When Blood Meets Magic Read online

  When Blood Meets Magic

  Willow Morgan

  Copyright © [Year of First Publication] by [Author or Pen Name]

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Contents

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  20. Chapter Twenty

  21. Chapter Twenty-One

  22. Chapter Twenty-Two

  23. Chapter Twenty-Three

  24. Chapter Twenty-Four

  25. Chapter Twenty-Five

  26. Chapter Twenty-Six

  27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

  28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

  29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

  30. Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Pale. Pudgy. Freckly. My reflection stared back at me, clad only in tube socks, granny panties, and a bra that practically required a full gymnastics routine to get into. The dress I would be wearing this evening, picked out by my brother, Baxter, was an emerald green number with an elegant boat neck. According to him, it would match my eyes. According to me, it would itch like crazy all night. Since the neckline was wide, a regular bra wouldn’t work. Had that occurred to me when I let him talk me into buying it, I would have told him to suck farts and pick something more bra-friendly. I wasn’t one of those women blessed with gravity-defying boobs that didn’t require support, and since he didn’t have a set of generous C cups to confine, that thought never crossed his mind. Fashion over function, always. That was Baxter.

  I pinched my spare tire, thinking about those infomercials for weight loss spells that promised absurd results. If I could magic away the fat, I would. Unfortunately, even a Witch’s magic had rules. Stupid, stupid rules.

  “Would you hurry?” Emmett was in the living room, waiting. He only cared about getting there before all the good hors d'oeuvres were gone.

  “Let me put my Spanx on!” I held up the super-strength elastic undergarments, sighing.

  “Spanx? You don’t need Spanx, we need to go!”

  Well, the dress is rather flowy… I chewed my bottom lip and glanced at the dress draped over my bed, then back at the gut I had recently acquired. “I just think the dress will fall better with the Spanx.” I hadn’t said it very loud, but I didn’t need to. Those wolf ears could probably hear my stomach growling from down the hall.

  “The dress looks fine without the Spanx.”

  “You haven’t seen me in the dress at all.” I pushed the tube socks down with my toes, holding my dresser for balance. For all he knew, the dress was a potato sack with cat turds sewn on it. Once the socks were off, I gave a quick gesture, a burst of stored energy sending them from the floor to a hamper in my closet.

  “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “What if I eat too much at dinner tonight and bloat like a pufferfish and wind up looking pregnant?” Not to mention the fact that I was almost guaranteed a round of nervous gas at some point. I poked out my belly, staring in the mirror. “Are you pregnant, Your Highness?” I mocked the imaginary person. “Nope, just gas.”

  “Then just wear the fucking Spanx, Isabo, hell!” he yelled.

  “Fine! I will!” I shouted, matching his tone as I stuffed myself into the shapewear.

  Shit. They were tighter than I remembered, and it took quite a bit of maneuvering and dancing to finally wiggle them above my butt. Thankfully, the dress slipped over my head with no issues. Unable to bend over, I crammed and twisted my feet into one black pump and one blush pink pump—the two choices I’d yet to decide between. I weighed the shoes, debating which would better complement my chiffon frock. All the shimmying had caused the same errant strand of freshly colored hair— crimson 6RR, thank you—to swing down in front of my eyes again, mocking me.

  “You’re a sonuvabitch, you know that?” I muttered to the rogue lock, slicking it back and drowning it in hairspray. “If there’s another hole in the ozone, I’ll know who to blame. Now behave.” I paused, squeezing my eyes shut. “Oh, that’s good, Bo. Talk to your hair. That’s definitely the behavior of a stable twenty-six-year-old woman. Then again, reprimanding yourself for doing it is also probably not the behavior of a stable adult, either.” Although, my psychiatrist has never accused me of being stable. “But that’s a different issue to drink about on a different day.”

  “Let’s go!” Emmett bellowed.

  “All right!” I screeched. The epitome of grace, class, and poise. A true princess of the people. I scurried down the hall, half tempted to saunter, but I didn’t need to poke the wolf even more.

  His large frame would have been intimidating to anyone who hadn’t known him as long as I had, which made him a quite effective bodyguard. No one wanted to mess with a 6’2” werewolf who clocked in at two hundred and some odd pounds of pure muscle. Truth was, he was a marshmallow at heart. His dad was best friends with mine and when his mom left when Emmett was a kid, Dad offered to let them move into one of the spare suites of the mansion. So he’d been around as long as I could remember. His dad still lived there, and Emmett had moved into the smaller wing-turned-apartment next to mine.

  “For gods’ sake, Bo, you’re wearing two different shoes.” He rubbed his temples.

  “Whoopsies. Okay, but which ones look better?” I alternated showing off each shoe, knowing damn well he didn’t care. But hey, maybe it’d help me decide.

  “The black,” he said without hesitation.

  “You’re just saying that to hurry me up.”

  “I thought that was fairly obvious.” The only drawback to Emmett’s brown eyes was that I could never tell from a distance when his pupils started to dilate, indicating I needed to tone it down a bit.

  “I’m going to wear the blush ones,” I decided, hurrying back to my room and flinging the black pump into the abyss of my closet. Hobbling back down the hall while trying to work my foot into the pump, the Spanx revolted, divulging themselves of the pudge I had filled them with. “Oh, for the love of Hades.” I took a few uneven steps. “Oop. My purse!” I turned, muttering a quick summoning spell as I held my hand towards my bedroom. In a matter of seconds, the purse was in my hand and my foot finally went into the shoe. I unrolled the traitorous shapewear and tried to pretend that I could breathe normally.

  “I told you not to wear it,” Emmett whispered as he opened the front door, convinced I would be miserable enough to admit he was right.

  I’d rather suffocate than admit I’d made a mistake. I will die in these Spanx if that’s what it takes.

  My front door opened onto a balcony overlooking the grand hall of our mansion. When the huge stone palace had been built, they’d included a variety of smaller living quarters, which allowed Baxter and I, as well as others, to have our own suites within it. It allowed us to have the security features we needed without still living with Mommy and Daddy. Down the stairs, across the marble floor, and out the front door sat the car that would take us to the event hall. Miracle of miracles, the shapewear somehow remained in place as I sat in the backseat, although it had start
ed to pinch and chafe in the groin area. That’s going to be a problem. I tried to maneuver my hips to alleviate the pinch, but I managed to make matters worse. Chills covered my body as I tried not to yelp at the sudden pain.

  The event hall was just on the other side of the royal grounds, but walking was absolutely out of the question. Mom would’ve shit a litter of kittens if she saw me—as she liked to put it—schlepping to a royal event like I was a nobody. Honestly, I’d rather have walked. Waiting in the line of cars would inevitably take more time than it would take to schlep. Though perhaps it was smarter to ride and reduce the length of time the paparazzi had to snap photos for whatever bogus story they would publish next.

  Reporters normally attended our annual celebration of the peace treaty between humans and supernaturals, but this year’s circumstances had tripled their numbers. A rampaging serial killer tended to do that. Or serial killers. We still didn't know.

  I leaned back, the cool leather pressing against my shoulders. I had tried to talk Dad out of the leather seats in all the royal cars, but Mom had insisted, saying it looked more upscale. At least it wasn’t the middle of August. Peeling sweaty skin off a hot leather seat that had been baking in the Tennessee sun was a hell like no other. I briefly wondered why supernatural rulers of old hadn’t chosen to follow the Westward Expansion, taking our capital city to a cooler climate. Then again, the human capital of D.C. wasn’t much cooler in the summer than here.

  As I shifted, I cursed myself for being stubborn and insisting on wearing these blasted Spanx. Odin’s beard. The dress wasn’t that tight and the extra ten pounds wasn’t that noticeable. “Non-rolling” waistband, my foot. Thankful for the dark windows that provided me with privacy, I tried to unroll the stupid Spanx, trying not to make it too obvious. There was nothing I could do for the pinching in my nether region. I just had to hope it didn’t get worse or I’d wind up losing something I was rather attached to.

  “Regretting those torture panties?” Emmett met my eyes in the visor mirror of the passenger seat in front of me.

  “Not at all,” I lied. Shifting again had been a mistake. Now they were traveling in the opposite direction and crawling up my ass. “Jesus H. Christ,” I borrowed one of my favorite human phrases.

  “I don’t know what he’s going to do for you, babe.” He gave his hair a final joozh.

  “Doesn’t hurt to cover my bases.” My attempts to wiggle the Spanx out of my crack were in vain, and they didn’t go unnoticed. I wasn’t a thong kind of gal, and the wedgie was almost as bad as the pinching.

  “Just take the damned things off. I told you a hundred times—”“Well, if you hadn’t had me eating all those fried foods recently, I wouldn’t have felt like I needed them.” Approximately three seconds after unrolling the shapewear for the umpteenth time, they were back down, squeezing my hips and making me look like a busted can of biscuits. Damn, I could go for some biscuits and gravy right about now.

  “Oh, go ahead and act like the three-a.m. fried chicken wasn’t your idea.” He turned to face me.

  “Why don’t you just fix your hair, Fonzie?”

  “My hair is fine.”

  “Check again.” I concentrated my reserve energy, sending it out toward his hair, reversing the expert coif he’d managed. That would distract him from griping at me about midnight pizza and whose idea it was.

  “Hey! Unless you’re going to magic it perfect, don’t magic my hair.” His head snapped to the left. “Bro, why don’t you look the other way. The lady’s struggling back there.” Emmett punctuated his command to the driver with a flip of the visor.

  Our driver blushed and adjusted the mirror, averting his gaze while I managed to free the shapewear from their prison. “These things had to have been invented by a man. Or a repressed housewife.”

  “Don’t go putting those things off on men. I told you they were stupid. We like the fluffy parts.”

  “And the gods know I live to please a man,” I scoffed.

  The car pulled to a smooth stop and, when my brain wasn’t so concerned about my undergarments, it finally had time to hyperfocus on the task at hand: walking in without falling. Had I ever fallen before? No. But that didn’t mean my brain wasn’t currently concocting approximately fifty-seven scenarios in which I wound up on the front page of national news with my good china displayed for gods and country.

  Shit.

  I worked the rose quartz stone of my necklace between my fingers, hoping it would calm the trembling in my knees so I wouldn’t eat concrete as soon as I exited the car. I thanked our driver as Emmett opened my door. Placing my feet firmly on the walkway, I took Emmett’s hand and stood, feeling the plush purple carpet runner give beneath my dangerously high heels. Maybe I should have worn the black ones. Not stopping, I waved graciously at the reporters as I closed the gap between us and the massive double doors. Smile. Look personable. Don’t fall.

  “Your Highness.” The doorman opened the double doors, and I was able to breathe a little easier now that we were inside and the first hurdle was over.

  I opened my mouth to tell Emmett I’d be right back, but he’d already spotted a tray of shrimp cocktail and made a beeline for it. “Of course.” He was technically off duty tonight, but that didn’t mean I was completely without protection. One scan around the room revealed at least twenty bodyguards, and I knew there were plenty more masquerading as servers. One of whom was standing at the bottom of the staircase with a tray of champagne. Sweet, sweet champagne.

  Thankfully, there were no reporters inside, so even if I did manage to somehow topple, it wouldn’t wind up on the news. Thank the gods for small favors. I slipped into the powder room and into one of the stalls, ditching the torture panties in a trash can before emerging and heading for the champagne.

  “That dress is perfection,” my brother, Baxter, whispered as he took a flute for himself.

  “If you do say so yourself?” I clinked his glass with mine. Baxter had taken it upon himself years ago to go shopping with me for special events. I had to admit, he had good taste. “Where’s Fabian?” I scanned through the crowd for his boyfriend, but couldn’t spot his unruly mop of curly black hair anywhere.

  “He’s probably off somewhere, being charming. Offering to design a dress for some diplomat, I’m sure.”

  Finally, I spotted him. “Well, I found him. And he’s standing right next to Carl, who has Dad cornered.” Bless his heart, Carl was the Secretary of State for the human government. A lovely fellow, but he could talk the horns off a billy goat. Especially if you got him on the topic of gardening. “Ready to launch a rescue mission?” I took a third glass of champagne for Dad. He’d need it.

  “You betcha.” We wove our way through the throng of people to our father, who was likely trapped in a conversation about root rot or aphids. He was trying to look interested, but it’s hard to feign interest in garden pests.

  “Dad, Melissa said she needs to speak with you.” I pointed my thumb behind me at the non-existent Melissa.

  “Who?” A crease formed in his brows.

  “Melissa. She’s over there. Across the ballroom. All the way on the other side of the room.” I widened my eyes, tilting my head almost imperceptibly toward Carl. Come on, Dad. Help me help you.

  “Something about the Beltane festival?” Baxter added.

  Dad’s confusion quickly changed to understanding. “Oh! Right, the Beltane festival.” He gave Carl a pat on the shoulder and took his flute. “Let’s not keep Melinda waiting.”

  “Melissa,” I muttered through a smile.

  “Right. Melissa.”

  “Have you seen Mom?” I asked once we were out of earshot.

  “Flitting about, fussing over everything,” Baxter said. “What even is this?” He picked an hors d’oeuvre off a passing tray and sniffed it.

  “Don’t let your mom hear you talking about her food.” Dad took a bite of the mysterious morsel. “She spent weeks planning this menu.”

  “I think it
’s a stuffed mushroom,” I said, chasing it with some champagne. It didn’t taste bad, of course. It was just tiny. A tray of microscopic quiche passed by and we all snagged one. Dad managed to palm two.

  “We’ll go out for burgers afterward,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Mmm. It’s good, though.”

  “Did you guys taste the shrimp cocktail?” Emmett walked up, holding a stack of the tiny cups that had once held the crustacean swimming in a tomato-based pool.

  “No, someone had just taken the last one when I got to the tray,” Baxter said, sipping champagne and looking away.

  “Oh.” Emmett eyed his haul.

  Mom made her way through the crowd and over to us. “I think everyone is enjoying themselves.”

  I hid a smirk as Mom continued to schmooze, practically ignoring us to wave and smile at the other guests. She was a charming host, even if the event planning was stressful.

  “As much as one can enjoy a stuffy treaty celebration,” Baxter murmured.

  Mom’s soft brown hair was in an elaborate updo cushioning one of her more ornate crowns. The deep purple of her gown complimented her light skin and blue eyes. She’d grown up poor but managed to transition to royal life quite easily. I grinned.

  “May I have this dance, madam?” Dad kissed Mom’s hand and bowed.

  “Certainly.” She curtsied, and Dad swept her off to dance.

  “I see more shrimp cocktails.” Emmett followed after the man escaping with the tray.

  “I’m surprised Mom didn’t break out her robe, considering she wore her fancy crown,” I said.

  “Must be at the cleaners,” Baxter said.

  Baxter and I were twins, but I was older by three minutes, and our law stated that rule was passed to the eldest, regardless of gender. We were both sturdily built, although right now his was more muscle, and mine was more cake and ice cream. His blue eyes came from Mom, I’d inherited Dad's green eyes, and we had the same sprinkling of freckles across our nose and cheeks. Baxter kept his hair our natural shade of brunette while I opted for a fiery red.