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

by Erin Hayes

  It was as though she had been born here, like this had been one of her old playrooms in a past life she couldn’t remember. But it hadn’t been. She had never been here. She had never even been anywhere like this place.

  Julia hated enclosed places. She liked the open air and the sky visible above her. That was part of the reason Iowa clicked with her the way it had.

  But she couldn’t deny it. This place scratched an itch in her she didn’t even know she had.

  And then she heard them.

  The ancestors had never been this loud or clear. Even when they had become audible, they didn’t sound like this.

  It was as though they were around her now, surrounding her like friends, like family. No longer were they distant voices in her head. She could feel them, their energy and their scents.

  And they were pushing her forward, telling her that what she was looking for was just around the next corner.

  As she rounded it, still amazed at how warm and inviting this cave was, she saw it.

  Lit even brighter than the rest of this place, an urn sat on a counter pressed up against the wall.

  This was it. This was what The Crawley wanted. For whatever reason, this was important to her, important enough to do the impossible and release Roman from the hell he was now enduring.

  Not about to let it slip through her fingers, Julia rushed toward the stupid thing, but the air got thicker and thicker as she approached. Damn it. Whoever put this thing here—likely Cassandra—had spelled it so that getting to it would be damn near impossible.

  She didn’t count on Julia Fairweather, though.

  “Enough!” Julia screamed, listening to a spell the ancestors spoken plainly to her mind.

  The air thinned to normal, and Julia rushed toward the urn. As she reached for it, she could feel a foreign energy radiating off it. It was troubling, but she couldn’t afford to think about that or let it stop her.

  Her hand touched the urn, and a shock of power flowed through her. Her mind’s eye opened, and she saw everything that had led her here.

  The urn was filled with the ashes of a Romani woman who had been born over two hundred years ago. The power flowing through her made her strong but not immortal. And, when she died, there were camp wars fought over her remains and the power they contained. For decades, this very urn was battled for, moved back and forth. Until last year, when Cassandra got ahold of it.

  That woman was the Crawley and, unless she was probably laid to rest, she would never be able to sleep.

  “She just wants to move on,” Julia said to herself.

  But the visions weren’t over. She saw Cassandra, the venom in her voice and the temper in her face that Julia had somehow missed. She never knew how jealous her cousin had been of her, how threatened she was. She watched as Cassandra sabotaged her at every turn and, in the end, she watched as she cursed her with madness.

  Julia gasped as she realized what had happened.

  When she lost her mind last year—when she tried to end it all after losing Roman—that wasn’t her own mind’s fragility screwing with her. It was Cassandra. It was a spell meant to make Julia look unfit to lead the Moon Coven. It was an act of war and a surgical cut in a chess game Julia had no idea she was playing.

  She grabbed the urn and pulled it close to her.

  She knew she was playing now. And she wasn’t about to lose.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It happened over and over again. Jumping, failing, crashing, the excruciating, shattering pain. It crushed everything in him.

  Time was lost. For all he knew, Julia had been gone for days now, maybe weeks or months.

  She had walked away with The Crawley, despite his warnings not to go.

  Worry settled across his shoulders, weighing him down in a way unlike the rest of this hellish place was capable of. Somehow, worry about Julia was stronger, rawer, and more real than any of the hardships he was forced to endure here.

  It hurt more; it lingered in a way the physical pain never did.

  Though he was sure she hadn’t meant to, Julia coming here had made things worse. It reminded him of what he had to lose…and that he had already lost it.

  His teeth ground together as everything reset again.

  He was back at the top of that damned building, his body put back together after being smashed in the pavement below for what felt like the millionth time. Would this never end?

  Julia flitted through his mind again—that same memory of her standing next to that old woman and falling for her shit.

  She went to try and save him, but that old bitch was the reason he was there in the first place. Taking her up on her offer sent Roman down a path that led him to where he stood now, to where he would soon fall.

  Maybe Julia would end up in her own private purgatory after this. Maybe, in trying to be his salvation, she would be her own downfall.

  Maybe she already had and was suffering in much the same way Roman was at this very moment.

  Roman braced himself, because he knew the fall was coming. It had been long enough, and soon, he would tumble through the air and finish with that awful crash.

  “Fifty years,” he told himself, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Just fifty god damn years.”

  How crazy could someone go in fifty years? Maybe he would lose himself to some blissful mental break. Maybe he would go completely insane and come to as some old man, drooling all over himself in a mental institution somewhere.

  That would be lucky indeed.

  He braced himself again, but something was different.

  He hadn’t fallen. He was still on the roof. Why hadn’t he been forced to jump yet? What fresh hell was he about to be subjected to next?

  Roman opened his eyes.

  He wasn’t on the roof anymore. The night sky didn’t sit above him, mocking him with the constellations he and Julia used to look at during the best nights of his life.

  Instead, he was in a cave. The air was warm, but he felt out of place, as if he didn’t belong. As if there was something trying to push him out.

  He blinked hard, confused but relieved. Though he had no idea where he was, Roman didn’t really care. After all, wherever it was, it had to be better than that damn roof, that damn agony.

  Something swirled above him, and a darkness began to spread in his system. He could feel it, whatever this was. Wherever this was.

  He blinked again, and he was in another room—a lighter place with glowing ceilings and noise threatening to blow out his eardrums.

  He wasn’t welcome here; that’s what the noise was telling him. He had to leave. He couldn’t stay, and he shouldn’t have come in the first place.

  But that didn’t matter to Roman, because there in front of him, with her arms wrapped around something, stood Julia.

  She looked the same. Thank God, not that much time had passed. He hadn’t missed her life. He hadn’t missed his own.

  She looked tired, though, and more than a little worn. Her face was pale and wet with sweat. Her eyes were terrified and directed away from Roman—to someplace beyond him.

  He tried to turn, to see whatever it was that was causing her such distress, but he couldn’t. Whatever had brought him here was keeping him pinned on her.

  Julia swallowed hard. “I…I should have known it would be you,” she said, her teeth grinding together. “It won’t matter. It’s too late now!”

  Roman looked closer and, when she saw what it was that was cradled in Julia’s arms, he shuddered.

  It was that thing—the urn that the Crawley had sent him after back in the boat. The Crawley was still after it, and despite his efforts to stop Julia, she was now involved.

  A bright green glow started to radiate from the urn. It burned; he could feel Julia’s pain, feel her agony. It was his own. It was worse than his own, because it hurt her, too.

  She tried to throw it away, but the urn refused to move. It had caught her now, and it wasn’t letting go. Her body tremb
led, then quaked, her entire body smoking under the horrible glow of the urn.

  Roman stumbled forward, then fell to his knees, the pain about to burst out of his chest as he watched her die—as he watched the only thing that mattered in his entire life melt away like a lit candle.

  She fell to the ground. Her glassy eyes landed, unblinking, on Roman. The world around him shimmered and flickered.

  Realization rushed in like a blast of arctic air. He had heard tell of it during his studies. The dark magic was strong and tied to gypsy lore.

  Sometimes, though it had been lost to the ages, practitioners of dark magic could catch glimpses of the future, same as the gypsies. Premonitions, they were called. And, to hear of them, the person experiencing the phenomenon could feel everything that went on during one—could feel the hurt, the air, the stone, time itself.

  And that was what Roman had just experienced. Julia’s death hadn’t happened yet—but it would if he didn’t do something to change the trajectory of their timeline.

  He had to save her.

  But, in order to do that, he had to wake the fuck up.

  Roman screamed, and with that scream, was returned to the rooftop.

  Again, he stood atop the building, waiting to jump.

  But roman was done waiting. He wouldn’t just let things happen to him anymore. Roman was going to take this into his own hands.

  He set his jaw and jumped off the building, literally diving toward the pavement like an Olympian rushing toward a pool. Fear played no part in this as he neared the ground below and the splat that he would no doubt become if he was wrong about this.

  With eyes open and trained on the ground, Roman watched the earth drop away. Instead of hitting the city street, Roman dove into nothingness.

  A bright white light appeared at the edge of that nothingness, and Roman pushed toward it with the fury of a gladiator. He knew what he needed to do, and nothing short of the forces of Heaven would be able to keep him from his charge.

  He dipped into the white light and, with a jolt, Roman woke up.

  A woman’s voice sounded from right beside his ear. “Ahh!”

  Roman looked over, his neck stiff and his head swimming and foggy. April sat beside him, a cool washcloth in her hand. Her eyes were wide and her lips trembled.

  “You…you’re awake,” she said, staring at him. “You’re not supposed to be awake. Father tried everything. He’s got people coming from the four corners trying to wake you up. They all told him it was impossible.”

  Roman threw off the covers and jumped out of bed. “People have been saying that about me for years,” he mumbled. “You think they would know better by now.”

  His legs wobbled, and his tired knees threatened to buckle beneath him, but he managed to stay standing. He might not feel up to moving right yet, but he didn’t have a choice. She needed him…right now. And he would rather be dead than fail her again.

  His loyalty was clear now—clearer than it had ever been. It wasn’t to his family or himself. It wasn’t even for his sister, though he loved her almost more nearly anyone in the world.

  Anyone but Julia. That was who his loyalty belonged to. She was his everything, and no one as taking her away from him ever again.

  April grabbed him by the shoulders. “You need to lie down,” she said, starting to guide him back toward the bed. “I’ll get Father and the medics. They won’t know what to make of you.”

  He shook away from her. “I’m fine. I have to go.”

  April’s eyes went from wide to narrow. “Roman, what the hell is going on?”

  “You can’t,” he said, struggling to catch his breath. “You can’t get Father or the medics. You can’t get anyone. You can’t tell anyone I’m awake. They’d want me to stay. They’d want me to rest or to evaluate the way I broke the spell or something else that won’t help me right now.”

  April tilted her head, her eyebrows pulling together. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “She’s in trouble, April,” he said. “I can’t explain how I know, but Julia’s going to die if I don’t get to her right now. And I know she’s a Fairweather and our stars don’t match up—”

  “Fuck the stars,” April said. “Go.”

  Roman blanched. He had never heard his little sister use that language before. “Did you just say—”

  “Fuck. The. Stars,” she repeated. Her eyes bore into his. “That’s your girl right there. Do what you need to do. I’ll cover for you. Go get your girl, Big Brother. Do what makes you happy.”

  A smile spread across Roman’s face. He hadn’t thought about that in so long—about being happy.

  He gave his little sister a nod, and then darted out the back way to get to Julia.

  Please don’t let me be too late.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The urn in Julia’s hands radiated a sickening energy. She was still in the cave, still in this place that was so near and dear to her ancestors. And now she knew the truth of why the artifact was so important to the old woman. Not because she wanted to steal the power that it provided, but because she was the power that it provided.

  The Crawley’s ashes were in the urn, which was presently wrapped in Julia’s arms and pressed against her chest. And the fact that Cassandra would use such a thing—something so sacred and personal—to garner more power was a testament to just how wrong about her Julia had always been.

  She was a loon—a power hungry mad woman who would stop at nothing to get the control she wanted.

  It broke Julia’s heart and made her feel as foolish as she ever had before. Cassandra had always been this way. The urn showed her as much. It gave her a glimpse of the truth and let her see just how long this festering jealousy had been going on.

  And that was the worst part. The woman had felt this way since they were children, since the first time Julia bested her at something. She had always been so insecure and Julia, for her part, had always been so naïve about it.

  Maybe if she hadn’t been so useless. Maybe if she would have opened her eyes and not been so blind about what was going on all around her, she might have been able to stop some of this. But she hadn’t. She had been so wrapped up in Roman, so consumed by anger at what she thought she could never have, that she let the locally born snake freely slither around her backyard.

  And now the snake had taken over, and she didn’t know if she would actually be able to put a stop to that.

  A pinch started at her chest, right above where the urn sat. It was slow to build, just a minor inconvenience at first, but it built rapidly. It dug its way into her, began to siphon her magic, draining her and funneling every spark of who she was into the urn.

  Her body trembled. Weakened.

  What was happening? What sort of tricky magic was this? She took a deep breath, trying to push the urn away from herself.

  It wouldn’t go anywhere.

  It was stuck there, stalwart as it attempted to suck Julia dry of every drop of physical and magical energy she had, of everything the ancestors had taught and given to her.

  She blinked hard, unsure of what to do, unsure how to stop the dribble of pain that had now turned into a full blown tidal wave.

  Her breaths came short and shallow and then, in front of her appeared The Crawley.

  The old woman rocked back and forth in her chair, looking at Julia with disdain written plainly on her face.

  “What?” Julia gasped. “What’s happening?”

  “The only thing that could have happened,” the old woman said.

  But, as she spoke, her voice morphed. It changed, grew strong, grew younger, grew more familiar. And then, her body began to shift as well. Instead of the old woman, she became something else. Her wrinkled skin tightened, her gray hair gained bounce and color, and her blank, vacant eyes filled in with pupils that Julia recognized immediately.

  The Crawley was not the Crawley, and she never had been.

  She was no gypsy. She was a witch.

&n
bsp; Cassandra sat in front of Julia now, with a smile that would make the devil shiver.

  “I’m beating you,” Cassandra said, standing to meet her cousin. “That’s what’s happening, you pathetic excuse for a witch.”

  “You?” Julia asked, confused and in pain. “How is that possible?”

  “That’s a good question,” Cassandra said, sneering at Julia. “I guess we could begin with your complete and utter inaptitude.” She rolled her eyes. “When you think about it, that’s the only reason any of this could have ever come to pass.”

  “You need to stop this,” Julia growled, still burning, still in pain.

  “Oh, I can’t do that,” Cassandra said, grinning even wider somehow. “Well, I mean, technically I could, but if I let you go, then you wouldn’t realize how goddamn responsible for all of this you actually are.”

  She strolled toward Julia, pursing her lips smugly. Looking Julia up and down, she laughed. “You know, this is even better than I hoped. I’d only been trying to steal Roman’s magic. But he screwed that up, and now look! I get yours instead.”

  The urn pulsated in Julia’s hands, burning right through her, its energy pulling at her own, siphoning her magic and channeling it into the vessel.

  “You know,” Cassandra said, pausing as she neared her cousin as if the urn might somehow pull her in as well, “all of this could have been avoided, if only you’d have been half the witch I am.” She turned and paced the other way. “Or if our idiot grandfather would have known enough to see through the fog of your charms.”

  “He was going to do it, Cass,” Julia said, trying like hell to pull away from the magic that was rushing through her and hollowing her out from the inside. “Grandfather was going to give it all to you.”

  “A hollow gesture, and one he’d never go through with.” She slammed her palm against the wall and the entire place shook. “He would never have actually passed you over, not with the ancestors whispering in your ears like you’re something special.” She snorted bitterly. “But you’re not, are you?” she asked, turning back to Julia. “You’re a whore who can’t keep her goddamn legs closed to our enemies.”