The Bone Witch (The Osseous Chronicles Book 1)

by Ivy Asher

  I don’t want a dog, but I also don’t want to be looking around for days or risk that my ancestors might throw something worse my way. As much as I hate it, I also can’t help feeling a little bad for the pet reject. I look down at the gray four-legged Ewok, my senses confirming that he’s the one, and sigh.

  “Wait. I want to take this guy,” I announce to her back, rolling my eyes at my luck.

  I look for a name tag or something on the little gray dog’s kennel and spot the name, Hoot. The woman turns, her gaze following my pointed arm to Hoot’s cage, her brows furrowed with concern.

  “I know he’s cute, but he won’t play or interact much with you. He seems to only be interested in sleeping and rubbing himself on things. He’s been adopted and brought back multiple times,” she warns, clearly assuming all of that information will have me rethinking my decision.

  What she doesn’t know is that his laziness and lack of interest in being a pet isn’t a deterrent for me, it’s a selling point.

  “I’m cool with that,” I chipperly admit. “I’m not into all that dog crap anyway,” I confess, which just makes her eye me warily.

  She looks at the squat, flat-faced dog sympathetically and then back to me. With a shrug, she walks back to where I’m standing in front of the little dog’s kennel. “There’s a lot of paperwork to fill out. If you qualify for adoption, then I’m fine with you trying your luck with him. He’s going to be put down in a couple days anyway, maybe this is the last chance he deserves.”

  A hopeful smile sneaks across my face, and Hoot gives an indecipherable snort. Looks like I just found my familiar.

  “Hear that ancestors? Step two is in the bag,” I announce happily, hoping that they appreciate how quickly and obediently step two went.

  “What’s that?” the shelter worker asks, a hint of concern in her tone.

  “Oh, nothing,” I reassure her with a chuckle that I hope makes me look friendly and normal and not unhinged. Judging by the look she gives me before she continues on, I’m not completely successful. I brush the judgment off and internally high-five myself. Step three, here I come.

  3

  I watch Hoot out of the corner of my eye. He’s sitting in the passenger seat, his head resting on the doorframe as though it’s just too heavy to hold up. The window is down, and the wind is making his jowls flop around in a way that would be cute if I liked dogs. I’m worried he’s going to make a break for it out the car window, but so far he seems chill and pretty content to sloth along wherever I want to take him.

  We’ve been bound to each other for about twenty-four hours now, and it’s going about as well as I could hope. He wasn’t fazed in the slightest by the incantation or power that swept over both of us when I linked him to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure he snored through most of it. I did discover, mid-shower this morning, that he has a weird penchant for wanting to rub himself all over my dirty underwear, but I suppose we all have our kinks.

  The overwhelming scent of rotten eggs fills the car, and I groan and cover my nose with my shirt. I glare at Hoot, who couldn’t give two shits about the ass bombs he keeps dropping. I have the sneaking suspicion that he was adopted and returned because of the Bog of Eternal Stench that lives in his ass and not the mellow way he has about him. Gagging, I quickly roll down my window to combat the reek. So much for pretty curls today. I’d rather sport a lion’s mane at this point than breathe through the noxious fumes my familiar likes to bestow upon me. My eyes start to water, and I fan the air in front of my face to help dilute the smell.

  “Couldn’t have crop dusted me back at the shelter and warned me about what I’d be dealing with before I bonded my soul to yours?” I grump as I wipe the fetor-induced tears from my eyes. He gives a snort that I swear feels like a you’re stuck with me now, witch.

  Shaking my head, I turn the fan in the car to high in an effort to help dissipate the stink trying to settle into my upholstery. I steer into the parking lot of my grandmother’s shop and take it in as I pull slowly into the spot marked with a sign that reads Owner. Melancholy seeps into me as I turn off my car. I take a moment to stare at what used to be Grammy Ruby’s place, knowing that as soon as I walk through the front doors, it all becomes mine.

  Hoot is tight on my heels as I step out of my car and reverently stand in front of the whitewashed brick building that houses the metaphysical shop on the ground floor and an apartment above. I’m supposed to move in here, but the thought of taking over my Grammy’s home so soon makes me feel uneasy. So I don’t plan on actually doing that until my apartment catches onto the whole dog thing and kicks me out, leaving me with no choice. The building is old and charming, but it’s been taken care of and kept up. It sits on the end of a cozy small-town-feel kind of street with other quaint shops speckled here and there.

  We get a steady trickle of tourists because we’re not too far away from Salem. Hotels and B and Bs are occasionally cheaper here, so a lot of visitors like to stay and make the drive or ferry ride over to visit the more exciting cities next to us here in Marblehead. I have the option to pick up shop and move anywhere I want, but I just can’t picture wanting to be anywhere but here. The trees, the ocean, the Massachusetts accent, what more could a girl need?

  It’s weird how much has changed in the last day, and yet this place looks the same. I don’t know what I expected when I was driving over here; I thought it would feel different maybe, but strangely it feels like it always did to me. Grammy Ruby was a minimalist and didn’t like change. I know it won’t take long to clear her things from both spaces and take them over with mine, but it feels wrong. I know the bones will forever connect me to her, but I’ll miss her immensely. Packing up her life isn’t going to feel good. I know she was ready to go, but selfishly I wasn’t ready. I’m still not.

  The closing of my car door echoes around the empty street as I prepare myself for the next task at hand. The shop’s name, The Eye, sits white and pristine above a fig-colored awning. The large windows bordering the front doors announce Psychic Readings in text so large that it’s readable from the two-lane street as you drive by. There’s a sacred geometric shape stenciled in the background that looks like a large flower, but if you study it closely, you’ll see that each line of the drawing is composed of a bone. I finger the skeleton key on my keyring that opens the shop, batting away the feelings of inadequacy and intimidation.

  I can do this. I can honor the call of my ancestors.

  I steel myself and grumble internally to stop stalling. No amount of standing out here and staring or reminiscing is going to change the fact that I’m the line’s Osteomancer now. I need to stop focusing on how hard this is going to be or how bad I’ll feel about it and find a way to make it work. With that, I straighten my spine and walk confidently to the front of the shop. I slip the key into its partnering lock, and with a snick, open the doors to the rest of my life.

  Incense, sage, and verbena greet me as I step into the sunshine streaked space. My gaze roams over the different stones and crystals on display, either for sale or positioned in the shop for some other purpose. Dried herbs and other bottled ingredients take up a whole wall to my left, housed on rustic wood shelves that could use a good dusting. A saffron-hued curtain separates the main part of the shop from the area where Grammy Ruby liked to do her readings. I breathe it all in, and for the first time since the bones appeared on my dining room table, I feel a little hopeful.

  Each generation of Osteomancer makes a shop their own, moving, updating, and tweaking things as they see fit. Sometimes they come in and overhaul everything, sometimes they change nothing. I’ve been here mere seconds, and already I can envision iron and glass shelves, blond hardwood on the ground, and a sleek neutral color palette with a warm inviting feel. Massive cushions should be positioned around the place for customers to relax on while they page through magic books or pick out their next tarot deck. I picture potions and tinctures packaged in modern glass bottles, with my family’s sigil pressed into wa
x on the seal. I may not be ready for all the magic and mayhem that comes with this new title, but the redecorating, I can definitely handle.

  I step past the rows of shelves in the middle of the shop and step through the curtain that leads to the reading area. I immediately imagine antique barn-style doors to close off and separate the space instead. Light streams through the sheer curtains and settles on a large round ebony table that sits in the middle of the room. I won’t be the one to remove it as it’s been a fixture in my family’s shop for more generations than I could count. I make a note to get some colorful armchairs for this area and to look at some textured wallpaper options. I want a cozier vibe back here as opposed to the ominous feel it has now with all the dark purple and black. It’s time to bring this psychic crap into the twenty-first century.

  The wood of the stairs groans under my weight as I start up the flight that leads to the apartment above the shop. A familiar tinkling sound of the chimes above the front door reaches me, and instead of going up, I turn on the spot and rush back down.

  Shit. I must have forgotten to lock the doors.

  “Sorry, we’re closed,” I announce as I burst through the saffron-colored curtain and rush toward the front of the shop to intercept whoever just walked in.

  “We’ll be open in a couple months…” I continue, but when I exit the potions aisle and turn toward the front door, I smack right into a large, hard chest.

  An oomph escapes me, and I stumble back, ricocheting off a wall of pure muscle. Large hands grab me by my shoulders and keep me from ass-planting myself on the linoleum floor. I press my palms against man pecs to steady myself, and then I look up. And up. And then up a little more before finally settling my gaze on what is probably the most attractive face I’ve ever seen.

  I just body checked Joe Jonas’s hotter, beefier, and more masculine looking older brother. Creamy olive skin, hair the color of rich freshly ground coffee, a five o’clock shadow I want to lick off his perfectly angled jaw. The man’s bright moss-green eyes look me over, and I’m so close to him I can take in the small ring of gold that circles his pupils. He has a scar that starts a couple inches above his left eyebrow and slashes down his face, stopping just under his cheek. The large scar does nothing to take away from his overall gorgeousness. If anything, it adds a more feral vibe that I suspect any red-blooded woman would find utterly irresistible.

  I stop teetering long enough to realize that I’m gawking. I should probably say something. Perhaps a sorry for the pinball impression I just did against your rock hard body. But nope, no words come out of my mouth; instead, I just continue to gape at him. At some point, and I couldn’t say when, I started to pet his chest. The button-down shirt he’s wearing is incredibly soft, and I wonder what the material is, because it’s entirely too lush to be cotton.

  Realization dawns on me, and I snatch my hand back, stepping away from the physical manifestation of all of my best dreams. I back up, his strong grip falling away as I put distance between the two of us. A part of me, one I like to call my inner fiend, really wishes he would have just kept holding on. That same part of me is really hoping he’ll pin me against a wall and show me what he’s really all about, which is exactly why it gets shoved to the far recesses of my deranged brain and ignored for the more logical and socially acceptable parts that can be trusted to deal with a complete stranger.

  “Hi. Um, super sorry, but we’re closed. I must have forgotten to lock the door when I came in to do inventory. We should be open again in about a month, give or take maybe another month. I really, really hope you’ll come back for whatever you need then. We’ll do a grand re-opening with all kinds of fun things...and coupons…” I finally get a hold of my runaway mouth and stop talking.

  Coupons? I want to crawl into a corner and rock back and forth until the mortification goes away. I’m pretty sure I also just said really twice. Well, that will become a moment I relive late at night when I’m trying to go to sleep but instead rehash every dumb or embarrassing thing I’ve ever done in my life.

  He smiles at me, flashing his straight white teeth, and I force myself to take another step back in hopes it will keep me from being further twitterpated by whoever he is and whatever he wants.

  “Are you Ruby?” he asks, a glint of confusion and interest in his swirling green gaze. “I’m Rogan Kendrick, we spoke on the phone earlier this week.”

  “Oh,” I coo loudly before I can stop myself. I clear my throat and try to wrangle my hormones. “Yeah, no,” I start again more somberly. “I’m her granddaughter Lennox. I’m sorry to tell you that Ruby passed away...yesterday actually,” I inform him somewhat awkwardly, as a plume of sadness settles over me like my own personal rain cloud.

  Surprise, disappointment, and then strangely defeat seeps into his quagmire-kissed gaze at my announcement, and his shoulders slump as he steps back and runs his fingers through his silky hair.

  “I’m so sorry…” I offer, when I see how upset he is by the news. I immediately want to ask how he knew my grandmother, but then I recall that he didn’t know what she looked like so he couldn’t have known her well enough to warrant this level of emotion at hearing that she’s died.

  I watch as his eyes move around the shop and land on the velvet purple bag of bones I set by the register when I walked in. His gaze flashes to mine, a flicker of hope burning on a wick of desperation in his stare. And then he goes and ruins all of his gorgeousness by looking deep into my eyes and saying, “Tedas ruk shaw aus forin ve Osteomancer. Ise hiruse ou fooiq tork shin iei.”

  Warmth licks up my body to wrap around my wrists, neck, and ankles. My eyes widen with shock and then betrayal, as I recognize the first half of the incantation he just made. I spoke those very words myself to Hoot when I bound him as my familiar. My Mancer is as rusty as a battleship at the bottom of the sea, but aside from this asshole claiming me as his familiar, he just bound me to him in another way. I only recognized a couple of words, but it’s enough that panic and rage are now surging through me, and I’m about to get my money’s worth out of the years of kickboxing classes I’ve been taking.

  I don’t know what Rogan Kendrick expected me to do when he violated magical law and bound me to him, but judging by the way he crumbled like a cardboard box, me punching him in the stomach wasn’t it.

  “What the fuck?” I demand, outraged as I go for a follow-up knee to the face.

  He leaps back, saving his head from my patella and his dick from my Converse by mere inches. He slams into a shelf of lace dream catchers and crystals, hitting it so hard that it comes crashing down. I dive to get out of the way of the large wood shelves, just barely missing being clipped by them. Rogan stands up on the other side, annoyingly recovered from my hit, and glares at me.

  He. Fucking. Glares. At. Me.

  I pick up a candle and chuck it at him, following that up with another candle and another. He’s dodging and batting away projectiles, while Hoot just lies in the corner, calmly taking in the show.

  “Please, just hear me out?” Rogan pleads when I almost brain him with a glass bottle of love potion. He eyes the shelf I’m pulling my missiles from, and we both come to the same realization at the same time: I’m about to run out of things to throw. There are shelves of incense behind me, but they don’t pack the same punch that potions, rocks, and candles do. I reach for another glass bottle, and the next thing I know, I’m being tackled. He just leaps over the tipped bookshelf like a graceful cat, and down I go like some grasshopper that didn’t even know it was being hunted.

  Sonofabitch.

  This soul-stealing bastard is heavy, and I’m suddenly cursing all the muscles that I was just drooling over. Should have fucking known he was too hot to be trustworthy. It’s always the pretty ones you have to look out for, my Aunt Hillen has always warned. Hate when she’s right. Rogan pins my wrists down on each side of my head in a way that would be sexy if he hadn’t just stolen me and connected us forever. I struggle against his hold, panting and s
creeching like a vengeful banshee from the depths of hell, but neither Rogan nor Hoot seem to be fazed at all by anything that I’m doing.

  “Just listen to me,” Rogan grunts as I struggle to get free. “I need help. All you have to do is help me, and then I swear your life is your own again. This doesn’t have to be permanent if you’ll just cooperate.”

  “If I’ll cooperate?” I seethe. “I’m going to kill you and grind your bones to dust. Then I’ll curse them so that you come back every week just so I can kill you again. I’m going to spend my entire existence making you suffer,” I snarl into his face. And just when I think I can’t get any madder, he goes and gives an amused smile at my threats.

  “No, Osteomancer, because what happens to my soul, happens to yours. What happens to my bones, happens to yours. We are bound now, and unless I remove it, there isn’t a thing you can do to change that.”

  Betrayal and terror bubble up in my throat, but I swallow it down and headbutt him. I wasn’t quite prepared for how badly that was going to hurt, but neither was he, and we both let out pained groans and shield our faces. My forehead is throbbing, whereas he’s holding his nose.

  “Lennox, please. I’m begging you. I need your help, and you don’t know it yet, but you need mine,” he tells me, his deep voice a hint more nasal.

  That probably has something to do with the blood I see seeping through his fingers. Good. Hope I broke his too perfect nose. At that thought, he reaches out to me with a bloody hand and smears crimson ichor down my chest.

  “What the fu—” I bellow at the same time he growls, “Seno.”

  And then, just like that, I feel consciousness drain away, and everything goes black.

  4

  My head aches and I feel like I’ve been sucking on dry cotton balls. “I Put a Spell on You” starts playing quietly, and I’m too befuddled to figure out why it’s playing or where it’s coming from. I peel my eyes open, confused. Dark purple walls and familiar smells offer comfort and reassurance as I take in my surroundings, and then my eyes land on him.