by Sarah Piper
I need to hurry.
Shit. I hate the idea of leaving gear behind, especially since most of this stuff belonged to my parents—some of the few possessions I wasn’t forced to sell after they died—but Mother Nature clearly wants me off this rock, and I don’t have time to remove everything as I go. I’ll have to come back tomorrow, hope that some bored park ranger doesn’t take it down first.
Right now, it’s all I can do to clip in and work my way down without slipping and smashing my face.
Wedging my toes into a horizontal crack, I release the slippery rock and reach behind me for the chalk bag, knowing I’ll find a pasty mess, hoping it’ll help my grip anyway. But I don’t even find any paste—just a small, thin card, completely out of place.
It’s a Tarot card. I know it before I even look at it.
Fear prickles across my scalp.
I’ve never had my own deck, but Mom did—one of the few things she kept from her old life. Before I sold our house, I nearly tore up the floorboards searching for it, eventually concluding she had it with her on that fateful day, losing it in the tumult of the rushing water. But on the one-year anniversary of their death, the cards started appearing to me at random like this. Under my pillow, tucked into the spokes on my bicycle wheel, hidden in an old shoe. Last week the King of Cups dropped out of my sealed electric bill. Yesterday I emptied the washing machine and found the Fool prancing around at the bottom, bright and undamaged.
I can’t say for sure it’s Mom, but the cards always bring me a message, and they’re never wrong.
I hold it up to my face now, blinking away the stinging mix of rain, sweat, and sunscreen.
The Tower.
At the center of the ominous image, a stone tower rises from a rocky outcropping at the edge of the sea. A bolt of lightning decimates half the structure and sends two people jumping out the highest windows, presumably to their deaths.
Not the most encouraging visual, given the circumstances.
I try to feel into the energy, to decipher whatever message is trying to come through. Usually I pick up on an impression, a general feeling. But this time the message feels more sinister, more urgent. I sense it in the tightening of my muscles, hear it like a whisper on the wind, straining to reach me through the rain.
Danger ahead, Stevie. Trouble and treachery. You’re not alone…
Seconds later, the card vanishes from my grasp, lost beneath the clatter of some new threat. The prickling across my scalp turns at once to sharp, stinging pain.
Rockslide.
Instinctively I haul my pack over my head, shove one hand into a crevice, and tuck in close to the rock, toes still balanced in the crack. Dressed in a tank top and a pair of cargo shorts, I’ve got zero protection against the assault of tiny stones biting my bare shoulders and arms.
Stones? Scratch that.
Hail.
Lightning flickers behind me, making my shadow dance against the rock face as the wind surges with renewed force, whipping icy pellets at me from all directions. They clatter like gunfire.
Adrenaline shoots through my veins, my heart pounding so hard it hurts. Rappelling in this weather is much too dangerous, but I can’t stay here. I’m totally exposed, and the storm is parked right on top of me now. It’s only a matter of time before lightning zaps me like a bug, or a chunk of rock bashes my head, or my rope breaks and sends me careening into oblivion…
Come on, girl. Think. Think!
It’s almost impossible not to picture the poor souls in that Tarot card, but I do my best to shove them out of my mind, refocusing on my own precarious predicament. I can’t go back up—I’d be even more exposed up top. I’m better off descending, but I can’t protect my head and manage the ropes and gear placements and mind my hand- and footholds. I can barely see a few inches in front of me.
I need shelter. And up here, there’s only one possibility.
El Ala—The Wing.
It’s a secondary route about twenty feet to my left and fifteen down, skirting the edge of the owl’s “wing.” It’s the most dangerous route by far, but still bolted from when people used to climb here legally, back before a huge chunk of rock cracked off and killed three climbers in the early nineties.
Just inside the wing lies a deep fissure in the rock, big enough you can see it from the dirt road leading into town.
Big enough I can fit inside and wait out the storm.
Another bolt of lightning.
Another crack of thunder.
The hail intensifies, pinging off my pack. That shit’s the size of gumballs now, their stinging bite turning into a bruising wallop.
El Ala? Here I come.
I re-settle the pack on my shoulders and lean back, propping my feet against the wall as the harness takes the bulk of my weight, providing momentary relief for my calves. My head and arms are prime targets for the hail and debris shooting down from above, but if I can’t make the twenty-foot traverse climb to that cave, I’ll have much bigger problems.
I lean close to the wall again, get a good grip, and gingerly step to the left, seeking a better toehold. But just as my foot finds purchase, the wind lashes out again, blasting me off the rock like a bug off a windshield.
Frantically I scramble for the ropes, but it’s too late. I drop hard and fast, bashing my knee on the way down.
There’s no time to scream, no time for panic. Suddenly the rope tightens and the harness jerks me to a hard stop, gear clattering, stomach leaping into my throat.
Blood leaks from my throbbing knee. My lines are hopelessly tangled. I’m suspended from Death’s eager grasp by a rope that’s less than an inch thick, and now I’m below the position of the cave, which means I’ll have to climb over and back up.
Unless…
Fighting against the relentless wind, I kick my legs out and back, harnessing the momentum into a pendulum swing, rocking harder and higher, closer… closer… almost there…
My fingers graze the bottom of the wing, just a few feet beneath the cave floor, but I can’t get a good grip.
I try again on the next swing.
Miss.
Again.
Again.
Again.
On what feels like the twentieth attempt, I finally hook it with the tip of my shoe, and let out a victory cry bordering on mania. The toehold is precarious, gravity doing its damnedest to suck me back in the other direction.
No way, asshole. You can’t have me.
With every muscle in my leg screaming in agony, I pull myself in by my toe, fighting the wind, fighting fatigue, fighting mental anguish until finally I reach out with my hand and feel the rough, wet rock beneath my fingertips.
Quickly, I clip into one of the old bolts, sending a prayer of thanks to whoever put it there.
I climb the last few feet up to the cave and, with the very last bit of strength I’ve got, haul myself inside.
The clatter of the hail turns to a din, and a new warmth pulses all around me. Sprawled out on my belly, I give myself a moment to catch my breath, then slowly raise my head, peering inside the dark space of the cave.
I’m still here, mostly in one piece.
“Thank you,” I exhale into the deep.
“You’re welcome,” comes an unexpected reply.
And there, from somewhere inside that gnawing blackness, a pair of glowing yellow eyes blinks to life, and a shadow in the shape of a man peels away from the wall and stalks toward the light.
Toward me.
What dangers and intrigue will Stevie face? Dive into the sexy supernatural world of Tarot Academy and find out! Grab your copy of Tarot Academy 1: Spells of Iron and Bone now!
Origins of The Witch’s Rebels
I was primarily inspired to write this series by three things: my fascination with Tarot, my love of all things witchy, and my desire to see more kickass women telling stories for and about other kickass women.
I’ve always enjoyed books, movies, and TV shows about witches, monsters,
and magic, but I never found exactly the right mix. I wanted a darker, grittier Charmed, an older Buffy, and most of all—as much as I love the brothers Winchester (who doesn’t?)—I really wanted a Supernatural with badass bitches at the helm, hunting monsters, battling their inner demons, and of course, sexytimes. Lots and lots of sexytimes.
(Side note: there’s not enough romance on Supernatural. Why is that? Give me five minutes in that writers’ studio…)
Anyway, back to The Witch’s Rebels. We were talking about badass bitches getting the sexytimes they deserve.
Right.
So I started plotting my own story and fleshing out the character who would eventually become our girl Gray, thinking I had it all figured out. But as I dove deeper into the writing, and I really got to know Gray, Darius, Ronan, Asher, Emilio, and Liam, I discovered a problem. A big one.
With so many strong, sexy guys in the mix, I couldn’t decide which one would be the hero to win Gray’s heart. I loved them all as much as she did!
I agonized over this.
It felt like the worst kind of love triangle. Er, love rhombus? Love—wait. What’s the word for five of them? Pentagon! Yes, a love pentagon.
Pure torture!
But then I had my lightbulb moment. In the face of so much tragedy and danger, Gray fights hard to open herself up to love, to trust people, to earn those hard-won friendships. Her capacity for giving and receiving love expands infinitely throughout the story, so why the hell shouldn’t she be able to share that with more than one man?
There was no reason to force her to choose.
So, she doesn’t. And her story will continue!
You, dear reader, don’t have to choose either—that’s part of the fun of reverse harem stories like this. But if you happen to have a soft spot for a particular guy, I’d love to hear about it!
Drop me a line anytime at [email protected] and tell me who’s winning your heart so far! I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours! *wink wink*
About Sarah Piper
Sarah Piper is the author of sexy, swoony urban fantasy and paranormal romance novels, including the Kindle All-Star winning series, The Witch’s Rebels, and the upcoming Tarot Academy.
She lives with her husband in Colorado (though that changes frequently) (the location, not the husband), where she spends her days sleeping like a vampire and her nights making inappropriate jokes, writing witchy stories, playing with her ever-expanding collection of Tarot cards, binge-watching Supernatural (Team Dean!), and obsessing over the best way to brew a cup of tea.
You can find her online at SarahPiperBooks.com and hanging out in her Facebook readers group, Sarah Piper's Sassy Witches! If you're sassy, or if you need a little more sass in your life, or if you need more Dean Winchester gifs in your life (who doesn't?), come hang out!
