Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
I don’t like to complain—having so many customers is a good thing—but I was getting run off my feet. Even with my magical appliances that made all the food for me exactly to the specifications I wrote on my magic order pad, I was thinking that I really needed to hire more help. I would definitely have to once the new section of the diner I was growing finished ripening.
Yes, I actually grew my diner from a special building seed. I had to go through a lot of trouble and travel to meet Baba Yaga, the most powerful witch in the world, to get it, but it was totally worth the hassle.
Because I grew the diner from my own seed, the building belongs to me—unlike the other buildings on Main Street, which are almost all town property held in trust by the Town Council. (The one exception is The Red Lion Inn, which is owned and operated by Goody Albright, our resident wise woman.)
It took the diner almost six months to grow—you can’t just grow a building overnight, even with magic—but I had never regretted waiting to have a place of my own. Also, I can encourage it to grow some more—which was what I was currently doing. With so many people moving in to Hidden Hollow lately, I had been actively urging the diner to grow a new room and some new booths in the back to accommodate more customers at a time.
Of course, I could have just used an expansion spell like I did the night I hosted Celia’s birthday party, but those only last a few hours—a day at most. Slow and steady is the rule in magical building growth. So I was taking my time.
I had the new space curtained off with a sheet of plastic for now—the new floor and ceiling and walls were fully developed but the booths I had encouraged the diner to grow were still too soft to sit in and the tables weren’t quite firm enough to hold plates of food yet.
But they would be ready soon—every night before I went to bed in my private living quarters, I spent some time channeling nourishing magic and talking to that section of the diner, urging it to grow and finish ripening. It was working wonderfully and the new section would be open for business before I knew it.
By which time I needed to hire some help, I reminded myself again as a new crowd of people and Creatures came in.
Willow came a little after one o’clock and dropped off the sachet of tea along with instructions and the cantrip I was supposed to recite when I brewed it. I put it to one side because I was too busy to deal with it. I didn’t have a chance to look at it again until long after seven that night and by then I was nearly dead on my feet and feeling completely drained.
Most people would drink some coffee to wake up but I knew what I needed and it wasn’t caffeine.
“I need sex!” I muttered to myself as I slipped into the kitchen to catch a breather. My nipples were tight and my pussy was wet and needy—I was starving for some good loving, though with my luck, mediocre sex was probably what I’d get instead.
See, that’s another problem with human men—none of them are into foreplay anymore. Most of them just want to roll on top, pump a few times, and roll back off again. That kind of quick, selfish sex doesn’t really satisfy my cravings because it doesn’t give me time to build sexual energy or draw sensual power from my partner. It leaves me feeling barely satisfied—like eating a few olives and a slice of toast when what you’re craving is a three-course steak dinner with all the trimmings.
Luckily, everyone seemed to be taking an early night—and I decided I would take one too. I promised myself that as soon as the last customer—Liam, the town’s resident Kraken, who was dawdling over his fish and chips—left, I was going to put out the “closed” sign and lock up for the night.
Then I would try that tea Willow had sent me. In fact, I decided, I would go ahead and get it steeping right now.
I put the little triangular sachet she’d given me, which was full of dried herbs, into a mug and poured some hot water over it. Then I left it sitting on the counter and went out to see if Liam was almost finished.
He was in full human form tonight and he looked like a tall man with thick, dark blonde hair and eyes the color of a stormy sea. No one would know he was a Creature to look at him as he was now—though they might think he was uncommonly big and muscular. He was seven feet tall at least and really ripped.