Puzzling plots a luna th.., p.1
Puzzling Plots (A Luna Thorn Witchy Mystery), page 1
Copyright © 2025 by Amanda M. Lee
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PUZZLING PLOTS
A LUNA THORN WITCHY MYSTERY BOOKS 4-6
AMANDA M. LEE
WINCHESTERSHAW PUBLICATIONS
CONTENTS
Hexy Hijinks
1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight
9. Nine
10. Ten
11. Eleven
12. Twelve
13. Thirteen
14. Fourteen
15. Fifteen
16. Sixteen
17. Seventeen
18. Eighteen
19. Nineteen
20. Twenty
21. Twenty-One
22. Twenty-Two
23. Twenty-Three
24. Twenty-Four
25. Twenty-Five
26. Twenty-Six
27. Twenty-Seven
28. Twenty-Eight
29. Twenty-Nine
Karma Killer
1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight
9. Nine
10. Ten
11. Eleven
12. Twelve
13. Thirteen
14. Fourteen
15. Fifteen
16. Sixteen
17. Seventeen
18. Eighteen
19. Nineteen
20. Twenty
21. Twenty-One
22. Twenty-Two
23. Twenty-Three
24. Twenty-Four
25. Twenty-Five
26. Twenty-Six
27. Twenty-Seven
28. Twenty-Eight
29. Twenty-Nine
Sinister Séance
Prologue
1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight
9. Nine
10. Ten
11. Eleven
12. Twelve
13. Thirteen
14. Fourteen
15. Fifteen
16. Sixteen
17. Seventeen
18. Eighteen
19. Nineteen
20. Twenty
21. Twenty-One
22. Twenty-Two
23. Twenty-Three
24. Twenty-Four
25. Twenty-Five
26. Twenty-Six
27. Twenty-Seven
28. Twenty-Eight
29. Twenty-Nine
Mailing List
About the Author
Books by Amanda M. Lee
Books by Lily Harper Hart
1
ONE
“Do you want kids?”
The question threw me, and I had to grip my soda tighter so I wouldn’t inadvertently drop it. I was used to fighting and making snarky comments. A serious conversation, though? About kids? What in the actual hell?
I, Luna Thorn, was not prepared for this.
My date apparently felt differently. Jesse Wilder might’ve been full of himself when it came to his job as a police detective and even on the battlefield, but he was a complete idiot when it came to the personal stuff.
I intended to laugh off the question, be as smooth as possible, but my response came out a little strangled. “Right now?”
Jesse slid his eyes to me. He looked as nervous as I felt. “I didn’t mean right now. I meant in the future. Down the road. Not now. Definitely not now.”
Did I believe him? I couldn’t decide. “I haven’t really thought about it.” In truth, kids were the furthest thing from my mind. My life was not conducive to children. I was a witch—kind of—and apparently a time traveler too. How did that leave room for kids?
“I’ve thought about it.” We settled on a bench that had a decent view of the stage. We were in downtown Detroit for our date—although I was never comfortable with the D-word—and the music at the festival would kick off twenty minutes from now. That meant we had to fill the silence with conversation, something neither of us was very good at.
“You’ve thought about having kids?” I sipped more iced tea and watched him through narrowed eyes. “What does the mother of these children look like? I guarantee she doesn’t have pink hair.”
Jesse smirked, his fingers immediately going to my pink hair so he could finger it for a moment. When he dropped his hand to his lap, it was obvious he was feeling awkward. That’s how things always went between us. When the chips were down, when the fight was on, we sparked on every level. When it was just the two of us trying to do the sort of things dating people did, however, we turned into giant duds.
I couldn’t explain it.
“I wasn’t saying that I expected us to have kids right away,” he said. “I was just … thinking.”
“About kids.”
“About the future,” he clarified. “Are you telling me that you’ve never imagined your future for the fun of it?”
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “When you don’t have a past, it’s hard to look to the future.”
Realization dawned on his face. He knew the story, about how I’d arrived in Detroit years before in a mist of swirling pink magic. I had no memory of who I was. No idea what I could do. Thankfully, I’d been taken in by my surrogate fathers, Reid and Lincoln. They’d just happened upon me that night, although it felt like destiny in hindsight. Since Lincoln was a shifter and Reid a vampire, they’d recognized that I was something special right from the start. That didn’t mean they’d known what to do with me.
Over the years, we’d built various communities and then watched them fall apart. I was the one who finally came up with the idea of the Cathedral. I’d managed to buy the building at auction, slipping in just over another bidding faction, and we’d turned the former automotive plant into a home. Sure, it was a home that had leaky bathrooms and a bog monster living in the basement, but a home, nonetheless. It was a work in progress.
That was as close as I thought about dreaming about the future. I wanted the people there to be safe. Everything else was up in the air.
“I didn’t think about that,” Jesse said after a beat. “You never really talk about it.”
“About what?”
“About not knowing who you were or why you’re here. You’ll make an occasional comment, but if the conversation gets too deep, you’ll say something snarky and change the subject.”
“I am good at the snark,” I agreed.
He took my free hand with his—it was a bold move for him because we were often so awkward together—and gripped it tightly. “Just give me a ballpark about what you’re thinking for the future.”
Frustration reared up and grabbed me by the throat. “How am I supposed to think about the future when I have gorgons hunting me in the present? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Just give me a little insight into what happens inside that busy brain of yours.”
He was asking for a lifeline. If somebody had asked me two months ago if I would’ve been chewing on how to give him one, I would’ve laughed in their faces. I was perfectly happy being a loner … right up until he invaded my life and made me feel things I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling.
Our lives felt inextricably linked now. He was a phoenix—although he kept that on the down low because his people had been hunted to near extinction—and I could tap into his fire magic when I needed to. We were a formidable force to be reckoned with when the magic started zinging about. Even in our quieter moments, however, our magic mingled in weird ways. It somehow felt as if we’d been destined to find one another. I was not corny enough to say that out loud, though.
“I never even thought I liked kids until Lily,” I replied, digging deep to give him something to chew on, referring to his partner Griffin Taylor’s daughter. Since Griffin just so happened to be married to a reaper, and I’d been everything but formally adopted by the Grimlock family, it made sense that the little one—who was two going on twelve with her mouth—would be an example for both of us.
“Do you actually like Lily?” Jesse asked. “I mean … she’s cute, but she’s terrifying. I think she could end up ruling the world, but in an evil way.”
That made me laugh. Lily Taylor was spoiled to the nth degree—between her grandfather, parents, and uncles, the word “no” never stuck—and she wasn’t above throwing a good tantrum. Despite that, she was a grandpa’s girl with a good heart. When I was sad, she even offered to share her ice cream and candy. I wasn’t worried about her going evil.
I was worried about the first boy who ever tried to date her. I could imagine sixteen-year-old Lily taking six chaperones with her on a movie date. Man, that was going to be hilarious.
“I like Lily,” I replied. “She’s spoiled, but she’s a good girl. I think she’s going to be fun as she grows up and
“Yes, I especially like it when she tells me to suck it,” Jesse agreed.
“She’s like a little sponge,” I said. “It reminds me of me when I first woke up here. I didn’t recognize anything about this world. I didn’t know what a phone was … or a television. To Lily, everything is still new. That includes the stuff she hears people say. When she says it back and gets a reaction, she can’t help herself from saying it over and over again. She’ll outgrow that.”
“Yes, because the first time she calls someone important a whore, it’s not going to be as funny as it is now,” Jesse agreed.
“I think she’s fine,” I replied. “They’re raising her to be strong. Yeah, she’s a handful, but they’re not setting limitations on her.”
Jesse looked genuinely curious when his gaze moved to me. “What do you mean?”
“One of the first things I noticed when I got to this place—well, after my initial adjustment—was how boy children and girl children were treated differently,” I explained. “I asked Lincoln and Reid about it. We spent a lot of time in parks, so I spent time watching the kids. They encouraged it because I had no idea about anything.”
“And what did you see?”
“Boys were expected to be rough and tumble. They weren’t supposed to express their feelings. It wasn’t all parents—I shouldn’t say that—but it was a lot of them. Boys played with trucks and balls. Girls played with dolls, and when the girls had emotions to share, it was okay if they cried. The boys were admonished to keep them from crying.”
“You’re talking about stereotypical gender roles,” Jesse mused. “As much as we would like stuff like that not to be a thing, there are still people out there who believe that what toy a child plays with will determine how they will enter adulthood.”
“Do you believe that?”
He shook his head. “No. My parents didn’t go in for that stuff. I was allowed to play with whatever toys I wanted to play with.”
“Did you have a doll?”
He laughed. “No. I had a bear, though. I loved him. I carried him until he literally fell apart. I was crushed when that happened. My parents tried to take me out to get a different bear, but it wasn’t the same.”
“I never had a bear,” I mused. “At least I don’t think I did. They look fun.”
I could feel Jesse’s eyes on the side of my head. “Then maybe you need a bear.”
“I think I’m a bit old for a teddy bear.”
“You’re never too old for comfort, and that’s what the bear did for me. I was a big Lego fan, too. I liked building things.”
“Oh, I’ve seen Legos.” I bobbed my head. “I think those are cool.”
He slid his arm around my back and allowed his fingers to rub against my shoulder. “I never really thought about what it was like for you,” he admitted. “Coming into this world with a fully formed brain … but one that had no preconceived notions about anything … it had to be weird.”
“It was. I was overwhelmed. Lincoln and Reid didn’t know what to do, so they let television teach me as much as possible.”
“Do you think that was a good or bad idea?”
“I think it was a mixed bag. Honestly, stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Walking Dead got me worked up to pick fights in the park. For a time, I wanted a sword just like Michonne. I was convinced that I was going to rule the apocalypse.”
Jesse burst out laughing. “That’s kind of fun.”
“I was also confused why all families weren’t made up of a widower, an uncle, and a best friend.”
His brow furrowed as he tried to figure it out. “Full House,” he said finally, his eyes lighting with genuine delight. “Was that one of the first shows they had you watch?”
“In hindsight, I think they were trying for innocuous stuff. I wasn’t speaking a lot in the first few days, so they went with Full House and something called Boy Meets World.”
“I am familiar with both,” Jesse said on a chuckle.
“Once I started talking, they tried to figure me out. They tried some teenage shows because they assumed I was a teenager.”
“Do you think you were?”
I held out my hands. “I don’t know. I haven’t aged a lot since then, but Lincoln says I’ve definitely matured some. It’s hard when you’re looking at yourself in the mirror to ascertain that sort of stuff.”
“I can totally see that. What teenage shows did they have you watch?”
“Oh, a lot.” I smiled at the memory. “They wanted me to get a handle on human emotions without having to explain it. Neither of them came right out and said it, but now I know they were terrified to have to explain sex.”
“That would’ve been awkward regardless,” Jesse agreed. “When my parents talked to me about sex, it was about two years too late. I was fourteen but already knew the basics. Teenage boys are crude when it comes to talking about sex, so it was weird all around.”
“Exactly.” I nodded. “I wasn’t their child—although they came to think of me that way—but they also knew that they couldn’t send me out into Detroit with no working knowledge of sex.”
“Oh, see, I think this is going to be a fun conversation.” Jesse’s grin was warm, and it did weird things to my insides. This was the most comfortable conversation we’d had outside of serious moments. Often, when left to our own devices at a time when nothing was trying to kill us, we were morons.
“First up was Dawson’s Creek,” I explained. “They were trying to teach me about emotions between younger individuals. That taught me that people slept in beds together whether they were doing it or not.”
Jesse burst out laughing.
“That didn’t go over well,” I said. “They tried to show me Beverly Hills, 90210 because they said it was more realistic. The fashion was weird, though, and I became obsessed with bodysuits and big hair there for a little bit.”
“Oh, I can just picture it.” Jesse looked delighted.
“They tried to watch Gossip Girl with me because I was intrigued by the fashion, but they were horrified by the characters,” I continued. “Eventually, they decided we were done with television—I walked around the parks announcing, ‘Donna Martin graduates’ for three straight days before they lost it—and they took me to places where I could watch real life teenagers interact.”
“More parks?”
“There were parks and movie theaters. They had to break down why the stuff I was seeing on the screen was different from real life. I really wanted to go to Westeros there for a while.”
“Man, you are cute.” Jesse leaned in and gave me a quick kiss. I wasn’t expecting it, and he didn’t linger, but I exhaled quickly when he pulled back. “I wish I could’ve seen all of that.”
My face felt as if it was on fire.
“How did you figure it all out?” he asked when I didn’t speak again.
“Trial and error,” I replied. My voice was huskier than I expected. “Even though Lincoln and Reid didn’t want to let me loose to date, they ultimately decided they had no choice. My magic made it so I could protect myself. They vetted my dates at the start, which was actually kind of funny. One of the first guys I brought home to meet them was a drug dealer.”
