Charmed by the Werewolf Read Free Page A

and your list of crimes against various beings, and he would have decided to dispose of you at once. Remember that debacle with the baby and the hiccups? The Judgment Panel is still upset about that stunt.” She bit her lip to keep from laughing. The pixie crossed her legs at the knee and swung a delicate foot in the air. “Sterling only concerns himself with the high profile offenders now.” She shivered. He was a difficult man to please, and she’d seen firsthand how he carried out his ironhanded rulings. He’d reneged on his promise to release her from her birthright for years, leaving her his servant.
    “Be that as it may, once I am presented at his court I will have no problem telling him you lock me in the vegetable bin. ”
    Glancing at the spiky purple hair that framed the pixie’s face, Sophia sighed in defeat. “I wouldn’t have to keep you locked up if you would behave yourself when you’re left alone. We’ve been over this too many times to count. ” She picked crusted potatoes from her cheek and stared into the middle distance. “I’m not scheduled to make an appearance before Sterling for another month, but I promise you I’ll plead your case. Would that make you happy?”
    “Yes, even though I don’t hold much stock in human promises. ” Her eyes sparkled beneath the heavy ring of eyeliner. “I’m off to the linen closet.” With a wiggle of her nose, pots, pans and food items flew about the kitchen in a vortex of sparkly wind. Frieda’s mischievous laughter rang eerily in the air as she disappeared into the nether regions of the apartment. This coupled with Mona’s attempt at domestic helpfulness equaled a messy dwelling.
    She glanced at Mona and shrugged. “I try to be nice to her and this is what I get in return. ”
    Not for the first time, she silently cursed the life she’d been born into. Being a Gatekeeper for one of the Portals of the Mortal Realm wasn’t the picnic everyone thought, especially when she also had the unfortunate stigma of being half gargoyle on top of it. Her thoughts zeroed in on her boss, Sterling. Tears crowded her throat. No matter she despised bringing paranormal beings before the man for his Judgment, his grudging benevolence was what kept her from spending her life as a pile of rock.
    Sometimes she felt living as garden statuary would be infinitely better than being consumed by guilt and self-loathing most of her waking hours.
    Sophia stood and drifted to the refrigerator for a bottle of water, dodging the utensil tornado in the process. “At times I wish I was another person. If Sterling didn’t hold so much power over me, I could finally be free. ”
    “Free to do what? Turn into a living statue while you’re at the mall? Face it. Without Sterling, you would have no choice but to give in to your birthright. At least this way, and with Sterling’s tinctures, you stand half a chance of being normal. Just like your dad. ”
    No way was she willing to discuss her father right now. “I don’t know what normal is. ” Her life had essentially crashed around her feet the day she’d come home from second grade complaining of a skin rash that resembled a pebble-covered walkway. Her father had taken her aside and told her it was a “normal” occurrence for those with gargoyle genes and that there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Of course, much later in life she discovered she’d gotten into the ugly end of the gene pool and had to rely on magical medicine to prevent fully becoming a stone statue.
    For years she’d wished she were one of the other —
    fully human or fully a gargoyle since mixed genes meant a fifty-fifty chance she’d get the crap end of the stick.
    True to her luck, she’d never seen the greatness of either species. She’d gotten the drawbacks of both—and no way to fix it.
    Sighing, she wanted to give in to the bitterness lurking deep down within. A determined hammering on the front door prevented her from delving into