by Heather Long
Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Robyn Peterman. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Magic and Mayhem remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Robyn Peterman, or their affiliates or licensors.
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THE WITCHED AWAY BRIDE
My story began when a vampire I dubbed Mr. Nasty-Face sent me on a crazy, impossible task to fix his mis-Turnment of a certain succubus. Easy, right? Yeah, then I ran into the skunk who would change my life (and spray me, but let’s forget that memory). Once I got to Assjacket, well, let’s just say I ended up with the teenager who wasn’t—a kind of happily-while-you’re-here scenario. Now my teen is a grown woman with a Highlander for a lover, and I’m left to deal with Gigi. She wants me to find her a happily-for-real-ever-after and I’ve still got to solve my problems.
So to be clear, all I have to do is undo the unbreakable, pair the unpairable, and keep my man happy. One out of three isn’t bad. I’m a witch singer, not a dang miracle worker.
Just sing at a couple of weddings, the Baba Yaga said, it’ll be fun, she said, it’ll solve all your problems…except no weddings are possible with the witched away brides.
THE WITCHED AWAY BRIDE
THE WITCH SINGER BOOK 3
HEATHER LONG
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Epilogue
Amazing Magic and Mayhem Authors
About the Author
Also by Heather Long
CHAPTER ONE
O nce upon a time in Assjacket…
Stop laughing. I’m being serious here. Fairytales start somewhere, and while my story wouldn’t qualify for the Mouse House, it definitely falls more in line with the Brothers Grimm. You see, my fairy godmonster dubbed me Bridget the Witch Singer while I was in the cradle. She used to tell me I brought my toys to life and stripped the paint from the walls, depending on my mood.
Silent timeouts had totally been a thing. That cone of silence spell? It still worked like a charm. Helped out when my friend Rika was my teenage pain in the ass. I kind of missed having her around as a kid, even if she frustrated me. That said, Rika as a friend proved to be enormously useful and fun, too.
Studying my appearance in the mirror, I evaluated my frock. For those of you that are wondering, yes, I know most people call it a dress. But I like the word frock, so I’m going with it. It was red and lacy with a frothy kind of look. Most women wouldn’t wear red to a wedding, but I wasn’t most women, and Martin loved me in this color.
Martin. I sighed. My favorite skunk. He wasn’t really a skunk. He’d been cursed. And I’d freed him from the curse. Another sigh wove through me. It was really rather romantic. He was brilliant, sweet, a little nerdy, and undeniably in love with me. The feeling was mutual. Still, we had a lot to learn about each other. Staying in Assjacket hadn’t been remotely boring, but as much as I wanted to linger…I needed to finish the task for Mr. Nasty-Face so I could remain free.
The last thing we needed was a horde of pissed off vampires coming after me. I’d had their claws on my throat for years, and I’d been their songbird in a gilded cage.
Not happening again. Never. Ever.
So I’d sing at some weddings, power those happily ever afters for all I was worth, get the magic answer to the question, then faster than Baba Yaga’s your bitch, I fix the twisted saga of the succubus Turn, and I’m free. Free to be with Martin forever and always, over ice cream sundaes and arguments about who should win The Singer (me of course) and…
An explosion rocked the side of the building. Really? Now? I wanted to enjoy the dazzle of my daydream of the perfect future. It was how I would psych up the power to sing the perfect damn ballad.
Another boom.
“Dammit!” Spinning away from the mirror, I stalked over to the door and jerked it open. “Shut up! Can’t you tell I’m…”
Boom!
The explosion damn near deafened me and it sent dust sprinkling down from the ceiling. I hummed a tune to create an umbrella. Disaster or not, nothing was going to spoil this hot as hell outfit before Martin got to appreciate me in it.
A roar split the morning air.
A very angry, pretty damn unpleasant roar.
“Where is she?”
Where was who? Darting outside before the cottage came down on my head, I glanced at the bedecked rose arbor where today’s wedding was supposed to take place. The groom was a wreck…literally.
I’d seen him five minutes earlier, and he’d been a dashing, beautiful hunk of man candy. Now he looked like a Build-A-Monster on crack. All seven feet of hairy beast, roaring.
“Where is she?”
The cry and hue climbed and another boom split the sunny morning. Twisting, I looked to the other cottage. The little wedding grotto had a few buildings for dressing, for partying, and for pre and post-wedding nookie.
The bride’s building was kind of gone.
Oh, that couldn’t be good.
“Where is she?” I joined in the shouting, and I tried not to curse. I felt sorry for the poor roaring bastard, but dammit, I needed to sing that happily ever after. Not possible with a bride!
Kirk
HATING KNEELING ALMOST as much as he hated the person he knelt in front of, Kirk kept his gaze on the dirt. The click of nails vibrated through him. The Baba Yaga had this thing about snapping her nails together when she was irritated. If it got to the grinding of her teeth, he was seriously screwed.
Opening his mouth, he considered all the buttering up and compliments he could offer. Then reconsidered it and shut his mouth. The last thing he needed was to misread the situation. If she wanted his comments, she’d damn well ask for them.
“One hundred thousand pounds to a casino in Monte Carlo,” she ticked off against one nail. “Two million yen to a casino in Bangkok. A half a million dollars to the Red Panda Saloon in Reno.”
The figures sounded right. Though she hadn’t mentioned…
“A collective eight million to four different reservations from Oregon to Oklahoma, all of which have been purchased by Shaman Running Bull.”
Crap. Running Bull didn’t believe in extensions. What he did believe in was scalping when someone tried to screw them over.
“In other words…” Baba Yaga paused right in front of him, a stiletto visible in his eyeline. She tapped her foot. Not a good sign. “Your debt collectors are going to start a war to see who gets to you first. A war will cause me a headache. I’m not fond of headaches.”
So was she going to have him drawn and quartered? It might be a way to satisfy all the people after his hide.
When she didn’t say anything else, he dared a peek up the length of lovely leg attached to the stiletto. A thwap on the back of his head sent his gaze back to the floor.
“I told you to stay,” she reminded him, her voice a sharp-edged blade. “Lucky for you, I have an even bigger headache today. So I’m going to use you like a hammer on an ingrown toenail.”
That didn’t sound remotely pleasant.
Clearing his throat, he waited another beat. When she didn’t continue, he said, “Ma’am?”
“Oh, you’re still here.” The stilet
to in his eyeline pivoted to turn. Her heels clicked in echo to her fingernails as she walked away from him. “You need to be in Assjacket, Smirk.”
His name was Kirk but he could live with the dismissive nickname. “Assjacket, ma’am?” He hated Assjacket. It was a smelly little town with obnoxious residents…
“A witch is pissing off a lot of people and disrupting fate. So before those three killjoys show up, you’re going to go to Assjacket, get her under control, and bring her back to me. Got it?”
Sort of. “It’s not the Shifter Whisperer, right?” Because he’d take his chances with Running Bull.
“No, it’s not her.” The level of are you stupid in her tone bordered on the insulting. “If I knew who it was, I’d have already dealt with it.”
Wait. She didn’t know? There was something she didn’t— He didn’t get to complete the thought, because he flew backwards, flung by magic. He tumbled ass over teakettle through a portal and landed in the middle of a bramble bush.
The sharp thorns pricked his skin, caught at his robe and left him arms akimbo and legs twisted.
Assjacket.
Ugh, he hated this place.
It was so full of…nature.
After he endured a dozen scrapes, his robes shredded, and his hair a mess of knots, Kirk finally freed himself from the bush. He’d really liked those robes. They were weaved from the finest alpaca fleece and felt as soft as a rose petal.
The deep red welts on his arms stung. The one on his ass hurt, too. It could have been worse, he supposed. At least he had his sweats on under the robe. The grass tickled his bare feet and a bug crawled onto his toe. With a grimace, he flicked the too many-legged thing away.
Nature sucked.
Give him a tall glass of champagne and a casino any day. Glancing around, all he found were trees.
Bushes. Grass.
More trees.
Has the Baba Yaga screwed up? Wasn’t she supposed to send him to Assjacket? Another slow circle didn’t even reveal a trail, just thick forest everywhere he looked. What the hell?
A quick inventory revealed his sweats, bare feet, and a stick of gum in his pocket. He didn’t even have his watch much less a wand. “So,” he said aloud to the forest. “It’s back to basics, is it?”
The bush where he’d lost his robe shuddered, the rattle dragging his attention. Another shiver and leaves tumbled away, then a furry little creature popped out and glared at him. A reddish little mongrel thrashed its long furry tail as though in agitation.
“I didn’t know raccoons came in red.”
“I didn’t know Warlocks came with muscles.” The snappish reply had all the huff of a thirty-year smoker at the backroom pool table. “You wrecked my house.”
Had he? “Send the bill to the Baba Yaga. She arranged the transportation.”
Pivoting, he marched away from the beastie. Damn Assjacket and its overpopulation of Shifters, rodents, and other hostile occupants.
“Hold your horses there, jack.” The rodent appeared in his path with a poof.
“The name is Kirk.”
“Didn’t ask, don’t care. You wrecked my house.”
Impatient with the day, he said, “And I told you to send the bill to the Baba Yaga, you little Trash Panda.” Raccoons were filthy little creatures.
Indignation filled the animal’s screech. “Trash panda? You overindulged schmuck. I’m a Red Panda…or as I prefer to be known, Firefox.”
He said the last with a hint of dramatic pause, but the joke fell flat. Kirk raised his eyebrows. “Sorry, you don’t look anything like a fox.”
An explosion in the distance echoed through the woods and scattered the birds. Good Goddess, could his day get any worse?
Then the animated stuffed animal launched at him all claws and teeth.
Apparently, it could.
CHAPTER TWO
Bridget
“BREATHE,” Rika told me, holding out the brown paper bag. “The last thing we need is for you to flip your lid. Mac is calming the Beastie Boy down, and there’s some lynch mob forming at the saloon, but I think Fat Bastard challenged them all to a poker tournament, so maybe they want to lynch him.”
That was a cheery thought. At least the Shifter King was on point. He could keep whatever the hell the Beast was in check. I pulled the crackling paper bag away from my mouth to study the woman who’d been my teen charge and now served in the capacity of best friend. “Any sign of the bride?” Shoving the bag back into place, I sucked in my breaths slower.
My panic didn’t have as much to do with the identity of the bride so much as she was a bride. I had the brass ring in sight, a solution to my problem. I couldn’t do anything if she didn’t walk down the aisle.
It didn’t help that she wasn’t the first bride to bolt on her wedding day. Maybe I was a curse on weddings. Two other brides had vanished before they could walk down the aisle, but since one of them was a cougar Shifter, most of us just assumed she changed her mind. The other chick? Her I didn’t know, but I’d just managed to land the singing gig when she packed up in the middle of the night and…
“No,” Rika said, and took a seat next to me on the steps. We were both ignoring the leaves and dirt. Her dress was a stunning shade of green overlaid with the tartan of her Highlander hunk. The only reason Rika and Angus were still in Assjacket was because of me. They could have escaped to the highlands of Scotland or somewhere more exotic, but she was being a real friend.
Sticking to my side ‘til I had the answer I needed and my guarantee of freedom. “And if you don’t get it, well you’ll need us to fend off the vampires…which could be fun, ya know?” The girl really had a warped idea of fun. Still, I appreciated the support.
I would regret asking my next question, I knew I would, but I asked it anyway. “And the explosions?”
“The bridal cottage is gone.” The statement of the obvious earned Rika a wry look, but she gave me an impudent grin. “You knew that.” It wasn’t just gone. A pile of matchsticks lay where the cottage had been. A raven circled it, agitation in every wing flap.
The gathered crowd for the wedding had divided into little clusters of concern. Martin was out there, likely soothing the guests as well as fishing for nuggets of information. People told him all kinds of things, even when they didn’t intend to share. It was a gift her Martin possessed. Goddess knew she confided in him willingly.
Missing brides was a problem, because the town had seen a rash of couplings over the last several months. Some went the mating route and skipped a formal ceremony. Others stole away in the night to elope—whether to another city or another dimension or just elsewhere.
Elsewhere sounded fun. Like…anywhere else. Maybe they could go to Vegas. “Do you think if I went to Vegas and sang at one of the chapels, that would count?”
Rika didn’t dignify the question with an answer. A roar sounded in the distance. The bridegroom was really not taking the turn of events well. Why hadn’t they just got married wherever they met? Or had they? I couldn’t really remember the details. Maybe the fanfare here was just to give Assjacket another reason to party.
Rubbing my chin, I let my gaze skip across the gathered. One runaway bride wasn’t really a thing. Two? Well, if they were cycling through weddings every weekend this summer, then not a really big thing either, right? I mean Zelda and Mac had certainly gotten the fertility thing going on, and they had a lot of happy people. Happy people meant lots of sex and love and proposals of one sort or another.
So runaway brides were a reasonable byproduct when one figured the odds, right? My gaze landed on the pile of sticks that had once been the bridal cottage. Really not thinking she bolted unless she really blasted out of there. Most brooms didn’t have that kind of kickback.
“I’m going to hell,” I said to no one in particular. Rika squeezed my arm, but surrendered her spot next to me as Martin arrived. The adorable man with his thick mullet of dark hair and a white stripe gave Rika a smile and sat next to me.
Without saying a word, he took my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles.
“I’m going to hell,” I repeated and leaned my head on his shoulder. “I know I should feel bad for the groom.” And the caterer, the decorator and everyone else involved, because the wedding they’d planned wasn’t going to happen.
“It’s hardly your fault, love.” Not even the soothing sound of his voice accompanying the gentle rub of his thumb against the back of my hand could quiet the turmoil within me. “I know how important your singing at the wedding was, but I’m sure they’ll find her and you’ll have your opportunity.” What he didn’t add was there was a wedding the next day. I could probably sneak in and just serenade the happy couple and bless them with a happily ever after…
“I know, but I was thinking about the cake. They’re not going to try and save that are they?” I pointed toward the castle cake which had been constructed right down to fairytale paths, forests, gargoyles and spires. It really was a work of art. And I was starving.
“Why don’t we go and find you some fried foods, wine, and chocolate? Maybe not in that order.” Man, he loved me.
“I feel like I should stay.” Not that I remotely wanted to, but all it took was one right twitch, the bride was back, she danced down the aisle, kissed her frog—beast—whatever he was—and they were off to their happily ever after. If I missed it, then I would be one less wedding toward my goal. Yep. Going to hell.
“Even if she turned up right now, I doubt they’d go forward with the big ceremony.” Though he crushed my whimsical hope, he continued to stroke my hand.
“We have a problem.” I might as well admit it, and get it out in the open. We were all thinking it.
