I scrambled to my feet and hurried up the stairs to tell Titus about my day. If there was even the smallest chance that Beau was my soulmate, I didn’t intend to let it slip away. But for now, I had a date with a plate full of sprinkle-covered spritz cookies and my best feline friend.
If there was anything I’d learned from Wendell’s ordeal, it was that we should always prioritize the people we care about, even when it’s uncomfortable. Maybe I’d had one too many awful Tinder dates back in the earthly realm, because I couldn’t remember the last time a man made me feel special.
But Beau did, in all the best ways. Wasn’t that worth waiting for?
Dying to spend more time with the Witches of Salem? Click here to find other books by Harmony Hart.
Gemma’s Spritz Cookies
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Colored sugars/sprinkles, for garnish
Cookie press
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl for about 5 minutes, or until smooth, pale and fluffy.
Add vanilla and almond extracts.
Add egg, beating until smooth.
Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix until just barely combined.
Load the dough into a cookie press and press into festive shapes on a cookie sheet.
Sprinkle with colored sugar/sprinkles as desired.
Bake for 9 to 13 minutes, or until the edges show a hint of golden brown.
Remove from cookie sheet and transfer to wire cooling racks.
Tips
Use a mixer to keep your wand hand from tiring out.
Switch up the flavors by changing the extracts or adding a hint of spice. Try Gemma’s favorite variations:
Vanilla extract + pumpkin pie extract + pumpkin spice
Lemon extract + vanilla extract + lemon peel
Brown sugar extract + vanilla extract + a dash of cinnamon
Cherry extract + almond extract
Keep an eye out for sneaky cats jumping on the counter to snatch a treat!
About the Author
Harmony Hart writes paranormal cozy mysteries featuring smart, sassy heroines and a world of witchy fun.
Harmony loves lip balm, bookstores, bubble baths, and tea. Oh, and alliteration. She's probably making some sort of list right now. When she's not writing, Harmony can be found experimenting in the kitchen, binge-watching ALL THE TV, cozied up with a good read, or attempting not to kill the plants in her fledgling garden.
Harmony lives in Austin, Texas with three fickle rescue felines and her magical-to-her musician husband.
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It’s A Love Thing
Cate Dean
Summary
Love is in the air – and not in a good way.
Claire Wiche has to find the source, and fast, before the residents of Santa Luna fall under its spell.
It’s a Love Thing
Claire Wiche looked up as the bell over the door of her shop rang. Her first customer of the day.
Or not.
Annie Sullivan came rushing in, her cheeks flushed, her short blonde curls wilder than Claire had ever seen them.
“Claire—thank God!” She rushed over to the high counter and reached for Claire’s hand. “You have to stop it, before everyone is infected.”
“Slow down, honey, take a breath.” Claire closed her hand over Annie’s clenched fist. “What am I supposed to stop?”
“A love spell. I didn’t do it, I swear.” Claire bit back a smile; Annie had been wanting to try a love spell since their first lesson. Her smile faded at Annie’s next words. “It looks like half of Santa Luna’s been infected. Mildred’s outside, mooning over a tree.”
Annie tugged at her hand, and Claire walked around the tall counter, following her to the window. She felt the swirl of power the moment she reached the glass.
“Oh, Mildred,” she whispered. Her oldest, and most ornery customer, stood outside the shop, hugging one of the oak trees that lined Forest Street. “Stay here, Annie.”
“But—ˮ
“I mean it. Proximity to one of the affected might allow the spell to spill over.”
“Fine.”
Claire pushed the door open, wrapping a protection spell around her. The air smelled of the sickly sweet love spell, and the closer she got to Mildred, the stronger the smell. It was a miracle Annie had escaped unscathed.
“Mildred.” The old woman gazed up at the tree, tears glistening in her eyes. “Mildred, it’s Claire.”
“Isn’t he the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” Mildred caressed the rough bark, and her voice sounded—odd. Instead of the usual demanding tone, she had a dreamy, almost girlish whisper. “I’ve never felt like this before, Claire. I’ll just die if he doesn’t love me back.”
“Would you introduce me, Mildred?” Claire forced down the panic at the old woman’s declaration. This was no simple love spell. Already, Claire could see the almost invisible threads binding Mildred to the tree. She had to break that bond, before it was too late. “I would love to meet him.”
Mildred did exactly what Claire had hoped—she held out her hand. It gave Claire the opening she needed.
“This is Forest.” She patted the tree, and Claire flinched when she saw Mildred’s scraped, bloody palm. “He loves a good, hard rub, don’t you, my love?”
“It’s a pleasure, Forest.”
Forgive me, Mildred.
Claire took her hand and jerked her away from the tree.
Mildred’s shriek bounced off the shop window. “What are you doing?! Let me go! Forest will die without me!”
Flinching as Mildred’s nails gouged her wrist, Claire laid her free hand on the woman’s wrinkled cheek and whispered an unbinding spell, a spell of clearing.
The love spell fought her, surprisingly strong, but Claire had been ready for the resistance. She found the source, wrapped an invisible fist around it, and channeled the unbinding directly to the heart.
With a piercing scream, the spell gave up its hold on Mildred.
Claire pushed another spell at the source—and stumbled when the love spell slipped free. She ducked, feeling it brush her cheek as it flew past her. Dread shot through her as she spun.
Annie stood in the doorway of the shop.
“Annie—get down!”
Her warning came a moment too late.
The love spell slammed into Annie, so hard she dropped to her knees.
Mildred’s voice had Claire turning back to her.
“What happened? My head feels like it does when those irresponsible teens play their music too loud.” She lifted one hand to her forehead, and caught sight of her scraped palm. “What the hell—what did you do to me, Claire?”
“You were under the influence of a love spell, Mildred.” As she spoke, Claire wove a protection spell around the old woman. “I want you to go straight home, and stay there until I phone you.”
Mildred blinked at her, and Claire braced for an argument. Instead, Mildred nodded.
“I remember—the tree.” She looked down at her hands. “That spell made me fall in love with a tree.”
“You’re protected now.” Claire took a small quartz crystal out of her pocket and gently laid it in Mildred’s hand. “Keep this with you, and go home.”
“Thank you, Claire.” The gratitude shocked Claire; the kiss Mildred pressed to her cheek shocked her more. “I’ll wait for your call.”
As
soon as Mildred started moving, Claire headed for Annie, prepared for the spell this time.
“Annie.” Claire crouched in front of her, out of reach, wanting to touch her, make certain she hadn’t been injured by the spell. “Can you hear me?”
Annie lifted her head, and Claire knew she was too late.
“I’ll never stop hearing you, my beautiful Claire.” Before Claire could react, Annie grabbed her and pulled her into a choking embrace. “I love you so much, and I’ll die if you don’t love me back.”
Without saying a word, Claire managed to free herself, and led Annie back into the shop.
“Where are we going, Claire?” Annie’s high-pitched voice scraped over her skin. “Why won’t you look at me? Tell me you love me? I’ll just die if you don’t—”
“I want to be alone, Annie.”
“Okay!” Like Mildred, Annie seemed to regress with the spell, sounding young, and under the influence of a crush. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Oooh, I love surprises!” Annie bounced up and down behind her. Like a child. “Tell me where!”
“Then it won’t be a surprise, will it? Patience, my dear Annie.”
“Fine.” Even without looking at her, Claire knew she pouted. The attitude, and reactions, told Claire that the love spell’s creator was young—and irresponsible.
She only knew one witch who was both.
“Annie, why don’t you tell me about your walk over here.”
“Oh—I saw the funnest thing! A lemonade stand, like I used to have when I was a little girl.” She sighed dramatically.
“Where was this stand?”
“Over by the chess table, next to the boardwalk.”
“Of course.” Claire stopped in front of the back room, and remotely locked the alley door from the outside. “Now, let’s go inside, and I’ll tell you exactly how I feel.”
“Finally! It feels like I’ve been waiting forever.” Annie hugged her from behind, and Claire stifled a gasp when the spell pushed at her, trying to find a way in past her protection. “I love you so much, Claire.”
“I know you do, Annie.” She walked them into the back room, strengthened her protection spell, and eased Annie’s grip so she could turn around. “I need you to do some—ˮ
Annie’s lips cut her off.
Thankfully, the kiss was short, almost innocent. Claire felt sweat trickle down her back from the effort of fighting the insistent love spell.
“Even better than I dreamed,” Annie whispered. She laid her head on Claire’s shoulder—quite a feat, since she was almost a foot taller. “What did you want me to do?”
“Stay here, wait for me.” She pressed her finger to Annie’s lips to stop any protest. “I want to bring you a special surprise, but you have to stay here, so you don’t see that surprise before it’s ready.”
“I love surprises!” Annie clapped her hands, bouncing in place. “How long will it take? I want to see it already.”
“Not long, I promise.” Not if her suspicion proved to be true. She braced herself, and cradled Annie’s cheek. “Be a good girl, now, and stay right here.”
“You bet I will.”
Annie sank to the floor, and started rummaging through the box on the shelf next to her. With a sigh, Claire backed out, and laid a spell on the lock as she engaged it. She needed to rest before she confronted the spell’s creator, but there was no time. With each minute that passed, the spell grew stronger, bolder, becoming its own entity.
Claire had to break the spell before every resident of Santa Luna started falling in love.
It took longer than Claire anticipated to reach the end of Forest Street.
She had to stop every couple of feet and free another victim from the clutches of the love spell, sending them home with the warning to stay inside. Poor Mr. Shoemacher broke her heart; he had fallen for the beautiful bronze mermaid statue at the head of the street, and cried when Claire gently pulled him free of the spell.
He had lost his wife of forty years recently, a woman who bore a strong resemblance to the mermaid. Watching him stumble home had made her even more determined to stop this, before someone else was emotionally wounded.
The lemonade stand was gone, but Claire hadn’t expected it to still be there. The damage was done, and there was no need to linger. When she knelt, and touched the flattened grass, traces left by the witch who had stood here told Claire she had been right.
She pushed to her feet, her legs shaking. It took much more effort than it should have to keep herself free of the love spell; even now, it beat at the invisible barrier, stronger with every testing blow. She had expended more of her energy freeing people from the spell. And it seemed to sense, to know, that she had been weakened by her efforts.
Claire’s wards prevented her from tapping into the real source of her power, so she dug deeper, and poked back at the spell. It recoiled, hissing at her. Claire poked again, and the spell swirled away from her.
Hopefully, it would leave her alone until she found its creator.
She headed along the coast road, walking up the incline until she spotted the tall, narrow house, sitting alone at the top of the hill. It had been painted black decades ago, marking it as the headquarters of the local coven. A coven that had disbanded months ago, after a scandal they couldn’t outrun.
Bracing herself, Claire started climbing the long staircase that zigzagged up the side of the hill. The closer she got, the more the spell beat at her. She stopped every few steps to reinforce her protection, and kept going.
Halfway up, fiery pain roared down her back, between her shoulder blades. Pain she hadn’t felt for so long, she had almost forgotten how the reminder of who she had once been could tear at her.
She waited until the pain faded enough for her to breathe again, and kept climbing.
The front door swung open as she reached the porch.
A tall, thin young woman stood in the doorway, the cool wind blowing her black hair around her shoulders. The blonde roots revealed her true hair color—a pretty blonde that wouldn’t have left her as sallow and faded as she looked now.
“You’re not welcome here, Claire Wiche.”
“I did not come to be welcomed, Shana Madden. I came to break your love spell.”
“You wouldn’t—ˮ She cut herself off, and lifted her chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Claire sighed, and stepped up to the porch, leaning against the porch post. She could feel sweat trickling down her back, and hair sticking to her damp face. “Since you left traces of your power at the chess table, I hardly think you can claim innocence.”
“They left me!” Shana stomped her foot like a spoiled child. “Because of a little bad publicity, they gave up all that we had and left me here.”
“You chose to stay. And the people you are hurting right now had nothing to do with the coven breaking up.”
“They all hate me, fear me. It serves them right—and you’re not going to stop me—ˮ
She raised her hands and threw a spell at Claire.
Without moving, Claire destroyed the spell before it could reach her, though she paid for the use of power. The strength of Shana’s spell caught her by surprise.
Shana stared at her. “How—you should be—ˮ
“Unconscious?” Claire pushed off the post and stalked forward. She may have been shorter, but Shana stumbled backward, flinching away from the power that radiated from her. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with. If I showed you the true source of my power, it would be the last thing you ever saw.”
The pain in her back flared, as if in agreement. Claire fought past it, aware of the drain on her protective wall—a wall that barely kept the love spell at bay.
“I won’t reverse the spell,” Shana said, staring at Claire. Fear darkened her pale blue eyes, but Claire had to give her marks for standing up when she was obviously terrified.
“Then I will. This stops now
, Shana.”
“You can’t—ˮ
“Watch me.”
Claire gathered her power, ignoring the residual pain, and reached for the source of the spell. It was trapped in the rainbow quartz Shana wore around her neck.
With a quick jerk, Claire snapped the chain. Shana gasped, grabbing for the necklace as it floated away from her. Claire snatched it first and leapt off the porch, running along the side of the house.
She needed fire, a place to contain it—there, the small fire pit in the small yard. Fire burst into life, and Claire stumbled, not surprised by what it cost her to start that fire. The crystal burned and twisted in her grip, desperate to escape.
As she dropped to her knees, Claire whispered the spell that would break the crystal, and the love spell trapped inside.
“A spell was cast with anguished will,
A wicked web mistakenly spun,
I take away the harm and ill,
I now undo what has been done.”
The crystal cracked open, and before the love spell could free itself, Claire finished her own spell.
“The careless spell I now negate,
Bring this place back to its rightful state.”
As she uttered the last words, she threw the necklace into the fire.
Two screams assaulted her—one in her head, from the spell, the other from behind her, as Shana bolted across the yard. Claire’s head pounded from the internal assault.
“No!”
She slammed into Claire’s back, and they tumbled across the brown grass. Fresh agony scorched her, and Claire blinked to clear her vision. She tried to grab Shana’s wrists, not wanting to hurt the girl—and let out a cry when sharp nails raked across her left cheek.
Pain flared, and her temper flared with it. Claire rolled, trapping Shana under her, and caught her wrists before she could take another swipe.
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