Cass the new guy series, p.1
Black Magic Rising, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Newsletter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
BLACK WARLOCKS PROWLING
Books by Erin Richards
Copyright
Newsletter
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BLACK MAGIC RISING
An outcast, wannabe witch.
Unlike modern witches’ customs, Willow Wilde doesn’t want to control a warlock… even if her magic hadn’t taken a hike. But after someone plonks an ancient black spell on her, her family’s coven leader assigns the sexiest warlock Willow’s ever met to protect her.
An ambitious, magic-hungry warlock.
Evan Ravenwood can’t believe his luck… guard Willow Wilde, the one thing he’s craved for months, while he secretly serves two masters. He knows Willow’s not the average witch. Her magic’s ripe for the taking, and a dangerous black warlock also wants her for his own. A black warlock that shouldn’t exist.
They got more than they bargained for when Willow’s magic emerges.
Willow isn’t prepared for her sinful guard to contradict everything she knows about warlocks. Yet none of it matters if she can’t use her magic, or if that black warlock gets his grimy paws on her. Will Willow earn her place in the coven and in Evan’s heart before everything’s lost?
Chapter 1
The shadow oozed down her bare arm like thick, warm blood. Willow tapped Sage’s shoulder twice, giving her oldest sister, the High Priestess of the Wilde West Coven, the pre-arranged signal. The thirteen witches closed the sacred circle, encapsulating Willow and the hulking shadow within the thirteen protective points. The prickly shadow stirred around her ankles, reaching ghostly fingers up her leg, goose bumps chasing the sinister caress. A briny breeze wafted around the circle. Sparks flickered up from the bonfire and dissipated in the night air like dying fireflies. Why the hell can’t this freaking shadow die as well?
Sage’s golden blonde hair floated in a halo around her head, and Willow focused on the undulating tresses. She ignored the chanting witches before she lost her concentration on the task at hand, which was letting the magic surrounding her aid in resisting the lure of evil and kill it off. The new moon hovered behind a thin veil of clouds. Another breeze trapped the specter on a flicker of candlelight from the lit candle in Willow’s hand. The ghostly blob flitted away from the candlelight in obvious fear. Willow refused to take her gaze off the bastard.
The witches each lit a candle on the points of the circle, and the specter began a frenetic dance to escape the light, until it huddled flat and limp on the cool sand near Willow’s feet in the center of the circle. Too close, too hungry. Willow took a half step away from it, stopping her movement after Sage shook her head. She grimaced and suffered the proximity to the piece of crap. I’ll get rid of the son of a black warlock if it’s the last thing I do tonight.
Waves rushed over the sand, then ebbed to escape a foamy oblivion on the shoreline. Willow barely heard the voices intoning the spell over the booming song of the Pacific. The flames on the candles madly danced in the sea air but remained strong. The shadow pressed closer, touching her legs and sending chills down her spine. Willow likened the shadow to a demon, not that she’d ever confronted a demon, not that they still existed. As far as she knew, no witch throughout time had ever succeeded in a warding spell on a demon—if that was what had latched on to Willow. Instead, they’d killed the demons outright hundreds of years ago. None of the coven witches had a clue. Would the spell even work? It has to! She was freaking tired of the douche-canoe chasing her all over California, between home in Santa Cruz and school in Santa Clara. It seeped into her senses, under her skin, broiled the very marrow of her bones, screwed with every facet of her life. Threatening, but not actually making good on the threat.
With the black candle in her hand, Willow lit the prepared pile of herbs, releasing the strong scent of rosemary. The shadow demon, whatever the hell thing, emitted a soft keening. An invisible force touched her neck in a lover’s caress. Lust replaced the pain and evil that’d tormented her on and off for two months, and she fought the untimely and unnatural—forced—stirring of her desire.
Teeth clattering, she spoke her part of the spell, “Whatever evil comes to me here, I cast you back; I have no fear.” Fire flared up from the smoldering herbs, and a briny sea breeze gusted through the circle of witches. Sage’s blonde hair reached for Willow. Willow’s long red hair escaped the confines of her band and fluttered in the wind behind her, as if trying to escape the reach of Sage’s hair. “With the speed of wind and the dark of night, may all your harboring take flight.” The shadow’s keening evolved into a deafening roar, and Willow slapped her palms over her ears. “With the swiftness of the sea and all the power found in me, as I will, so mote it be.” Sucking in a breath and raising her voice, she leaned forward, flicked her hand at the frantic shadow. “I cast you out. I cast you gone.” With a gusty breath, she blew the candle flame at the cringing shadow. “Return to your origins!”
The witches shouted in unison, “Return to your origins, so mote it be.”
Wind funnels erupted inside and around the circle, and the candles sputtered out. The pile of ashes and herbs blew into the faces of the witches. Arms waved and voices soared as the women staggered out of formation, wiping at their streaming eyes, fighting the gusts.
“Willow!” Sage yelled from what sounded like miles away.
Evil spread its taint over Willow, and a soft red glow emanated off her, turning into an inky blackness smothering her light, her life. The manifestation of evil engulfed her and rolled her onto her back onto the sand. Numb from scalp to toes, she fell into the land of nothing. Flashes of lightning burst in her skull. Crackles and pops drowned out the uproar of the witches and warlocks who feared to approach her. A tiny ball of fire hovered over her upraised right palm, wispy in a land between life and death.
A tendril of the shadow fondled Willow’s cheek lovingly, seemed to press a kiss to her forehead, and whispered in a breezy voice, “Mine. Always. Forever.”
The face of the handsome man who’d haunted her dreams for the last two months bloomed in her mind. Dark flowing hair, sparkling blue-green eyes, blade nose, and full sensuous lips. Evil and lust emanated off the specter, both stinging and sending her writhing to stop the desire suddenly throbbing through her lower regions. The shadow formed into the shape of the man and he hovered over her, pressing closer, pinning her to the sand. It waited for her to do something. Confusion filled her mind.
“Who are you? Do you need my help?” she asked in her head. “Are you a ghost? I can’t help spirits pass to the Shadowlands. That’s not my thing.” Did she even have a thing?
“I am no ghost. Come to me. I can awaken your magic.” The breezy words pervaded her head. The weight eased off, but kept her anchored to the sand.
“Come on, Willow!” Someone shook her, and Sage’s familiar commanding voice pulled her out of her trance.
The smothering evil lifted, and Willow’s eyelids fluttered open. Concerned faces of the gaggle of witches and warlocks hovered above her. The ghostly evil floated away on a brackish sea breeze, taunting her as it drifted over the ocean, leaving her zapped on the sand. She flicked her hand to rid it of the weird, simmering fireball. The whole situation left her epically curious and only a little afraid.
Willow rubbed her blurred eyes, then braced her elbows in the sand, propping herself up. “Didn’t work,” she croaked out. “The little shit’s gone, but not fucking forgotten. What the hell?” She held out her hands, and her sister tugged her up. Willow staggered forward into Sage’s First Warlock and consort’s arms. Rafael clenched her waist and held her upright before she planted her face in the sand again.
The warlock growled low in his throat. Willow quickly stepped away from him, loathing his touch, the touch of any warlock. Most times, their barely disguised lust and menace bewildered her, leaving her jittery. Their oxymoronic cold and warm reception of her had no basis. Except that she was an outcast witch. By choice, not by decree. They resented her because as the youngest Wilde witch, she refused to join the coven. Refused to accept a warlock or even take one to her bed. Warlocks received power and status from a witch, and there were too few witches for the horde of available warlocks. Too few witches in the Wilde West Coven, aka, Wilde Coven, the most powerful and sought-after coven in the West. Willow was an über hot commodity. Yay, me, Glenda the good witch. Not.
Wasting her breath, she’d earlier told Sage she didn’t want too many warlocks at the ceremony, but Sage couldn’t go anywhere without an entourage of hulking hunks. And Sage certainly wouldn’t risk thirteen witches together without the protection of an army of warlock guards, especially among a coven of mostly sisters, cousins, and aunts. Not that the Wilde Coven didn’t include non-relatives, but they were far and few between with their huge family of female witches. The coven’s inner circle vetted outsiders to the nth degree. By the time the coven allowed in a new witch, the witch was considered family.
The Witches Counc il laws required a heavy contingent of guards on any coven of thirteen witches and a High Priestess. Another oxymoron move on their chessboard since warlocks derived their power from the witch who bonded him. Warlocks possessed no power of their own. A not-so-insignificant issue that still created a shitstorm of bitterness and disdain at times amongst both witches and warlocks. Another reason Willow steered clear of anything related to witchery. She didn’t need the drama. However, once a witch bonded a warlock, her powers became his and transformed the warlock into a magical killing machine. Once the witch died, a warlock lost his powers until bonded by another witch. A damn strong incentive to guard their witches well. Only a strong High Priestess could bond up to thirteen warlocks, or was even allowed to bond more than three warlocks. Sage’s personal heaven.
They all creeped Willow out. Why am I even thinking about this? It’s not like I’ll be joining the coven anytime soon. I like my island of one. Willow shook off her thoughts and jerked her chin out of Sage’s grip.
“What happened? Have you ever blacked out?” Sage’s sultry tone grew shrill. “Did you invoke magic?” She guided Willow away from the others, following a beam of light streaming from Rafael’s finger, wielding Sage’s witch-fire, the most powerful element derived from her aether, the mother of all powers. The only magical element she allowed her warlocks to use, which led Willow to believe Sage wasn’t so great with her other elements stemming from aether.
Willow snagged her leather motorcycle jacket off a beach chair and shrugged it on. “Like you’ve ever done a banishing ritual on a shadow demon or any demon for that matter? If it is a demon. What is the blasted thing, anyways? Why’s it tailgating me?” Willow straightened her twisted T-shirt beneath her jacket. “And do I have to spell it out again? Witchcraft and I don’t live on the same island. Haven’t I tanked enough spells?” The weird fireball on her hand arose in her memory. Did that magic belong to the thing? Far as she knew, her magic, whenever it deigned to make a half-assed appearance, was witch-water. She’d dampened enough things to find her supposed innate water element annoying as hell. Even though she didn’t want the drama of the coven, she wanted full access to her stupid magic. Every other witch she knew had wielded some magic by the time the witch was thirteen, and all had gained full-blown powers by their eighteenth birthday. Willow felt her magic sloshing around inside her and knew she had it. But it hid deep in her core, as if waiting for something, or someone to summon it out of hiding for good.
Sage swatted Willow’s arm. “What’d you see when you conked out?” She flicked a blade of seagrass out of Willow’s hair.
Willow shrugged. The slash of light lent Sage’s face a ghostly outline. “I didn’t conk out. Whackjob shadow dumped me in a trance.” The moment the words left her mouth, she knew how batshit crazy she sounded. But the idea didn’t halt the ice-cold apprehension deluging her bones, nearly buckling her knees. Rafael snaked out an arm to catch her if she fell. Shuddering, Willow sidestepped his constant hovering.
She told Sage what she’d heard, how she’d felt. “This isn’t witchcraft. Something attacked me, the same being tailing me for two months.” She focused on the pointy ear of Sage’s white owl familiar sticking out of the top of her blouse, and shivered again, unsure whether her cold stemmed from the January night on the Santa Cruz beach or the evil she couldn’t shake. Or the confusing illuminations gleaned that night.
“I don’t want you alone until we banish this bitch.” Sage held up her hand to stop Rafael from stalking them too close, cognizant of Willow’s wariness of her warlocks. “Stay with us on the beach. Then you can go to the covenstead with me.”
The bonfire’s amber waves rolled toward the misty sky as if chasing the departing shadow. Willow studied the other witches and their warlocks getting down to serious drinking and partying. Two of Sage’s bonded warlocks were kissing, arms and legs tangled, rolling on the sand. Willow’s palms dampened, and she fought the compulsion to ogle the orgies the Wilde witches never tired of.
“Hell to the no.” Crimson, her butterfly familiar, frantically moved from one breast to the other, whipping her hormones into a tizzy. Arms across her chest to ward off the cold, Willow walked off, trying to press Crimson back into tattoo form to still its movements. Chill, Crimson. I don’t need you stirring my senses right now.
A witch’s familiar was like a witch’s right hand to aid a witch in using and wielding magic. A familiar also helped diagnose illnesses, identified and created emotions, and aided in bewitchment and protection of a witch. They were used for divining and finding lost objects and treasures, conjured in rituals and spells, and least not, used in bonding warlocks to a witch. Every witch who turned sixteen gained smaller, less magical bonding familiars just for the purpose of snagging a warlock into the witch’s personal realm. Willow’s bonding familiar, Rosebud, twittered against her skin as if it was preparing to emerge for the first time. Preparing to begin a new life with a bonded warlock. As if that warlock was near. What the freakass hell? Willow smacked down on the small butterfly tattoo, trying to halt the weird sensations.
Sage’s footsteps slogged in the sand behind her. “Willow! You don’t have to partake in the festivities. Stay safe here. We’ll figure it out. I need to know what’s going on, if there’re any threats to the coven.” Sage sighed heavily. “If you’d pledge your fealty, things would be different. We’ve never had a witch in the family voluntarily cast herself out. We can’t help you if you keep running.” Sage laughed bitterly. “You’re ruining our rep.”
Her sister’s words fell on deaf ears. She’d thwarted the Witches Council and the Wilde West Coven’s rules and the odds, and didn’t give a rat’s ass that she was different. Join the coven, pledge fealty, bond a warlock. Dominate him. Blah, blah, blah. Rinse and repeat.
“I’ll take her home and guard her,” a deep sensuous voice wafted out of the fog forming on the beach, blurring the stars twinkling overhead. His all-too-familiar voice drove a skittering tingle up Willow’s spine and sent Crimson into a frenetic dance across her breasts. Rosebud quivered on her skin. Heat flared up her neck and bathed her face. A renewed embarrassment dropped anchor in her gut. She should’ve expected Evan Ravenwood to attend and guard Sage tonight. Why hadn’t she noticed him earlier?
Rafael appeared behind Sage and pressed himself to her like a leech. He growled his stupidass dominant growl, making some dumb unspoken point from his repertoire of Neanderthal opinions Willow never understood.
Evan stood three feet behind Rafael, the ever-obedient, lower-caste warlock. The large dark silhouette hid the gorgeous hunk Sage had dug up somewhere before Summer Solstice and added him to her warlock entourage. Totally her type. Why break the mold?
The idea of Sage’s cavemen warlocks bending their will to a witch sent Willow twitching like a witch with a full-body rash. So unnatural, so assbackwards. So why she didn’t belong.
“Evan.” Sage flicked her hand, and a white owl flew off her fingers, summoning him forward. Once a familiar left its tattoo form on a witch’s body, it became real until it reformed onto skin. Her summoning familiar formed on Evan’s bare chest as a white tattoo, startling against his deep tan. He strutted forward into the light Rafael produced from his witch-fire. The owl returned to Sage and sank onto the back of her hand.
Of course he’s bare-chested. Sage’s demands and rules for her coven were as consistent as the Milky Way. The less clothes, the better. Willow took Evan in from his bare feet up his skintight jeans, devouring his romance-novel, six-pack abs and wide-muscled chest. Disgust roiled in her stomach at the cliché he represented, the indignities he’d suffered at Sage’s whims, his dominant master, er, mistress. The obedient dog. The way of the Wilde Coven. The way of all 21st-century witches and warlocks. If Willow could change that mold, she might belong to their world. Until then, an outcast she’d remain, no matter that Evan confused her more than any man or warlock she’d ever met, especially after their stupid drunken and blind kiss at Summer Solstice. Did Evan even know he’d kissed me? Did he know how easily I had responded to that kiss?
Chapter 2
Evan swallowed down a fiery lump of awkwardness and a slew of other emotions. Too many days had elapsed since Sage had accepted him into the Wilde Coven. He dreaded the unfolding scene even as he’d counted down the days to its inevitability. Counted down the days he’d lay his gaze upon Willow Wilde once again, the witch who’d haunted him since the Wilde inner circle had initiated him and three other warlocks into the coven, during the Summer Solstice event. The day he’d accepted his second master.
