Could she get rid of it?

  And she’d come up with so little as to make the information useless. Not even a mention of how it was possible. No Druid curses that she could find. No warnings. No advice. It was something she did and she had no way to explain how it worked. If she stared between the V in a tree trunk, the layer between realms thinned. Dragging her gaze away from that opening could sometimes be difficult, feel almost impossible. And sometimes, something surprising and small was all it took to divert her attention. Breaking the contact was both physically difficult when she tried to force her gaze away, and breath-stealingly easy when something startled her out of her stare.

  She didn’t have an explanation for any of it. Which bothered her sometimes. But mostly she tried not to think about it, and she just avoided looking into the natural V in tree trunks. That was discipline enough.

  Only Aidan, Esmerelda, and her immediate family even knew she could do this. And now Sebastian. This wasn’t something she discussed with anyone. Not even her witch teachers after Esmerelda. No one. She didn’t discuss it with the people who did know either. For the most part, Angie had spent her life trying to manage this cursed-skill without actually acknowledging it existed.

  And after tonight, she intended to continue doing that. After tonight, she was finished with doing demon things.

  But as they stood to leave, as they walked toward the front door, Sebastian set a hand to the middle of her back as a slight guide around a weirdly placed table, and Angie’s insides clenched and melted at the same time. A reaction that made her knees a little shaky. She sucked in a breath at the heat crawling through her from just his hand against her back.

  He must have felt something too, or just noticed her reaction, because he didn’t quickly drop the touch, letting his hand linger against her for a moment longer than was necessary. When he finally let his hand drop, she could practically feel the hesitance.

  Or maybe that was her own hesitance and not wanting the contact to end.

  She thanked the goddess she’d had her touch psychic skills well-controlled in that moment, as she always did inside places like restaurants with heavy traffic and a lot of things touched by other humans. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to take any flashes of insight into Sebastian just then.

  The hunters walked her to her hand-me-down Dodge in the small diner parking lot. “Thanks for everything tonight,” Aidan said.

  “Will they cause more trouble? The men from the cult?”

  Aidan shrugged. “We’ll take care of them. It’s our job.”

  Not her job. Their job. She was a visitor to their world. Only a visitor.

  A good reminder. For all of them.

  She met Sebastian’s gaze in a stare that lasted a moment too long, then hastily retreated into her car.

  As she drove out of the parking lot, she glanced in the review mirror. Aidan had turned toward their rental car, but Sebastian was still staring after her as she left. She raised her hand a little, a goodbye gesture she wasn’t sure he’d see. But he lifted his own hand, returning the gesture.

  She fought her smile all the way home.

  The night could have been a lot worse.

  THANK YOU

  Thank you for reading Howling Dreadful! I hope you enjoyed the novella about Angie and Sebastian’s first meeting. If you’re new to the Demon Witch series, there’s an excerpt from the first book in the main series after this. Just keep reading.

  For those of you who’ve been reading along in this series, you’ll have noticed I’m publishing the short stories out of chronological order. I’m writing them as they come to me, and it turns out, I’m learning about Angie and Sebastian’s past when they see fit to tell me more and not a moment sooner. So I’ll keep publishing the short stories about their earliest years together as those stories come to me. For those of you who like to know the chronological order, though, the timeline so far, from earliest to latest is: Howling Dreadful, Moonlit Strange, and then the main series starts with Bone Lantern Witch, and the upcoming Spider Web Witch.

  Angela Jordan made her first ever on-page appearance in one of my other romantic urban fantasy series, The Cary Redmond series. If you want to jump way forward in time, you can see where Angie gets to from where she starts by reading that series. At least you’ll get hints. Even Cary doesn’t know the full story.

  For news and updates on new releases, the best place for that is my newsletter. I send subscribers updates, cover reveals, extended excerpts, the occasional free read, and sometimes I talk about what I’m reading or baking. There’s also a free, exclusive short story to all new subscribers set in my Tiger Shifters paranormal romance series. That story was originally written for an erotic romance anthology, so it’s pretty sexy for a short story. Just so you’re prepared.

  If you’d prefer, you can always get updates on new releases at my website, follow my author page at your favorite vendors, follow my page at BookBub, or find me at Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

  Thanks for reading!

  ~Kat

  BONE LANTERN WITCH

  A DEMON WITCH NOVEL

  EXCERPT

  CHAPTER ONE

  Angela Jordan fingered her pentagram bracelet and stared at the natural V-shape formed by the split trunk of the small oak tree. She’d tried not to look, had managed to avoid looking on accident for years. But this tree sitting innocuously along the path from the Mosholu entrance in the New York Botanical Gardens had caught her off guard.

  Or maybe her guard was down because of why she was here.

  She rubbed the dangling silver pentagram charm in slow clockwise circles, pressing into the pattern with each pass over the top of the dime-sized disk. She took a step toward the tree. A slight tremor from the charm stopping her. The scent of sulfur and heat burned her nostrils, a sharp contrast with the cool autumn air. Ordinary, mundane humans walked behind her on the paved path, ignoring her, unable to see the horror she watched between the oak’s trunk.

  They were all so luckily innocent, she thought, as a demon from the hellscape noticed her.

  She froze. Even her fingers stilled on the pentagram. Her heartbeat pounded. Panic she hadn’t felt in months rushed through her blood stream.

  If she could just stay still enough, maybe it wouldn’t realize she could see it, maybe it wouldn’t know.

  The creature swiveled its head and flicked the air with its forked tongue, its red-eyed gaze narrowing. Its skin was the color of rolling volcanic lava, hard sections of black covered its chest and thighs, under that a luminous red and yellow glow. It hissed, though she couldn’t hear the sound yet, revealing rows of shark-sharp teeth.

  She tried to swallow without making any movements, not while it was looking at her. She failed.

  The demon raced across the burning, charred land. Charging her. Barreling toward the rip she’d created between its realm and hers. It ran on all fours, even though it was vaguely human shaped, its spiked tail high behind it.

  A lesser fire beast. Not the same species exactly. Not the same one as that night.

  But the same hellscape.

  The same realm.

  She held her ground, unable to move even if she’d wanted to, glued by panic and fears she’d worked for almost two years to overcome. The stink of sulfur intensified, along with the burning smell of oak. Ash coated her tongue. An illusion she couldn’t ignore.

  The demon hit the tree and reached through the split in the trunk, grasping hands tipped with impossibly long claws stretched toward her. She could hear its screams now, so high-pitched the sound ripped across her nerves, piercing and sharp. Its mouth stretched and distorted with its cries, taking shapes no being of this realm could manage.

  Laughter and the chatter of a child moved behind her. The real world. Oblivious to the nightmare trying to reaching them. They’d see it if it got out, if any of the beasts escaped. The humans would see it.

  And they’d know she let it free.

  Angie folded her hand around her pentagram charm, encompassing the white beads of the bracelet itself where it hung loosely around her wrist. The charm burned coldly in her palm, the sensation a reassuring jolt of reality and sanity. A soft breeze moved through her hair, ruffling the baby hairs on her forehead, making her hanging moon earrings tinkle lightly.

  Unless she was working, she didn’t wear the stereotypical trappings of a psychic and witch. Not what mundane humans expected. No flowing skirts and excessive silver jewelry. No braids or patchouli-scented perfume. Today, she wore her comfortable camouflage—jeans and a t-shirt, hiking boots and a light autumn jacket. Only the pentagram bracelet, which she never risked taking off, and the earrings—a present from her brothers to represent her love of astronomy more than her witchy gifts—even hinted at her lineage.

  None of it revealed her most horrible skill.

  The sounds of the demon’s screams got louder, a hissing and screeching that raised the hair on her arms. Behind it, more demons noticed the breach. Noticed her. They piled against the thin barrier, pushing through the V made by the oak’s trunk like a writhing mass of snakes about to spill into this world.

  A tug on Angie’s jacket made her breath catch. She sucked in cool air, swallowed her screech, and glanced down.

  A little girl, maybe five or six years old, looked up at her with wide eyes and a shy smile. Angie heard the screams of protest from the oak, the sounds piercing her skull. She smiled at the little girl in her unicorn t-shirt and pink ballerina skirt. The gold plastic crown tucked into her tightly curled black hair glittered in the autumn sunlight.

  When the girl tugged Angie’s jacket again, Angie bent lower so she was eye level with the child, moving her big purse to one side so it wouldn’t get in the way.

  “Are you a model?” the girl asked, her whisper not very quiet.

  Angie chuckled. “No,” she said. “Are you?”

  The girl giggled and bounced on her toes. “I’m gonna be,” she confided. “But right now I’m a princess.”

  “Yeah you are,” Angie said. “And a beautiful one at that.”

  The girl’s mother spotted the conversation and hurried over. “Sorry,” she said. “I hope she wasn’t bothering you. She’s convinced you’re a model.”

  “No problem.” Angie waved to the girl as her mother pulled her up the paved road toward the children’s section of the gardens.

  The scent of sulfur had faded, leaving only the faint spoiled-egg taste of it in Angie’s mouth.

  She glanced at the oak from the corner of her eye, not making the same mistake she’d made earlier. She could still see the faint glow of the hellscape beyond, but the barrier between realms had solidified.

  No demons would be climbing through today.

  She pushed her hair out of her face, letting the breeze cool the sweat at her temples. When she felt settled, she tugged her jacket sleeves down, covering her bracelet, though she curled her fingers up into the sleeve to brush the charm one last time. She adjusted her purse at her hip, straightening the strap over her shoulder and across her chest.

  Then, letting the fresh scents of green grass, damp earth, and the faint smell of hot sauce from the food truck at the front of the gardens clear out her senses, she moved on, studiously ignoring all the natural Vs formed in the trunks of trees.

  * * *

  Angie met him at the pavilion in the decorative conifers section of the gardens. Here, dozens of varieties of pines filled the rolling hills, scenting the air. Angie loved conifers. Very few of them grew with split trunks.

  “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not doing this anymore,” she said as she approached the loan man sitting inside the gray stone pavilion.

  The open top let light spill across his face, making him look younger than his almost forty-three years. His short dark hair was still free of any hint of gray, his brown skin smooth, no creases or laugh lines around his dark brown eyes or full mouth. Sometime in the last year, he’d gone from clean shaven to a dark mustache and goatee-style beard, also without any gray.

  Sebastian was a demon hunter, though, and they never looked their age. It wouldn’t matter if he was forty-three or sixty-three or even eighty-three. Demon hunters remained exactly the age they wanted to stay. They willed away the process of aging the way they willed away demons called to this realm.

  A demon hunter’s will was an awesome thing to behold. A rare trait in humans, that kind of will. Rarer still that innate skill put to good use. And it was a trait fewer and fewer possessed with each passing year. Still, there were enough to keep the demon realms at bay. For now. It was their job to fight the fights and keep this world blissfully unaware of the threat.

  At least, most people were blissfully unaware.

  She refocused on Sebastian. He wore jeans and a burnt orange sweater that served to both honor the season and show off his broad shoulders and strong physique. The color suited him. Even without the softening glow of the afternoon sunlight, he would look good, though. A gorgeous, stunning man in his prime.

  Her chest ached. She ignored it.

  As she sat next to him, cradling her overlarge faux-leather purse in her lap, she reminded herself, again, demon hunting was his job. Not hers.

  He studied her, his head tilted to one side as his gaze traveled over her face, lingering on her eyes, her lips. “You’re looking good, Ang,” he said, his voice deep, the English accent prominent.

  She gestured at the surrounding trees, ignoring the compliment and the way his voice always sent a little tingle along her spine. “The Botanical Gardens was an interesting choice. Unless we’re here for a specific reason. Either way, the answer is no.”

  He grinned, quick and sudden, an expression that gave him a boyish charm. That smile had always gotten her into trouble. “Maybe I just wanted to see you again,” he said.

  “If that were the case, we could have met for a coffee in a crowded café in the city. No reason to get me out here where no one will overhear our conversation.”

  “I could have kept anyone from overhearing our conversation even in a crowded café,” he reminded her.

  “We both know you didn’t call me for a friendly reunion.” Unfortunately. She swallowed that response. “Or anything else personal. We both know this is business.”

  In the first six months after they’d broken up, when she’d been determined to be done with demon hunting because it had nearly killed her, he’d come to her several times in New York, trying to coax her back into his world. She’d made the mistake of following him into two more hunts before she’d put her foot down for good. Two more hunts she should never have been involved in after…

  She let out a long breath. “I’m not dealing in your business anymore. I can’t do it again, Sebastian. I can’t.”

  His smile dropped away. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary. I don’t like putting you through this any more than you like going through it.”

  She snorted. “Right. Which is why you keep dragging me back in.”

  She’d been trying to put the demon world behind her for almost two years. She’d worked hard to settle into a life without demons and hunters. Or at least, she’d tried to.

  She hadn’t seen Sebastian in a year and a half, after yet another hunt went horribly wrong for her. She’d finally, finally demanded he not contact her again unless it was an emergency. The last year and a half had been one of the most peaceful, uneventful times in her life. She’d loved it.

  She wasn’t going to give that up now, just because he flashed those gorgeous dark eyes at her. No matter how easy it was to ignore the hint of red in their depths. No matter how easy it was to fall back into the old ways, the old feelings.

  “Ang,” he said, drawing out her nickname. He held out his hand, palm up. “I tried to stay away. This time I really tried. But there’s no one else like you in this world. And I need your help.”

  She let out a huff of a sigh and looked out over the trees, keeping her gaze on the solid trunk of a pine just down the hill from them. She’d known, when he texted her out of the blue, she’d known it would be something like this. Some demon related issue.

  “No,” she said without looking at him. She could still taste the sulfur and ash in her mouth from the earlier incident. That realm… The reminder helped her hold firm. “No, Seb. No more. Not ever again.”

  “I told her you wouldn’t want to be involved,” Sebastian said quietly. “I had to ask.”

  “Aidan?” Angie shook her head. “Of course.”

  Aidan was one of the oldest and most skilled demon hunters to walk this realm. No one was sure how old she was, or how long she’d been fighting demons. Just that she was still alive when so many others weren’t. She was a legend among demon hunters. She was the hunter who’d found and trained Sebastian.

  The hunter who’d rescued Angie from herself.

  “You weren’t her only option,” Sebastian said. “Just a more straight-forward choice than any of the others left to us without you.”

  “I’m not going to ask,” she said firmly, still not looking at him.

  If she asked what the problem was, what they wanted her to do, she’d be halfway to giving in. She wouldn’t be able to hear about the trouble and ignore it. He’d gotten her before with that trick. Better not to know. Better to stay ignorant and let the hunters handle it themselves.

  “It’s okay, Angie,” he said, his voice quiet. “We’ll save the child without you.”

  “You son of a bitch,” she hissed. “Son of a bitch.” She glared at him, her jaw tight. “I hate you for this.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “Bastard.” She wrapped her fingers around the pentagram on her bracelet. “Tell me.”

  Don’t Miss

  Bone Lantern Witch

  Out Now!

  BOOKS BY KAT SIMONS

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7