My heart started to beat erratically as I watched him spray whipped cream from the can on top of the cherries, then sprinkle chocolate over his concoction.
He put the plate before me.
Oh, God. He’d made me black forest pancakes. I looked up to watch him as he put together a second plate.
“You cooked for me.”
“I was going to try cupcakes, but didn’t think I had the time to figure them out. Or your magic to pull them off. Gran thought pancakes would do.”
Gran. He was calling my grandmother by the nickname I used.
He was in cahoots with Gran. She’d probably found the cherries, then dragged my mother away for an impromptu coven meeting. And here I thought she had plans for Qiuniu and me, but Warner was clearly an acceptable alternative for one of the guardian nine.
That said a lot, actually, about what Gran thought of the sentinel.
Warner caught my eye. His smile was softer, more tentative now. “That’s what you do, Jade Godfrey. To express your feelings. You bake for the people you care about.”
“You’re learning my language.”
“So I can communicate effectively.”
“Communicate your feelings.”
His grin widened, smoldering on the edges again. “Yes, but I gather that’s obvious.”
“I usually need things spelled out for me.”
“I’ll remember that.”
I answered his smile. Then I laughed. I threw back my head and laughed.
I picked up the can of whipped cream and sprayed it directly in my mouth. It tasted like chemical-infused milk. Yeah, absolutely terrible.
Warner laughed at me. The apartment wards rippled at the power that rolled off him. I breathed in his black-forest-cake magic, savoring the deep-cocoa-and-sweet-cherry taste of it.
Then I ate my pancakes.
For Michael
The yin to my yang. Or maybe it’s the other way around?
Acknowledgements
With thanks to:
My story & line editor
Scott Fitzgerald Gray
My proofreader
Indie Solutions by Murphy Rae
My beta readers
Leiah Cooper, Terry Daigle, Angela Flannery, Gael Fleming, Desi Hartzel, Heather Lewis, Mandy Reed, and Karen Turkal.
For their continual encouragement, feedback, & general advice
Luch Balao - for the Martial Arts training
The Retreat
For her Art
Elizabeth Mackey
Meghan Ciana Doidge is an award-winning writer based out of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada. She has a penchant for bloody love stories, superheroes, and the supernatural. She also has a thing for chocolate, potatoes, and sock yarn.
Novels
After The Virus
Time Walker
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1)
Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (Dowser 2)
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser 3)
I See Me (Oracle 1)
Shadow, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4)
Novellas/Shorts
Love Lies Bleeding
The Graveyard Kiss
For giveaways, news, and glimpses of upcoming stories, please connect with Meghan on her:
NEW RELEASE MAILING LIST
Personal blog, www.madebymeghan.ca
Twitter, @mcdoidge
And/or Facebook, Meghan Ciana Doidge
Please also consider leaving an honest review at your point of sale outlet
Dowser Series — Book Five
EXPECTED SPRING 2015
Oracle Series — Book Two
Join the author’s NEW RELEASE MAILING LIST to be the first to know.
SHADOWS, MAPS, AND OTHER ANCIENT MAGIC (DOWSER 4)
Copyright © 2015 Meghan Ciana Doidge
Published by Old Man in the CrossWalk Productions 2015
Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada
www.oldmaninthecrosswalk.com
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, objects, and incidents herein are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual things, events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada
Doidge, Meghan Ciana, 1973 —
Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic/Meghan Ciana Doidge — KINDLE EDITION
Cover design by Elizabeth Mackey
ISBN 978-1-927850-20-6