Carve My Pumpkin (The Night Realm: Halloween Marked #3)

Chapter 10

TEN

MATEO

“Respect boundaries? I respect boundaries,” I muttered to myself on the way to the fall festival.

There was a reason I chose Colette for the job. Her resume was impeccable. Yet her photo was not included with the resume, and now I was stuck with a gorgeous little fae who was searching for my soulmate all while driving me completely mad. I liked the way she pressed her lips together right before the calm quick wit. I still wasn’t sure how to respond to most of the sass that came out of her mouth when it was done in such a professional manner. Being around Colette was both maddening and pleasurable. Except the parts of her that I liked felt like swallowing rocks because I couldn’t think of her that way. I had a soulmate and even though I had no idea who she was, I’d been loyal and faithful to her since I saw my mark. Colette may have been damn near perfect but she wasn’t mine. The sooner she found my soulmate, the better, because I needed to get away from Colette Rothchild as soon as possible.

“Hey, Mateo!” A young werewolf with shaggy brown hair and big brown eyes waved to me. His face was covered in scruff.

I paused, looking at him and trying to figure out what didn’t fit. He wore a red and brown flannel shirt and worn blue jeans, which was his normal, but the sleek black tie around his neck was so out of place. My brow furrowed. That tie looked so familiar. “Hey . . . Jason.”

He followed my gaze down toward his tie and chuckled. “My girlfriend got it for me.”

“I, um, like it?” It didn’t go with his outfit at all.

Just then a tiny wolf girl with brown hair down to her hips and eyes that were too big for her face walked up to him. She tugged on the tie, then winked at me. “Hi, Mateo.”

“Hey.” I waved and pointed down the street toward the fall festival. “I’m just headed that way.”

“Have fun.” She giggled like she knew something and gave me a little wave.

A sinking feeling sat in my stomach, and I didn’t know why. I continued walking toward the festival. I could see the tents all spread out in every direction. The scents of cinnamon, chocolate, and freshly baked goods drifted on the air, making my stomach growl. Carved pumpkins were spread around the festival grounds and on hay bales. They hovered in the air over the tents, and at night they would glow with candlelight illuminating the festival in warm, spooky light. The citizens loved every minute of it, I was right there with them.

“Hi, Mateo.” A younger fae with dark hair waved to me as she passed. She had a familiar burgundy scarf wrapped around her neck.

“Hi.” I waved and stared at the scarf when I spotted a golden emblem on the end and I gasped. Was that . . . mine? “Hold on.”

“Mateo! Thank you so much for this. You’re so sweet.” Another woman walked by with a navy-blue tie in her hand that had intricate gold stitching. I recognized it immediately as the same as one I owned. “My boyfriend is going to love this.”

What is going on ? What kind of Twilight Zone am I living in? That’s my stuff, isn’t it? “Um, you’re welcome.”But she’d already moved on.

I started to move through the tents, trying to ignore the apple cider donuts while I searched for Colette. She said she was working in the field today searching for my soulmate. A mage with long wild hair and a floor-length velvet skirt strolled by with a pair of my socks covering her hands.

“Hey, Mateo. Thanks. These will be perfect for my chicken.”

Chicken? What? I shook my head and watched as more people passed by me with pieces of my own wardrobe. Then I spotted Colette standing behind a little tabletop at her tent. She was in a navy-blue pantsuit with little brown booties. Her long blond hair was pulled back from her face into a ponytail, with her pointed ears poking out. She shared a dazzling smile with the women standing in front of her.

There was a woman in the tent with her that I recognized from Prescott Tech but her name was slipping my mind at the moment. She was the copyeditor for the Megelle Island Newspaper. I knew she was a mage. She had long straight brown hair and brown eyes – Jennifer! That was her name. I was so flustered by Colette that I couldn’t think straight.

I marched behind the table and stopped short. Behind her she had my things laid out on display. There were ties, scarves, socks, and even my belts. Colette would speak to a person and then Jennifer would use her wand to float the object of their choosing to their hands. For a minute I was too stunned to move, I just watched as people walked away with my stuff. It wasn’t about the material possessions, it was the principle of the matter.

I turned toward her and stepped in so close her fresh scent surrounded me. I ground my teeth together, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She didn’t look up as she ran her finger over the tablet in her hands. “I’m implementing the plan I came up with that we were supposed to meet about.”

I put my hands on my hips. “You mean the plan I stopped by to talk to you about last night and ended up pushed into a coffin and rolled down a hill?”

“Key word: night .” She turned to look up at me. “Shall I send you an email outlining boundaries?”

I knew she had a very valid point. I knew I was asking a lot. But my patience was wearing thin. I needed to get away from Ms. Rothchild, and I needed to find my true soulmate. “And you haven’t broken any here? This doesn’t look like doing your job.” I looked at my clothing, the line of women, and her little list on the screen.

“Actually, I’m doing exactly what you asked me to do.” She kept eye contact with the woman across from her. “Right, yes, let me see your arm.”

She was a tall, slender mage with dark eyes and pouty lips. She held out her arm toward Colette and rolled up her sleeve. I held my breath. Could this be the one? When there was no mark, I let it out in a long, slow exhale.

Colette gave her a warm smile and pointed over her shoulder. “Thanks, Maddie. You can pick an item from the table behind me.”

She pointed over her shoulder and Maddie motioned toward one of my favorite caramel-colored scarves. “That one please.”

“Excellent choice.” Jennifer flicked her wand and my scarf floated off the table, over my head, and straight into Maddie’s hands. “Thanks for coming. Next in line please.”

My anger seethed and I moved in closer to her and hissed, “What gives you the right to give away my stuff?”

She took a step back from the table and turned to face me. Her cheeks heated and her eyes flared. Her own voice and tone matched mine as she seethed. “What gave you the right to just show up at my house on a Monday night? What gave you the right to not show up for your own meeting and leave me hanging all day? What gave you the right to talk shit about me to Dennis? All valid questions.”

I felt more out of control than I ever had in my life, as I motioned wildly with my arms. “Where . . . How did you get my stuff?”

Colette reeled her own temper in and suddenly that hot temper ran cool. “I know people.”

“I’m a Vauntero.” I put my hands on my hips.

Colette snickered and lowered her voice. Her eyes pulled me in, and I couldn’t look away. “Must be higher up than you are then.”

I shook my head. There was a better way of doing this besides giving away all my stuff. “No, this is ridiculous.”

Colette motioned toward her tent. “I’m open to ideas. I mean, that’s what our meeting, that you missed, was about. However, I do believe my strategy is working. Look at my spreadsheet.”

She turned her tablet around to show me an impressively elaborate Excel spreadsheet she’d made that was organized by tabs and was color-coded. I must’ve made a face because her smile turned smug a second before she shoved her tablet into my chest then spun away to gloat as she gave away more of my stuff. For a second I just watched in shock as each person who stepped up to the counter showed their mark-less arms, gave their names, and then picked one of my belongings as their prize.

Jennifer kept glancing in my direction with a nervous expression, like she was actually concerned she’d get in trouble for what they were doing. I should’ve assured her she wouldn’t, I knew this wasn’t her idea and she was just helping. If anyone got in trouble it would be Colette except I knew I wasn’t going to reprimand her. First, someone in my own family let her into my room and helped her. Secondly, I was behaving abominably. I knew it. She knew it. Clearly my family knew it. I wasn’t acting like myself. I didn’t recognize the monster that came out of me when I was near Colette. I’d never had such an infatuation with a woman so immediately that I stopped behaving like myself.

It unsettled me to my very core.

I wanted her so bad it made no sense.

This spreadsheet made me want her even more, and that wasn’t physical in any way. This spreadsheet of hers was brilliant. It was the perfect example of why Lex suggested her for this job and why I accepted it. I didn’t even know we had a list of every resident on Megelle Island yet here Colette had one. She even had a list of everyone with a known soulmate, those people were in their own category since they were incapable of being mine. Everyone else had been separated into categories by species, then by marital status. Within each of those she had them sorted by gender. Which, I admired. Because even though I was pretty sure I was straight at this point I was starting to wonder if I was confused and that was why I hadn’t found my soulmate. Colette wasn’t leaving any stone unturned.

That work ethic and dedication to her job made my heart beat in weird patterns.

I groaned and turned away from her before I did something stupid like kiss her or praise her. Being the asshole was easier for both of us. I wasn’t about to start anything romantic or intimate with someone who wasn’t my soulmate when I knew by the mark on my arm that my soulmate existed. Okay, Mateo. Don’t just stand here and snarl. Be of assistance. I glanced around at my stuff and frowned.

Surely people would want something else other than my old socks. We’d catch more people if we had other things to offer. So I went to the bakery tent next to ours and bought up all the pastries I could hold. Then I went to the popcorn stand and had them send even more bowls of popcorn toward Colette. It still didn’t feel like enough. If we were going to do this, then I would surround her in anything she could possibly want. Apple cider donuts were next, then candied apples. Before I knew it, half the tents surrounding us were sold out and Colette had all the ammunition I could give her.

I cleared my throat. “Jennifer, it’s Fae Night, why don’t you go enjoy your evening and I will assist Ms. Rothchild in this task.”

Jennifer smiled at me then gave Colette a funny face that clearly suggested they’d talked a lot about me. “Okay. Thank you, Mr. Vauntero. Have a good night, you two!”

I nodded then got to work organizing all the snacks. Once it was all set up and my clothing was pushed out of the way into an unholy pile on the ground that made my skin crawl, Colette resumed her position. I rolled up my sleeves, and whatever treat she pointed to I handed over. I glared down at her and the smug little smile she wore. She was right. Her plan was working. She knew it, and I knew it. She checked more arms, and I handed out as much as I could.

“See, look how much bigger the line is now that we’re giving away other stuff.” I gestured to the long line. “ This way, we support local businesses and don’t get rid of my entire closet.”

“It’s almost as if that meeting of ours yesterday could’ve been useful.” Colette glanced at the pile of my clothing and shrugged. “And besides, you could use more variety.”