The older man’s smile immediately dropped. “Whatever. Felix wants to call a house meeting. Be upstairs in five. And leave the fucking hooch in the basement, will you?” With that, Luther turned and stomped up the stairs, much louder than the quiet way he had snuck up on us previously.

“So…how many people live here exactly?” I toyed with the bottom of my shirt as Theo made his way to the bottom of the stairs.

“Just the three of us. Felix first, then Luther, and then me. And now you.”

Just the three of us. And now you. I wasn’t sure this was a club I wanted to be a part of.

Something must have shown on my face, because Theo pulled me against his shoulder, and pressed a gentle kiss onto my hair. “It’ll get easier. I promise. I know it seems overwhelming right now, but it will get easier.”

I nodded, trying to smile even though I wanted to cry. “I guess I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“Thatta girl.” Theo laughed and pulled me behind him. “Now come on. Let’s go see what Felix and Daddy Luther want.”

If Brynn were here, she would’ve freaked out. It was probably better she wasn’t. Daddy Luther.

Well, shit.

6. Luther

When a male penguin falls in love with a female penguin, he’ll comb the beach for a perfectly smooth pebble to present to her as a proposal.
Seahorses get “married,” swimming with their tails entwined.

I had never been lucky enough to experience a love like this. But it was nice to imagine such a thing, wasn’t it? And now I was here, trapped in this house for eternity. It would never happen. Instead, it would be me and my books until one of us rotted.

I was pretty sure it would be me crumbling to dust first, my books sitting on the shelf for the next sad soul to come tripping into the house.

But these facts cycled in my brain as I turned away from Theo and the new girl–Savannah–to meet Felix in the living room.

Puffins mate for life and raise a single baby together each mating season. Beavers spend as much time bonding with their life partners as they do building their dams.

Maybe this girl, this woman, would be my chance. Maybe not, considering she had been in the house for an hour, maybe two at most, and was already fucking Theo’s brains out in his makeshift basement brewery. Not like I could blame the poor kid. He had been stuck in here for far less time than either of us, and was the youngest when he was cursed as well. At least I had lived a good chunk of my life before this. Love had never been involved. Definitely not the kind of love I read about in the books that lined the library walls.