by R. E. Butler
A Muse for Mishka (Wiccan-Were-Bear #12)
By: R. E Butler
Copyright 2016 R. E. Butler
A Muse for Mishka (Wiccan-Were-Bear #12)
By R. E. Butler
License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Cover by CT Cover Creations
This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is coincidental.
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic sexual content and is intended for those older than the age of 18 only.
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Editing by Jennifer Moorman
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To my best sisterfriend, Joyce – I’ve got a permanent reservation at Bistro Rouge with your name on it! Love you!!
Thanks to Shelley for beta-reading.
To Aunt B. L. I love you dearly!
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To the fans who have been waiting since 2011 for Mishka’s story, I hope you enjoy the male he’s become.
Table of 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
Contact the Author
Other Works by R. E. Butler
Coming Soon…The final book in the Wiccan-Were-Bear Series
A Muse for Mishka (Wiccan-Were-Bear #12)
By R. E. Butler
Mishka, the five-hundred-year-old vampire master of the city of Cleveland, prides himself on having one of the largest covens in the Midwest. Although he has a life envied by many, the only thing he is missing is a mate. How to begin to find the right female for himself is a mystery, and the lonely nights are starting to get to him.
Musical muse Harmony Celeste has been traveling the states for the last two years trying to find her beloved mate. After a vision showed her with a golden-haired male with fangs, she knows for sure that he’s a vampire, but his location is a mystery. With her band in tow, she visits every major vampire coven in the states and uses her muse power to not only feed herself but also, she hopes to find her mate.
When Mishka and Harmony meet, sparks will fly, but they won’t be the only ones who notice. Human enemies have never stopped watching, and they take every opportunity to try to destroy vampires and those they love in the name of humanity. When Harmony is taken, Mishka knows it’s only a matter of time before she’s killed.
This is a Wiccan-Were-Bear story with a vampire who has been alone long enough, a muse who likes to play, and an enemy who will stop at nothing until all vampires are wiped from the face of the earth. Expect fangs, blood, and scorching sex between a vampire and his beloved mate.
Chapter 1
Mishka stood behind the one-way mirrored glass that allowed him to see into his club, Fang 21, without allowing anyone to see him. Behind the glass was a private viewing room where he retired from time to time to escape the noise of the crowds. He lived and worked at Fang, as did most of his coven. He’d been master vampire of the city of Cleveland for decades. His coven was the largest and most powerful in the Midwest.
Turning away from the glass, he settled onto a plush leather couch and tried to relax. A knock on the door interrupted him, and he growled before standing and moving to the door. Pulling it open, he saw Brone – one of his vampires – and his beloved mate, Arissa.
“Are we bothering you?” Arissa asked.
Mishka pushed open the door farther and gestured inside. “Of course not.”
“We were looking for you in the family room,” she said.
Brone sat on the couch and pulled his mate onto his lap. Arissa was a sweet Wiccan who protected the coven with her powers.
Mishka’s family comprised his inner circle of seven vampires. They shared a private room on the second floor of the club, with guards posted at the stairs. Mishka normally spent time in the family room, but tonight he’d wanted to be alone. Shutting the door, he opted not to sit and instead paced by the glass. “What can I do for you?”
“I was making plans for the Saints and Sinners party,” Arissa said. “For the last few years, you’ve used the house bands, and this year Cella and I decided to search out new talent. We’ve got some bands lined up this week for auditions, and I wanted to get your input.”
“As long as they play by the rules of the club, I’m fine with whichever band you choose. You know that I trust you and Cella to handle these sorts of things.”
“I know. You’ve just been…distracted lately.”
Mishka rubbed his temples with a sigh. “You’re sweet to be concerned, but I’m fine.”
“Cella also wanted to know what you’d like your costume to be this year,” Arissa said as she eased off Brone’s lap and stood.
“I always go as a sinner. Tell her I’d like to be a saint this year.”
Arissa grinned. “I’m sure she’ll come up with something amazing.”
Brone, who didn’t speak much to anyone except to Arissa, nodded at Mishka and escorted his beloved out of the room. When the door was shut and the room was once more empty, Mishka sank onto the couch and closed his eyes. He envied Brone, who had spent a thousand years as an unmated male, but had found completion with the redheaded Wiccan. Mishka was only five hundred. A long life compared to fragile human life but just a drop in the bucket of eternity. He wanted to find his own beloved, if only he knew where to look.
Chapter 2
Harmony stood offstage and watched the crowd as they swayed to the music pumping through the speakers. Bait, the vampire-run bar in the middle of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, had red walls that glistened like something unholy had been splashed on them. Humans wearing little more than pasties and G-strings packed the space. She’d been in numerous vamp bars over the years, but she’d never been in one that made her want to take a bath in a vat of hand sanitizer quite like this place.
Bridge, her friend and bandmate, cleared his throat.
“What?” she asked without turning her head to look at him.
“You’re not feeling any connection.”
It was a statement and not a question, but one she’d been mulling over herself ever since she came into Ohio the day before.
Sighing, she crushed her empty water bottle and turned to face him, tossing the bottle into a nearby trash can. “No.”
“Then we should go.”
“We have another set at midnight,” she pointed out.
Her band, Fluffy Venom, had been performing in vamp-run bars across the country for the last two years. As a musical muse, she had to not only emotionally feed off of humans and supernatural creatures to stay alive but she also was looking for her truemate.
Bridge looked over the top of her head, which was no hard task for him – she was a petite five-foot-four, and he was six and a half feet tall. “They don’t care what they hear. They’re drunk on you and the food.”
He couldn’t hide his distaste for the club from her, but she ignored
it. Bridge didn’t think much of vampires who treated the humans who fed them as commodities to be bartered and traded. Bait was the sort of vamp bar that he thought should be shut down permanently.
Turning back to watch the crowd, Harmony touched her power lightly and felt an answering flare of energy bounce back toward her. She was at the zenith of her power, so feeding anymore wouldn’t benefit her. The vampires in the club were feeling elated thanks in part to her power. When she sang, her muse power mimicked the powers of the ancient sirens – she could make the listeners happy or sad, depending on how she used her power. She never liked to make anyone feel bad, so she always opted for the positive spectrum of emotions, like love and joy. The emotional reaction of the listeners then fed her nature. The happier the listeners were, the stronger the feedings were. Conversely, if she were interested in making people miserable, she could take them to dark places emotionally. Those feedings, using the dark side of her power, were intense and potentially addictive. She’d been taught at a young age to steer clear of the darker side of her powers and instead focus on making people happy.
“You’re right,” she said. “We can take off. Let me check in with the owner.”
She passed by her other two bandmates, Tamar and Wyst, and told them to pack up. Bridge followed her as she made her way through the crowd to where the owner, a skinny male named Pietro, sat on a maroon couch with several half-naked women hanging on him.
“Done so soon?” Pietro asked as he rubbed his fingertips over the still-open wound of a bite mark on one female’s throat. She was so blissed-out on Harmony’s muse vibes that she didn’t even seem to care that he was touching the raw spot on her neck.
Harmony never told anyone outside of her close friends that she was searching for her truemate. As far as Pietro, or any other vampire master of a city knew, she and her band just liked to travel.
No one ever seemed to care what her intentions were. It was no secret she was a musical muse and that she used her supernatural abilities to make people happy and feed off their energy. What wasn’t well known was that she’d had a vision about her soul mate two years earlier on her twenty-fifth birthday. A male with long, dark-blond hair, golden eyes, and fangs. There was no doubt in her mind that her truemate was a vampire. The only thing she didn’t know was where the hell he lived.
“Everyone’s happy,” she said to Pietro, gazing briefly at the human stretched out on his lap who wore a goofy smile on her face.
“Indeed,” he said. Bringing his bloody fingertips to his lips, he licked at them like a cat while he held her gaze. It was about as erotic as watching paint dry, except it made her want to vomit, too.
“Thanks for opening the doors to my band,” she said, turning abruptly and moving as quickly though the mass of bodies as she could. “I need about ten showers and a rom-com movie-fest to get this grossness out of my brain.”
Bridge snorted in agreement.
She met up with her bandmates at the back of the club, where they were loading the equipment into their van.
“He give you any trouble for backing out of the last set?” Tamar asked, his gaze lifting past her to the club, as if he expected a pissed-off group of vampires to come out and to force them to perform.
“Of course not. He had a good feeding.”
When humans were truly blissed-out on her power, their blood tasted extra sweet to a vampire. The result was a strange side effect of her abilities.
“That guy,” Wyst said as he lifted his guitar case and put it gently on the floor of the van, “was one of the slimiest-looking vamps I’ve ever met.”
“I think so, too,” she said. Maybe it was the shiny leather pants and the shirt open to the waist. Or maybe it was the way he looked as if he was picturing her and every other woman naked and spread before him.
Bridge said, “I’m fucking glad he’s not your truemate. I’d think your nature was on the fritz if he was your one-and-only.”
She shivered in disgust. “I’m thankful for small miracles.”
“Enormous miracles,” Tamar corrected.
When the last piece of equipment was loaded into the van, Harmony opened her phone’s calendar and said, “We’ve got a stop in Columbus tomorrow night, and then Saturday night is some kind of special party at a club in Cleveland.”
“Party?” Tamar asked.
“According to the email, it’s a Saints and Sinners party.”
“What the hell is that?” Wyst asked.
“Costume party, according to the instructions. We should dress like our favorite saint or sinner,” Bridge said, reading over her shoulder.
“Ugh,” Tamar said.
“Oh get into the spirit of things. It’ll be fun. We’ll get costumes when we get to town on Saturday. That’s an order.”
Wyst gave her a salute with his middle finger.
Chuckling, she followed them to the RV that they’d been calling home for the past two years as they traveled. She opened the passenger door and settled onto the comfortable seat.
“I’ll just point out that I called shotgun,” Wyst said as he settled on the couch behind the driver’s seat.
“It didn’t count,” she said.
Tamar sagged heavily behind the wheel and started the engine. As the vehicle rumbled to life, she waved to Bridge, who was driving the cargo van.
“How can you say it didn’t count? Shotgun is shotgun, period.”
She looked over her shoulder with a grin. “You called shotgun before we walked out of the club. You have to be in view of said vehicle in order for shotgun to count.”
“You just made that up.”
“Nope. It’s in the official shotgun handbook.”
He snorted. “Fine. Then I won’t make you tea to soothe your throat.”
“Aw. You know you will. I’ll ask you nicely, you’ll say no, and Bridge will get involved and threaten to rip your arm off and beat you to death with it. Then you’ll make me tea anyway. Why not just skip the middle part and do what I want right now?”
Wyst, a falcon shifter with silky black wings and pale amber eyes, gave her a disgruntled look and got up, heading for the kitchen.
Bridge kept his voice low when he said, “I wouldn’t really kill him for not making you tea. Now, the way he hogs the remote? Definitely.”
She laughed. “I would, too.”
“Your majesty,” Wyst said as he put a mug of tea in front of her.
“You can just call me princess. It’s easier.”
He snorted. “For the record, I call shotgun on the next leg of the journey. The passenger seat is the comfiest one in the place.”
“Fine, fine. I promise to sit on the couch next time. Baby.”
Wyst grunted as he settled down on the couch. “I’m holding you to it, Harm.”
She clicked her tongue at him with a laugh and blew on the steam before taking a sip. Her throat always bothered her after singing. The more sets they did at a club, the more abused her throat felt. Thankfully, she healed quickly, but she still suffered discomfort for a while.
“Maybe after we sing at the Cleveland club, we can go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” Wyst said.
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, pressing the button on the side of the chair to make it recline. “Wake me when we hit Columbus.”
* * *
Harmony could just make out the dark blond hair as the man moved ahead of her in a club. She’d never been this close to him in her dreams before. Strobe lights flashed around her as she wove through a faceless crowd. Music pulsed, with bass beats throbbing, as she tried to get closer to her truemate. No matter how much she pushed or how fast she moved, she couldn’t get any closer to him.
He turned suddenly, fangs flashing and golden eyes glittering, and then he disappeared.
Harmony sat up with a jolt, with goose bumps covering her skin, and her breath caught in her throat. She fell back against the seat, pressing her palms to her eyes and taking a few steadying breaths.
“Bad?” Tamar whispered.
“Not really. I saw him – the golden eyes, the fangs, the hair – but I was so close to him this time.” She inhaled and exhaled several times and then cracked her knuckles. “I think it’s a good sign.”
“Columbus?” he asked.
“Maybe. Or Cleveland. I wish the visions were clearer.”
“You’ll find your truemate when the time is right.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll just be glad we can stop traveling. I’m so sick of being on the road.”
Wyst snored loudly, breaking up the moment of silence, and she chuckled.
“I could do without needing to wear ear plugs at night, too.”
“You and me both.”
Chapter 3
Mishka looked at himself critically in the mirror. Fang 21’s annual Saints and Sinners party had always been a big draw for the club. The last few years he hadn’t been as interested in the party, and although he had told the family that it was because he’d grown tired of the spectacle of it all, the truth was that it reminded him too much of his former lover, Elizabeth. When the Wiccan had dumped all her lovers prior to performing a collaring ceremony with a shifter bear den, Mishka hadn’t really known what to do with himself. He’d never been set aside by a lover before. Sure, in his five hundred years, he’d said goodbye to numerous lovers, but no one had ever said goodbye to him.
He’d almost canceled the party this year, but Arissa was excited to be handling the party planning, and he hadn’t wanted to disappoint her. As the coven’s personal Wiccan, Arissa kept the vampires and their mates safe. She was also a balm to Brone, his one-thousand-year-old assassin who, before Arissa, had been as likely to kill someone as to smile at him.
