Primal Fortune

Chapter 5 Penelope's Plan

Ivy's heartbeat now mimicked water that had turned to ice. Each step she took down the stairs reminded her far too much of slow motion in ancient cartoons, but this was real. Inviting Penelope to join the retrieval mission had been a gamble at best and courting disaster at worst.

Still, there was no way to turn back now. Penelope was already in her house.

Red-rimmed eyes stared at Ivy as she finished her descent. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't walk towards me like a woman who had been sentenced to the guillotine."

It was those eyes that caught Ivy's attention first. Their rich coffee brown color and thick lashes were bewitching, but their redness and puffiness surrounding them spoke volumes. Penelope might have been a vengeful witch, but she was also a grieving one.

"Sorry. Why don't we go to my office?" Ivy forced a smile. She had already started this meeting off on the wrong paw with her body language. She had to find a way to recover. "Do you like chocolate chip cookies? My grandmother just made a batch earlier."

Penelope ran her fingers through her raven colored hair as if amused by the offer. "That sounds like a fine idea and I suppose as far as olive branches go, chocolate chip cookies are a rather sweet one. I meant what I said, there's no need for you to fear me. You're neither Jared, nor Kendra. You've done me no wrong."

Well, that was somewhat of a relief. Penelope's fury was at least a semi rational one.

"Glad to hear it." Ivy gestured for the witch to follow her through the beaded doorway. "Have a seat and like I said, feel free to have some cookies."

Penelope nodded, sitting down and devouring a cookie with a polite efficiency. "I'm fully aware of what those two have likely said about me. That I'm an evil, jealous witch who goes around scarring the faces of innocent werewolves."

So much for pleasantries.

"Something like that. I'm not here to play the judge and jury of the Supernatural Love Court, though." Ivy still winced when she thought of a wolf's claws scaring another wolf's face, but Jack needed them. "I know you're not a coldblooded killer. You had Kendra on the ground by the throat. Had you wanted to, you could have killed her."

Penelope gaze flickered to the crystal ball. "You're right. I could have killed her. It was still far from my finest moment." The lavender sphere magnified the image of her eyes, displaying a thousand emotions hidden in those coffee irises in all their tragic glory. "I shouldn't have attacked her. I just got so angry. Jared and I dated for three years before she came along. I thought we had a future together and suddenly, I didn't matter. Nothing else mattered, but her. He even accused me of using my magic to make him like me."

Ivy flinched. That was brutal and a far cry from the tale the happily Mated pair had told her.

"I know how hurtful such an accusation would be." It had been levied at Ivy more than once when a break up went wrong. Each time made her heart feel as though it was an onion that her ex had decided to chop up. "At least you admit what you did was wrong, but Mating can be a tricky business even with supernatural elements involved. Sometimes you just can't fight biology."

Penelope crossed her arms, her eyes seeming to peer into Ivy's very soul. "You know what it's like to be a witch trying to find love. You also know what it's like to be a werewolf. You've got one paw in each world. I want to know what made her...better. Was it really just because we're different species?"

This was not a conversation that Ivy ever wanted to enter. Still, the imploring look that Penelope had just sent her couldn't be denied.

"Mating for werewolves is an odd mixture of love and chemistry. It's the same way for humans, but the difference is the intensity." She paused, struggling to find the words that would provide the best balm on Penelope's broken heart. Words that wouldn't further paint Jared and Kendra as callous villains in the witch's mind. "It evolved as a way to preserve the werewolf gene. Nature is the ultimate matchmaker, though. When a werewolf encounters a good potential Mate, they're flooded with feel good hormones. Romantics view this as love at first sight. The cynics boil it down to mere chemistry or animal attraction."