Big Beautiful Witches: I Married A Warlock
Copyright 2013 by Georgette St. Clair
This book is intended for readers 18 and older only. It is a work of fiction. All characters and locations in this book are products of the feverish imagination of the author, a tarnished Southern belle with a very dirty mind.
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Every witch in Twin River City is eagerly primping for the annual Crystal Ball, where they will have a chance to be claimed by a warlock – except for Big Beautiful Witch Fiona, of course. The one warlock she yearns for, the sinfully sexy Enforcer Erik Bloodstone, would never claim a chubby girl like her – would he? He’s been flirting with her for years, but she knows it’s in jest – which makes it sting all the more.
To make matters worse, he’s investigating a series of warehouse thefts in her rundown neighborhood, so she can never get away from him and give her aching heart a break.
As Erik and Fiona grow closer, she comes to realize he may be leading a double life – and leading her on. Will the night of the Crystal Ball finally reveal the truth about Erik and his mysterious plans – and will the truth break her heart?
Prologue:
14 year old Fiona Rosewood clutched her broom so hard her knuckles turned white, looking around the wooded area furtively to make sure that nobody was watching. Her attempts at liftoff in Broom Flight 101 had so far been utterly pitiful, and she was determined to spend the weekend practicing, and to show up in class Monday morning soaring through the air like a fourth-year.
Her best friend Maizie, a talented fire elemental with superb flying skills, had come with her to offer moral support. They were in the Hedge Maze near the back of the spacious grounds at the Briarstone School For Witches and Warlocks, and Fiona planned to spend the day gliding low to the ground between the glossy green walls of hawthorn, where nobody could see her and she wouldn’t have far to fall.
“Do it,” Maizie urged. “You got this!”
Grimacing, Fiona placed the end of the broom handle on the ground, setting it at a 45 degree angle as she’d been taught, settled her plump rear onto the middle of the broom, and clutched the broom handle tightly.
Focus, she told herself, heart hammering in her chest. She visualized the end of the broom lifting off the ground, and yelped as the broom obeyed her command. Now she was hovering, low enough that her feet brushed the dirt beneath her, but definitely hovering,
“Beautiful!” Maizie clapped her hands. “You’re perfectly horizontal to the ground.” She brushed a ringlet of fiery red hair behind her ear, and smiled encouragingly.
Maizie was as slender as the broom Fiona was struggling to balance on, with the school’s black, white and grey plaid skirt emphasizing her pipe-stem legs, and her hair was the ruby red of a pre-raphealite model. Fiona’s hair was the dull black of a raven’s wing, and her mother had had to special order her school uniforms in an extra large – a fact that she reminded Fiona of all summer long, at every meal.
September never came fast enough for Fiona.
The broom wobbled and Fiona forced her thoughts back to the present, until it steadied underneath her. “Well, now we know that I can hold still, two feet off the ground. Goddess, this is so stupid. Why do we still even have to learn Broomstick? Who uses broomsticks for travel any more? That’s what airplanes are for. I might as well learn pumpkin and mouse transformation to create carriages, instead of driving a car.”
“Oh, you know. Tradition. You’ve got to admit, the annual Pride Day Flyover Parade is wicked cool to watch.”
Fiona smiled, envisioning the highly trained teams of witches and warlocks in their color-coordinated robes and conical hats, soaring through the air, doing heart-stopping loop-de-loops, plummeting hundreds of feet and then catching themselves a dozen feet from the ground, zipping over and under arches…
As she pictured it, she rose a little higher; now she was a good three feet off the ground.
“It is beautiful,” she said. “But I’ll never be in the flyover parade. There’s really only one thing I’m good at.” She reached out and stroked the wall of the hedge, and a cluster of tightly furled white buds burst open like tiny white stars. She was a green witch, deeply in tune with all green life around her.
“Actually there’s something else you’re good at. Eating,” a taunting voice came through the end of the hedgerow.
She shrieked and tumbled off the broom, hitting the ground with a heavy thud, and the broom dropped to the ground like a rock, landing next to her.
Arty Moorehead had managed to sneak up on them through the hedge maze, and now he was advancing on them, howling with laughter. Fiona scrambled to her feet, knee scraped and bleeding, and brushed leaves, grass clippings and dirt from her legs.
“Of course you can’t fly! The broom can’t hold your weight!” he doubled over, slapping his knees at the hilarity. “You need a steel-reinforced broom for your double-wide butt!”
Fiona’s eyes burned with tears, and she blinked hard to keep them from spilling onto her round cheeks.
“Get out of here, or I’ll make you sorry,” Maizie hissed.
“What are you gonna do? If you use a spell on me, you’re gonna spend the weekend in detention,” he taunted.
“Leave her alone, loser.” Maizie’s hands balled into fists, and the irises of her eyes, normally green, flared red. Smoke began to curl from the ground around her feet. If he’d been smart, he would have been alarmed – but if there was one thing that Arty would never be called, it was smart.
“Why don’t you go barbecue something for your fat friend?” he began laughing again, so hard that he wheezed as he advanced towards them. “Barbecue…get it? Because you’re a fire witch and she’s fat?”
“Careful, Farty…you really don’t want to get on the wrong side of a fire elemental.” Maizie’s eyes were black as coal now.
Arty’s eyes flared wide with shock. “Don’t you dare call me that! You’re not fit to spit-shine my shoes! My mother paid for the whole music wing! You’re just a – just a – scholarship witch!” His eyes blazed with rage.
“Yes, she’s here because she has actual talent. Your family had to buy your way in,” Fiona snapped.
Artie turned back to Fiona, his pale face bunching in rage. “At least I don’t have to pay double tuition because I’m eating everything in the dining hall!”
Suddenly, Maizie’s fist lashed out, catching him in the nose with a sickening squish. He staggered back, a crimson spray spurting out, and howled in pain, clutching at his face as tears ran down his cheeks.
“I don’t need to use magic to teach a pussy like you a lesson,” Maizie sneered. Fiona gasped in admiration; Maizie came from a rough part of Twin River City, and her language could make a sailor blush when she was mad. Fiona lived for the days that Maizie got mad.
“I’ll get you thrown out! I’ll get you arrested! I’ll –“
“You’ll do nothing.” A tall blond sun god walked around the corner, and Fiona’s heart sank. Erik Bloodstone, the person that least she wanted to witness her humiliation, loomed over Arty.
He glanced at Maizie and Fiona, at the broom on the ground, and then back at Arty, who was holding his noise and blubbering noisily. “What’s going on here?” he
demanded.
Although he was a student just like they were, Erik had a way of immediately taking over a situation, of commanding respect. It was in his blood. He came from a long line of Enforcers, powerful warlocks who patrolled the realm and defended it from threats ranging from dragon attacks, werewolf rabies outbreaks, black magic cults, and a host of other dangers.
His thick golden hair flowed over his shoulders, and his eyes were like chips of blue sky. Already at least six feet, at 14 years old, he towered over Arty by a good six inches, and his physique was that of a grown man, not a young teenager. His dark brows drew together as he surveyed the scene.
Fiona’s gaze dropped to the ground. Every time Erik came anywhere near her, she got stupid and tongue-tied, and blushed outrageously. He made her tingle in parts of her body that she was just becoming aware of.
It was ridiculous, really; never in a million years would a model of perfect male beauty like Erik be paired with a chubby, nerdy little bookworm like Fiona.
“Oooh, we’re in trouble now, it’s the cops,” Maizie said in a bored voice. Her family tended to be on the wrong side of the law more often than the right side.
“She attacked me for no reason!” Arty howled. “Call the prefects!”
“By the way, what is the school’s policy on endangering, harassing or distracting students during levitation?” Maizie folded her arms and shot Arty a smug look. For a girl who came from a family of artful dodgers, she was an expert in memorizing rules and regulations.
“You know what the school policy is, Maizie. It looks like you’re both going to be spending the weekend in detention,” Erik said firmly, fixing Arty with a harsh look.
“No WAY! I don’t do detention! I’ll call my mother!” Arty stiffened with righteous indignation.
“Call all you want. The school’s policy is clear,” Erik said. “I will be accompanying you to the office now.”
“I didn’t distract her! She fell off the broom because it wasn’t strong enough to hold up her fat ass!”
Fiona hung her head to hide the sudden spurt of tears that trickled onto her cheeks.
Faster than lightning, Erik’s hands shot out and suddenly Arty was dangling two feet off the ground, legs thrashing in the air. His face turned red and he made frantic gurgling sounds.
“Watch your tongue, or you’ll find it ripped from your mouth,” Erik hissed, eyes sparking with anger. Fiona frantically scrubbed the tears from her face with her sleeve while he was distracted.
Erik dropped Arty to the ground, and Arty gasped and wheezed, sucking air into his lungs as his color slowly returned to normal. There was murder in his glare, but he didn’t say another word.
Fiona glanced at Maizie, who looked completely unfazed by the threat of detention. Then she glanced at the hedge, and concentrated until her temples throbbed and her vision grew hazy, and a vine shot out and snaked around Arty’s ankle, yanking him off balance and sending him tumbling to the ground.
“Detention’s so much more fun when you spend it with friends,” Fiona said, and Maizie flashed her an amused grin.
Erik shook his head chidingly. “Fiona, you’re better than that.”
“Oh, and Maizie isn’t?”
“I think you already know the answer to that question,” he said, shooting Maizie a disapproving look. “Fiona’s a nice girl, Maizie. You should stop being such a bad influence on her.”
That sent Fiona and Maizie into peals of laughter, and they marched off down the maze trail towards the detention office, heads held high, as Erik dragged the protesting, howling Arty along with him by the back of his collar.
Chapter One:
“Got a minute, Erik? I want to go over our open cases with you.” Chief Enforcer First Class Ryan Greer, a muscular warlock with a brush cut and mustache, waved at Erik from his office, inviting him in. “Nice job on the zombie powder poisonings, by the way.”
His office was immaculate, all the paper on his broad mahogany desk organized in file folders tucked into a tall stacked file holder, and wooden shelves full of trophies – including shrunken heads of trolls, the gnarled hand of a Dark Witch, and a row of trophies for winning first place in the City-Wide Enforcers Softball League .
Those losers at the City-Wide Fire Brigade Softball League hadn’t won a tournament in six years.
Erik settled down in the chair facing Greer’s desk. He was dressed casually, wearing black jeans, a studded belt, motorcycle boots and a t-shirt; he liked to work undercover, and dressing down meant that there was that much less that a glamour spell needed to conceal.
“By the way, have you heard anything about all the Illusion Spell in the city being bought up? Might be someone planning a terrorist attack.”
“Sorry, can’t help you there,” Erik shook his head.
“No problem. Now, you did a great job with the zombie case, but I know after three years on the frontline of the Troll Wars, you’re probably looking for a case with a little more action. A little excitement,” Greer continued, reaching for his files.
Normally, that would be true, but Erik had other matters on his mind. “Actually, do you have anything in the Graveyard?”
Greer frowned. “The Graveyard? I mean, your usual garden variety dirtbag murders and whatnot, but who really cares about what happens in the Graveyard?”
Erik arched his eyebrow disapprovingly, and fixed his boss with a cold stare. “I imagine that the men, women and children who live and work there care, for starters.”
“Well, yes, that’s true, but….” Greer stammered, at a loss. “This is an election year. There are several council seats up for grabs. There are a number of more prominent districts filled with very prominent families, who fund our department, and –“
“The Graveyard pays taxes just like the rest of the city,” Erik said. “And they are under our charge and our protection just like every other district. When I took an oath, I took an oath to defend all the citizens of our realm, not just the wealthy ones who take up the society pages. Cases. What do you have for me?” He folded his muscular arms across his broad chest and stared at Greer unblinkingly.
There weren’t many warlocks who could get away with speaking to their superiors like that, but Erik wasn’t just any warlock. He came from an ancient, prominent family, and he was a war hero, having racked up one of the highest number of kills in the Troll Wars that had devastated the Northern Provences.
Which was why Greer hated to waste him on a bunch of dirt-poor nobodies with no political pull and no chance of getting more funding for his department…but Erik was notoriously stubborn. Maybe if he tossed Erik a case or two in the warehouse district, Erik’s do-gooder impulses would be satisfied, and he’d grow tired of working those filthy, lawless streets.
A handsome, politically connected warlock like Erik was much more useful in, say, the Garden District, where the matrons and their daughters would titter with delight at his presence, and then be inspired to donate generously at the Enforcer’s Ball.
He reached into his bottom drawer, pulled out a thick stack of file folders, and thumbed through them. Then his face lit up.
“Here!” he said. “You know where the warehouse district is, on First Street? Southernmost portion of the Graveyard? There’s been a series of warehouse thefts, and the merchants who own those warehouses are quite unhappy about it. We’d get some major political capital out of solving these cases.”
Considerably cheered, he handed the file folder to Erik, who flipped it open and then glanced up at Greer. “What’s our budget for special consultants?” he asked.
“For this case?” Greer leaned back in his seat, lacing his fingers behind his head. “This could be quite a prominent case. If we can save those merchants and their insurance companies some money, we can really make some friends. If you want a paid consultant on this case, go for it. Stop by the budget department, tell them I authorized it.”
A smile spread across Erik’s face. He knew exactly which consultant he’
d be hiring.
Chapter Two
“My palms are itchy,” Rosalind announced. “That means something bad’s going to happen before the day is out.”
Rosalind, a busty blonde who wore so much costume jewelry that she rattled when she walked, was a waitress at The Witch’s Brew, the coffee shop next to Fiona’s herb shop. She had come to sit out on the patio with Fiona and Maizie.
It was late in the day, and Fiona and Maizie were finally taking a break after dealing with the steady stream of chatty, empty-headed debutantes and their mothers who’d been cramming into the Greenhouse for days now. The Crystal Ball was only weeks away, and they were snapping up salves and herbs and potions to artificially enhance their beauty, from sunup to sundown. Fiona could barely keep up with the demand.
The Crystal Ball was attended by the most powerful, beautiful, and desirable witches and the handsomest, most eligible powerful warlocks. It was a tradition for warlocks to “claim” their future bride at the ball by proposing in magical and dramatic fashion. Every witch in the city wanted to look her most beautiful at the ball.
“Seriously?” Maizie set down her coffee, leaned back in her chair and fixed Rosalind with an exasperated glare. “This again?”
“My gramma told me. And she’s right. Every time my palms itch, something bad happens.”
Fiona and Maizie glanced at each other.
“Shall you, or shall I?” Fiona asked.
“I shall.” Maizie turned back to their friend, and held up her hand. “Here are the reasons why you’re ridiculous, Rosalind. “ She held up one finger. “Number one, it’s two days before the full moon.” She held up a second finger. “Number two, you’re a werewolf. Of course your palms are itchy. Your whole body gets itchy before the full moon.”
“Yes, but my palms are especially itchy,” Rosalind said earnestly.
“I have herbs for that,” Fiona added absentmindedly, stirring her coffee.
Maizie held up a third finger. “And number three, your little predictions are about as meaningful as the horoscope in the daily paper. You always predict things that are obviously going to happen anyway. I mean, we’re on 25th Street, for Hades sake. Of course something bad’s going to happen today!”
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