The Sea Witch
A Wicked Villains Novel
Katee Robert
Trinkets and Tales LLC
Copyright © 2020 by Katee Robert
All rights reserved.
Cover art by By Hang Le
Editing by Manuela Velasco
Copy Editing by Lynda M. Ryba
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-951329-02-0
Print ISBN: 978-1-951329-04-4
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Also by Katee Robert
Wicked Villains
Book 1: Desperate Measures
Book 2: Learn My Lesson
Book 3: A Worthy Opponent
Book 4: The Beast
Book 5: The Sea Witch
Book 6: Queen Takes Rose
A Touch of Taboo
Book 1: Your Dad Will Do
Book 2: Gifting Me To His Best Friend
The Island of Ys
Book 1: His Forbidden Desire
Book 2: Her Rival’s Touch
Book 3: His Tormented Heart
Book 4: Her Vengeful Embrace
The Thalanian Dynasty Series (MMF)
Book 1: Theirs for the Night
Book 2: Forever Theirs
Book 3: Theirs Ever After
Book 4: Their Second Chance
The Kings Series
Book 1: The Last King
Book 2: The Fearless King
The Hidden Sins Series
Book 1: The Devil’s Daughter
Book 2: The Hunting Grounds
Book 3: The Surviving Girls
The Make Me Series
Book 1: Make Me Want
Book 2: Make Me Crave
Book 3: Make Me Yours
Book 4: Make Me Need
The O’Malley Series
Book 1: The Marriage Contract
Book 2: The Wedding Pact
Book 3: An Indecent Proposal
Book 4: Forbidden Promises
Book 5: Undercover Attraction
Book 6: The Bastard’s Bargain
The Hot in Hollywood Series
Book 1: Ties that Bind
Book 2: Animal Attraction
The Foolproof Love Series
Book 1: A Foolproof Love
Book 2: Fool Me Once
Book 3: A Fool for You
Out of Uniform Series
Book 1: In Bed with Mr. Wrong
Book 1.5: His to Keep
Book 2: Falling for His Best Friend
Book 3: His Lover to Protect
Book 3.5: His to Take
Serve Series
Book 1: Mistaken by Fate
Book 2: Betting on Fate
Book 3: Protecting Fate
Come Undone Series
Book 1: Wrong Bed, Right Guy
Book 2: Chasing Mrs. Right
Book 3: Two Wrongs, One Right
Book 3.5: Seducing Mr. Right
Other Books
Seducing the Bridesmaid
Meeting His Match
Prom Queen
The Siren’s Curse
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
Zurielle
Three simple rules have been ingrained into me from birth:
1. Never leave Olympus.
2. My family members are the only people who value my safety and well-being, and as such, my loyalty to them should be my first priority at all times.
3. Never trust the Sea Witch.
Tonight, I’m breaking all three.
There might be time for regrets later, but as I watch Olympus disappear into the horizon behind me, I can’t dredge them up now. My sisters will be fine. They’ve never felt the city borders quite as acutely as I have. They’re happy in a way I can’t replicate. Maybe I could have settled before I met Alaric, but that possibility is long gone.
Now, I only have one path available.
I try very hard not to think about my father during the long bus ride to Carver City. I’m his youngest, the baby to be protected at all costs, for all that I’m twenty-three and lost my innocence right around the time my mother lost her life. Even if she were still among the living, no one stays sheltered in Olympus for long. Not when they move in the circles my father does.
I push the thought away and close my eyes. The future. The future is all that matters. My father will forgive me eventually, especially once he realizes I did it for love. Is there any more honorable motivation?
And I do love Alaric. Those weeks I spent with him over the winter were the happiest I’ve ever had. He’s kind and sweet and so incredibly respectful. What father wouldn’t want his daughter with a man like that?
I allow myself to sink into the warm memories to pass the time. It feels like between one blink and the next the bus shudders to a stop and the driver announces that we’ve reached the station. I move with the others to file out the doors and collect my bag.
Carver City looks much the same as Olympus. Tall buildings that threaten to block out the sky. People who go about their own business and spend their lives happily ignorant of what goes on in the shadows. Of the power players who hopscotch between what’s right and what’s wrong, because the only thing that matters is what they want. They posture and perform for friends and enemies alike.
It makes me tired just thinking about it.
I pull my phone out and bring up the address. It took me several long weeks to dredge up the courage to respond to the Sea Witch. Ursa, that’s her name. Somehow it doesn’t make her seem any less intimidating than the other. She’s not to be trusted. It doesn’t matter now. She’s only a woman, albeit a powerful and dangerous one. I am capable of taking her help without giving her anything priceless in return.
I hope.
As I stop at the curb, debating whether to call a cab or use an app to get a ride, a shiny black car melts out of the traffic and pulls to a stop in front of me. I stare at it blankly before giving myself a shake. Coincidence. That’s all it is. I’m sure it's waiting for someone else.
The window rolls down, and the first thing I see is red—red lips curved in a sinful smile. Then the woman emerges from the shadows inside the car. She’s Black and curvy and has a mass of locs that go from dark brown to a crimson at the ends that I envy. My father never let me color my hair “unnatural�
�� colors, even after I turned eighteen, and so though my hair is technically red, it’s a deep red that’s almost brown.
I know who this woman is even before she speaks. “Ursa.”
“The very one.” I don’t know much about her beyond what my father’s ranted about when he drinks too much. A woman who threatened everything he held dear. One who tried to kill him and take his place as Poseidon’s second-in-command. A witch who likes to drown her victims to boost her reputation; someone who tried to drown him before he managed to win the war and drive her out of Olympus.
She must be my father’s age—somewhere in her late-forties to mid-fifties, but she looks younger than I expect. Or rather, she has the kind of ageless beauty that could put her anywhere from thirty to sixty. Her smile widens, though it doesn’t reach her dark eyes. “You’re looking for me, I presume.”
I am, but I haven’t quite caught up with the fact that she’s here. I expected her to wait for me in her home, to set the tone for me to be the powerless woman begging for aid and her as the only one who can give it to me. I didn’t expect this.
Then again, what is this but setting the tone in a different kind of way? She knew what bus I’d be on. Knew I’d be here at exactly this time and place. She must be watching me.
Getting in cars with strangers is a very basic rule that I’ve never had a problem following, but it’s silly to reject the ride when this is the woman I’ve traveled to see. The only one who can help me.
I lift my chin. “Yes, I’m looking for you.”
“Very good.” She leans back and rolls the window up.
I blink at my own reflection distorted back at me. I look impossibly young and naive, and I’m pretty sure there’s a crease on my face from where I had myself propped up against the window on the bus ride. I’d hoped to clean up before meeting her, because first impressions matter. Oh well. One works with what one has.
The driver’s side door opens up and a tall Black woman with short cropped hair emerges. She gives me a once-over and shakes her head, but she doesn’t say a word as she puts my bag into the trunk, and opens the door for me. It’s too late to back out now. I’ve come too far.
I climb into the backseat.
When I was small, my sisters used to threaten me with the Sea Witch whenever they decided I was being annoying. If you don’t act right, the Sea Witch will come and take you away. It used to terrify me as a child. Now she terrifies me for other reasons. A woman doesn’t come by a reputation like hers without some kind of truth behind it. But she is only a woman, flesh and blood just like me. Or that’s what I tell myself as I try to shake the feeling I’m a mouse who’s just cuddled up to a cat.
Her presence fills the space, squeezing my chest even though she’s retreated to the other side of the seat and isn’t touching me. In the dim interior, I can see that she’s wearing a wrap dress with a dark pattern almost like bubbles on it. It’s pretty and obviously expensive, but a printed dress should make her more approachable.
It doesn’t.
She’s studying me the same way I’m looking at her. I don’t want to know what verdict she comes up with. I’m not at my best. I dressed for comfort instead of making an impression, wearing my favorite faded jeans, a tank top, and knitted cardigan that’s fraying a bit in spots.
The silence spins out between us, strangely loaded. Even knowing better, I can’t stop myself from breaking it first. “I don’t trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.” She shrugs a shoulder. The move draws my attention to her impressive cleavage, and I immediately jerk my eyes back to her face. Ursa is attractive, but it’s more complicated than beautiful. She’s powerful. She’s not even doing anything other than looking at me, and I’m fighting to draw each breath.
All the lessons I’ve spent a lifetime learning go right out the window. “What do you want with me?”
“I want to help you.” There it is again, her wicked smile that does nothing to reassure me. “I have something of a soft spot for Alaric. This is a favor to him.”
She isn’t telling the truth. Ursa is the Sea Witch. Even if she were madly in love with Alaric, she wouldn’t give him to me. She certainly wouldn’t do something to undermine her own power and territory as a favor. She’s also very clearly not going to tell me the truth.
I narrow my eyes. “Then why not pay his debt and free him?”
“It’s complicated.” She doesn’t look away from me as the car slides back into traffic. “I can see you don’t believe me, so I’ll lay it out for you. Hades’s neutral territory is too valuable to risk; as such, he won’t allow anyone in Carver City to interfere with his precious deals. Alaric made a deal, and I pay his debt, it might look like I’m using Alaric’s bargain as a way to bribe Hades, which impacts his interactions with the other territory leaders. It’s messy and that man abhors a mess. You, my dear, are a very convenient loophole.”
It seems reasonable enough, but she’s very pointedly not mentioning her history with my father, which is the very definition of mess, even if I don’t know the specific details. “Very convenient indeed.”
“Now, before we begin, I have to ask.” Ursa sits back, somehow looking every inch a queen in the vaguely cramped backseat. “How far are you willing to go?”
I don’t even have to think about it. “As far as it takes.” I’ve never experienced what I feel for Alaric with anyone else. If that’s not love, what is? And if it is love, it’s worth fighting for. It’s worth sacrificing for.
She nods as if she expects no less. “And what do you have to bargain with?”
I flush. I have a trust fund, but I won’t have access to it until I’m thirty. I’ve never wanted for anything, but all my credit cards and bank accounts are linked to my father. My liquid assets are minimal. Except… I touch my necklace. “I have this.”
Ursa motions with impatient fingers, each topped with bloodred polish to match her lips. “Let’s see.”
I lift it, intending to take it off, but she snags it and tugs, drawing me closer. My breath stalls in my chest. I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but I swear I can feel the warmth coming off her body, and it has something coiling low in my stomach in response. I shiver and watch her run her fingers over my mother’s necklace. Sapphires, diamonds and emeralds depict the depths of the ocean around a stylized ruby seahorse. It’s worth a small fortune, but it’s priceless to me.
Ursa lays it back against my chest, her knuckles dragging over my sternum through my tank top. An accidental touch, maybe, but it has me jerking back. I don’t understand my reaction to her, but I’m loyal to Alaric, even if he’s not able to give me the same currently.
I’m still regaining my equilibrium when she shakes her head. “It won’t be enough.”
I blink. “Surely he doesn’t owe Hades so much?” I still don’t know the circumstances of Alaric’s deal with Hades, what he needed such a large sum of money for. All I know is that Hades provided it and Alaric has been paying off that debt ever since. He’s assured me that it’s not a bad life, as such things go, but he’s not free, either.
“He does.” Ursa finally releases me from her gaze, turning her face to the window. “He still owes Hades a quarter of a million dollars.”
Helplessness rises in my chest, clawing at my throat. She’s right. The necklace is worth a lot, but not that much. Especially if I’m forced to pawn it. “You promised a way to free him.”
“I didn’t promise that you’d like it.” She gives another of those shrugs that mean absolutely nothing. “You have the pretty necklace, but it’s not enough.”
“I don’t have anything else!”
“Don’t you?”
I shake my head, trying to concentrate past the hopelessness welling up inside me. “What are you talking about? Don’t you think if I had anything of value, I’d willingly bargain it for him? I would in a heartbeat.”
“If you had anything of value?” She finally looks at me again almost pitying. “Come now, little girl. Sure
ly you’re not that naive. You must know you possess the one thing guaranteed to be valuable enough to free Alaric.”
“I don’t understand.” Except, as her gaze sweeps over my body, I’m starting to. I shake my head. “If I make a deal with Hades, that only reverses our positions. It doesn’t solve the problem.”
“No, making a deal wouldn’t solve anything.” Her lips curve up like she’s telling a joke, except nothing is funny. “I’m talking about your body. Would you give a single night to free him?”
Sex.
She’s talking about sex.
I fight not to tense, and I’m not entirely successful. I could brazen my way through this, but… “I’ve never had sex before.”
“That only makes what you’re offering more valuable in the eyes of people willing to pay for it.”
A small, foolish part of me thought I’d give my virginity to Alaric. During our time together, we’d never had the opportunity to decide if I was ready one way or another, not when we could only meet in public places. Am I willing to sacrifice the romantic notion of him being my first for his freedom?
Yes. Of course. It’s barely even a question.
What are a hymen and a single night when weighed against forever?
It’s only sex. If I have no experience with it, at least I’ll have no expectations going in. Maybe it’d actually be better to get it out of the way with someone else first. From most of what I’ve read on the subject, the first time isn’t anything to look forward to. Better to rip off the bandage and then move on to the good stuff with Alaric afterward.
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