Witch Unexpected: The Thirteenth Sign Book 1
Page 1
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
Other books by Debbie Cassidy
About the Author
Copyright © 2020, Debbie Cassidy
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Cover by Covers by Juan
To Andrea, the Cora to my Fee. I love you babe!
Chapter One
Trying to date while a malevolent spirit played third wheel was a bitch.
Why the heck did I keep trying? Oh, yeah. Because I was damned if I’d allow a ghostly pest problem to ruin my love life.
I deserved to date like any other normal… Okay, so I was far from normal, but still. I deserved to bloody date, and Keith from work was up for the challenge.
A Magiguard with biceps to spare and kind brown eyes that always smiled at me, he’d been asking me out for weeks now. I’d turned him down—repeatedly—because, well, being cursed meant I was never alone for long. But Keith was adamant he could handle the parasite connected to me.
We’d met while I was working a freelance case for the Magiguard, or as I liked to call them, the outlier police. The Magiguard policed the supernatural community and, from time to time, hired me to help on the cases that required a heavier hand than they were permitted to apply. Or the ones where a little sneakiness was required. I was good for both, and they knew it.
Keith was a teddy bear of a warlock, a cutie with a smile always at the ready… Except for now. Nope, right now, he looked like someone had shoved a rod up his backside and was slowly rotating it, rotisserie style.
Jasper’s presence had that effect on people.
Jasper. My curse, and the bane of my existence, picked up his whiskey glass and took a sip before arching a brow my way. His lithe form was folded into a seat he’d dragged over from a nearby table to add to my table for two.
He’d dressed in a black, long-sleeved polo jumper that molded to his body, showcasing the lean muscle beneath. His dark hair was glossy, freshly washed, and brushed back off his forehead, so his high cheekbones and chiseled features were showcased to their best advantage.
There was a cruel beauty to Jasper.
Compelling and hypnotic if you looked too long.
I tore my gaze away from his piercing green eyes. Yeah, I’d learned not to look too long.
Instead, I focused on Keith and fixed a smile on my face, hoping he’d stop staring at Jasper and smile back at me. He obliged, but I instantly wished he hadn’t because there was a wild look in his eyes—a matador dressed in red in a bullring kinda look.
As usual, Jasper was the fucking bull.
We hadn’t even ordered yet, but like fuck was I making him stay if he didn’t want to be here.
I glanced down at the empty plate in front of me, the one that would be taken away when my order arrived. Never understood the point of those plates.
I pushed it aside and braced my forearms on the table. “Listen, Keith. You can go if you want. I told you this wouldn’t be easy.”
He sat up straighter, his jaw tightening as if I’d thrown him a challenge. What was it with most guys?
“I’m fine.” His gaze flicked to Jasper again. “I just didn’t expect the spirit to look so…”
“Handsome?” Jasper said smoothly.
Keith flinched. “It spoke to me.”
I groaned and closed my eyes.
“What?” Keith’s gaze flicked between Jasper and me. “It did.”
“I never said he was mute.”
Explaining Jasper’s existence and his connection to me was always awkward. I’d taken him on a year ago, agreed to allow him to bind to me to save the life of some friends. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Little had I known what the price would be and how often he’d exact it.
Not anymore though.
Now I had some control. Not enough to make him go away, but enough to keep him at bay. Having him follow me on dates, or show up while I showered, was a small cost to avoid the price he wanted me to pay.
Keith stared at me, waiting for me to explain Jasper to him. Honestly, I didn’t have the energy, but Jasper obviously did.
He set his glass down. “I speak. I eat. I drink, and I fuck.” His gaze slid my way. “She likes it when I bend her over and take her roughly from behind.”
I didn’t flinch at his words.
Jasper was a wanker. He said wankerish things to try and get a rise out of me. I was becoming totally desensitized to him. Didn’t mean I wasn’t tempted to punch him in the mouth, and if I’d thought it would hurt him, I might have.
Keith looked at me in horror as if to ask, is this true? I met his gaze levelly, and he made a choking sound of indignation, whether on my behalf or just in general, I wasn’t too sure.
“Yes,” Jasper said with a nod. “That’s exactly the sound she makes when she has my cock down her throat.”
I picked up the useless plate and smashed it into Jasper’s face. It shattered before making contact, pieces falling to the ground with soft chinks. Jasper smirked, and I curbed the urge to throttle him.
Maybe I wasn’t totally desensitized.
Around us, the room had descended into silence as the general hum of conversation ceased, but I didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought.
I glared at Jasper as he calmly sipped his drink. “Say what the fuck you want, Jasper. It’s just words now. Tag along on my dates, spy on me taking a fucking shit if you want, I don’t give a flying fuck, because you have no power over me.”
The hollow feeling in my chest contradicted my words, but that was my problem to deal with. I’d keep the upper hand as long as he didn’t know how much his presence affected me.
Jasper shrugged. “Really? No power over you? I’d say making you come so hard you stop breathing is a pretty awesome power.”
My eyes burned with anger and shame. “Fuck you, Jasper.”
His gaze dropped to my neck, to the amulet nestled at the base of my throat. “You can, Cora. All you need to do is take that thing off.” His tone was soft, almost wistful, and for some reason, my rage evaporated, leaving me drained.
“I’m not doing this with you.”
“Who else will you do it with?” Jasper asked. He tipped his head toward Keith. “The Magiguard who slipped away?”
Fuck.
* * *
“I hate you.” I took long strides down the street as if that would get me away from Jasper. “I fucking hate you so much.”
“No, you don’t,” he said. “You hate yourself for wanting me.”
“If I wanted you, I wouldn’t have had this commissioned.” I tugged at the chain around my neck to show off the amulet.
It winked blood-red in the streetlights.
Okay, so I hadn’t had it commissioned. It had been a gift—but Jasper didn’t need to know that.
I tucked it back under my shirt and picked up the pace down the street, boots clipping neatly against the pavement. Awesome, fuck-me boots. Four-inch heels, calf-high, and the softest leather. I’d even mown my lawn and waxed my legs. I hadn’t had sex in months. Keith was meant to be the icebreaker, the heat bringer, the meat plunger. Urgh. I’d even changed my sheets and put out candles.
Hope was a sneaky bitch. Hope could go suck an egg. I was done hoping.
Jasper was a plague, a limpet, a fucking ingrowing hair that kept…ingrowing.
I was supposed to be fucking tonight, and now I wasn’t, because like a wet fart, Jasper had scared off my ride.
At least this time, I’d chosen an outlier, not a human. The last guy Jasper had chased away was in therapy. Even though humans had been able to see ghosts for decades, the presence of a malevolent spirit like Jasper was enough to send even the most well-adjusted human screaming for the hills. I’d become so acclimatized to Jasper’s presence that I forgot how insidious and evil it could be to others.
After all the shit I’d been through, it was easy to forget how much the world had changed.
A few decades ago, an experimental drug spill had resulted in humans being able to see the dead. It had also brought to light the existence of Reapers—demons from a place called the Underealm. The drug had affected Reapers too, killing many of them. Due to the drop in their numbers, the volume of spirits trapped on the earthly plane had grown exponentially, and so a new system had been born. One where humans worked with the Underealm to monitor and dispatch the spirits of the dead to the other side.
I’d worked in such a place for a while. In fact, my best friend, Fee, was a Reaper. Not just any Reaper, but one of the elites—a Dominus Reaper. I’d helped her out too for a while. But that wasn’t my life anymore. Working for the Magiguard in Necro City, being trailed by Jasper, and not having sex was now my life.
Three months without bedroom action and my body was ready to screw anything that moved. Anything and anyone.
Except Jasper.
He was never touching me again.
I turned the corner onto my street, pushed open the gate to my tiny, terraced house, and clipped my way up the steps. Being a realist, I knew it was too much to hope that Jasper would simply piss off.
But there it was again… Hope.
I stepped into the hallway but didn’t bother to turn on the lights. The drapes were open, and moonlight flooded the house. What I needed most right now was to slide into bed with one of my epic vibrators.
I needed to come.
I needed Jasper to fuck off.
I gripped the balustrade just as he pressed his chest to my back. He was a spirit. A malevolent entity, and yet his body was warm and solid where it made contact with mine.
He was powerful and dangerous, but he wouldn’t allow anyone or anything to harm me. Yeah, sounded romantic, but the truth was far from it. I was a thing to him. A possession. A way to remain anchored to this world and everything he did for me or to me was for his own gain.
But when he was close like this, my body forgot all the reasons why he was bad for me, because my body remembered all the ways he could make me feel so good. All the tiny details I desperately wanted to forget.
“You’re wound so tight,” he purred, breath hot on my neck. “I could give you the release you want. Just take off the amulet, Cora.”
My pulse beat so hard in my throat, I was sure the world could hear it, and my core tightened and throbbed, eager for his touch. Yes, my traitorous body remembered. It remembered his expert hands, his hot mouth, his clever tongue, and his thick cock.
“Let me fill you,” he said.
My core clenched, and a wave of desire and need washed over me, leaving me wet and angry.
I hated that I craved him. Hated myself for being weak.
No. Stop thinking like that. I wasn’t weak. I was in control.
I pulled away and plastered a smirk on my face before facing him. “I’m not the one who needs you, Jasper. You need me. You need to feed off sex.” And he could only get that from me, the sap who’d agreed to bind to him. “You need the energy it gives you to manifest continually. Siphoning heat and energy from a roomful of humans isn’t enough for you, is it?”
Already, he was beginning to fade away, and soon he’d be gone.
His eyes narrowed. “We had a deal, Cora.”
“Yeah.” I turned away and climbed the steps to the first floor. “We did.”
* * *
The deal had been simple. Sex with Jasper once a month, and he’d save my friends' lives. I hadn’t really had much choice at the time. If I’d said no, Fee might have taken the deal in my place, and she’d been through too much already. I couldn’t let her take on Jasper too.
But once a month had become weekly, then biweekly as he’d insinuated himself into my life, offering his aid in exchange for access to my body. He was a deadly addiction, an insidious craving, but now I had an off switch.
I shut my bedroom door, knowing instinctively that he wouldn’t follow me now. When he vanished like this, he was gone. I had no idea where, and I didn’t give a shit. All that mattered was that, for a few blissful hours, I’d be free of him.
I stripped off and pulled on my PJs. The urge to get off was gone. Instead, a bone-aching exhaustion filtered through my veins.
I crawled into bed and lay staring at the ceiling. There was a crack in the plaster just above my bed that ran all the way to the other side of the room. I should probably get it checked out, but I probably wouldn’t.
My hand went to the amulet at my throat. It was cool against my fingertips. A gift from Elijah Black, my unofficial warlock mentor. It had arrived in the post with a note that simply read:
For your pest problem.
I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t commission it like I preferred to let Jasper think. But Elijah knew just what I needed.
A Jasper repellent.
The amulet, forged by the powerful Grimswood Coven up north, was a protection ward. It kept Jasper from being sexually intimate with me. It disrupted the bond between us, so he couldn’t feed off my energy and use it to manifest.
I’d been worried about that. Worried that if he didn’t get what he needed from me, he might hurt other people, but Elijah assured me that while bound to me, Jasper could only siphon a minuscule amount of energy from others. Only enough to manifest for short periods. His power would be muted too.
But the flipside was, so would mine.
I was a novelty. Some would say an abomination. Heck, even I didn’t fully understand what I was. I wasn’t born; I was created by Fee.
They called my kind tulpas—beings created with the force of another person’s will. Except regular tulpas remained trapped in their creator’s subconscious mind. I was different because Fee was different. Powerful. And through her, I’d taken on a life of my own. I had power of my own, the ability to shift from place to place, the ability to harness what witches called miasma without the need to be linked to a coven like other witches.
I was an anomaly no one understood, and the amulet was fucking with my abilities. I would have shifted from the restaurant to my house, but I couldn’t make long journeys using my teleportation power without being drained. Even short trips took the wind out of my sails.
“Just take it off, Cora.” Jasper’s voice was a whisper in the darkness.
Seriously? “Piss off, Jasper.”
“Take it off…”
“Never.”
I pulled the covers over my head and closed my eyes, ignoring the desperate pound of my heart and the zing in my blood.
“Never say never, Cora,” he whispered. “Tomorrow is another day.”
I felt him leave and relaxed into the mattress.
I needed sleep.
A warm fuzzy feeling trickled through my veins; the delicious lethargy that came just before sleep tugged me under.
My phone buzzed loudly on the bedside table, jarring me awake. I could ignore it, slip back under and into dreams, but the guttering needed cleaning, and I was running low on funds.
Fee had insisted on buying me this house, but I insisted on paying for its upkeep.
Dreams would have to wait. I groaned and made a grab for the phone.
There was only one person who ever called me at this unsocial hour—because this was when the monsters came out to play.
This was prime time.
I answered on the eighth buzz. “Hello, Ursula, what you got for me?”
Chapter Two
Ursula, my Magiguard boss, was waiting for me outside Lumiers, the only coffee shop in Necro City that catered solely to outliers.
Supernatural beings, like shifters, fae, witches, warlocks, and everyone in between, came here for coffee and cake, and Leana, the fae owner, catered to them all. There was only one rule—no fuckery—and she made doubly sure of it by placing wards all over the building. Outlier abilities were muted inside the building, and anyone attempting to engage in a rumble got knocked on their ass.