Poison and Potions: a Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Erin Hayes

  “First things first. We’re going to have to have a look at the last Will and Testament of the King.”

  Unsurprisingly, there was none, other than the old one only mentioning Queen Margaret and their daughter as heirs.

  They all manage to fake shock, although by this point, it hardly mattered, so Sandro was mostly smiling.

  “You understand what this means,” Daniel said. “Gramhilda Wood. The woman you murdered was Queen. You, the Regent, have attempted to keep your office by disposing of the rightful ruler. Your title is revoked, effective immediately. The Woodlands haven’t come up with any other punishment, it seems, but the Woods are peers of Alenia. In Alenia, we see murder repaid in kind.”

  “You can’t… There’s no proof…”

  “Enough of this,” Cinderella replied darkly. “Get Sylvia. She’ll discern the truth soon enough.”

  “No!” Ilda yelled, “no.” This one, murmured, was more of a prayer. “Please, I… I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  What it took was a lock of her hair, a piece of her nail as well as the solemn promise that she was leaving for the New Continent this very night. If she ever came back the hair and nail would see to it that she was punished accordingly – they had a witch who could perform a suitable spell, just as soon as she awoke from her death-like sleep.

  It felt like a rat – or something equally smelly and furry – had died in her mouth, her eyes had been glued shut, and given the fact that her limbs moved slower than you average ninety-year-old, she declared then and there, “This whole dying thing sucks. Last time I’m doing it.”

  A deep chuckle made her smile in return, although she really couldn’t see a thing right then.

  Soon, though, she felt something against her mouth.

  “Are you trying to kiss me?” she asked, moving her lips as little as she could. “Because you really shouldn’t – the smell might knock you out.”

  But the stupid man ignored her, and carried on dropping feather light kisses against her mouth, until she’d forgotten all about her stupid bad breath and responded in kind.

  “So there you are,” he said when she was mellowed out, rendered quite witless under his ministrations, “Queen of the Woodlands. Impoverished as it is, I’ve no doubt that it will prosper under the reign of a woman who so values her people. Now all you might need is a rich husband to replenish your coffers.”

  They both knew why he’d expressed himself that way; if she hadn’t been who she was, he might have been on his knees right now, but no one could propose to a Queen – that privilege belonged to her and her alone.

  That thought made Blanche smile from ear to ear.

  “Not quite.”

  Sandro turned to her questioningly.

  “We’re not quite impoverished,” she admitted out loud for the first time.

  Keeping her mouth shut when everyone around her worried had been an ordeal, but she knew that walls had ears in a palace, and it had seemed irrelevant in a forest.

  Finally, she revealed the secret she’d kept for seventeen years.

  “My father was a wise King – while I’m sure he had other reasons to set his sight on my mother, she was, amongst all her delightful qualities, ridiculously rich, you see, and everything she owned, rather than passing to the crown, was left in trust for me. I’ve heard quite a few arguments between my parents during her last illness, and I know she never caved.”

  Over the years, Blanche had longed to rush into the nearest bank and claim what was hers, if only to shower it over the broken backs of the workers who needed it, but there was no doubt that Ilda would have found a way to seize it, so she kept her mouth shut, waiting for just this moment.

  “So you see, when I take a husband, I will be quite free to please myself.”

  She stared at him just under her lashes, copying his smoldering look, while smirking to her heart’s content.

  “You, dryad, are a devious little thing,” he grumbled, “but fine. If it’s pleasure that you desire, pleasure you shall get.”

  She giggled at first, letting him crawl to her on his bed, but when he reached his destination, all thoughts of humor disappeared under her distress.

  What. The. Hell. Was. That!

  All of a sudden, she perfectly understood Ilda – everything that had escaped her until then made sense; her orgies, her need to be favored by all men. She wanted that every day, all day, and Blanche really couldn’t blame her for it.

  “Oh my god.”

  “My name is Alessandro, sweetheart.”

  “Put your mouth where it belongs,” she admonished him, pushing it back down between her legs and folding her knees to let him get closer yet.

  Fuck.

  Sandro ought to have a trophy carved and songs praising him for his skills with his tongue. Her insides burned as he played her with his fingers, too, and just when she couldn’t take anymore, when she was ready to beg – for what, she wasn’t sure – the damn man just stopped.

  “You do realize that I can condemn you to death for attempting to drive me to madness?”

  “Give me half an hour, woman. If you still believe I’m attempting anything, you may as well hang me here and now.”

  And on that note, he dropped his pants.

  She stared; she stared for a long, long time, as he pumped the instrument up and down.

  “Is that somehow supposed to fit in me?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  They did. It turned out that his monstrous cock fit in her just fine, which said a lot about the wetness of her pussy, because damn if the thing wasn’t huge.

  Of their own volitions, her hips rose up to meet his at each of his powerful thrusts, and quite soon, she saw that he was absolutely right; there was no trying anything, he had actually brought her to the brink of insanity and pushed her down that precipice unceremoniously.

  Just wow.

  “So,” she said, when the capacity to formulate coherent speech returned her, “Will you marry me, or shall I keep you captive here against your volition?”

  Epilogue

  Artemis was quite impossible, with her silent gloating; she hadn’t even claimed her prize or sent one little jab his way.

  Brat.

  “Alright. No war, this time. Where have I gone wrong?”

  She cocked an eyebrow his way, visibly surprised; it wasn’t often that the Sun God asked for someone else’s opinion.

  But enough was enough – all of his plans failed; not a year ago, he’d tried to enter through his adopted daughter’s lands, and even that had failed.

  Many things could be said about Artemis, but she was quite versed in the art of war – strategy was of second nature, to her.

  “You’d chosen a common, selfish, self-centered whore – for all her beauty, she wasn’t the kind of person a crown might wish to protect. On the other side, you had purity, gentleness, and kindness.”

  Apollo sighed, ready to admit to it; he just hadn’t believed that humans would see the difference.

  “If you want war to shatter their skies, take a woman of beauty, kindness, born with a crown and the love of her people – and give her to two men of importance. This, brother, is what we call the concept of Troy, after what occurred with Helen in one of those boring dimensions we’ve left – surely, you recall it?”

  The End

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  About May Sage

  When she isn't playing with her two savannahs, her midnight black cat and her German Shepherd, May reads, and writes books featuring snarky, kick-ass women and the foolish, sexy guys who think they can put up with them.

  Check out her latest releases, Kitty Cat and To Claim a King.

  Murder by Magic

  Catherine Vale

  Murder by Magic © 2017 Catherine Vale

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, ele
ctronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Murder by Magic

  Time is running out and even magic won’t save them.

  As the youngest detective—and only—woman in the homicide unit, Jessica Sharpe quickly discovered that being promoted to lead detective wasn’t all that she thought it would be. When a series of gruesome murders took place, she was charged with finding the killer before another body turned up.

  Crime reporter by day, and Gatekeeper to a world of magic by night, Euros Desard thought he’d seen it all. That was all about to change when he discovered that dark magic was behind a series of brutal murders, and the portal between the two worlds was about to be blown wide open.

  Despite a history of bad blood and broken hearts, the two of them needed to come together if they stood a chance of protecting their worlds from the darkness that threatened to invade.

  Chapter One

  The sleek tabby cat ghosted through the thick shrubs at the edge of the park, with his ears pricked forward, listening to the faint sounds of a mouse scurrying ahead through the fallen leaves. The mouse suddenly stopped, and the cat did as well, every muscle tensed, waiting, patient. Nothing moved, except the tip of the cat’s tail, ever so slightly.

  The trail ahead glowed brightly in the dark shadows of the night. To a human, it would have gone unseen, but to the cat, it was a misty, shimmering ultraviolet trail leading directly to its prey. The cat waited, analyzing its dinner. The mouse would move. They always did, it was just a matter of time. The wind stirred overhead, but otherwise, the world was still. Time ticked on.

  Then everything changed. The world around the cat came to life in a chaotic rush of bright light and sound. A gust of wind swirled leaves and garbage around the tabby. The cat flattened its ears and hissed angrily, but it wasn’t sure exactly what it was hissing at. The sound was beyond human hearing, but was painfully sharp to the cat. It hissed again, arching its back, fur standing on end, and tail becoming a full feather duster of agitation.

  For a moment, the cat held its ground, eyes narrowed against the light and its pupils contracted down to thin slits. The space between the stones filled with light, shimmering, blinding, growing brighter, but only the cat saw it, saw the wavering incandescent pulsing between the stones. It gave up hissing, and instead growled, a low sound, not quite threating, but touched with fear. Static filled the air, crackling and hissing, sparking off the cat’s wet nose. It blinked, grimaced, and backed away, whiskers twitching. The mouse was quickly forgotten.

  All of a sudden, the cat knew it was no longer alone. Every sense the cat possessed focused on the being that materialized from the bright white light of a portal. For a second, the cat could only watch, transfixed by the form that suddenly emerged from this unusual place. But the curiosity died in a heartbeat, and a surge of adrenaline stiffened the cat's muscles, hair rising in a ridge along its back, as it sensed the danger that made its way from the doorway of darkness.

  The being turned its head meeting the feline’s gaze. It looked at the cat for a long moment. The tabby watched as the form moved and changed, pulsing with the same ultraviolet light that the mouse left behind. But while that trail had excited the cat, this...thing...terrified the animal.

  The swirling, pulsing light shifted and condensed as the mass moved closer to the ground, swiftly taking a shape that was somehow familiar to the cat. It was a predator, one the cat recognized instinctively, even though it had never encountered this particular kind before. But genetic, or ancestral memory, kicked in, and the nascent fear in the cat bloomed hot in its veins.

  For a moment, the being held the cat’s gaze, and in that moment, as hunter looked at hunter, the cat felt the power shift between them. For a moment, the cat knew it was, like the mouse, nothing more than prey. Fear fueled flight, and it turned silently, disappearing into the dark.

  The strange being finally resolved into a solid form. It looked back to where it came from only briefly, and then moved away from the portal, leaving a trail of magic in its wake as it vanished into the darkness.

  The mouse knew the predator from its scent. The little creature had watched in wonder, sitting quietly beneath a pile of dead leaves. Only now, after the creature and the cat had left, did it dare to move. It placed each tiny paw carefully ahead of the next, advancing toward the shimmering light.

  Whiskers twitching, it sniffed the air, a thrill running through its tiny, furry body. The swirling light was beautiful, irresistible, but it was fading fast.

  Then cautiously, the mouse walked forward, passing through what remained of the dim, shimmering silver light, disappearing through the portal, to the Other Side.

  The shrill chirp of her cell jerked Jessica Sharpe out of a restless sleep. The room was too light, soft and gray around the edges. Everything in her room was visible, but indistinct. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how much money she spent on curtains and shades and blackout drapes, light from the outside still seeped in, outlining the edges of the window in bright amber. She awakened, at least enough to fumble for her phone on the bedside table.

  “Sharpe.”

  There was a pause. “Detective Sharpe?”

  “Yeah.” She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Maybe she wasn't as awake as she thought. Clearing her throat, she tried again. “Yes, Detective Sharpe. Who is this?”

  “This is dispatch. We have a possible homicide. You're up for the lead.”

  Of course, I was she thought. And odds were, it was more than a possible homicide, or dispatch wouldn't be calling her at...what time was it? She opened one eye, trying hard to focus on the digital clock next to her bed. The green numbers read 2:17 a.m. Calls like this always came in the wee hours of the morning, or in the middle of a good dream.

  Even though she'd only been a homicide detective for a little more than six months, she was beginning to sense a pattern. She'd been second in command on over a dozen cases, and all the calls came after midnight. Murder after midnight. This was her first time being the lead detective, and she couldn’t lie to herself —she was more than a little nervous.

  “Where?”

  “You’re not going to like this.”

  She took a breath, biting back the first thing that came to her mind, and instead, saying the second.

  “I already don’t like this. Where?”

  “2241 Woodlawn Avenue.”

  Damn. The mayor’s residence. The list of possible victims—and suspects—who came instantly to mind, made her stomach do a slow roll and her head ache. Top of that list, and the name she refused to even think of, was the mayor himself.

  This was going to be a hard case to be the lead on, and one hell of a publicity nightmare, she groaned to herself. And most likely a forensic disaster as well.

  Her first high-profile case, and it had to hit very close to home. The mayor's office and the Chicago PD, where she worked, were linked in so many ways—ways she didn't even want to think about before sunrise. Starting with her boss, another name she didn't wish to invoke before coffee.

  “Right. On my way.” She’d already pulled the phone away from her ear, when she heard the tinny voice of whoever was on the other end still talking.

  “Detective?”

  She brought the phone back up to her ear. “Yeah?”

  “It’s…there’s something else you should know.”

  Jessica was suddenly more awak
e than she wanted to be. “Yeah. What?”

  “The victim…it’s the mayor. Jason Lansing.”

  The genie was out of the bottle; the name she was trying not to think about now practically screamed in her head. Pushing the covers off, the chill in the room made her shiver. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The floor was cold, too cold. Idly, she thought, I should probably have a rug here.

  “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

  “Just wanted you to be prepared, Detective,” the male dispatcher stated, his neutral tone nearly covering the subtle hint of a smirk.

  Ending the call, she tossed the phone back onto the table.

  Prepared? How the hell would I ever be prepared to walk through a murder scene in the middle of the night? With those thoughts rolling through her mind, Jessica hastily got ready to go.

  Even though it was early October, it felt like winter had already come to Chicago. The windshield of Jessica’s Toyota had a thin layer of frost, rather than using the scraper from the trunk of her car, she hurriedly tried to clear the frost with her gloved hand. The sky was the deep dark of night, and it felt as if the witching hour had been extended. She shivered, despite her jacket and gloves.

  Dammit, I don’t have time for this.

  As she futilely scratched at the frost, she wiggled inside the warmth of her jacket. She felt off, somehow. Not just from being awakened in the middle of the night, or from knowing that she was walking into a shit-storm. It was something deeper, like something was off with her world, and she felt caught off balance. Her mother would have said her edges weren't aligned; her Kentucky grandmother would have said everything was catawampus, like a picture hung crookedly on a wall. That's exactly how she felt, crooked, like she was bumping into things, both with her body and her mind.