Small non-spoilery snippet from A Shift in Shadows. And yes, the plant makes an appearance in A Shift in Fate too : )
“What does this have to do with why the warlocks and vampires are hunting you?” Hazel eyes brimming with curiosity and a small amount of wariness met mine.
My magic shifted under my skin, and I pushed it back. I was feeling antsy and wished Magos were here so we could spar; that would have at least taken the edge off. I cracked my neck side to side and walked over to the fridge. I moved some containers around until I found the one that still had some raw ground beef. I grabbed a spoon from the nearby drawer.
“I need to explain a few things for you to understand why they’re after me.”
“Okay,” Andrei said slowly and sniffed the air, looking in confusion at the container I was holding. “I’m curious about how ground beef fits into your explanation.”
I huffed a laugh “This”—I shook the container a little bit—“is for my plant. It actually prefers chicken, but this is all I have at the moment so it’ll just have to deal.” Without bothering to explain further, I headed towards my room. Andrei followed close behind.
“You were told about the fae and daemons and that they are heavy hitters. It’s no joke. They’re seriously powerful,” I said over my shoulder as I walked over to the flowering plant on my dresser. Its large blue flower sat on top of a stem thicker than my arm with smaller vines growing out of it. It had been facing the window, but it turned to face me at my approach and swayed slightly, sending a tremor out through the petals. Andrei stumbled slightly and came to a slow stop next to me, staring wide-eyed at the plant. Slowly the flower turned to face him and waved its petals again. Andrei reached out towards the edge of the petals, and I smacked his hand away.
“This plant is from one of the fae realms. I’d advise you to never touch anything from the fae realms until you know a bit more.” I popped the lid off the container and scooped out a chunk of meat. The flower forgot about Andrei and zeroed in on the meat. The thin green vines snapped the meat off the spoon and pulled it toward the flower. The bright orange center split open, revealing a mouth full of small teeth, and the vines quickly shoved the meat in. The meaty bulge made its way down the stem, but it stopped. A high pitched hissing sound came from the flower, and one of its vines swiped at my face.
I barely leaned back in time to avoid the vine. It was hard to see, but each vine was covered in tiny thorns. In addition to being sharp, the thorns were also slightly sticky, which helped the plant capture small rodents and other prey in the wild.
“Enough of that!” I snapped at the plant. “This is all I have. I’ll get you chicken next time.” I scooped out another chunk of beef and held it out. “So what’s it going to be?”
The flower shook angrily at me one more time and swiped the spoon and the container out of my hands. The green vines covered the container. Ugh. I’d get it back later.
“Another important thing to know.” I turned to walk out of the room. “You can pretty much assume anything fae is an asshole.”
“Okay, but—what the fuck?!” Andrei swore, and I whirled back around. The werewolf rubbed the back of his head as he gaped at the plant with an expression of annoyance and disbelief. I glanced at the spoon lying on the ground. “It was probably aiming for me. But it doesn’t have eyes, so you can’t really blame it for having shitty aim.”
