Moth to a Flame

A curse twisted every word she spoke. She’d given up all hope. Until he–quite literally–crashed into her life.

Lucia Atropa has the most dangerous garden in Pumpkin Hollow and a curse she can’t escape. Every word she speaks twists in the ears of those around her, a parting gift from her family for speaking up about their patenting of folk remedies. She's done trying to be understood. Her night-blooming flowers never ask her to explain herself, and she busies herself in her work, even as the loneliness creeps closer every night.

She didn't account for a six-foot-something mothman with wings, a leather jacket, and a ridiculously strong affinity for lamps.

Hawk Acheron just does the deliveries. He doesn't settle down, always on the move for good reasons he doesn't talk about. But when a broken Moon Queen flower dusts them both with its pollen, suddenly he can feel everything Lucia is feeling and for the first time in years, someone actually understands her.

Now they're stuck within each other until Halloween, when they can to break the bond for good. Surely nothing could come from two emotionally stunted people spending the most magically potent time of the year forced to stay near someone who can read their every feeling like a book. No reason why this should become anything more than a temporary inconvenience.

Except the counter-spell requires them to both truly want it broken. For a witch who's been betrayed by everyone she trusted and a mothman who's spent his life taking care of others, choosing to trust is scarier than any Halloween fright.

As the veil thins, one fateful delivery leads to a whole lot more than a broken greenhouse window.