by Tegan Maher
She rubbed the end of her nose. “Next time we team up, I’ll come up with the cover story.”
“Deal.”
The man approached us and held his hands over his eyes to shield them from the flood lights. “I see another vehicle coming up the drive. My nights aren’t usually so busy. You guys call out for your dog but don’t go into the pens or stable areas until I get back.”
“Gotcha,” I said.
Lily Rose and I made our way deeper into the back area and called out for our fictitious dog. Once behind the shed, she gave me the stink eye and shifted into a dog. She barked and ran into the lights.
I called out after her, “Buster! Come here!”
She barked again and then disappeared into one of the stables with a pinecone wreath over the entrance. I glanced back to check for the cowboy but he hadn’t returned to the back of the house yet.
Lily Rose came running out of the stable as her dog form and straight into the next one. Clever. She could search while adding to our cover story. After a few seconds, she appeared at the entrance in human form and waved me over.
“What did you find?”
“An empty stall with a dog kennel. Not one that Hunter would have been able to fit in as a human. There’s dog hair around it that smells like him.”
I followed her into the stable and past a couple of horses that flicked their ears back and gave us a neigh. “Sorry, fellas. We’ll be out of your manes soon.”
She moved into the stall and kicked the small crate. “Hunter was here. I’m sure of it.”
“Ladies, I asked you not to come into the stable.” The cowboy joined us at the stall. “Did you find your dog in here?”
I kicked the hay around to make sure I wasn’t missing anything that could have been used in putting the hex on Hunter. How did she do it?
Nell came around from behind the cowboy, a nasty smile twisting her lips. “You don’t think your dog is hiding in the hay, do you?”
Busted.
Lily Rose’s instant anger projected toward me and I took deep breaths to fight it off. One of us needed to remain calm.
Nell touched the cowboy on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Karl. I’ll help these nice ladies find their dog. You can get back to your supper.”
Karl waved a goodbye and walked out of the stable.
Nell shook her head. “I can’t believe I couldn’t stay one step ahead of an old lady and some knocked-up witch. If Aunt Peal hadn’t had a real psychic moment and saw you standing near horses, I’d have never known to follow you out here. I guess my family is good for something after all.”
“Do you think this is some game we’re playing?” I took a step toward her. Nell hid so much anger and hate behind that magical necklace. “You’ve separated a man from his human side.”
“Ugh,” she groaned and swiped her hand in the air. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t have the capabilities to perform magic. No one in my family would ever believe that. And you don’t have any evidence to the contrary. Do you?”
Lily Rose growled. I held out my hand to stop her from taking an action she couldn’t come back from. Nell was correct that her biggest mistake was underestimating me and Lily Rose.
“You’re absolutely right. However, Lily Rose and I are ridiculously tenacious and we won’t let it go. Ever. I’ll be delivering my babies and still thinking of ways to get you back for this. But…” I gave a long dramatic pause. “We’ll make you a deal. A witches’ oath. And you don’t have to admit to anything. I have a very good friend who can erase Hunter’s memories. If you give us what we need to turn him back, we’ll stop looking for evidence. We won’t implicate you to your family in this twisted needy thing you have going on with your sister. We’ll drop it.”
Nell relaxed her posture. She knew a good deal when she heard it. “Both of you?”
Lily Rose cut her eyes at me. I raised an eyebrow in warning. We were so close to getting what we needed to return Hunter to his shifter self. That had to be the first priority.
“I agree to the terms,” Lily Rose said.
I spit in my hand and held it out for her. “Witches’ oath.”
Only one of us had to be a true witch for the oath to be binding.
She spit in hers and slapped it against mine. “I don’t understand why you care so much about a familiar. They’re like the bottom of the paranormal totem pole.”
I snatched my hand away before her nasty evilness rubbed off on me or the babies. “Just tell me how to break the hex.”
She chuckled and wiped her hand on the front of her jeans. “It’s temporary. He’ll turn back at the end of the weekend and won’t remember a thing. You made an oath for nothing.”
Lily Rose turned her back to us and I knew it took every ounce of her willpower not to break the oath and turn into an animal that could maul Nell within an inch of her life.
“Can you tell me one thing,” I called out to Nell as she turned to leave. “How did you work a hex that complicated without magic?”
She swung the stone back and forth on the chain around her neck. “That’s my secret to keep. You ladies better move fast before I turn out the lights. I’d hate for an elderly woman and preggo to trip over a root out here.”
Chapter Seven
My chest tightened as Lily Rose’s frustration filled the card. She slapped the dashboard as I backed out of the equestrian center’s driveway. “What the holy heck just happened? Nell gets away with harming her sister and hexing a shifter?”
I hated that she thought I’d let her down. “We stuck to our plan. We figured out a way to return Hunter’s shifting abilities.”
“We forgot the other two parts of your plan—hard evidence and getting her necklace.”
I gave her a smile. “We did better than hard evidence. We got a confession.”
“That is useless because of your witch oath,” she retorted. “Breaking that oath will bring on worse things than a hex. Things I couldn’t even imagine, and I have a very good imagination.”
“Just because we can’t share her misdeeds with her family doesn’t make the confession useless.” I took the highway that led back to my apartment. “That charmed stone around her neck is her power source. She may not have admitted it, but the way she latched on to her necklace pretty much told me that was what she’d used to create the hex. I made a very specific oath and not once did I say we wouldn’t separate her from her necklace.”
“What if Hunter doesn’t turn back like she said will happen?”
“Then her part of the oath is broken, and I can’t imagine how she could explain that to her family. We’ll sit back and wait for Hunter to return to normal, and then we’ll take the next steps. She won’t get away with this completely.”
“It doesn’t feel like a win.”
“It will after Hunter returns to normal. Trust me.”
She chewed on the end of the cigar and stared out the window. “I always do.”
“I trust you too.” I guided my SUV into the parking lot at St. Vincent de Paul and cut the engine. “Because we’re a team. There is not top or bottom of the totem pole but if there were, familiars would be at the top.”
“Of course we would be.” Lily Rose pushed the door open and slid out. She hobbled to a shopping cart waiting for her by the side of the building and pushed it into the shadows. A moment later a crow emerged and took flight into the night. Probably scared off by Lily Rose pushing her cart.
I rubbed the top of my stomach. I’d thought the necklace given to the non-magical sister had been an amazing idea. A way to level the playing field between them. Now, not so much. All it did was give Nell as much power as her witch sister and Nell had used it against her. How did I keep from creating the same situation? The safest option seemed to be to continue to keep the witch powers a secret from Seth and our son.
No. Absolutely not. I trusted Seth with my life as well as our babies’ lives. I never doubted our love was solid enough to handle him kn
owing about me being witch. We were a team much like Lily Rose and I. Hiding it from our son wouldn’t work either.
It was the timing that gave me so much trouble. I had three months to figure it out.
My growling stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten dinner. I sent a quick text to Seth to let him know I was on the way home. He responded with my favorite reply—that he’d already picked up Chinese takeout for us.
My reserved spot was now open at the apartment complex. I struggled out of the driver’s seat, briefly wondering how I’d fit behind the steering wheel at nine months pregnant with two babies.
Seth met me at the front door with a smile and a belly pat. “How are my threesome?”
I gave him a quick kiss. “Better now that we’re here with you.”
He led me to the dinner table. He’d placed the Chinese food containers around the remains of the baby shower cake. “I didn’t expect you to be out when I got home. Chuck got a call from your mom and she said you had a hormonal breakdown at the baby shower.”
“Actually, I stopped a brawl between Paige and one of Momma Carla’s co-workers over a glass of wine.”
He put two eggrolls on my plate. “Booze and babies don’t mix.”
“That’s the truth.”
We ate in comfortable silence, and after I’d devoured the majority of the food on the table, we settled in the living room to watch our favorite Christmas movie—National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I snuggled into him and his contentment and joy surrounded me like a warm blanket.
Lily Rose and I may not have won a hundred percent today, but we were all safe and that left us to come up with a new plan tomorrow.
A quick succession of taps sounded from the bedroom.
Seth swiveled his head. “What’s that?”
The only person who tapped at my balcony window was Lily Rose. Why had she sought me out so soon after dropping her off?
“Let me check the window,” I said. “Sounds like a bird or something.”
I flipped the switch and illuminated the balcony. A black crow sat on the railing. It had a silver necklace in its beak. Oh snap.
I scrambled through the sliding glass door. “Lily Rose. What have you done?”
The crow spit the necklace onto the balcony floor. She shifted into human form and crossed her arms. “I took care of the necklace thing tonight. Caught Nell as she walked back into the hospital.”
I picked up the necklace and noticed a touch of red. “Is this blood?”
“I might have scratched her neck a little as I removed it from her. And her shoulder. And the side of her face.” Lily Rose shrugged. “Then I sat outside the window and watched as her lies broke down without her psychic barrier. It happened almost immediately. So, ha, we won after all.”
“I guess we did.” Never underestimate an angry familiar.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, a few shifter friends of mine are off to break out Hunter from that crate before Nell makes it home.”
“We can’t tell Hunter what she did to him. It’s part of the oath,” I warned her.
“I won’t tell him. But I won’t leave him there either. My friends and I will take care of our kind until he returns to his usual form.”
I held up the chain. “You could have waited for my help.”
She winked. “Consider the necklace a Christmas gift.”
With a spread of her arms, she shifted to a crow and took flight into the darkness.
After a few more seconds, Seth joined me on the balcony. “Are you talking to someone out here?”
“Just a strange little bird that dropped this necklace on the balcony.” I wrapped the chain around my finger. I’d throw it away after I smashed the charmed stone. Nell would have to navigate her non-magical world and family without it.
Holly jolly Christmas to you, Nell.
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About the Author
K.M. Waller aka Kizzie Waller lives in Florida with her husband, two kids, and their popcorn-loving hermit crab. When she's not reading, writing, or chasing her kids around the house, she's binging television dramas and mysteries.
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A Snowball's Chance in Spell
ReGina Welling & Erin Lynn
A Snowball’s Chance in Spell
Lexi Balefire lives with her godmothers, three faeries who like nothing more than a good fight. When they knock Santa and his sleigh out of the sky, Lexi must find all of Santa's reindeer before time runs out.
This story is a prequel to the Fate Weaver series and features cameos of characters from two other series.
We hope you enjoy meeting Lexi!
Chapter One
Lightning flirted in shadows of the dark clouds hovering over my house when I came home from work the afternoon before my twenty-second Christmas Eve. Nothing unusual there. With three elemental faeries living in the house, weird weather happened all the time. Or rather, every time my temperamental godmothers mounted some sort of snit.
The godmothers idled at snit.
Going back to work wasn’t an option. I’d cleared the last match of the year—a lovely couple with a shared affection for online gaming—and I was no coward. When it came to diffusing faerie fights, I consider myself an expert, and this one didn’t look like it rated more than a two on the volcano scale.
Yes, you heard, right. I measure faerie fights on the scale of whether or not a volcano might erupt in my backyard. Living with faeries is never boring. Occasionally dangerous—especially because I have yet to come into the magic that is my birthright, but never boring.
A quick check proved they’d contained the madness to the inside and/or the backyard. The two feet of snow on the front lawn was still there and still white—you try explaining black snow to your neighbors sometime. I didn’t see any winged denizens—fae or otherwise—dotting the roof ridge, or hear any ominous sounds. If not for the fact that lightning is rare in Maine during the winter, and rarer still when confined to a single area, I’d have thought it was a quiet day in the household.
In my head, I downgraded the threat to a level one and went inside.
For the most part, my place looks like an ordinary New England style home. Built by my great grandparents, it’s the oldest house in a neighborhood that grew up around it when the suburbs expanded into what was once a rural area. Because, I think, the faeries wanted to give me a normal upbringing, they left the house in mostly the same condition it was in when they came to take care of me and only added on a wing for their own use.
I stepped into the front hall expecting…well, just about anything. Did I mention the faeries love holidays? Maybe they don’t have them in the faelands, or maybe they do and go overboard there, too. I can’t say since I’ve never been, but I could tell at a glance there were more decorations than there had been when I left.
“Terra!” I yelled but got no answer. Terra, faerie of earth, held sway over all the flora and fauna found on dry land. She would be the one responsible for the pine boughs twining over anything that held still long enough. Fire faerie, Soleil, contributed by setting sparks of faerie light to twinkle inside the delicate ice bubbles crafted by her sister, Evian, mistress of water. The effect was lovely but not as lovely as the three women could be when their faces weren’t twisted, as they were now, with rage.
I came upon them in their favorite fighting grounds: the kitchen. It looked like I’d caught this one early since there was relatively little damage done so far. Steam rose from a puddle of water at Soleil’s feet, which I assumed had come from Evian. Vines snaked from between the kitchen tiles to twine around Evian’s ankles, and there were a few smoking embers dotting Terra’s hair. Nothing more than a minor spat.
Keeping it casual, I asked, “What’s going on?” There’s no rhyme or reason to what will settle a fight or send one into the red zone.
Terra turned one granite pink eye in my direction. “This doe
sn’t concern you.” The fingers of her left hand twitched, and the vines slithered from Evian’s ankles to her knees.
Retaliating, Evian conjured a gush of water from thin air and doused the smoking embers. The scent of pine boughs couldn’t compete with the stench of burnt hair, or the pungent funk erupting from the flowers that burst into bloom near her feet.
“Now look,” I pointed out to Terra before she conjured something worse. “Evian is trying to help.”
“Was not.” Evian snapped her fingers and turned Terra’s wet hair white with frost, except because the vines were now questing higher, she overshot the mark and doused a few of Soleil’s decorative sparkles.
That was the moment I lost control.
Oh, who am I kidding? I never had control.
Soleil let out a screech and lobbed a fireball at Evian, who encased it in a ball of water and batted it toward Terra. I felt scoured clean when Terra called all the dirt and dust in the house to form a layer over the bobbing ball of doom, which now resembled a small planet whizzing back toward Soleil.
It might have ended better if I’d have kept my mouth shut, but I didn’t.
“You’re going to put an eye out with that thing.”
The ire of three faeries is a potent thing, but not as potent as a flaming mudball. I ducked, rolled, and hit the latch on the patio door in what I’d like to think was a graceful move. Probably looked like a seal rolling off a rock.
The flaming fireball arced over my head, its warm breeze tossing my hair, and rocketed off into the sky.
Crisis averted.
Chapter Two
I turned to the godmothers to spring into lecture mode but only got the first few words out before the whistling sound of a large, falling object drowned out the rest. Ignoring my annoyance, the godmothers practically leaped over me to get outside.
