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“It’s nothing,” Dad said, his words shaky as he collected the top section of the table fromme.
No one stood up to the guards due to fear of imprisonment, but I’d had enough of their crap. They’d pulled this stunt last week when they’d destroyed our storage box. So I faced the meathead and raised the wooden leg in my hand, pointy end up. “I know why you’re doingthis.”
His upper lip curled, and something shifted beneath the surface of his hardened expression. Compassion? Doubtful. “Bee. This isn’t your business. Your father’s inventions are a danger to society.” He spoke as if we hadn’t had this exact conversation last week and the previous one. Each time, he’d strolled past Dad’s stand, kicking and destroying ourbelongings.
“Bullshit! You’re just being an ass because of Tristan.” I was the dumbass who’d dated a guard in the first place, and despite dumping him months ago, that apparently gave his friends the authority to harass myfamily.
“Bee.” Dad grasped my arm, drawing me back. “Don’t.”
But I’d confronted my fair share of bullies in Terra and standing up for myself was the only way to deal withthem.
“Listen to your daddy.” The second guard belched and kicked an automatic shoe-polishing machine. “I could arrest you now for threatening me with thatweapon.”
“We mean you no harm.” Dad’s apologetic words annoyed me. He shouldn’t have had to grovel before boys half his age. Dad wrestled the broken table leg out of my grasp. “And we appreciate your input on the safety of myproducts.”
I glared at the two guards, not appreciating a single thing they stood for. They didn’t protect people. I patted the pouch of herbs in my pocket. With a few words and a pinch of my mixture, I could freeze them long enough for everyone to mock them. Maybe throw eggs theirway.
Customers watched us, as if waiting for a fight to break out, and my heart hammered with the urge to make the guards hurt. Make them feel the agony of defeat, of being kicked back down. But I held myself still until the tension flowed away without a hint of retaliation. Considering magic was forbidden in Terra, I had no plans on outing myself as awitch.
Yeah, I’d inherited power from my mother. Like her, I was a bloodborne witch, meaning I had two sides to my power and was born under the blood moon. A dark and light source.Choose one, mom would say, andstay loyal. I selected the latter, just as she had.Dark magic came with horrific consequences,she’d insisted, but she’d always reminded me that despite my choice, a darkness still lived within me like it did in every bloodborne witch. And growing up, she’d taught me to control that urge, keep it at bay. Interestingly enough, whenever I crafted my romances, in particular the sex scenes, I found it easier to meditate and focus on keeping my two halves separate. So in a way, my stories served a purpose beyond entertaining readers. They gave me balance and aided me in skating the razor’s edge between the dark and lighthalves.
Aside from Dad and a few close friends, no one else knew about my magic, and I pretended to be a normal girl in this backwater town. While I loved my dad, I never felt as if I fit in Terra, but after Mom’s death, I couldn’t fathom leaving hisside.
“We’ll let you off with a warning this time.” Baldy’s brow creased, and he and his buffoon friend stalked away,chortling.
“You shouldn’t anger them, Bee.” Dad fiddled with the broken leg of the table, and I guessed he’d glue it back togethertonight.
“They deserve a lesson in manners,” Santossaid.
“Yes! Santos gets it,” I blurtedout.
Dad handed me a honey pastry I’d baked last night. “Have you hadlunch?”
Shaking my head, I accepted the offering and stuffed half into my mouth. “Listen, Dad.” I swallowed the food. “I’m heading off to that tutoring job near the mountains I told you about last week.” I hated lying to him, but it wasn’t as if I could say,hey, I’m off to the heart of bear territory because someone hired me to remove a curse. He’d lock me in the house, thinking I’d gone mad. Considering I did side jobs, teaching kids to read and write, he’d bought my story when I’d first told him. He might have known I worked magic like Mom, but I’d never told him how at times it felt as if I might self-combust from the energy bubbling in my veins, how on some full moons, the darkness inside was on the verge of taking me over, and how hard I had to fight it to stuff it back inside. I wouldn’t want to worry him, so I finished my pastry andsmiled.
“White Peak Mountains?” Santos’s expression fell as he gripped the shoe-polishing machine, his knuckles turning white. “Alone? You're going to let her go near the bear shifterterritory?”
“Hush, boy,” Dad said, glancing around at the crowds. “Not soloud.”
When he faced me, he lost his lively expression, and worry crept behind his eyes. With each passing day, I swore he grew more wrinkled, and his hair had turned an ashen gray. He was clean shaven today. I used to remember as a child he’d tuck me into bed and tell me stories from when he’d been younger and would roam through the different realms as a nomad before meeting Mom at a fair in Terra. He’d stay by my side until I fell asleep, and when he kissed me goodnight, I would always feel his stubble ticklingme.
“Maybe Santos has a point,” he said. “Let me come withyou.”
I shook my head. “With your sore knee, you won’t make the trip. Plus, the family I’m working for only lives near the mountains.” Second lie. “There’s a small community of humans living there, and they hired me for a week to teach their kids. They’re paying well.” Goddess, I was going to end up in the underworld because I lied so easily. Though the part about people residing in White Peak was true, so did that balance the untruths? “I’m nineteen and there are girls in town who have three kids already at my age. I can look after myself, and I have the switch blade you created forprotection.”
Over a week ago, Elliana had arrived on my doorstep, saying she’d had an assignment for me. People hired her for unusual jobs, and she searched for the right person to fulfill each request. Turned out Elliana could detect magic. So when I’d performed a tiny spell on a douchebag pinching my ass at the tavern, she’d gaped at me. After a dozen ciders, she’d gotten me to confess myabilities.
Now she threw opportunities my way. Like this latest one for which she insisted a bear shifter needed a quick cursereversal.
“I’ll get paid enough to pay off our debt,” I said. The job offered half the amount paid upfront, whether or not I could help with the spell. “So we won’t lose ourhome.”
Dad sighed. “I hate putting us in this situation. After yourmother…”
I took his hands in mine, loathing the rawness curling in my gut at the reminder of the illness that had taken her two years ago. The funeral cost that Dad had been forced to borrow, as it was custom to invite everyone from town and put on a feast. The memory sat heavy on my chest. Sitting by her bed for weeks on end, watching her slowly dying. Losing weight. Her sunken cheeks. Breaths ragged. And every day since, I’d fought the tears away and put on a smile forDad.
“Don’t be silly. We’ll make this work. We’re a team.” I looped my arms around him, his hand rubbing my back. Hugs were never long enough. In his embrace, I felt warm and safe, as if my worries had vanished. “I’ll return in no time. I made three loaves of bread and chicken soup for you. Oh, and Ariella is staying overtonight.”
“At the first sign of danger, come straight back. Allright?”
“Of course.” I swallowed the boulder in my throat, having no clue what to expect once I arrived at the shifter bear’s home. “Don’t worry about me. And who knows, if I’m lucky, the family will hire me for two weeks. But I’ll send word if I stay longer.” Not that I intended to but traveling into White Peak was an unknown and I didn’t want Dad worrying if there were anydelays.
Except a strange tingling sensation crawled up my spine and over my nape. The same feeling I’d experienced earlier about something going wrong. Maybe because I was late meeting Elliana. I blamed Scarlet, as she’d only just delivered her powerful wolfsbane roots this morning. She turned up at my place with three wolf shifters who stared at her with so much admiration. Super excited she found herself three potential men… I’d love justone.
Anyway, wolfsbane was poisonous and worked wonders in fighting curse, and I had an assignment tocomplete.
With a deep breath of confidence, I didn't care that I was late. The bear shifters were going to let me into their home to cure whoever was cursed if I had to blow down their door with mymagic.
