The Vampire's Witch

by Kiki Howell

  Praise for Kiki Howell

  "Kiki has the gift to make the abnormal seem `normal' - now, that may offend some devotees of the vampire, werewolf, witch, zombie conclave, but to those of us who do not regularly read about the undead, it is a compliment. Her characters are so varied in types and yet so well painted with her pungent language that they seem like acquaintances who happened to have tipped over the edge a bit too far."

  — Grady Harp, HALL OF FAME, TOP 100 REVIEWER, VINE VOICE

  "Sometimes you come across a book that is so good you feel a sense of relief to find out that it's a trilogy! I read this book vaguely aware that it was and then about 10 pages in had to make sure that it was! Howell is a gifted author and creates this supernatural world in such a fun way that several times I wondered about what a great table master this author would make!"

  "This is very well thought out and a delightful romp in the creative mind of Howell. A superb treat for the supernatural geeks in us all."

  — Jay Mittener, TOP 500 REVIEWER

  "Blending all things paranormal, the author creates this fantastical world, rife with authentic emotion and thrilling adventures. This book grabs you in the beginning and takes you on this amazing journey that mimics all the trials and tribulations of life, then, turns them up a notch, leaving you hopeful and breathless at the same time."

  "The real emotions and tenderness behind all that these characters did, spoke to me on so many levels. This is by far one of the best Paranormal Fantasy novels I've read in a long time."

  — VoraciousReaderofFiction

  "*Sighs* Forbidden love, is there anything more romantic than that?!

  I think this is the most romantic novel I've ever read."

  — Emi Lia, Amazon Reviewer

  "I'll admit, I'm a total fan of Kiki Howell, and yet once again she writes so incredibly, so intensely, so perfectly. Her romance scenes are exceptional, with a depth of feeling the reader truly feels, as if they've crawled into the book and taken on the life of the character.

  Mixed in with the well-researched paranormal element of cults, witches and magick, Ms. Howell did not fail to have this reader turning page after page long throughout the night.

  Just like Hidden Salem, A War In The Willows, and so many other wonderfully enchanting books Ms. Howell has crafted, this book only confirms for me this author is an absolute gem when it comes to her work. A highly recommended read!"

  — Gina Kincade, Author of Shifting Gears

  "This is a well-written, fast-paced read and I liked the characters a great deal. The sex scenes were smokin’ hot which is a plus in my book."

  — Bea LaRocca, Amazon Reviewer

  "I've been a long time fan of KiKi Howell. Like all her books they are witty, thought out, and fast paced. With dynamic male/female characters the romance and magic never fails"

  — Bri Clark, Amazon Reviewer

  "'What Lies Within Us' is a fast paced thrilling, suspenseful, romance with twists and some great magic thrown in. I loved it. The storyline pulled me in from the beginning and did not let go. I loved the characters. Kyna is a great lead. I loved her personality and strength. Aedan is a man that dreams are made of. Hot, sexy, strong and he even has a soft side. I liked how the story played out. Kiki Howell wrote another 5 star read in my opinion. She's an author I'll definitely continue to follow. A great add to your tbr list. Recommended read!"

  — Denise Gardner, Amazon Reviewer

  The Vampire’s Witch by Kiki Howell

  At War In The Willows: Book One

  ISBN: 978-1-927415-12-2

  Smashwords Edition 2012

  Release Date: March 2012

  Published by Naughty Nights Press (NNP)

  http://naughtynightspress.com/

  Photography by M.J Ranum

  Cover Design by Shane Willis, RAD ACT Photography

  http://www.radactphoto.com/

  Copyright Kiki Howell 2012.

  All rights reserved.

  This book is under copyright by the author and is protected by law.

  This ebook is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. This book may contain graphic language and sexual situations offensive to some readers.

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this ebook are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  No part of this ebook may be adapted, stored, copied, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.

  The right of Kiki Howell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  The Vampire’s Witch by Kiki Howell

  Chapter One

  Rage carried Isaac from California back to Tennessee at a fevered speed even for a vampire. The night curled in around him, but not as the embrace it usually was. Instead, tonight, it was like a dense fog, which seemed to strangle him. He couldn’t say he was going home, even though that was where his families were. Both of them, or at least, what was left of them. Home meant a place that welcomed, sheltered, and yet he’d had no choice but to run from The Willows. Even now, several years later, he would have to be careful while staying with his vampire family that his real family never saw him. For all his birth family knew, he’d gone missing a decade ago. Hopefully they thought him dead—an accurate conception for all intensive purposes.

  The voice of his maker’s maker, Achim, a man he viewed as a grandfather now, echoed in his head. Drake, Isaac’s maker, was dead, staked outside the business he’d run. The Willows was to the mortals a peaceful, beautiful resort area in the mountains of Tennessee, full of sun and water and trails in the summer, which switched to snowboarding and skiing in the winter, everything a tourist could want. His clan had moved there a few years before he was made. While vampires were transient, forced to always keep moving every few decades or so by the fact mortals started to question why they never aged, resort towns were perfect to keep the questions low with so many people always coming and going. Plus, these types of places provided them jobs running the always-active nightlife.

  Clans of werewolves and witches had already been in The Willows when his clan had arrived. Until tonight, the clans had basically kept apart, recognized and peacefully accepted their hatred for each other. They worked together, amicable enough in public, but that was where it ended. Tonight, his vampire sister, Amberlyn, had thought it wise to reveal her love for the werewolf, Kane, of all given creatures. A verbal battle between vamps and werewolves at the cove had turned violent and deadly. A young witch who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, had been killed by a shot that had been fired after a werewolf had staked to death Amberlyn’s and Isaac’s maker, Drake. While the wolf and vamp clans had all but declared war, the witches were already threatening their own special sort of revenge. All of this had happened in the matter of three cursed hours. Now, he was nearly there just a few hours away from sunrise.

  Isaac, even in life, had been one to kick ass and ask questions later. As he entered The Willows – the place eerily quiet – a chill, more pervasive than it should be for a spring night in these parts, snaked down his back as he approached the group of houses where most of the witches lived.

  “Blessed wenches,” he grumbled int
o the air. And, he meant that in an angry, jealous and missed the sun type of way. Witches got to have special abilities and easily blend into society as mere mortals. His boot crushed the yellows, pinks and whites of the spring flowers, which decorated the first lawn he’d come to. They represented spring fever and love, and he relished their demise under his boots.

  “Fuckin’ Amberlyn!” Isaac had never gotten to know his sister much, except through a few visits when her, Drake, and Drake’s maker, Achim with his wife, Willa, had come to visit him in Los Angeles.

  Someone was going to pay for Drake’s death. Isaac wasn’t going to be picky either. Whatever witch he came across first would do for information, then possibly revenge depending on how things went down. Revenge was his job in California, and he was very good at it. Tonight though, he hadn’t thought his plan of attack all the way through yet.

  His thoughts were still more on what he’d lost tonight. After Isaac had been made, Drake had left The Willows with Isaac, stayed with him, mentored him, became a real father to replace the human one he could no longer see. Isaac pushed the memories aside, squashed them with anger-laced pain. First things first, before that damn strong sun around here rose, some random witch was going to give him answers about what they had planned. He would go for the werewolves tomorrow night after he had a planning session with Amberlyn and Achim. Isaac had promised them that over the phone. No one had said a damn word about the witches. Being one of the new temporary leaders of the clan now – as one of those closest in bloodline to Drake – he had a job to protect the other vamps.

  With strength and speed, he broke into the house. There was no lock or doorknob around that could keep him out if he wanted in. The broken door, the briefest scream of a woman startled out of sleep, were all but seconds, and he was gone. With a hand over the scared-frozen woman’s mouth just in case, he erred on the side of caution somewhat, even though she wouldn’t realize what had happened to her. He ran through the woods with her in his arms at speeds that made her world blur.

  He came to a stop when he reached the abandoned cave, now secretly furnished with a man-made room deep inside it where no mortal would dare roam. Drake had lived there, a home away from the one he claimed to live in, in town. Achim had told Isaac he could stay there safely out of sight for as long as he needed to be in The Willows. He used the code to get inside.

  Once the door had shut and bolted behind him, he threw the witch on the leather couch, wondered what magic she could possess to have shocked his whole body just from holding her. Something about the electric sensation that burned through his veins felt familiar, calmed and energized at the same time. It was the first time since he’d been turned that he’d felt, well, secure of all damn things. It was almost too foreign of an emotion to recognize. If he didn’t know better, he would say it felt like something he remembered from home, from the last time he was here, the night he died. Stupid, but seriously undeniable still, like something long ago but never forgotten, always longed for even if pushed from one’s mind. And, on tonight of all nights, the whole idea of home was insane. He’d just lost the one person who’d ever given him any sense of the word since becoming a vampire. Security had now become an even more vague concept than it had ever been before, a concept he would think upon only when in a piss-poor mood about the loss of his cushy childhood and all-too-soon-gone days of being a carefree young man.

  The feeling had to have something to do with being in Drake’s home. That had to be it. Although he’d only been here once before, that dreadful night he’d been turned and a few nights following, until Drake had thought he was strong enough to travel to California and start a new life there. Secure wasn’t a word he’d use to describe those first nights he’d spent as a vamp, but the place was Drake’s still. He could sense him here in a way.

  The witch must have been beyond terrified from her journey, because she stared at him with her big green eyes that sparkled with gold, even in the dim lights. Of course she would be afraid. Beyond the whole kidnapping thing, he didn’t let many people see him. He worked shady jobs at night, in the wrong parts of town, where a half-disfigured face like his got him street cred, warranted fear, and got the job done with little problem. He was one scary son of a bitch, or son of a vamp. He had used it to his advantage, but he wasn’t sure how much good it would do him with this chick.

  “Wasting my breath probably by saying this, but don’t be scared.” He pulled the hood he always wore over the side of his scared face, turned away from her at the same time. “I just want answers. Give them too me, and I’ll return you to your bed. Do it quickly, and I can get you there before the sun rises.” He pointed to his watch. “But, time is ticking. What are the witches planning for retaliation again the werewolf and vampire clans for what happened tonight?”

  She just sat there, her red curls wind-blown from her unexpected trip, like a fire raging around her beautiful features, the ones he was losing the battle at ignoring. Against her flaming locks her pale skin glowed, everything about her sparkled. Something in his cold body warmed, unexpected, and as welcomed as it was forcefully, obediently, rejected. Slowly her legs curled up under her, hidden a bit more by her nightdress. The damn thing was sheer, of course, thin strapped, a sunny, golden color, appropriate to sheath such a bright – okay hot – woman as she was.

  Fuckin’ stop it! What the hell with the thoughts? Is this some sort of magic she’s using on me already? Damn it all! What the hell is she staring at?

  She was under his skin, possessed him, some goddamned fucking way, and it needed to stop. Yes. That had to be it. Possession. He had to wonder though if it was really possible as she sat there, her arms around her body. She curled into the corner of the couch, stared at him like he was some sort of angelic being, like he mesmerized her rather than feared him like most did in his presence as if he was mere devil’s spawn.

  Of course, it has to be part of some spell. What else? She doesn’t need a wand or words. These witches are wicked with mind control. He’d fight fire with fire if he only had the mind to at the moment. What the fuck?

  “If you’re using magic, you need to stop it now!” he yelled, finally made his thoughts vocal, but they’d come out more like a muffled roar. The witch emasculated him. She literally had him by the balls with her magic, and he wouldn’t have it. His fangs came out, his face tense.

  She jumped, and he bit back the apology that came unasked for by her and un-welcomed by him.

  “You’re alive,” she finally spoke, words so faint he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

  “What?” he barked back, the tone of it far less than he’d planned it to be. He huffed.

  “The last time I saw you. You were in that accident…that horrible, horrendous car accident.” She shook her head, her eyes closed tight. He wondered if she tried to recall a moment or shut out a memory. “They used magic…They tried to… I tried to… I didn’t know what happened to you, if they were successful…or I was. Then that vampire, he just took you. Oh My Goddess!”

  Her hand went over her mouth a second, then dropped again. “That vampire was Drake! Your maker… that’s why you’re here. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  He shook his head then, his fangs shortened. Sorry for my loss? Was she for real?

  “What are you talking about? My accident? You remember it?” He actually shook his head again tried to focus in on a lot of words that, as he understood them, made no sense. Not a damnable drop of sense. “Yes, Drake’s dead. That’s why I got you. I just need information about what the witches are planning in retaliation. In exchange I’ll return you safely.”

  “I wish I had it to give, the information you seek, that is.” Her legs unfurled then long and shapely. He wondered how anyone’s skin could look so pale and so warm at the same time. In this light, her coloring made her sparkle like a fairy. She tugged what she could of the golden silk nightgown over her thighs. His body came alive even more so than it had when he’d had her in his arms. This ti
me what burned through his veins was pure lust. It had to be. Definitely a feeling he could identify with. But, question was, had she caused it? This ache within him to hold her, to claim her, to drink her blood, which was probably honey sweet. He could smell it as it flowed under her skin. At first in a furious rush of adrenaline, at moments it slowed down a bit, and then it moved along fast again seconds later.

  And yet, he felt he was the one with blood which rushed through his veins, more like when he had been a human. His whole body was turned on so much that he felt like a damn bee who buzzed around a queen bee in her hive. He contemplated the sting just to be able to touch her.

  “You grabbed the wrong witch, I’m afraid,” she stated, calmly, softly, after the silence he’d let ensue. She blew his mind. He really didn’t know what to make of her. His face, his fangs, none of it scared her. Instead she came at him with concern. What is wrong with her?

  “I’m really somewhat of an outcast,” she continued as if she’d read his mind.

  You never could trust a witch. A master at mind games, the whole compulsion thing going for him, today he seemed to sit on the bench, hand her over the win.

  “I don’t like to play with magic like most of them do,” she shook her head slightly as she spoke, gave him a half-smile, one shy and demure. “I don’t shrug off the moral laws just because I have the power to easily do so. So, I’m told little by my clan. If they didn’t need my powers, I swear they wouldn’t even invite me to their circles half the time. I know though that your kind, the wolves too, they need to be on alert. They had a meeting before bed, one of their planning sessions that never amount to anything good. And, this time they were hurt and angry beyond what I’ve seen them be in a long time. I wasn’t invited, but I can only imagine what was said there.”