padded wall. Dozens of wooden stakes were neatly stacked on the marble counter. An entire section featured vials of what she assumed were either spells or vile concoctions designed to injure or even kill. The vials with crosses etched onto the glass must be holy water.

      Behind her, Tor took down a handgun and checked the bullet cartridge. “You will not tell anyone what you’ve seen in here.”

      “Of course not.” She ran her fingers over the smooth matte-black finish of something that resembled a rifle but could also be a crossbow. She wouldn’t have the first notion what to call all these weapons, let alone gossip about them.

      But thinking about gossip...she really needed to get together with the girls and tell them about her studly new protector. Tuesday was living with the handsome vampire Ethan Pierce. And Zoe had been shacking up with the gorgeous slayer Kaspar Rothstein for years. It was high time Melissande got to brag about a sexy man.

      But first she needed a better reason to brag than that she was paying him.

      “Can you not touch?”

      “Of course I can. I mean, cannot.” She pulled back her hand and watched as Tor fit a knife in the inside pocket of his suit coat. A box of shells and another Order-of-the-Stake-issue stake were grabbed and tucked away in various pockets or loops on his attire. “What is everything for, exactly?”

      “Vampires, werewolves, demons.”

      “Mermaids?”

      “I have a suffocating lariat should I encounter a vicious mermaid.”

      He ran his fingers over a small iron sphere that had spikes coming out of it.

      “What’s that for?” she wondered aloud.

      “Dragons. They need to swallow it, and it’ll explode in their gut. Messy.”

      Wow. Melissande had never seen a dragon. He lived an exciting life. Gossip-worthy, even.

      “Faeries,” he recited as he moved his gaze over various weapons. “Reptilian-shifter. Angel. Kitsune.”

      “What about ghosts?” Melissande tried.

      Tor turned his gaze directly on her. “I don’t do ghosts.”

      “Oh, but—”

      “No ghosts,” he repeated firmly. And he brushed his fingers over the crystal talisman hanging from his belt. She was about to ask what it was for when he said, “Ghosts are just... No. Now come on. And don’t touch that!” he called as he filed out of the room.

      Melissande made a point of gliding her fingers along a bayonet-like weapon after he’d called out the warning. She barely slipped out into the fore-closet as the door swung shut. Tor gestured for her to vacate the room, and she felt like she was being directed around like a child. She wouldn’t have ruined a thing in that room. How could she, a tiny witch, manage to do that?

      “You have trust issues,” she concluded as she followed him down the hallway and into the living area and kitchen.

      “And you are far too trusting,” he countered. “Where’s the heart?”

      She caught herself before saying oops. Holding up a staying finger, she then dashed down the hallway, grabbed the plastic container from the end of his bed—took one more moment to inhale his uniquely sexy scent—then rushed back out to the man who waited by the open front door.

      “Don’t worry,” she said as they exited his place with her bags in hand. “We’ll sync onto one another’s wavelength. I’m already dialed into yours.”

      “Is that so? Right.”

      She turned right as they walked outside and remembered he’d parked in that direction.

      “Yes,” she said. “You’re controlling, precise and closed. I might be able to work with that.”

      They arrived at his van, and he opened the passenger door for her. “You don’t need to work with anything. Just be you. Cloak and ward the heart. Go about your normal—whatever it is you do. And let me do my job. Deal?”

      As she slid up onto the seat, Melissande turned and stuck out a foot to prevent him from closing the door on her. “How much is all this going to cost me?”

      “We’ll come to an agreeable arrangement.” He shoved her foot inside and closed the door on her.

      The man could be intolerable. But that made her smile. He was a tough one. She would enjoy peeling away his layers to get to the soft mushy stuff in the middle. Because everyone had that mush. Some even wore it on their outermost layer.

      She did. And she knew she had to toughen up for the unavoidable trial that would arrive in a few days. She could do this. Her mother needed her. And her father would be so proud.

      “Maybe I can learn to toughen up from Tor,” she muttered. Behind her, he deposited his supplies in the back of the van and closed the door. “Time to step up, Jones. Your family needs you.”

      She smiled when Tor got in and fired up the engine. She had made the right choice in choosing her protector. But no ghosts, eh?

      That could prove to be an issue.