The KitchenAid vanished back into the pantry and another tendril delivered the handheld mixer into my hands. I put two large bowls onto the island and reached out with my magic.

The creature who ruled our kitchen with an iron claw was settling into his nest bed. Operation Apple Cake was a go.

I creamed the butter in the bowl and added a ¾ cup of sugar to it. Baking a cake for the man you love was stressful enough. Baking a cake in a kitchen run by a Red Cleaver chef was an impossible feat. Orro viewed both the kitchen and the pantry as his sole domain. Trying to cook anything meant being observed over your shoulder, treated to a detailed critique, followed by multiple offers to help, followed by hurt feelings when said offers were politely and repeatedly declined, culminating in pouting and declarations of woe. If he was really in the moment, he would throw an existential crisis into it.

Orro typically slept for at least an hour and a half. My cake only took 50 minutes to bake. If I played my cards right, it would be cooked before he ever caught on. He would not mess with it once it was cooked.

I folded my dry ingredients into my wet ones, mixed everything, poured it into a greased springform pan, and focused on peeling the apples.

Sean had gone out this morning to get more firewood. The inn required wood in the worst way, and we’d been going through a cord, sometimes two, every few days. It wouldn’t have been a problem if we were a BBQ joint, but we were masquerading as a quaint bed and breakfast that did very limited business. Sooner or later, someone would start wondering what we were doing with all that wood. Sean staggered our firewood orders between different suppliers and bought waste wood whenever he could find it. Usually we ordered firewood online, but he had found a supplier a couple of hours away who would deliver a full tri-axle load, seven and a half cords. The only catch was, they wanted payment up front in cash.

Sean didn’t like to leave the inn.

He didn’t mind it as much when he had to go to places other than our planet. Earth was home, the place where he was born and grew up, and Sean had learned how to pass for a human. But then he walked out into the Great Beyond. The universe bathed him in its breath. He saw the countless stars and other planets, fought enemies he couldn’t have imagined, and learned the true nature of his people.

Out there, he could be himself, an alpha strain werewolf. Here, on Earth, he had to pass for an ordinary man and, after years in space, it no longer came easily to him.