Halloween Trial

by Casey Morgan

  Angie gave me a thumbs-up as I glanced back at her. Drew was sitting right next to her —though most people couldn’t see him. He nodded and told me that I was going to be fine. I gripped my borrowed wand tighter in my right hand and tried to keep my left hand from wandering to the necklace that was heating up on my chest. Somehow the moonstone seemed to know that everyone’s eyes were on me.

  “A little quicker, please, miss.” From the top of the stone stairs, Headmaster Thorn looked down at me. He’s creepy smile was unchanged. It made his mouth look way too big for his narrow face. “I know you are nervous about failing, Ms. Thrushmoor, but don’t worry, this will be over quick.”

  I put my left hand on the top of my wand to hide the fact that I was shaking. The stairs were high, but I climbed them, trying to keep myself as steady as I could. Finally, my feet were on the stone floor of the stage. It was time. There was no turning back.

  I rolled my shoulders back and faced Thorn. He towered above me. A slight sneer took over his features as he looked over my magic wand that I held before me like a dagger. I wasn’t sure if he disliked it because it was old school or because it was evidence of someone helping me. I didn’t ask.

  “Defend,” he yelled.

  Because of my night with Jasper, I didn’t flinch. I knew what was coming. There were only five spells on the sheet for me. The first was a simple blast of magic that I had to deflect.

  I gathered my life force and sent it through the narrow wand just as the blast of energy that Thorn sent out came towards my face. It was strong, and if I hadn’t defended, I would have been knocked flat onto the stage. But I did defend. My blast of energy met his and pushed it to the back of the auditorium, where it slammed into the stone wall.

  Thorn frowned. “Very good,” he said begrudgingly. “I see that you were able to retain something from your time here, but I doubt it will be enough.” He grunted out a short string of noises that I recognized as the spell for levitation. The headmaster was going to lift and throw me from the stage.

  I pointed my wand at my feet and whispered my own string of sounds. “Gra-va-ton.” My energy poured out of the wand and coalesced at my feet, forming a barrier, and attaching my body to the ground.

  The next spell from Thorn came at me immediately. He swung wide, grunting, “Ba-ram-pa!” His energy formed into a shining disk, and it went flying towards my legs. Once again, he meant to knock me over.

  During our studies, Angie had explained that I could defeat this spell in several ways. She has suggested a dissolution spell that would turn the disk into an inert cloud of energy. But the time between the spells was too fast. I couldn’t think straight, so I screamed the words for the dissolution spell, “Re-em-pa-tra,” but my wand was still pointed at my feet. The gravity spell holding me too the ground exploded, blasting me up and over the disk. I flipped in the air and fell to the ground…onto my butt.

  Thorn laughed as I got up and brushed myself off. His ugly, thin face lit up in the gruesome way that made my stomach churn. “Clumsy, but passable,” he muttered.

  A growing spell was next. Without a word, the headmaster waved his hands in a delicate manner, and a small potted plant appeared before me. It was some kind of sapling. “Make lemons,” he ordered as I looked up at him.

  “Re-vam-tra-son,” I whispered, moving my wand over the plant so that my energy cascaded down in ripples like I was watering it.

  The little tree glowed. It shook and shivered, shooting up two feet and bursting out foliage-covered limbs, but not any fruit. I pushed more of my energy through the wand, waving my free hand up like a conductor asking his orchestra to play louder. Branches shook as they grew and blossomed. A tiny bit of yellow formed as one solitary lemon grew. It was small, but it was what I needed.

  I looked over at Thorn, feeling pleased with myself. He had his hands folded over his chest. The frown on his face was long. He hadn’t expected me to get this far.

  “Burn it,” he ordered, moving one hand in a low wave. “If you can.”

  I had been dreading this part. I looked over the happy little tree, and it’s one little lemon, gathered as much of my energy as I could, and blasted it through the wand. “Fa-va-ra!” Fire lit up the stage. It pored out the wand, covering the poor little tree and making it burn to ash. It blazed hot and crackled until there was nothing left on stage but the headmaster and me.

  Epilogue

  I had passed!

  The auditorium was silent. Most of my fellow students were wide-eyed. I don’t think anyone at Ironwood had expected me to pass. I resisted the urge to touch the succubus necklace and instead gripped my wand tight in my hand. I did send up a prayer of thanks to my grandmother.

  The frown on Thorn’s face was so deep, the edges of his lips were almost off of his chin. My success had not made things better between us. Part of me wondered why, and part of me didn’t care. The second part was the one I listened to. I had a bed again and a place to live. I wasn’t going to be kicked out, and the feeling was glorious.

  “Very well, Ms. Thrushmoor,” Thorn looked down his long nose at me. “You stay. At least until the trials for finals at the end of the semester.”

  I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have nodded demurely, taken my win, and walked back to my seat with all the modesty I could muster. That’s what I should have done, but instead, I looked up into the deep brown eyes of the headmaster and said, “Bring it on.”

  To my joy, he even flinched under my gaze. Thorn caught himself, stood up straighter, and nodded once. It was a dismissal — one I took.

  Walking back to my seat, I noticed that Angie and Drew had someone new in our little group. Ice eyes? Jasper was sitting with my group. When I stopped in my tracks for a second, he gave me a smile and a wave. I smiled back, pretending that I wasn’t weirded out.

  Jasper was right behind me when I slid into my spot. His hands squeezed my shoulders gently, and his warm, minty breath brushed against my cheek. “Good job, babe,” he whispered.

  “Thanks, babe,” I replied, feeling odd about the sudden pet name he was using. Were we a couple now? I wasn’t sure I wanted that.

  Angie mouthed the words mind control to me when I glanced at her, then she looked towards my necklace and rolled her eyes. I shrugged. Maybe this wasn’t so bad. Losing my virginity to Jasper had been a fun night, and I had gained some of his knowledge, so maybe if he was my new boyfriend, that was fine.

  Or that is what I told myself.

  My eyes, however, kept wandering around the auditorium. There were so many sexy guys here. Red eyes held my stare when I locked eyes with him. Even from across the room, I could feel his presence. The moonstone between my breasts warmed — as did my pussy. Oh my, I thought, I wonder what he knows?

  As if sensing my dirty thoughts, red eyes smiled, then bit his lips, letting long fangs show. I had suspected, but now I knew for sure. He was a vampire. Such thoughts no longer blew my mind, they just made me feel hotter and more filled with desire.

  “Next up,” Headmaster Thorn called, interrupting my thoughts, “Cade McWilliams.”

  My breath caught in my throat as I looked for the little group of shifters. At my back, Jasper hummed happily. “The alpha always puts on a good show,” he whispered.

  Alpha? I thought, watching Big Boy walk up to the stage. Every inch of that man was muscle from his broad shoulder to his thick thighs. He exuded strength — strength I wanted to feel under my hands. Strength that made my pussy ache.

  When he got up onstage, Cade turned and flashed a confident smirk to the audience. He was more than ready to take on the headmaster. Lifting both hands into the air, the alpha moved them slowly in an arc, kind of like a martial artist.

  A shiver ran through me. The heat coming from my necklace increased, working up my desire till my panties were damp.

  I wonder what he knows? I thought with a smile.

  There could only be one alpha at Ironwood, and I was pretty sure it was going to be me.


  THE END

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  Here’s a preview of Sold to the Wolves

  The first book in my Love’s Hollow Auctions series is Sold to the Wolves, a paranormal ménage romance. Enjoy this sneak peek.

  Chapter One

  Tina

  “Well, I finally did it!” I announce after just walking into the front door of the small apartment I share with my best friends, Olivia and Leslie.

  The three of us roommates, we couldn’t be more different. I’m a witch. I’ve lived here in Love’s Hollow my whole life. Same with Leslie, though she is a werewolf. Olivia is the exception. She’s the “transplant” as we like to call her. She’s all human, that girl, but it’s the fascination she has with our kind — magical and mystical creatures — that drew her here.

  Love’s Hollow in upstate New York is a small town which is safe haven for magical creatures. For centuries there was a spell cast on the town to keep regular humans away, but that went south a few years back and the solution was to mix magic and humans. So, the majority of the population is still folks like me, but humans are taking notice and moving in. It’s a bit of a change and a struggle for us all, but we also have a booming tourist trade now. Something I want to capitalize on.

  Olivia, true to her bookish nature, is in the living room/office, working on her computer. She is probably writing on her latest fantasy story. One that I suspect is heavily based on her own experiences like: finding out that there was more than meets the eye after going to a super-secret club, called the Dimond Club, filled with creatures of legend and lore; falling in love with the magic aesthetic as much as the idea; and moving here.

  “Finally did what?” she asks me, continuing to type away. I hear rap music pulsing lightly out of her headphones.

  “I finally left my job with Gwendolyn,” I say, still barely able to believe it myself.

  Gwendolyn was my boss at The Lucky Spell Pot, a bar where I was a waitress for years. She found love and I changed jobs to be her nanny. But after working with her sweet kids for over a year, I finally did it. I told her I needed to move on, to do something else with my life while I was young and full of energy.

  I’ve always wanted to do something with my magic, my talent with it, instead of just doing a normal job. For as long as I can remember, I have had a way with telling people’s fortunes. When I touch someone and concentrate, I usually get flashes or glimpses of their future. It’s something I think I can use to help the community and myself.

  “It was hard to do,” I added, closing the front door behind me.

  “Did I hear right?”

  Leslie comes out of the kitchen. She’s covered in flour, sugar, and chocolate. She’s probably in the middle of baking sweetbread or cookies, more than any of us can eat — more than all of Love’s Hollow can eat, I’d bet. But I don’t blame her. If I suddenly lost my job at a bakery due to a fire, not my own choice, I’d be falling to pieces too.

  She pushes back a piece of her long, black hair behind her ear. “Did I hear you left your position with Gwen?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her golden eyes sparkle at me, but not nearly as much as her pearly-white teeth. Her beautiful, deadly edges, even out of wolf form.

  “So, you finally took me up on my advice, huh?”

  I shrug, remembering how long Leslie’s been after me about leaving the drudgery behind, and pursuing my natural talents. “Yeah, it was time.” Out of habit, I sweep back my long, wavy blonde hair. “You know what they say.”

  In my nose, I can smell the cookies beginning to rise. The dough is beginning to brown. With Leslie and her sensitive nose, you never have to worry about things being over or undercooked. It’s one of the high points about having a werewolf roommate.

  “I do,” says Leslie. “Why do you think I was bugging you about striking out on your own, girl? To cure my boredom?” We both laugh, but I see a serious glint in her eye. “It’s obviously why I’m baking. My boredom.” She checks the oven out of the corner of her eye, saying, “Searched for more jobs today. Applied for near everything I could, but I’m not sure if anything’s going to pan out.”

  “I’m sure it will. You just have to have faith and optimism,” I tell her.

  “No,” says Olivia, looking up from her computer and over at us. “What you gotta have is magic. Quit being so pedestrian. There are so many things I could solve with magic, but sadly”— she actually turns around, pushes her large, boxy glasses back on her beautiful face — “I don’t have magic. I have no ability to even learn to do a simple ritual.”

  “It’s not like magic solves everything, you know,” I say, actually tiring of her bitterness in this way. “Like me, for instance. I’d really like to open my own fortune-telling shop”— Olivia smiles knowingly, since she was the first to know what I really dreamed of doing, before I ever imagined I’d be strong enough to strike out on my own — “but it’s not like magic can solve my money problems.”

  In that moment, my brain shorts out.

  “Wait!”

  Well, that’s not necessarily true. There are wealth rituals and money spells. But they’re not instantaneous. They’re also not a completely lost cause, I think, leaving my roommates in the main room while I go search for a specific magic book of mine in my bedroom. One my mother made me promise never to use unless I really couldn’t avoid it. Might be worth a shot. If it works, money is not going to be an issue. Then it’s just retail space and setting up my client base. Under these thoughts, I find the book I’m looking for — a green and gold colored grimoire — grab the rest of the materials I need to work the magic (candles, herbs, sacred objects), and hurry back out to the living room.

  When I get there, Leslie and Olivia are both away from their stations, though the more surprising one is Olivia. Usually, nothing can pull her away from her precious writing.

  “I’ll help you where I can,” says Leslie as I lay out all of my gear for the spell, open the book to the right page, light the candles, and begin following the beginning of the ritual. “I’m not a witch like you, but I’ve got some power I could lend you.”

  She gives me a piece of her dark hair. As she plucks it off her head, it becomes Wolf in nature. Super powerful. I take it and weave it in with my own, so I can feel the natural transformative power she is lending me.

  “I’ll watch,” says Olivia, sounding green with envy. “Maybe I’ll find something useful for my book.”

  I nod at her, but I’m not really paying attention. I’m focusing on intoning the words of my spell; getting the inflection and pronunciation just right. This spell is not one I’ve ever done before, and with good reason. Summoning wealth and riches takes power, but also has a high chance of backfiring. You have to have a certain level of selfishness and ruthlessness to make it really work, and I don’t think I’m that kind of girl.

  As I bring up the last phrases of the spell, I can already feel something going wrong. The candles blew out first, too soon, signaling to me that the power is about to radically change. The herbs and liquids in the cauldron immediately take on that energy. They begin to bubble and froth, and before I can stop the power — close the circle — it’s bubbling over. When I asked for abundance, I got it all right.

  I grab the cauldron and rush it too the sink before more of the spell spills over on to the carpet. The bubbly contents run down the drain and out of my life forever.

  “Looks like that was a bit too much to ask for,” I say, as I help clean up my own mess. “I don’t even know why I bothered.” I have a shy, embarrassed smile on my face.

  “Anything’s worth a shot. You always tell me that,” says Leslie. She’s q
uiet a moment. Then, “You know, you could always get a loan.” She leaves me to tend to the oven.

  I follow her, curious. “A loan?”

  “Yeah. This werewolf — Ryder Strongpaw, he’s been known to loan money to people who really need it. Magical creature and human alike. He has his own business helping other business get started.”

  I know of the Strongpaw brothers: Ryder and his brother Gray. Nearly everyone does in Love’s Hollow. They are both successful businessman, who are vying for the Alpha position of the Love’s Hollow werewolf pack. Gray is a hunting and tour guide for the rich humans who like to come to our little town.

  “You should go pay Ryder a visit,” Leslie continues. “I think he might really like your idea of opening a fortune-telling shop. By a real, bona fide witch, no less.”

  I laughed at the way she hammed it up while taking out her baked goods. “Sure.”

  “I’m serious, girl,” she says. “That kind of thing could be good for his business, so who knows? He might back you like that.” She snaps her fingers.

  “I guess I’ll go get ready to see him,” I say, already running through some clothing options in my mind and the makeup I’m going to put on when I go ask for a loan. I head toward my room, taking my magic-working supplies with me.

  It really can’t hurt, I tell myself, going into my room, stowing my sacred objects, and beginning to undress, if I play my cards right, if I sell him on the good points, I might get lucky. As I moved to my dresser and closet to find my finest dress, I see the obliterated spell ingredients. Anything’s going to bring me more like than that spell.

  “And then I guess I’ll see what all the fuss is about,” I murmur to myself, beginning to put on my fresh pair of underwear, nylons and matching frilly bra. “Everyone always says how dreamy Ryder and Gray are, but everybody thinks werewolves are big hunks of beefcake.” I pull my slinky, formfitting dress over myself, admiring the way it makes my breasts and hips show, but without being slutty. “I usually like witchy boys though. They are hotter than werewolves any day, but who knows? These Strongpaw brothers might change my mind.”