Love Charms

by Multiple

  When she finally delivered her daughter, the pain had passed and she forgot what she’d just been through. All she could do was look into her daughter’s eyes and realize that she was holding the most perfect human being she’d ever seen. Derek and Raven were already in love.

  “She’s beautiful,” she whispered. She turned to her husband. “Do you want to hold her?” It felt like nobody else was in the room, even though the doctor and nurses were still there. It was the most incredible experience she’d ever had. It was hard to believe she was holding her daughter.

  Raven was in awe of her daughter’s tiny little nose, tiny hands, and the little tuft of hair on her head. She was fascinated with the way her eyes tried to focus on her mother. She was a mother. She’d waited all her life for the perfect moment, and everything about today felt perfect.

  “I think we should go with Angie,” Derek smiled. “You were right. That’s the right name for her.” He was still in awe over the entire experience. “That was…wow, just wow.” He was absolutely smitten.

  “Angie it is.” Raven smiled and cooed to her daughter. “Do you hear that sweetie? That’s your new name, my beautiful Angie girl.” Her heart felt like it had grown to twice its normal size.

  Derek was falling in love with his wife all over again. He didn’t think he could love her more, but seeing her holding their child was intimate and rewarding.

  She was normally an incredibly beautiful woman with long, shiny hair that glistened in the light. Her eyes made his heart melt every time he looked into them. She was easily the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. And yet, in this moment, her hair all sweaty and pushed out of her face, barely a stitch of make-up on, exhausted and worn, he’d never seen her looking more beautiful. It was a memory he’d have forever, his wife holding his child.

  *

  It was an ordinary day, the sun was shining, the weekend was upon them, and everybody had settled in. When Derek heard the baby stirring on the monitor, he got up to get her. “I’ve got her,” he said, heading upstairs. It was hard to believe how much time had passed already. It seemed like just yesterday that she was born, and already she was pulling herself up on tables and in her crib. Standing! Soon she’d be walking.

  Raven smiled at her husband. He was a hand’s-on father, always willing to pitch in. Truth be told, Angie had him wrapped around her tiny fingers. She would certainly be a daddy’s girl, the way he doted on her.

  From upstairs, Derek called down, “Honey, could you come here for a second?”

  “Sure, one second,” Raven answered.

  Derek stood watching his child. He wouldn’t have believed it, but he saw it with his own eyes. It was something neither of them had expected.

  Raven made her way to Angie’s room. She’d just woken from a nap. When Raven walked in, she broke out in a grin. How? When? I didn’t think it was possible!

  Angie stood in her crib, her arms outstretched. She giggled as her small, stuffed bunny rabbit floated across the room to her. How did she…? But….this wasn’t supposed to happen. She’d somehow gotten the gift. It was impossible, right? Raven accepted that when she married a mortal. This…this was incredible!

  “How?” Raven watched her daughter, amazed. She couldn’t hide her smile. “I didn’t think…she shouldn’t…” She took a breath. “I have to tell my family! They’re going to be so excited!”

  “Things are going to be different around here, aren’t they?” Derek asked cautiously.

  “Just a little,” Raven said and laughed. “I can’t believe it! She’s not supposed to….” She could barely finish a sentence.

  Raven scooped up her daughter, who was now holding her stuffed rabbit. “When did you learn how to do that?” Angie got the gift after all! Raven couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face. You just never can tell…

  THE END

  Thank you for taking the time to read “Blinded by Magic: A Witch Romance”. If you’d like to hear about new releases, be sure to sign up at AvaCatori.com today. You can also find a full list of titles ranging from romantic comedy to spicy erotic romance.

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  Blind Date

  By Selena Kitt

  In her attempt to escape her sisters’ Valentine matchmaking, Annie meets the enigmatic Eric, who she realizes could finally be the man of her dreams. In spite of, or maybe because of, Eric’s cryptic words and puzzling behavior, she finds herself immediately intrigued and drawn to him like no other man she’s ever met. One night in Annie’s sister’s kitchen seals their fate, as the two lovers discover and explore the instant spark of heat between them. Their evening comes to an abrupt end when the mysterious Eric disappears into the night, and Annie realizes she doesn’t know his last name! How is she to find him?

  After months of fruitless searching, Annie finally gets a dubious break when she meets Eric’s eccentric mother. Dita sends Annie on a journey deep into the unknown, through an ever-twisting labyrinth of frustrating dead-ends and seemingly strange, pointless missions. Annie’s life is turned upside down as she searches for the one man who can make her life feel complete.

  Told in the spirit of magical realism, this modern day adaptation of the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche takes Annie on each of Psyche’s tasks in her quest for her lost love. Each task brings her closer to him and to realizations about herself. Will Annie find Eric and reveal to him the secret she’s been keeping, even from her sisters?

  Warnings: This title contains erotic situations, graphic language, and sex – a fun, modern day magical-realism retelling of the Psyche and Eros myth that will leave you mythtified yet satisfied.

  Foreward

  This book is written in a style called “magical realism.” What in the heck is that, you ask? If you’ve never experienced the genre, it can seem as if the author has gone crazy…or maybe thinks you are.

  The Wikipedia definition of magical realism is:

  (a)n aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality. These magical elements are explained like normal occurrences that are presented in a straightforward manner which allows the “real” and the “fantastic” to be accepted in the same stream of thought.

  Basically, it just means that the author introduces something totally weird and out of place in a realistic setting. In most works of fiction, authors want to “suspend disbelief.” In other words, they want you to totally immerse yourself in the story and find nothing that might pull you out of it or make you question their created reality.

  With magical realism, it’s nearly the opposite. The author will give you a realistic setting, and then introduce totally unexplainable magical or unrealistic elements to the story.

  This book is a retelling of the Eros and Psyche myth, but it doesn’t take place in ancient Greece—it takes place in suburban America with characters who are larger than life and behave in very unusual ways. What else could you expect from gods and goddesses?

  If you haven’t brushed up on your Greek mythology lately, take a look at a brief synopsis of the story somewhere on the Internet. This retelling doesn’t follow it to the letter, but you may have more fun reading if you are already familiar with the myth.

  Magical realism can be a strange, disconcerting experience, but once you’ve realized what’s happening, buckle your seatbelt and hang on, because it can also be a fun, wild ride!

  I hope you enjoy this retelling of the myth. Happy reading!

  Chapter One

  Annie found herself playing a game she hadn’t even thought about since she was twelve years old and Robbie McCormick cut his lip on her braces. Her image of some benign affair, where everyone stood around with a wine glass and nibbled canapés, was deteriorating faster than her last blind date—with Stan the Used-Car-Salesman.

  She’d had no idea wh
en her sisters had invited her to this thing that it was going to be some nightmarish, pre-teen flashback. Annie felt ridiculous in such a revealing position, sitting cross-legged, trying to tuck her pastel patchwork skirt between her thighs. She noticed a lot of the women had discarded their shoes, but she was wearing soft, knee-high black boots that didn’t lend themselves to a casual slipping-off. The entire room had morphed from mingling adults to a gang of unruly adolescents, hooting and howling and elbowing each other the minute they all sat in a circle on the floor in their suits and skirts.

  Her oldest sister, Chloe, spun the empty rum bottle and everyone roared when the narrow end settled on Rebecca, the middle sister. While the men whistled and whooped, both women crawled, giggling, toward the center of the large circle. Their cheeks flushed the same shade of rosy pink as they briefly touched lips.

  Annie blushed as well, appalled and astonished at how her body remembered these old games with a dreadful pang and tingle: first kisses and two-minutes-in-the-closet fumblings. There was the time she and her sisters had tried to make their own soap opera just to have an excuse to kiss the boys. Then there was the summer they’d built a fort made of someone’s discarded turquoise carpet and played spin-the-bottle with an empty gin bottle Gary Hillman snitched from his mom’s stash.

  There was a burst of laughter from the other room and Annie glanced toward the adjoining door to the den. She wondered what they were playing in there. Truth or dare? They sound just like teenagers, she thought, like some feral pack full of adolescent angst. Are we really just one immature game away from that part of ourselves? She smiled wryly, feeling far removed from any sensible adult reality as she watched Rebecca creep back to the middle of the circle to spin the bottle.

  A chorus of “woo-hoos!” sang out when the bottleneck found John, Becca’s husband of two years, and they kissed. Annie winced when she saw his tongue slip into her mouth. She looked away, focusing on the red and white streamers hanging above her head. There were red foil hearts with plump cupids pasted in their centers spinning wildly on threads and attached to the ceiling by thumbtacks.

  Annie was surprised Chloe had allowed tacks in her ceiling, even for something as important as maintaining the theme of the night. The sound of the bottle spinning on the hardwood floor brought Annie’s focus back to the game. John’s eyes were glued to the bottle as it slowed. She ducked as if she could avoid it as the bottle stopped, pointing just past her knee to the chubby girl on her left. Thank god. John was crawling toward them, grinning and eyeing Annie’s hemline, while the redhead next to her blushed to match her hair. Rebecca was watching, looking casual, but Annie knew better.

  “Hey, I think this is pointing to Anne,” John exclaimed as he drew nearer. “Look at the angle.”

  “This isn’t geometry, John, come on,” Annie hissed at him, keeping her voice low, hoping her sisters couldn’t hear. “Kiss the girl and get it over with already! Looks like she needs it more than I do.” Annie cut her eyes to the redhead’s face, which had flushed a deeper shade. The girl looked down at her lap as if there were something interesting there.

  John raised his eyebrows at Annie, and she saw she had made a mistake. “Rebecca, I’m serious. Come look! I swear this thing is pointing at your sister. Chloe, are you the referee here?”

  “John, it’s pointing at Lynn, not Annie,” Chloe called. “Come on, let’s keep the game going.”

  “It is not,” John insisted. “You aren’t even over here! Come look!”

  “Oh fuck this,” Annie muttered, struggling to stand without flashing the entire group a shot of her panties. For a moment, she thought she had succeeded, but from the look on a few of the guys’ faces, she realized they had seen something. Raising her voice, she said, “You know what, John? You kiss the fat girl here, and I’ll just step out of this juvenile little game that I never in a million years thought I’d be playing at the age of twenty-seven, okay? What do you say?”

  Annie nudged him hard in the side with her shin as she passed. She heard him grunt. She turned back when she got to the kitchen door and saw the redhead standing, wobbly, making her way in the opposite direction. Annie felt a stab of guilt and shoved open the swinging door to her sister’s pristine kitchen. The light was off, and she left it, knowing her way even in the dark. She plopped onto one of the stainless steel kitchen chairs and unzipped her boots with a sigh, then toed them off.

  Annie could hear her sister busily trying to save the day. “Let’s play the kissing game!”

  She heard someone—possibly John—say, “I thought we were.”

  Annie sighed in relief when that awful, stunned silence turned back to party chatter. She wished she drank or still smoked—or did anything dangerous and bad for her. Anything that could make her feel good—or just alive—even for a moment. Her sisters seemed to think the answer to Annie’s attitude was a man and had set about finding her one—with a vengeance! When she looked at Chloe and Rebecca’s lives though, she didn’t find much to envy. If that’s what having a man was about, she didn’t want to have any part of it.

  Besides, Annie wanted something more, something different. She was tired of all the games and hookups and pretending. She had been to hundreds of parties like this one, and she always felt like some aging, dark-haired Barbie doll propped up in the corner by her sisters for all the Kens to come by and gawk at. She could never be herself, even for a moment. She always felt too guarded to let herself really get to know people, let alone really feel anything for anyone.

  Chloe poked her head through the swinging kitchen door, spilling light into the room. Annie covered her eyes, which had already adjusted to the darkness. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to ruin everything!” Chloe hissed.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Annie spat back, giving her sister the finger.

  Chloe rolled her eyes, opening the door to step in.

  Annie leaped to press against the swinging door, trapping Chloe firmly between the door and the frame. Chloe grunted in surprise.

  “I’m not kidding. I am not going back out there, so you can forget about it. What the hell are they doing now?” Annie stared past her sister, her brow furrowed and her mouth agape in horror as men and women in a circle were passing a playing card from person to person, mouth to mouth.

  “The kissing game,” Chloe replied meekly.

  “Oh my god. That’s it. Get out of this room and don’t let anyone else in here! You got me? I am done with this Hook-Annie-Up-Valentine-Shindig!”

  “But, sweetie, you—”

  “No! Not another word from you, okay?”

  “Okay, fine. Could you…?” Chloe waved her hand, the one inside the kitchen, indicating the door where she was stuck. Annie eased off a little and Chloe sighed, stepping back out into the living room. “We were all just trying to do something nice for you, Annie.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Go!”

  Annie flopped into the kitchen chair, tipped it back and put her bare feet up. She smiled with a bit of satisfaction, knowing she was probably the first and only person to have a body part other than maybe an elbow on Chloe’s expensive table.

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you could crack your head open doing that?”

  Annie let out a yelp and the chair toppled backwards onto the hand-laid Italian tile. She saw stars bursting in the darkness behind her eyes and blinked rapidly to clear them. “Fuck!” she swore, rubbing the back of her head and rolling off the chair onto the floor. Her head was tender and already swelling, and she thought she could feel the wetness of blood. “I think I’m bleeding. Who’s there? Where are you?”

  “Right here. Are you okay? I’m sorry.”

  Annie saw the shadowy figure move out from underneath the kitchen table.

  “I don’t know if I’m okay. I think I’m bleeding.” She tried to stand but immediately felt woozy again and had to sit. She rubbed the swelling on the back of her head, wondering how bad it really was. �
��Could you turn on the light, please?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” he replied, steadying her with a hand on her arm. It was a warm hand, large, with a firm grip.

  “Gee, thanks, buddy. Fine, I’ll do it myself.” Annie sighed and started to stand again. His hand on her arm kept her from moving.

  “No, please, don’t.” It was a request, but it didn’t sound like one.

  “Why? I think I’m really hurt.”

  “Here, let me see.” His hands were in her dark hair, moving over her scalp, finding the aching knot and massaging it. At first, she winced and pulled away, but then let him continue. God, it’s been too long since someone touched me like this.

  “You’re not bleeding,” he assured her.

  “How can you tell? It’s too dark in here. Let me turn on the light, and—”

  “No!”

  Annie jumped. “Okay, weirdo…who are you?” He moved away from her. “Hello?” There was no response, but she could make out his shape back under the table. Annie sighed and rubbed her head again. With her dizziness abating, she stood and headed for the light switch. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m—”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Annie’s hand hesitated on the switch.

  “Please,” he implored her. “Don’t do that.”

  “Why?” she asked again. There was no response, just a deep silence from the darkness under the table.

  In the quiet, she could hear the party continuing in the living room. She turned her eyes to the dim outline of the door and heard Chloe direct, “No, no! Kitchen is off limits!”

  Annie smiled gratefully. At least the door was being guarded for a while.

  “Hey, are you still there?” She cringed, mentally slapping herself for asking such a stupid question.

  “Yeah.”

  Something in his voice drew her to him. There was a strength in it, a certainty that shouldn’t be coming from underneath a kitchen table. She moved away from the door and back toward the voice, getting down on her knees to peer underneath. She thought she saw the shimmer of a pair of glasses. She saw his hands resting in his lap and found herself searching for the glint of a ring. A moment later, she smiled at her effort.