Sassy Ever After: Bewitching Sass (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Wolves and Warlocks Book 1) Read online

  He never wove spells to protect against those annoyances, nor would he abuse his power that way.

  But this latest situation had him at a loss. Ever since he’d bought Silver Meadow from Althea Westing’s estate, he’d struggled to break ground. Nothing penetrated the earth because everything broke the moment they aimed it at the dirt. The shovel met resistance as if it hit rock. The backhoe’s bucket seized. The drill bit snapped a second into spinning into the soil.

  The one time the earth gave way as he expected had been when Orion had sifted his hand through the rich dirt at the tree’s edge. It gave way under his fingers, the damp soil wedging beneath his nails. In his frustration, he resorted to detonating a small explosive in the impression left by his hand to see what would happen.

  He’d made sure everyone was off the site. He’d woven a protection spell for the surrounding area and then stepped outside the perimeter to light the fuse.

  It went off with a thunderous boom, making the ground shake.

  When he checked out the damage…nothing. The explosion hadn’t even marred the tracks of his fingertips in the soil.

  That was the confirmation he needed to know something else was at work here, and it was time to find out what.

  This land had pulled at him for two decades. There was magic there. The kind that illuminated the world. In this case, a power most would want to harness. A desire he’d felt within himself that he had been afraid to examine too closely.

  The part of him that cherished that land as a place of wonder outweighed the dark urges buried deep within him to draw on that power, control it, and use it for his selfish purposes.

  The life of a warlock, especially one in the Murdoch family, was a delicate balance of living firmly in the light and resisting the dark pull toward evil and mayhem that brewed within each of them. Well, most of them. There were exceptions. Like his father.

  Generations of Murdochs had lived honorable lives to make up for the ancestor they shared. Unfortunately, no matter how much he dedicated himself, the temptation never quite went away. It danced just out of reach, waiting to take advantage of weakness.

  At this moment, with his frustration reaching its peak, he understood the temptation to sway. He felt it calling deep within him now, like a lover assuaging him with all the things he wanted to hear.

  “You can have everything you desire if you let yourself go, shed the confines, be who you’re meant to be,” it whispered from somewhere in the depths of his mind.

  He never knew what it meant. Who the fuck was he meant to be?

  Thirty years old and he hadn’t the first clue what fate was telling him. He itched with impatience, his shoulders rigid with tension.

  This land was his. He had every intention of spending his life in the home he built there, if he could just figure out how to do it.

  Something had to have a grip on the land. That pull he felt? He had always believed it to be a positive force, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he had been looking at this all wrong from the beginning.

  Maybe something sinister disguised itself as innocence and light.

  But why?

  And what did it want from him in order to break ground?

  “Boss?” Finn Tretter, his best foreman, called from just inside the door. Spotting Orion, he removed his hard hat and clutched it in his hands as he shuffled from foot to foot.

  “What is it, Finn?” He shook his head and sighed at his abrupt tone. “Sorry. I’m frustrated and it’s not your fault.”

  “I understand, Boss, and take no offense. I’d be spitting mad if I were you.” He scratched the back of his head and cringed.

  Orion’s stomach sank. “What now?”

  “Well, uh, I hate to have to tell ya, but the transmission is on its way out on the work truck you have me using,” Finn said.

  “What? It only has fifty thousand miles on it. Are you sure?” A throbbing started in the base of his skull. He closed his eyes and focused his energy on the spot until it faded away. When he opened his eyes again, Finn watched him with wariness in his own clear blue ones.

  And an understanding.

  “I’m sure, Boss. I can take care of it, but since it’s still so new I figured I better check with you to see if you want it to go back to the dealership, or if you had a shop you like to use. I didn’t figure you wanted Stan to work on it, with everything else around here turning to crap. Most of our other repairs haven’t held, so…” His words drifted off with a shrug.

  “I’ll call the dealership. Then, when shit goes wrong, for once I’ll have someone concrete to blame,” Orion muttered.

  Finn swiped took a swipe at his brow with the cuff of his flannel shirt. “About that, Boss, I was wondering, uh, couldn’t you just…” His voice trailed off and he waved his hands in the air in a swirling motion.

  For the first time that day a smile tugged at Orion’s mouth. “I’m not sure what,” Orion mimicked the motion, “that is.”

  Finn shuffled his feet, looking about as comfortable as a preacher after wandering into a biker bar. “Can’t you do some of that witchy stuff, you know, to protect the equipment and to break that ground out there?” he asked with a nod of his head in the direction of the lot.

  Orion dropped into the chair behind his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So, you know what I am?”

  Finn’s eyebrows shot up. “Doesn’t everybody?”

  Orion rubbed the scruff on his jaw. “Until now I thought I had done a good job hiding it.”

  “Well, to be honest, it’s kind of known everywhere in the company. No one really talks about it anymore, because it’s kind of personal and all, but we know. We trust you, so we respect your privacy in the matter.”

  And Orion appreciated it. He didn’t advertise what he was, he didn’t want to talk about it, it just was. He knew for a fact he had three shifters on his crew, but he never said a word about knowing, and just went about his business. As long as they did their work, they always had a job with him.

  Since Finn seemed to be so free with the information at the moment, Orion decided to see how much more he could get out of him.

  “So if the whole crew knows, what are they saying about our not being able to break ground?” Not that he assumed his crew was talking shit behind his back, but he had to wonder if this was shaking their confidence in him. Unless they actually believed that after not having any equipment issues, they were now having all the equipment issues, both manual and motorized, in one shot.

  Yeah, he wouldn’t buy that bullshit either.

  “Other than doing whatever it is you do to make stuff happen? They think you should research the property more, find out what might have gone on here,” Finn answered.

  “Well, that right there is the problem. I’m not super tied in to life as a warlock. I practice it when I absolutely have to, I have family notes that I’ve never read. I have a Book of Shadows, diaries full of legends, all kinds of stuff, but I’ve never opened a one. I use the few things I learned as a child from my parents and that’s it,” Orion said.

  “You mind if I ask why?” Finn said as he propped himself against the wood-paneled wall.

  “I’ve been too busy building this business. Immersing myself in magic takes training. As much as it does to build a viable company. There wasn’t time for both.”

  Finn nodded and dropped his hard hat back on his head. “I can understand that. Well, I don’t want to wear out my welcome and ought to be getting back to work. Let me know where you want me to drop off the truck and I’ll have one of the guys follow me over.”

  “Thanks, Finn. I appreciate it,” Orion said, pushing out of his chair, circling the desk, and reaching out his hand.

  Finn took it and smiled. “All in a day’s work, Boss.”

  Orion watched him make his way back to the truck and pull a few things out if it. His gaze drifted to the break in the trees just past the equipment and to the emerald green field just beyond it.

  The sun danced over the moist ground, making the groundcover shimmer as if fairies had showered it with glitter-infused pixie dust.

  This was his diamond in the rough, always just out of reach. He didn’t want to polish it and decorate it with a cookie-cutter house that could be found on every cul-de-sac in suburban America.

  He wanted to ensure that didn’t happen by owning it for himself and putting the right kind of structure on it, designed by someone who recognized the magic.

  He’d designed the perfect home for this land. A home that left everything intact, other than the ground the house would sit on, just in front of that magnificent tree where it could hang over the structure like a protective, gnarled hand standing vigilant over the home and souls within the walls. The back deck he’d designed to surround the base ensured the tree would remain an integral part of the home for years to come.

  His thoughts wandered back to Finn’s question about why he didn’t do more.

  The real answer? Because becoming more of a Murdoch left him with an acidic burning in his gut. He’d tried to talk to his father about what he sensed, but his father, one of the kindest, most jovial people he had ever met, had never given any indication that darkness spoke to him. Orion feared their differences and what those differences meant.

  Something in his history, in his DNA, tempted him every day. And if he read those letters, studied those spells, and immersed himself in his family history, he had no idea what he would find. But deep inside a feeling of dread loomed over him, leading him to believe he’d unearth something he could never bury again and it might well suck him in and turn him into someone he no longer recognized.

  But at this point, he didn’t have much of a choice. Something niggled at him. Something that told him whatever had happened on that land, everything that would happen in the future, had everything to do with him and his place within his family.

  The idea of the dark seducing him away from the light cut him to the quick. He prided himself on his physical strength, and his strength of character.

  But the dark? While it promised more strength, more power, and everything he wanted, he knew there had to be a price to get it. And in paying that price, he’d be weak.

  Not on his watch. If the other Murdochs wanted to swim in that shit so be it, but not him.

  Never him.

  Chapter 3

  “It’s her,” Courtney said, leaping for her cell phone as if it lay across the room instead of right in front of her on the table.

  Maeve stared down at her hands, careful to not move her aching head too fast, and ran her fingertip over the skin once again. No marks remained. Not even where the glass sliced open the meaty base of her thumb in an inch-long, crescent-shaped gash.

  “Hello?” Courtney answered.

  Maeve listened, but couldn’t make out what Barbara said on the other end. She might have had a shot if she hadn’t continued drinking when she made it home.

  Something she totally blamed on Courtney, since she had refused to leave Maeve alone after what had happened.

  She’d also pulled out more liquor the minute they made it through the door, not that Maeve had put up much of a fight.

  She glanced toward the counter by the sink, to the empty liquor bottles there.

  Or any fight, for that matter. She held her head in her hands to keep it from rolling right off her shoulders.

  Not even the sun pouring through the window of the kitchen nook and the scent of fresh- sliced lemon for her ice water could break through the fog of misery.

  “Yes, we’re open. You need to come by and check it out. My business partner, Maeve, designed the interior space, and it’s just stunning,” Courtney said, winking at her.

  Maeve’s heart pinched. At least Courtney stayed right by her side in all of this. Without her, Maeve would be totally alone and still navigating the hangover from hell with no direction whatsoever.

  So much for being the organized one.

  Maeve wished her parents were still here so she could go to them with this. They’d have to know what was going on. But a semi sliding across the median on icy roads took away that option, leaving Maeve alone and wondering what the hell to do.

  Her grandmother had Alzheimer’s and her aunt, uncle, and cousins were selfish pricks just waiting for her grandmother to die so they could take what was left of her money. They’d swooped in and made it increasingly difficult for Maeve to visit, leading her to believe they were trying to keep her out of the will.

  Not that she needed the money now. Truth be told, she’d rather be able to say she had done it without the help of family even if it did mean two precarious years. This way it meant more. She knew she had what it took to make her dreams happen.

  At least when she was sober. Right now, she was fairly sure that the scope of her abilities was making chocolate milk and changing the toilet paper roll.

  Courtney wiggled in her seat as if bolstering her courage. “If you don’t mind, Maeve is here with me and we have a few questions we’re hoping you can answer. Do you mind if I put you on speaker phone?”

  Courtney lay the phone on the table after raising the volume and clicked the speaker phone button. “We’re back. It’s awkward, but Barbara, meet my good friend and business partner, Maeve. Maeve, this is Barbara Wolfe.”

  “Hi, Barbara. It’s nice to meet you,” Maeve said, infusing a false confidence into her voice even as her hands shook before her. Whether it was the hangover, or trepidation over the direction in which they were about to take the conversation, was anyone’s guess.

  “Lovely to meet you, too, dear. What can I help you ladies with?”

  Barbara’s smooth, confident voice, with the air of authority, eased Maeve’s worried mind a fraction. Last night, with copious amounts of alcohol in her system, she could laugh off what had happened. And with more drinks at home she put it out of her mind altogether, until the harsh light of day.

  She hadn’t dreamed, for the first time in what felt like forever. Not that she had gotten good sleep. She had woken up feeling as though someone had stuffed her head with cotton and pried her eyelids open while running her through a carwash dryer.

  Happy twenty-fifth…you lush!

  Bourbon, you traitorous bitch. Never again.

  “Well, something strange happened while we were out last night and—” Maeve began.

  “A few strange things, actually,” Courtney added.

  Maeve narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “Okay, a few strange things. Anyway, I’ve always had these visions, but last night it was so much more. Like whatever I was seeing, in whatever time, was trying to suck me back there.” Maeve winced, and rubbed her forehead. “Look, this sounds ridiculous just saying it. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, dear. Although I’m not quite sure why you thought I could help you with visions,” Barbara said.

  Maeve twirled the ends of her hair that fell over her shoulder. “It’s not so much the vision. It’s the tree I saw in the vision. Courtney can text you the sketch of it if you can hold on for just a sec. It’s unique, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Courtney said she heard Ellie talking about it when they were kids.”

  The line went silent for a full ten seconds before Barbara cleared her throat. “I have a feeling I know what tree you’re talking about, but just for accuracy I’d like you to send that drawing.”

  Courtney tapped a few keys and sent the photo of the sketch she had taken earlier in the day.

  Maeve wrung her hands as the silence on the other end of the line filled the room. As the tension grew, the urge to run consumed her. Her muscles heated, much the way they did when she warmed up for field hockey in high school by running laps.

  Only, she hadn’t moved more than a few inches in the past ten minutes.

  She craned her neck and stretched it from side to side, desperate to resist the unexplainable urge to leap from her chair and bolt out the door.

  “It’s the tree at Silver Meadow. You’ve never seen this before in person?” Barbara asked.

  “No. I’ve had visions all my life of this place where the ground is covered in moss and the sun shoots through the trees, lighting the ground like tiny diamonds, but it’s nothing I’ve ever seen for real.”

  Barbara cleared her throat. “That might be where you’re wrong, dear. You might have seen this very meadow a long time ago. Twenty-five years ago to this very day.”

  “That’s impossible. I was born twenty-five years ago today.”

  “Were you adopted?” Barbara asked in a delicate, hushed tone.

  The hair on the back of Maeve’s neck stood up. “What? No. Of course not.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?” Barbara pressed.

  “Well, as sure as I can be. I mean, my parents never gave me any indication I was adopted.”

  “Can you ask them?”

  “No. I can’t,” she mumbled.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to broach the subject with them if it wasn’t important.”

  Maeve swallowed the lump in her throat and rubbed at her watering eyes.

  “Maeve can’t ask them because they died last year,” Courtney said quietly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, dear. Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t of the utmost importance. Please know that. Is there anyone else you can ask?”

  Maeve hugged herself, wishing she could go back to yesterday when her life didn’t seem so foreign to her and her biggest worries were stock deliveries and their bank balance. “Not really. Not that I would trust with all of this. Why is it so important?”

  “Because, if you are who you I think you are, it means the legends are real. Until now, we couldn’t be sure.”

  Courtney sat up and leaned toward the phone. “Could this be why all of a sudden last night, when she fell on broken glass and was cut up, she healed in a matter of minutes?”

  “So, you’re a shifter,” Barbara said.

  Maeve choked back a hysterical laugh. “A what? Like a wolf shifter? No. Of course not.”

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