Falling Hard

by Shelly Bell

  I thought I had gotten lucky when the “roommate wanted” ad on Roasted’s bulletin board had led me to a condo I was sharing with Hazel’s best friend Mitch, who just happened to be an other. But the werewolf’s lips were sealed about his little witch friend, so I was back to square one while being forced to live with three dudes.

  And I was running out of time.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. Things were not going well. It was four in the morning and a text message from my older brother Loren had woken me from a restless sleep.

  Finished job. Be there in 24 hours.

  I stared at the phone that had only received one call in two years - a ransom on my baby brother Fenton’s life. Well, he wasn’t really a baby anymore at twenty-one. But I kept picturing his golden curls matted with blood and his blue eyes swollen shut. I rolled out of bed and paced my room.

  After two months, I had failed to get any closer to my goal of obtaining the ransom: Hazel Evanora’s powers. And I knew why I was failing: I was trying to keep her alive. Loren wouldn’t take as much care. As the only active witch hunter in the family, it was just another mission to check off the list.

  My mother would turn over in her early grave if she knew that I had thrown down my weapons and walked away from my brothers without so much as a wave. The three of us were so close growing up, only a year apart.

  But whenever I thought of my brothers, I remembered the image of my father gutted in the woods, my mother wasting away from cancer the year before. So I’d packed up my life, jumped in my truck, and picked up a new cell phone, unable to spend the rest of my life remembering everything I was leaving behind whenever I recited those ten digits. But I couldn’t bring myself to shut off my old phone.

  Two years without my older brother Loren’s sarcastic ribs. Two years without my baby brother Fenton’s laugh. Two years since we’d found Dad dead. Two years since I’d walked away from them and hunting and my life in northern Maine.

  But life was an asshole. Because here I was again in some shitty, freezing, small-ass town, staring at a text from Loren. Feeling guilty that I was just as worried about killing a witch as saving Fenton.

  I flopped back down on my bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to come to grips with the fact I had to get Hazel’s power before Loren showed up. It was non-negotiable. To steal a witch’s power you needed to do one of three things. The first choice, and the easiest: make her trust you to the point where she lets her guard down. Then suck it out of her while she’s sleeping.

  The second was to steal it during a time of crisis. This usually required the strength of more than one hunter, especially if the witch was a fighter, which Hazel most definitely was.

  The third was to convince her to give or sell her power. Although the most difficult to achieve, this was the best and least harmful way. No one was injured, no hearts were broken, no bodies broken.

  The battered wooden box, nicknamed Pandora’s Box, sat beside me on the bed. Mocking me. My fingers reached out and played with the latch. Open. Close. Open. Close. Pandora was an enchanted box, made to gather and restrain up to three witch’s or wizard’s power at any time.

  Or one life.

  It looked like an old family heirloom and was about the size of a textbook. It fit so easily in my backpack, yet it was a torturous, evil thing. I felt the weight of it pressing against me with every shift of my bag. I’d finally stopped carrying it to class.

  Not that it mattered. Hazel wasn’t even paying attention to me. My flirty comments, my walking her to class, my pulling her ponytail, nothing worked. Despite Mitch’s warnings to stay away from her, I couldn’t. I went out of my way to talk to her, to see her.

  Oh, and when Mitch found out why I was really here, I was a dead man. I was smart enough to know I’d better make sure my will was up to date. But that didn’t stop me from trying to figure out how to woo a woman who wanted shit to do with me.

  I pushed the box away. I missed my beach house on the West Coast. I missed the twenty-four hour pizza delivery and badass taco carts. I missed my entertainment system, poker night with the boys, and bikini-clad bodies.

  But because some ancient grudge had decided he would mess with my family, here I was, trying to do the one thing I said I’d never do again.

  Destroy a witch.

  I sat up and stretched, then made my way to the shower. It was time to play dirty. And one had to look damn sexy to play dirty.

  Chapter 2

  Hazel

  I’m sure when my ancestors wrote the Potion Recipe Book, they hadn’t meant “cooking caldron” as a euphemism for “Goodwill pot on a rickety two-burner electric stove.” Of course they didn’t even have electricity back then, but there was no way in hell I could afford to rent an apartment with a fireplace.

  So the rickety, two-burner stove it was.

  I took a deep breath and held potion number eighteen to my lips, reciting a quick prayer that it wouldn’t kill me or make me puke. Tipping it back, I reached for my stereo and cranked my jam. The benefits of living alone.

  Unless I dropped dead, I had study group for Quantitative Statistics II in an hour. I really hoped I wouldn’t drop dead, I was getting an A. I showered and blow-dried my trademark witch hair - jet black with chunky white streak - and was still puke-free and undead. That was a good start to the day.

  Toast in teeth, I pocketed the second vial of potion and grabbed my boots and bag on the way out the door. I hopped on the landing trying to stick my foot in the boot, almost falling headfirst down the stairs instead. “Stairs, then shoes, Hazel! Stairs. Then shoes,” I scolded myself around the toast. It came out more like, “Furs den foos”.

  My apartment used to be an old split-level home, but was now divided into four studios. The rent was affordable, as long as you didn’t mind living in the shady part of Hayvenwood just off campus. I had protection spells all over the building, so I didn’t mind…mostly. But I super missed Lilly, my former hall mate, who was off chasing her dancing dreams. Her super-hot boyfriend Hutch used to open stubborn jars and kill ginormous spiders for me.

  Witch or not, I did not kill spiders, or apparently open jars. In exchange, I’d provided them with an herbal muscle rub, for Lilly’s sore dancer muscles and Hutch’s amputee pain. But now, my bouquets of witch hazel and peppermint were just for show and my spiders went the way of the vacuum cleaner. Lilly’s apartment still sat vacant, waiting for another crabby neighbor.

  Speaking of crabby-ass neighbors, I knew Mrs. Pennington, who was the police chief’s sister, would be staring out the window from her bottom floor apartment as she always did. She was on a mission to “watch for hooligans.” I wondered if she’d call the cops on me today. We were up to four times this month.

  I reached the bottom step and noticed a hulking man hovering just outside, his shadow falling through the plate glass security window. With a shove, I threw the door open and smirked at his slight jump. I pulled the half-eaten toast from my mouth, “Hey Mitchy.”

  “Don’t call me Mitchy,” he grunted. I handed him the vial and he pocketed it quickly. He stuffed a twenty into my hand. “Think it’ll work?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Won’t kill you.”

  “Will I turn into Sasquatch?”

  “ONE TIME!” I huffed, exasperated. The unfortunate side effect of a poorly made potion had had Mitch shaving three times a day for two weeks. I had been trying his potions before dispensing them ever since.

  He pulled on my hair and smiled. I knew picking on me was his way of emoting that he was thankful. “Want a ride in?”

  “Nope.” I didn’t get in other people’s cars. Ever. My phone started ringing from my back pocket, the ringtone wailing into the crisp morning.

  Mitch raised one eyebrow. “Isn’t it a bit cliché for a witch to have ‘I Put A Spell on You’ as her ringtone?”

  “Says Mr. ‘Hungry Like The Wolf?’”

  He flashed me a killer smile before saluting and climbing into his idling Jeep Wrangl
er that was more rust than truck. I laughed at the fact that even in human form, his smile still harbored his wolfish charm.

  “See you tonight,” he called over the roar of the engine. I waved and pulled the toast from my mouth, scrambling to answer my phone before it went to voicemail. Like an amateur, I neglected to look at the screen.

  An ear-piercing wail filled my right ear and I yanked the phone away and held it high in the air, letting out a string of expletives. I immediately hung up and shut it off. So much for staying off the grid this time. Dammit, now I’d need to get a new number. Which was exactly as hard as you think it would be in a one coffee shop, one fire truck town.

  The closest thing this town had to a cell phone store was the track phone display at the “twenty-four hour” student center that closed at eleven every night. I mentally added ‘dealing with cell phone’ to my never-ending to-do list.

  I shoved the rest of the cold toast into my mouth, mindful this would be my last meal for sixteen hours. Despite working in a restaurant, the food was not free. Mitch insisted on buying my meals a few times a week, making sure my portions were large enough to have leftovers. But there was no way I’d ask Mitch for more food tonight. He was struggling as much as me. With four packages of Ramen in my cabinet, I’d be good until payday.

  If they didn’t come to collect early.

  I licked the crumbs off my fingers, savoring every last morsel. Pulling my hair back into a messy bun, I snapped on my glitter helmet and climbed onto my crotch rocket. The ice sparkling on the asphalt in the morning sun made me weary. Winter was coming.

  We were in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and had already had a few light snowfalls. Thankfully, the rain last week had melted most of it from the roads. The bike didn’t love snow, despite it being an enchanted bike. And by “enchanted bike”, I meant fleece lined leggings, leather gloves, and desperation. The enchantment spell had stopped working last month and I couldn’t afford the damn ingredients to reapply it. But with Mitch’s last order, I was getting closer.

  My bike was always good to me, as long as the snow was less than six inches deep and there wasn’t an ice storm. Which, up here, was really only until November if I was lucky. But I was about to become proficient in riding in snow very quickly, since I’d had to sell my car last spring.

  Comforted by the purr of my orange 1972 Suzuki TS250, the only thing I had left from my father besides my nose, I sped out of the driveway and onto the two-lane stone bridge, the Pont d’Amour that connected the town to campus. Despite the romantic name and the even cheesier legend, this bridge always gave me the creeps. But the savings in rent from living off campus made it a necessity.

  Making potions helped alleviate the bills. While most people came to me for energy elixirs and hangover cures, a few of my friends needed a little something extra. Like Mitch.

  I tensed at the sound of my tires crossing onto the bridge’s threshold. The river had dried up long ago, leaving this monstrosity behind. The town had preserved it as a historical landmark, with its fancy stonework and picturesque views in the spring and summer.

  But it was a nightmare the moment the temperatures dipped. The sides weren’t quite high enough to save a car - or a bike - from flipping over the side, and the town was too poor to salt anything besides Main Street. It was too cold for salt to be effective most of the winter anyway.

  Like I did every morning, I wondered how the hell I’d ended up here, in the middle of nowhere. One word: scholarship. Not many people wanted to give a fourth-year junior money. Too many transfers had left me retaking classes I’d already aced twice over. At least Hayvenwood College was paying for it.

  I was almost to the other side of the nightmare when a black Land Rover roared onto the bridge from the opposite direction. My body seemed to know what was going to happen before my mind did.

  The SUV, going well over the posted speed, hit a patch of black ice and fishtailed. My heart leapt to my throat. I swerved to the side of the bridge and pulled my brakes hard, almost flipping over the handlebars.

  The driver overcorrected and went into a spin. With a frustrated growl, I skidded on the slippery stone and threw down a booted foot to stop the bike. I took most of the impact against the wall along the right side of my body. I clenched my jaw against the jarring pain and tried not to look down at my cut up jeans or scuffed coat. I couldn’t afford to replace them.

  Dread curdled my stomach as I watched the truck’s back end slam into the wall right where I had been. My breath was frozen inside my lungs and I struggled to reclaim control over my body.

  After a few deep breaths, a cascade of foul language twisted inside of my mouth. A car door slammed with a curse. I lifted the tinted face shield on my helmet to make sure my verbal attack wasn’t muffled.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, driving like a goddamn bat out of the ass of hell?” I roared. I turned sharply as boots ran toward me. “If I hadn’t been paying a-fucking-ttention I would’ve been plastered on the wall!”

  “I’m so sorry, are you...” the husky baritone voice trailed off and squinted.

  “You really should slow down, especially on the bridge!” All of my anger fizzled out when I finally lifted my eyes to meet burning charcoal. My breath hitched. My world shrunk into a bubble that was just him and me. I didn’t even notice the pain in my leg anymore.

  Crap.

  My stomach dropped like it always did around Mitch’s new roommate, Grayson. He was ridiculously handsome, like Hollywood handsome, but with a hard edge. And every girl stared at him like they wanted to eat him up. I was no exception, which was super annoying. Especially today. Damn, he looked extra tasty.

  He’d been chasing after me for the last two months and I was the idiot who was keeping him at a distance. Clearly, I needed professional help. But getting close to a human meant that they always had someone to threaten when money was due. And I refused to drag anyone else into my mess of a life.

  But Grayson was so delicious...so tempting.

  Shaggy almost-black hair, expertly styled into that sexy “just rolled out of bed” look, five o’clock shadow, face like a Greek god, and eyes the color of hot ash. A leather jacket hung off his broad shoulders. Dark wash jeans and an indie band t-shirt were perfectly tailored to his well-toned body. The vibration of my motorcycle between my legs was suddenly very welcome.

  Grayson ran up to me, standing closer than I allowed most people. He looked me over for signs of damage, touching my shoulders and letting his fingers trail down my arms. Despite my three layers of clothes, his touch warmed me.

  I was going to turn into a puddle. “Shit, Hazel, I’m sorry.” The edge of his shirt hiked up when he touched my helmet for reassurance. Tanned skin, tight over a well-toned abdomen and a dusting of dark hair.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  He was in grave danger of being jumped right here on this bridge.

  I shook my head to clear it. He was just being nice - most likely out of fear for his life. When Mitch found out, Grayson would pay hell.

  “You sure you’re okay?” he asked again, concerned. “You seem to be in shock.” I was in shock. But more because of the man in front of me than my almost accident. Every time I saw him I wanted him more intensely than the last.

  My skin was burning and sweat was pooling on the back of my neck. I needed to rip off my jacket. He was too close and the soft smell of his sweet cologne was hypnotizing.

  Ugh, this was so bad. I couldn’t let myself get attached to anyone else. The more people I got attached to, the more people they could threaten. I knew Mitch and my other best friend Raine could hold their own. They were other, like me. But a human? No way.

  All I could do was nod. He assessed me as if he were looking very hard for something. “Sorry, I haven’t seen a winter in a few years. I should’ve figured the bridge was icy but...”

  “Yeah, it ices before the road,” I finished lamely, quoting the nearby sign. I knew I
was going to be embarrassed about this moment for the rest of my life, but I felt drunk, giddy. The only thing that made me feel better was the fact that he looked just as out of it as I was.

  Although, to be fair, my eyes were a bit unnerving. They were just a little too purple to be considered blue. But everyone just assumed they were contacts. Nope - just witch.

  While I had the witch coloring and could make potions, I was now more of a healer than a spell caster. Not by choice. I’ve had to sell off some of my power over the years when my payments were behind.

  I didn’t miss it too much.

  No, I’m lying.

  I missed it like crazy. But I had never been able to create a spell to do my homework or my dishes to save my life - and it was definitely not for a lack of trying. Still, even weakened, I could help lost pets find their owners, successfully predict playoff scores within three points, and hopefully prevent my best friend from turning into a werewolf with the upcoming full moon. Even if he was doing it for a girl. A half-demon girl. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Aurora, but a werewolf and a demon together was more drama than I ever wanted to deal with.

  Grayson took another step closer, completely invading my personal bubble. “I’m so sorry.” He was officially too close and I didn’t like it.

  No. I’m lying again.

  I was a big fat liar.

  Come closer.

  “W-where are you headed so early?” I stammered, continuing my awesome streak of saying stupid things. In my defense, I was fighting the urge to plaster myself against his body.

  His eyes locked on mine and he smiled. “Don’t have class ’til eleven-thirty. Figured I’d check if anyone in a ten mile radius could use me.”

  “Use you?” God, I’d use him six ways to Sunday. He ran his fingers through his hair and I bit my bottom lip. The way it fell back across his forehead...

  He cleared his throat, eyes locked on my lip. I smiled to myself. He noticed me, too. “Mitch was very adamant that I find something to do with my spare time. So I’m trying to find a job, but it seems the best ones are already taken,” he admitted. He paused, eyes fixated on mine. “So, you’re really okay?”