The Accidental Familiar (Accidentally Paranormal Series Book 14) by Dakota Cassidy Page A

wanted to believe the theory his partner and longtime friend, Avis Mackland, spouted as a way to explain Yash’s one-eighty, which was that something had happened and his familiar had experienced an event so horrible, he couldn’t share. Avid had said time and again he didn’t believe Yash was a crook. Yet, it was a theory Rick still couldn’t swallow.
    Stealing those millions of dollars had nothing to do with some crisis Yash had encountered in his life—something he couldn’t tell anyone else—no matter how strong a case Avis pleaded in his favor.
    Thankfully, all their assets weren’t wrapped up in the development company he shared with Avis, and they’d managed to save their asses with their own personal capital, but it’d been one rough year.
    One they were finally digging themselves out from. The black hole they’d been in had a light at the end of the tunnel, and due to Avis’s business savvy and numerous connections, they were once more seeing a profit. But it was small and still in the process.
    But goddammit, Yash had really ripped them a new asshole. It hadn’t only been the two of them who’d suffered, but their employees, their employees’ families.
    And he still didn’t understand it. There’d never been a single sign Yash was even a little shady, let alone capable of stealing millions from him. In fact, he’d spent a lot of Rick’s childhood poo-pooing money as the root of all evil, and, instead, taught him the ways of kindness and about the simple joys drawn from the earth and sky.
    When he’d surprised Yash with the shed, he’d at first been too humble to accept it because it had cost more than the earth, as his familiar had put it.
    And that total betrayal of life lessons damn well still smarted. So no way was he exposing himself and all his regained assets to a new familiar just so he could end up screwed over again.
    Not even if she was cute. And Poppy M to the C to the Guill-i-cudd-E was definitely cute.
    It was harder to tell how cute she was with all that KISS makeup on, but when she’d yanked her wig off and thrown it down on the floor, and her chocolate-colored hair had spilled down over her shoulders to the middle of her back like some wave of silk, he’d decided she was as cute as he’d first feared when they’d met outside his place.
    She had a great ass, too, and he hated himself for noticing that. While she was pretty petite to his six-three, her limbs were long and slender, and her torso, tucked into that hysterical shirt with all the chest hair, was swan-like.
    Even in those ridiculous platform boots, she’d literally floated across his house with measured, soft steps, her thigh muscles flexing as she walked. Her eyes were almond shaped, a deep misty blue, fringed with thick lashes, and they’d flashed all sorts of levels of emotions while she’d given him hell.
    He wouldn’t deny he liked her mouth, either, cute as a bow-shaped button when she’d spewed profanities and ordered him around. He wondered if her lips were as soft as her skin.
    When Poppy pushed past him, storming her way into his house, her hand had brushed his chest, leaving behind a warm tingle of awareness he was not about to let get any further into his head.
    He didn’t know if familiars getting involved with their assignments was off-limits, but he wasn’t about to find out.
    What he was about to do was call up Familiar Central and bitch some poor soul out. How Poppy didn’t know there was no such thing as “greasing a palm” in the white witch world confused him. She should know the rules of the realm at her age.
    Which made him wonder how old she was.
    And then he shook his head, staring off into the backyard where the lights from the shed shone bright. It didn’t matter.
    Either way, a couple of bucks as a bribe would never change anyone’s mind in the realm. It didn’t work like that. When you were assigned a familiar, the powers that be considered it your destiny. No exchange of money