The Witch's Quest
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Michele Hauf
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Chapter 1
The gnarled oak tree behind her looked...angry.
Valor Hearst straightened her shoulders and tried to avoid turning around to cast a glance at the disgruntled tree. Because the moment she started to look closer, things could become real. Especially in an enchanted forest such as the Darkwood.
She knelt on the forest floor, carefully plucking the Amanita muscaria mushrooms from a thick and curly frosting of moss. Normally, she would wear gloves to remove the poisonous red-capped shrooms, but having forgotten them, she instead used an entomologist’s tweezers.
Dried yet still-glossy trails from snails streaked across a head-size fieldstone, which she scraped into a plastic baggie. The powder would serve as another fine ingredient for future spells. She’d decided that since she had risked coming here, she’d take a few minutes to gather spell ingredients before settling down to do the real work: enacting a spell that would, with hope, lure love her way.
Valor had never dared enter the Darkwood, but on this day she was feeling her confidence and was pretty sure that the warnings against witches venturing into the enchanted forest were nothing more than blather. Mortals and other paranormals visited the darkly mysterious woods all the time. She was no different from any of them. Save that her air magic packed a wallop when need be.
“So take that,” she said, yet still couldn’t avoid a suspicious glance over her shoulder.
Had the tree’s bark curved downward in chunky folds to form a craggy frown? She narrowed her gaze, which was followed by her own frown. The bark hadn’t been shaped that way when she first knelt down before the mushrooms.
Maybe?
“Quit spooking yourself,” she muttered. “Crazy witch.”
The Darkwood was off-limits to and unsafe for witches. That was what her friend and fellow earth witch Eryss Norling had said to her last night when they closed the Decadent Dames brewery together and wandered out to the parking lot under the half-moon.
Valor happened to be attracted to most things that were off-limits and unsafe. Whether they be events, challenges or even men. Most especially men.
She tucked the red-capped mushrooms into her fishing tackle box. It was painted in olive green camo and might have a fishhook or two in it, as well—ice fishing in the wintertime? Yes, please. But she mostly used it to collect herbs and spell ingredients. A tiny jade cricket that she had disturbed from sleeping under a mushroom leaped onto the edge of the tackle box.
“You’re lucky you have a heartbeat,” she said to the insect. “Otherwise, I’d pulverize your wings and use the dust in a spell.”
The insect chirped and hopped off to a more private leaf.
And Valor pulled out a small mason jar half-filled with angel dust to use as a marker for the ritual sigil she now intended to create. A collection of rose petals she had gathered surreptitiously from a floral shop before heading out here today would also serve in the design.
No time to back out now. She’d come here with the intent of finally serving herself what she deserved. “Here’s to love.”
Cupping a handful of fine angel dust and funneling it through her curled fingers, she marked out on the thick moss the pattern that she’d studied in her great-grandma Hector’s grimoire. Small, smoky quartz crystals were then placed at the compass points and rose quartz along the borders of the sigil. She kissed and blessed the flower petals, then placed them on the moss.
Leaning back to inspect her work, she decided the design looked much like a voodoo veve. But this sacred sigil, infused with her light magic, would wield so much more power.
She didn’t notice the darkening sky as she laid a crow foot, a mouse rib and a dried rat heart at the center of the sigil. Red and pink candles were tucked into the moss, and with a snap of her fingers they ignited. So she had a little fire magic to her arsenal, as well. It was just for small tasks. A witch should never risk invoking more fire than she could handle.
Now the invocation—
Valor’s hand slipped on the thick moss, and her leg suddenly slid out from under her kneeling position. She hadn’t made such a move. Something tugged her ankle roughly.
She slapped the moss with both palms and yelped as her body slid backward across the forest floor, dragging her hands through angel dust, petals and crystals. Twisting at the waist, she searched in the dimming light. One of the tree roots had wrapped about her ankle, clasping the leather combat boot in a painful pinch.
“What in all the goddess’s bad hair days?” She kicked at the root with her free foot.
And then the frowning bark opened wide and growled at her. The tree had a merciless hold on her. And the root only grew tighter about her ankle.
Valor had heard of faery trees. And this woods was a place where the sidhe mingled with those from the mortal realm. Another reason she’d been warned away. Faeries who did not live in the mortal realm generally didn’t like witches.
She hadn’t an enchanted sword to cut her way free. But she did have witchcraft.
“Loftus!”
Her air magic whisked over the ancient tree bark with the waning effect of a whisper. And the tree actually seemed to chuckle as its trunk heaved and the bark crinkled. The root about her ankle tugged again and her boot disappeared into the soft, loamy ground at the base of the tree.
She groped for the moss, on which the candles had extinguished and the angel dust sigil had been disturbed. It was out of her reach. So was her tackle box, in which she’d stashed her cell phone.
This was bad. On a scale of one to ten for oh-my-mercy-this-is-bad, this probably rated a seventy.
“I’m fucked.”
* * *
Valor had parked on a turnoff from the gravel road that wound about three hundred yards away from a highway. It was set near a gape in the forest and not easily seen or even known about. At the time, she’d been pleased that no one would see her car. And she’d entered the forest from the opposite end of the woods where Blade Saint-Pierre lived for the specific reason she hadn’t wanted anyone to think she was trespassing. That vampire did not own the forest, but he acted as a sort of portal guardian, keeping others out of the forest.
For their own good.
Witches and the Darkwood? Not cool.
Valor tugged futilely at her pinned legs. Yes, now both were being sucked slowly down into the earth beneath the tree. She’d been here two hours for sure, and no matter how she tugged she remained pinned into the mossy ground by the oak roots. And that was exactly what had happened. She’d been pinned by a faery tree.
What she knew about such wicked magic was that eventually she’d be sucked completely into the earth and, perhaps, even into Faery. But she wouldn’t make the journey alive. And judging by how far in she’d been drawn, she suspected the process generally took less than a day. She didn’t even want to calculate how much time she had left.
She’d tried speaking a releasement spell. That had only bothered the crows perched in the crooked elm boughs overhead. They stared with beady black eyes at her like vultures waiting for carrion. She’d tried apologizing to the universe for stepping on sacred faery grounds. She’d felt the earth shudder then and had quietly lain there, palms clutching at the dried leaves and undergrowth, her cheek wet with tears.
All she’d wanted to do was invoke a spell. For her. For once in her long lifetime, she’d finally thought about herself and what she wanted.
Eyes closed now, she thought the loamy scent of moss and earth were too rich for such a fool as herself. The crisp promise of crystal clear water babbled from somewhere behind her. Even the bird chirps seemed to admonish her for being an idiot.
Would her friends think it was odd she did not show up for work tonight at the brewery? Of course Eryss would wonder. Give her a call. But Valor often did not answer her phone. Eryss would shrug and figure Valor had forgotten. It was a Thursday night. Never too busy. Instead of a staff of three, the Decadent Dames could easily manage the microbrewery with two.
They might not bother to drive by her loft at the edge of town in Tangle Lake until the next day when Valor didn’t show up to help carry in a delivery of grains that was expected to arrive in the afternoon.
She’d be dead by then. Even now she sensed her energy waning, seeping from her. Bleeding her life into the ground.
“Stupid tree,” she muttered. “A simple lash across the face would have served me well enough.”
But she knew faeries—and their trees, for they were alive and sentient—never did anything half-assed. Be it mischief or unspeakable malice, it was either all-in or all-out.
Clasping the moonstone amulet she always wore strung from a leather cord about her neck, she bowed her head to the leaves on the forest floor before her. It was time to start thinking of leaving a message for her friends. Who may eventually find her decayed corpse still pinned to this earth, perhaps one clawing hand still sticking out from the ground, surrounded by the malevolent tree roots.
“Aggh!” She had to stop thinking of how dire her end would be. That wouldn’t solve anything.
Valor grabbed a thin branch and decided the moss was so thick she could probably write in it. No. It would never work. The mason jar of angel dust sat two feet out of her reach. So blood was the next option. And her parchment? A wide maple leaf.
She broke the branch in two and was holding the serrated end poised to stab at her skin when the rapid beating of hooves alerted her. She glanced up and just had time to tuck her face against the leaves as the sleek doe beat a path toward her. The deer probably hadn’t expected a nonanimal to be sitting in the forest, so the beast hadn’t much time to correct her trajectory. Valor sensed the deer’s surprise as her front hoof nearly stepped on her hand and she leaped high and over Valor’s head.
Muttering a quiet oath and a quick blessing of thanks, Valor followed the deer’s path. Then it occurred to her that something might have been after it. She swiftly turned and spied the man running toward her, a blur of gold and green. When he was but twenty feet away from her, he suddenly halted, appearing to put on the brakes as a runner in an animated cartoon would, heels skidding and body lagging behind as his speed dropped from swift to stop.
“Whoa!” Valor stretched up a hand to stop him. Which she realized was ridiculous because he’d already stopped.
Tall and lithe and not wearing a shirt, he gave a shrug of one shoulder that stretched his sleek, tight muscles up and down his abdomen. His arms twitched as he looked her over. His face was angular and cut with sharp cheekbones and a prominent slash of brow line. Short blond hair, blown wild and wavy by his racing speed, settled about his ears and forehead. Hip-hugging gray jeans revealed he was barefoot. And his abs were sculpted with more muscle than Valor could imagine what to do with. On those abs were traced violet sigils that she knew were faery in nature. And there, braceleting his wrists, were more faery sigils.
But she didn’t fear him. She knew him.
“Valor?” And he knew her.
Kelyn Saint-Pierre padded up to her with a lanky ease that spoke more of a wild animal’s gait than that of a human. Of course, he wasn’t human; he was faery.
He swept a hand over his forehead, pushing the hair from his face. His violet eyes took her in from tangled brown-violet hair, moss-smudged cheek and faded green T-shirt to—her combat boots were well underground right now. It was too dark now for him to see into the shadows where all the horrible pinning action had occurred.
His expression switched from surprise to concern. “What’s a witch doing in the Darkwood? Don’t you know this forest is dangerous to your kind?”
So state the obvious.
Kelyn lived in the area, and she knew his sister and three brothers. Daisy Blu, a faery who had once been a werewolf, was married to Beck Severo. Valor had gone to Daisy’s baby shower a month ago.
Blade was the brother who lived at the edge of this forest. That guy was a vampire but sported gothic wings that would give anyone a fright. And Stryke was a pack leader in a northern suburb.
Trouble, the eldest of the Saint-Pierre siblings, was a werewolf to the bone. And Valor and Trouble were drinking buddies who got together once in a while for Netflix and pizza. Guys like Trouble were meant for fishing trips and shooting the shit, never romance.
Summoning her pride, Valor tossed her long violet-streaked hair over a shoulder and lifted her chin. She was still able to lean on an elbow, but she knew she looked pitiful all the same. “I was just out for a walk.”
Kelyn crossed his arms before his chest. His haughty posture and smirk spoke his assessment of her situation much louder than words could.
“You know,” she continued casually. “Collecting some ingredients for spells. Communing with nature.” She patted the moss. “Doing...witch stuff.” It was difficult not to wince. Witch stuff? Ugh. She was never good at the lie. But, oh, so talented with getting herself into strange fixes.
Case in point: the witch pinned by the oak tree.
“I can see that.” He made a show of peering over the ground. “Looks like a spell sigil to me. Witch stuff, eh?” Tucking his hands behind his back, Kelyn leaned forward in an admonishing teacher pose and said to her, “You know that witch stuff is the worst you could manage here in the Darkwood? The mortal realm powers you possess clash terribly with the faery energies that inhabit every inch of this woods.”
“I’m not working magic at the moment. Just—” A glance to the angel-dust sigil and scattered ingredients proved her guilt. “What do you want, Kelyn? Don’t you have a deer to chase?”
He righted himself and laughed. “We were racing. She won.”
Right. The man was faery. And Valor knew he had wings. Trouble had told her they were big and silver and violet, and that Kelyn was ever proud of them. She also knew that of all four Saint-Pierre brothers, Kelyn was the strongest and most powerful. Or so Trouble had told her during a drunken game of truth or dare one night.
To judge by Kelyn’s lean, lithe appearance, Valor had to wonder about such skills and strength. Sure, he looked riveted together with a factory gun and sculpted from solid marble, but Valor always tended toward the beefier, broader sorts. With dark hair. Always. A blond? Never had an interest.
On the other hand, why was she limiting her options when the reason she’d come to the Darkwood was to cast a spell for love?
Propping her chin in a hand and twisting at the hip to look more casual, she asked, “You go running through this forest often?”
Surely, he had noticed that her legs were sucked into the ground up to her knees, but she had a difficult time asking anyone for help. She was woman. Hear her roar!
She hated coming off as the weak one. The stupid witch who’d gone to the Darkwood without telling anyone.
“I do go for a run a few times a week. This woods is special to me.” He smoothed a hand absently down his abs, which drew Valor’s eye to the violet sigils. They looked like intricate mandalas, and she knew they were the source of his faery magic. “You talk to Trouble lately?”
“No,” she answered defensively. Not sure why, though. She had no reason to be defensive. Kelyn must have known that she and Trouble were friends. “You?”
Stupid witch. Why was she making light conversation?
“Couple days ago. He never mentions you.”
“Why should he?”
Kelyn shrugged a shoulder and cast his glance to the ground, his gaze stretching behind her. She shouldn’t have said that. It was the truth, though. She considered him a friend. Just that.
“You look...stuck,” he said. Suddenly, his gaze went fierce and he looked over her shoulder.
“What’s—”
Before she could summon a stupid excuse, Valor heard the roar. A beastly, slobbery utterance accompanied by a foul, greasy odor that filled the air as if a stink bomb had been set off.
Kelyn leaped, and in midair his wings unfurled. The gorgeous violet-and-silver appendages lifted him with a flap or two and he met the creature that had jumped high to collide with him in a crush of growls and slapping body parts. The twosome landed on the ground ten feet before Valor, the heavy weight of Kelyn’s opponent denting the moss and tearing up clods of sod.
Valor dug her fingers into the leaves and whispered a protection spell that drew a white light over her body and snapped against her form. The oak tree growled at the intrusion and she felt her knees get sucked deeper into the earth. The tree seemed to feed off her witch magic. And in the next instant, the protection shattered, like plastic crinkling over her skin, and it fell away.
Never had she felt so helpless. Pray to the goddess, Kelyn could defeat the aggressor, which was five times his size and built like a bear. It was a troll of some sort. Or so she guessed. She’d never seen one but knew they existed.
Kelyn punched the creature in its barrel gut. The troll yowled and kicked Kelyn off, sending the faery flying through the air where a flap of his wings stopped him from crashing into the tree canopy. Aiming for the troll, Kelyn arrowed down and landed a kick to the thing’s blocky head.
Valor slapped her hands over her head in protection, but it didn’t matter. Every moment that passed, she felt her body move minutely deeper into the cold, compressing earth.
With one final punch to its spine from Kelyn’s fist, the troll went down, landing on the moss in a sprawl. It shuddered like a gelatinous gray glob of Thanksgiving Jell-O, and then, with an explosion of faery dust that decorated the air, it dissipated.
And behind the glittering shimmer stood Kelyn, wiping the dust from his arms and abs as if he had only tussled with a minor annoyance.
Valor couldn’t stop looking around at the scatter of dust that glinted madly. More beautiful than she would imagine coming from such an atrocious creature. It almost put the angel dust to shame.
Kelyn approached. “What was it you were saying about muscled men rescuing you?”
“I didn’t...” She’d not said anything about being rescued. But really? She might have to change her tune about the leaner versions.
“You didn’t what? Ask for rescue? Looks like you might be in need of just that.”
“I’m cool.” Why had she said that? Why the need to act as though death were not dragging her down into the earth?
Kelyn squatted before her, arms resting on his thighs. “I can’t win with you, can I, Valor?”
“What do you mean? Win?”
“You’re a hard woman to please, is all.”
“No, I’m not. All it takes is some good dark coffee to make me happy.”
“Coffee served up with muscles. Like my brother Trouble has?”
“What? What is it with you and your concern about me and Trouble? We only ever—”
He put up a hand to stop her from saying more. “Don’t need the details.”
“There are no details.”
Okay, well, there had been that one time. But she wasn’t stupid enough to fill the brother in on the salacious stuff. Trouble had probably already done that.
“I really liked you,” Kelyn said, looking aside now. He’d dropped his shoulders, and the sweat and troll dust glistening on his abs drew Valor’s eye. “For a while there.”
“What do you mean?” She met his lift of chin and then figured it out. “You mean...?”
He shrugged. “But then you tripped into my brother’s arms and that’s all she wrote. I always manage to lose the girl to him. What is it about him? He’s a big lunk!”
Valor smiled at that assessment. Trouble did have some lunkish qualities. Okay, a lot of lunkish qualities. But she had no idea Kelyn had...lusted after her? “Your brother and I are not in a relationship.”
“Trouble is never in relationships,” Kelyn said sharply.
Now he eyed her legs and squinted. He bent to study behind her, and there was nothing Valor could do to stop him, because she was stuck there.
“You’ve been pinned!” He gripped her by the shoulders. “What the hell? Why didn’t you say something? I thought you were just lying around, digging up—whatever weird stuff it is you witches dig up in forests. Did you plan on staying here the rest of the night without saying anything?”
“I don’t have much of a choice. I’m stuck! And my phone is in the spell box, which got crushed by the falling troll. I was prepared to die out here until you came along. And then your abs distracted me and I forgot to ask for help.”
“Really?” He gave her the most unbelieving look ever and slapped a hand over his glittery abs. “That’s your story?”
She nodded. “And I’m sticking to it.”
“You’re pinned, Valor! That only ever ends in death. How did this happen?”
“I was minding my own business, plucking some mushrooms—”
“Minding your own...? You were performing a spell!”
“Maybe.”
“Valor! Even if you weren’t, you’ve taken things.” He gestured to the mangled tackle box. “Nothing should ever be taken out from the Darkwood. Especially not for magics that are not faery blessed.”
“You wouldn’t mind offering me a blessing or two right about now, would you?” she asked sheepishly.
Kelyn laughed softly. “I haven’t such power.”
“Stop laughing. It’s not funny. I’m going to die here. I don’t know how to get unpinned. My legs... They’re getting sucked deeper and deeper. Kelyn...”
Now she surrendered to the worrying reality of imminent death. She gasped and heaved in breaths quickly. Was this what a panic attack felt like?
Kelyn gripped her by the shoulders and she had to crane her neck awkwardly to meet his delving gaze. In that moment, Valor wished she’d known about his affection toward her. He was a handsome man. And a kind one, from what she knew about him. Always volunteering around town, and he helped rehabilitate injured raptors from what she remembered Trouble telling her. The complete opposite of his boisterous and cocky older brother.
Curse her attraction to the bad boys.
“I can go for help,” he said.
She grabbed his forearms, keeping him there before her. If he left her alone, she’d die. Already she had been consumed up to her thighs. “Get help from who? There’s no one who can help me but a faery. You’re a faery. Can’t you do something? Your magic works in this forest.”
He sighed heavily and shook his head. “I can fly and I’ve strength immeasurable and can even work some cool spells with my sigils, but I am mortal-realm-born. I’ve not half the power of those from Faery. And if you’ve been pinned by a faery tree, then you are in need of serious enchantment to get free. How long have you been here?”
“A couple hours? I came here around six.”
“It’s almost midnight, Valor.”
“Shit. I’ll be dead before morning.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
He was sweet. But if he had no faery powers to defeat this pinning, she didn’t know what he could do. She’d already insulted him once. She didn’t intend to go to her maker having insulted him a second time. “Thanks. Maybe... Could you try my cell phone?”
“Where is it?”
“In my box.”
Picking through the crushed plastic tackle box, he found the purple phone, but with a few taps at the cracked screen, he announced, “It’s dead. Technology doesn’t work here in the Darkwood. Hey, Blade’s place is at the other end of the forest. I can run there and make a call—”
“No.” She stretched out an arm, her fingers groping desperately. Kelyn’s fingers threaded with hers. It was a natural clasp, something that felt hopeless yet bolstered her courage a little. “I don’t want to be alone. Just stay with me, please?”
“Of course I will.” He folded his legs and sat before her, not releasing her hand from his calming clasp. “We’ll think about this. We’ll come up with something.”
“Actually, what I want you to do is listen to the things I need you to tell my friends.”
Kelyn bracketed her face fiercely. “Don’t talk like that. You will not die.”
“Lying about my fate isn’t going to change it. I did a stupid thing. The universe renders payment for stupidity.”
“You were not stupid. Just...stubborn.”
“So you’ve heard about me?” She tried a little laugh and it actually eased the tension between her shoulder blades. Valor blew out a breath.
And in that moment, when she knew death was her only option, she decided she couldn’t walk out of this world without one last thing. “Kiss me,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“You want to, don’t you? I mean, if you had a thing for me?”
“I did, but...”
“Please, Kelyn? I want the last thing I remember to be a kiss from a handsome man. I want to be held in strong arms. I want to know passion—”
And he kissed her. The sudden connection seared a delicious heat onto Valor’s lips. Kelyn’s arm wrapped across her back as he slid down onto the moss beside her and pulled her in tightly against his hard body. His other hand clutched at her hair. Hungrily she took from him, falling into his sweet taste, his open and easy manner. He felt like something she’d always wanted but had never known to ask for.
Why had she never noticed he’d been attracted to her?
Because she’d been too busy tagging along with the bad boys. Or those men who could only ever consider her one of the guys.
When he parted from her, their eyes lingered upon each other, as if to look away would end the kiss, their connection—her life. So they held gazes in the quiet darkness, dappled by a beam of moonlight that sifted through the latent troll dust in the air about them.
The squeezing pressure about her thighs moved higher, yet all Valor could do was whisper, “Wow.”
Kelyn nodded. He touched her lips and held his fingers there for the longest time. She closed her eyes to fix this moment forever. She must. She would die with the taste of his kiss on her mouth.
“Best kiss I’ve ever had,” he said.
She nodded and closed her eyes even tighter, fighting tears. Damn right it had been the best.
“Ah, shit.”
That remark sent a frozen chill up her spine. Valor could feel Kelyn’s sudden tension and she knew they were not alone. Please don’t be another troll, she thought. Slowly she opened her eyes to see the pair of red irises that loomed over the two of them.
