Magic and Mayhem: Show Me the Wicked (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Wicked Hearts Book 2)

by Cherie Marks

  I scanned the room around us and noticed the plethora of pregnant women that I hadn’t spied before. It was a room of rounded bellies, all obviously there to experience a little crazy-sauce in the form of a predicting groundhog. What had Celia gotten us into?

  “Why are all these pregnant women in a bar? Okay, this seems just a tad strange, Celia—even for us.” Evie looked ready to bolt.

  Finn put it more succinctly. “This is bullshit. What’s the point?”

  Liz sucked in an affronted breath. “It’s real! And the point is that Evie can’t stay stuffed up in that house all the time. She needs to get out and have a little fun, so deal with it.”

  Celia licked her lips and said, “Come on, Finny. We let you keep your shirt on. The least you can do is have a good attitude about this necessary and clearly genuine event.”

  His lip curled, and I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my humor at his expense. “Well, I better get some food here at least. Something greasy and good and so not healthy.”

  “Oooh! You’re making me quiver with your manliness, Finn! Behave, you!” Celia didn’t even crack a smile as she continued to try to push Finn’s buttons. But he didn’t seem to be rising to her bait. If anything, he seemed calmer and cooler. Clearly, he was used to resisting Celia’s teasing.

  He picked up a menu and began reading over it. I couldn’t seem to look away again, and he noticed. His gaze met mine over the menu, and sizzling heat shot through me in electric waves. Why did he have to be so attractive? And why did I have to be cursed? Doubly-cursed.

  One moment I was sitting upright, and the next, I’d crashed to the floor in a tumble of cracking wood. The chair collapsed beneath me and left me sprawled over pieces of it on the ground. Like the moment when a splinter finally comes out from under skin, I had a sense of relief. It was a minor one this time, and I couldn’t have been happier.

  Everyone gathered around me, checking on me, and pulling me up from the floor. A quick body check assured me there was no lasting damage, and I had gotten off easy this time.

  Suddenly, Finn’s hands were on my upper arms, and the look in his cool, gray eyes was heavy as he asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just a little shook up.” His focus felt like sunshine on my skin, and I didn’t want him to let me go. His concern was odd. Why did he seem to care about me so much? All I knew was, I couldn’t let it go to my head. It was probably meaningless.

  Like he’d been burned, he dropped his hold quickly and stepped back, continuing to watch me warily.

  The bar manager came over and apologized profusely. They cleared away the debris and got me another chair, inspecting it carefully before handing it over.

  Everyone settled back into their respective seats, including a baffled-looking Finn.

  “How did your tiny frame cause that chair to fall apart? It makes no sense at all,” Evie asked incredulously.

  I shrugged. “Strange, isn’t it?” I could tell them about the curse right now. I could make my case for why I needed that stone. I could probably even convince them to help me out, but the words wouldn’t come. I’d never been able to count on anyone in my life, and I didn’t even know how to begin attaining that level of trust. It just wasn’t in me.

  “I don’t diet, but maybe this was a message from the universe?” My body might not be too round, but I had decent curves, I thought. Maybe some would call me thin. I certainly wasn’t going around breaking chairs on a regular basis, but I had to get their mind off of such an odd occurrence somehow.

  Laughter again, and before any more curious questions could be thrown my way, the lights went down, and a spotlight came on, throwing a circle of light onto a door at the back of the room, between the men’s and women’s restrooms.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, what you’ve been waiting for has finally come. Tonight, the amazing, stupendous, Assjacket Alex will blow your mind with his incredible predictions. Now, put your hands together for the star of our show—Assjacket Alex!”

  Applause filled the barroom as a woman dressed in sequins from the silver headdress crowning her fluffy, brown hair to the figure-hugging gown, also in silver, that flowed to the floor and had a high slit up the right leg exited with a cloth-covered box swinging in her hand by a non-descript, black handle. She set the box on a high, round table and whipped the cloth off with a flourish, causing a round of surprised utterances throughout the room.

  Beneath the cloth, in a metal cage, was a fat, furry groundhog that looked like it could use some time in an orthodontist chair, perhaps with the 80’s version of braces and headgear, but it clearly was the star of the show tonight.

  The brunette handler opened the cage and pulled Assjacket Alex free of his confines. She set him on the floor, and with minimal display, Assjacket Alex transformed into a pint-sized, twitchy man right before our eyes. He still had his obvious overbite, but one other thing became clear. He was a shifter, and he clearly liked attention.

  “Welcome, ladiessss! Sssso glad you could come out tonight, and I can’t wait to clarify that all-important question for you—boy or girl? Now, who’ssss first?” Of course, he spoke with a lisp.

  Hands shot into the air, and Assjacket Alex began to make his way around the room, declaring three boys and four girls before he’d made it halfway through the crowd. Excited chatter continued throughout the room.

  I just had one question. “Um…anybody else think it’s a bad idea for the shifter to reveal himself in front of a crowd? What if there are humans in here?”

  Evie leaned toward me. “Only paranormal creatures in here. If a human happens to walk by the diner, they’d only see an abandoned warehouse. We can be ourselves in here.”

  “That’s…convenient.” And amazing! For most of my life, I’d had to hide what I was. Though my foster parents were all paranormal beings, as were the other kids in foster care—standard procedure in the case of an orphaned witchling—I’d lived in towns and gone to schools with humans on a regular basis. This was the first time I’d ever been anywhere that I didn’t have to pretend to be something I wasn’t. Well, almost.

  It occurred to me how great a town this would be to live in if I hadn’t taken on the worst con in my entire career—one that ensured my ostracization from Assjacket, West Virginia for the rest of my miserable life. Even shaking off my curse—the one thing that kept me from belonging—required committing an act that made it impossible to belong. It seemed to be the way things always worked out, and I was tired of it.

  “Well, well, well…what have we here? What kind of white-hat deedssss earned you thissss table ssssurrounded by four, beautiful women ssssuch as thesssse? You musssst be living life right.” Assjacket Alex had made it to our table, and he was addressing Finn. He sounded like a poor imitation of a particular cartoon rabbit.

  “Watch it, gee-hog. I don’t have to be nice to you. And I’m looking for any excuse to make things a little more interesting around here.”

  Alex swallowed audibly. It echoed loudly over the microphone he was using to make his pronouncements heard. He cleared his throat and said, “Who’ssss the one that’ssss preggerssss?”

  Ugh! Even I was getting an ick-factor from Alex. He was like the annoying kid in the class who sucked up to the teacher by doing nice things, all the while, talking smack behind the teacher’s back. Completely untrustworthy, and I really hoped this wouldn’t take long.

  I smiled when Celia sat back and asked, “Shouldn’t you already know?”

  Alex looked like he wanted to move onto to any other table but this one, yet when Evie tentatively raised her hand, he gave a relieved smile and said, “Of course! I knew it! Now, let’s see.”

  After a shake of his hands and a roll of his head on his neck, Alex steadied his gaze on Evie. His nose twitched just the slightest bit as he seemed to confer with himself, mumbling under his breath. Suddenly, his eyes crossed and his lips trembled under his protruding teeth. It was like a cartoon character getting hit over the head with a
frying pan. He looked completely bewildered and unfocused until he straightened quickly and shouted, “It’s a boy!”

  Cheers went up around me, but I couldn’t seem to react. A numbness took over as the announcement sunk in. If Assjacket Alex were worth even a little bit of the fuzzy fur he shed daily, then the stone was sure to show, and I could finally shake the curses that made my life a living hell. It was finally time to be a little selfish and look out for my best interests.

  I turned my head and smiled in Evie’s direction as others patted her back and gave her words of encouragement. Yet, as Alex started to swivel, he stopped, and a feeling of doom settled on my shoulders.

  He cocked his head to the side and swept his gaze around the table until settling it back on Evie. “I don’t normally do this, but I feel compelled to tell you something.”

  Murmurs of excitement filled the tables around us. I sat tense and waiting, sure whatever the groundhog shifter had to say couldn’t be anything I wanted to hear.

  “There is deception around you. You will find your trust broken soon. I’m sorry, but you should pick your friends more carefully.”

  On cue, as one, all gazes of those at the table turned to stare at me, including Evie. I knew they had no reason to trust me, but it still hurt. So much for belonging to the group. I suddenly had the urge to grab something from the table and run. The napkin holder would’ve done the trick, but somehow I stayed put.

  I shrugged my shoulders and asked, “So, you’re having a boy, huh? That’s exciting? Um…does that mean you’ll be buying everything in razzmatazz or that arsenic color? I don’t know which is for which?”

  I glanced away nervously, unable to hold their suspicious gazes any longer, and I caught the attention of a tall man sitting alone at the diner counter. He stared at me with a wrinkled brow, as if he were puzzling out something important. It was downright unsettling, but I found it impossible to look away from him. I studied him closer. He had salt-and-pepper hair with a gray mustache. He wore a dark suit and a fedora sat idly on the counter beside his plate of food. His eyes were a bright blue that I’d only ever seen one other time—every day, when I looked in the mirror.

  Could we be related? Seemed a bit far-fetched, yet the similarity of his eyes to mine was a striking feature. I shook off the idea. I had no living relatives that I knew of, and the odds of running into one in the middle of Assjacket, West Virginia was too unbelievable to even consider. At this point, finding my blood-relations was the least of my worries.

  “Who’s next?” Assjacket Alex moved on to the next table and his next prediction, but the damage was done. Everyone at our table sat in silence, and I felt every drop of the awkwardness.

  The server brought our food, and the tension eased slightly as the conversation picked up and Celia said, “I promised you entertainment, and I freaking delivered. You’re welcome!”

  I was relieved the mistrust had been set aside for the moment. From the looks coming from Finn though, it was only simmering under the surface. His gaze promised, at a later time, we’d revisit the topic of who could possibly be deceiving Evie.

  What could I say? Don’t worry. I’m only faking amnesia so I can steal the Hale Stone from Evie, break two curses, save my foster brother, and then hand it over to a criminal mastermind. No one gets hurt, and in the end, everyone’s happy. Relatively.

  Yeah, probably wouldn’t quite end that well.

  Then again, maybe I didn’t have to say a thing. Finn was a man, and I was a woman. Maybe I could think of another way to refocus his thoughts. Might be difficult to accuse me of deception if his mouth was busy kissing mine.

  Not a bad way to fix the situation. A thrill ran through me as I pictured the possibility.

  “Everyone ready to roll?” Evie stood up, and everyone else followed.

  I caught another hot glimpse of Finn watching me as we started for the door. This could get fun.

  Excitement tipped up the corners of my mouth. I couldn’t wait to get back to Evie’s. With the right kind of moves, the only questions he’d have for me were where and when.

  Chapter 7

  Long after Evie had gone to bed, and Finn had disappeared once again, I sat in the kitchen at the breakfast bar, sipping a glass of wine. I’d hoped to start luring Finn closer tonight, but it was kind of hard to do that if he was a no show. Strangely enough, I was slightly relieved.

  He scared me, truth be told. It wasn’t his size or strength that intimidated me. It wasn’t even the fact he was here to protect Evie from…well…from the likes of me. I was sweating like an ice-cold drink in the sun because Finn was straight-up fine from head-to-toe, and I couldn’t help but get tongue-tied when he turned that gray gaze in my direction. I wanted to get close to him, put my hands on his shoulders, lean in, and see if he smelled as good as it looked like he did.

  Dangerous, dangerous thoughts followed that image. Thoughts of running those hands over his chest, down his stomach, and lower made my breath hitch just a little. My breasts tingled at just the idea of rubbing against him as I stood on tiptoe and lightly touched my lips to his. At that point, he wouldn’t be able to stand it anymore and would grab me tightly, pulling me in as the kiss deepened to a dark passion that overwhelmed my senses and shot lightning to all the right places.

  I took a long sip from my glass and tried to rein in my wild musings, though I had a harder time of it than an experienced con-artist should have. But I knew what the problem was. He was more than just fodder for a sexual fantasy—though he certainly had the right stuff for it. The issue that haunted me was the driving need to find a protector so that I could take a rest for once. For far too long, I’d had to scramble to provide for myself and my brother. It was exhausting, and I was ready for something different.

  With Finn, what you saw was what you got. He was a protector. It was what he was made for, and I had a hard time resisting that. If I wasn’t careful, I’d probably ruin my own con by throwing my naked self at him without getting anything in return.

  I finished off the wine and rinsed the glass before putting it into the dishwasher. It was time to go to bed. Clearly Finn wasn’t taking the bait, and now that the possibility that Evie was having a boy was real, I had a lot to do tomorrow. That stone had to be here somewhere, and I had to find it.

  I flipped off the kitchen light and made my way up the stairs and through the dark hallway toward my room. Truth be told, I was looking forward to trying out the plush mattress on my bed once more. I intended to soak up the luxury while I had the chance.

  My balance was off just a little as the effects of the glass of wine clouded my head. I didn’t drink often, so my tolerance wasn’t very high. It didn’t take much to make me a tad tipsy. I lightly touched the wall to keep my bearings, but suddenly stopped as a figure closed in and walked toward me until I felt my back hit the wall.

  Two arms stretched out to either side of my head, blocking me in, and the whole situation made my heart pound so loudly that I heard it in my ears.

  “Who the hell are you really?” Finn’s harsh whisper came out of the dark, and I was both scared and thrilled at the same time.

  “What? I don’t know what you’re asking?”

  “I’m asking you to tell me who you really are and why you’re here?”

  I glanced to my right. Down the hallway, I could make out silhouettes of decorative pictures and a small table with a vase at the end. My breathing had become rapid, but I didn’t want him to know just how rattled I was.

  “Is this how you spit game, son? Because it might be time to work on your finesse. It kind of sucks.”

  He leaned in closer, until I had to turn my head back toward him, and I didn’t dare focus anywhere else but directly at him. I could feel the heat coming off his body, and I had to wonder where this was going.

  “Time to get serious. Who…are…you?”

  How did I tell him who I was without telling him who I was? I had amnesia after all…at least as far as he knew.


  “My name is Cara. I mean…I might have a brother, and I might have spent some time in California. That’s all I know for sure.”

  He growled low. “I don’t know whether to rip you apart or…kiss you breathless.” He moved even closer, his lips only inches from mine. “For some reason I can’t fathom, I’m drawn to you.”

  I pulled in a quick breath at his surprising confession. Well, helllooo, unexpected! The nervous energy in my body began pinging like spilled ball-bearings bouncing and rolling out of control. Was he closer still? My heart pounded rapidly as I felt my face flush. It felt like a kiss was imminent, and I couldn’t decide if I was turned on or freaked-the-hell-out.

  Our breath mixed, and the air around us thickened. My body ached for his touch, and I chewed at my bottom lip with the building energy. I wanted…I needed…something to happen. If I just leaned forward a tiny bit, our mouths would meet, and I could put an end to my anticipation.

  With another growl, Finn jerked away and moved toward the stairs. In the dark, I couldn’t tell if he looked back, but if he had, he would’ve seen the wall providing much-needed support to help me stand upright. My knees felt like jelly, and if I’d just run a 5k, I wouldn’t have been as out of breath as I was. I needed to get a handle on this, and it needed to be now.

  I heard the back door open and close. Pulling myself together, I stepped toward my room. I opened the door and hurried to the window that looked out on the backyard. Once the blinds were raised, I stared into the inky night. Movement near the trees at the edge of the property caught my eye. Finn stood, shirtless, at the tree line, staring up at the house. I imagined he was staring at me, and the nervous energy returned.

  He turned away and continued removing his clothing. Once he was completely naked and showing me one of the finest backsides I’d ever seen in my life, he began to change. Before my eyes, he darkened and dropped to all fours. As I watched, a dark, sleek panther formed, and I realized he was a shifter. He was the most beautiful shifter I’d ever seen, and my desire to touch him grew substantially.