Magic and Mayhem: Bridget's Witch's Diary (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Witches of Mane Street Book 2)

by Heather Long

  Toodles Songstress,

  Baba Yaga

  P.S. As for that other problem, I will provide you with the answer to your question once you’ve completed this task.

  P.P.S. Oh, and you need to sing at the weddings of two couples you help to unite. Remember, helping others find joy will allow joy to blossom within you.

  P.P.P.S. If you say aloud all the things you are thinking right now, I’ll give you another task, and trust me when I say you will like it even less.

  So, I kept my opinions to myself. Because I know the Baba Yaga, she didn’t do anything by half measures. If I said aloud half of what went through my head, I’d probably be a toad somewhere having to sing to the moon in a bayou while I waited for a prince to kiss my toady little head.

  Blegh.

  Martin sprawled next to me, one hand on my hip. His grip was familiar, and comforting…and I’d been waking up a lot like this, hadn’t I? Odd. More than odd. The weird sense of déjà vu permeated my mind, but I shook it off. Of course I’d been waking up with Martin a lot—we’d been living together for a month. I went to sleep in his arms every single night, and I woke up in them.

  Sitting up, I glanced down at his slumbering face. We had some time, I could afford to wake him up with a little play before I went down to make breakfast. This domestic thing wasn’t me, but I was doing my best to make it work stubborn teenager or no…

  A crash from downstairs had Martin sitting up. We split a look between us and I was out of the room ahead of him. Martin had the man thing down, and he was really protective, but I was the witch in the family and no one was touching my charges.

  We found Rika at the top of the stares gaping at the living room below and I skidded to a halt next to her. A man in a sexy kilt stood dead center in our living room, broadsword in hand, chest thick and heaving, and looking like he’d just stepped off the cover of a romance novel.

  “Wha’ th’ blewdy ‘ell is this?”

  Goddess of Light, the man had a thick accent. “Very good question,” I said, projecting a calm I didn’t remotely feel. Then again, I’d dealt with pissy vampires on a regular basis, so pretending calm in the face of this—whatever the hell this was—I could handle.

  “Um…” Rika, never at a loss for words, seemed frozen. Her eyes glazed over. “It’s him.”

  “Him who?” I asked without taking my gaze off that very large sword or the menacing Scot holding it.

  “I’m Angus, Lord of the Caithness, Master of the Highlands—who dares hold me?”

  “Angus, Lord of Caithness?” Martin repeated next to me, then he slipped on a pair of glasses and studied the man. “Hmm, the tartan is wrong for the clans of Caithness.”

  The tartan?

  I wasn’t the only one who jerked attention to Martin. My gorgeous, studly academic with his sleep rumpled hair and hint of morning stubble. He scratched at his chin.

  From below, Angus roared. “Who put me in these Montgomery tweeds?” Incensed, he ripped the wool off and proved the argument once and for all that real Scotsmen didn’t wear a damn thing beneath their kilts.

  “Wow…” Rika reminded me of her presence, so I clapped a hand over her eyes. “Martin, can you invite our guest into something like a robe? Rika go to your room.”

  “No!” The teen jerked away, and her hair went as red as her cheeks. “He’s here for me.”

  “He is?” What had she done?

  “I am?” Angus ceased his bellowing and checked his grip on his giant broadsword, though I could have wished he’d covered the other broad sword jutting out—especially when he stared at Rika.

  Before I could grab her, she bolted down the stairs. Oh, not on my watch little girl. “You threw a wish in the well, didn’t ask and didn’t tell tale, and I’m looking at you, no I won’t let you set sail or trade your soul for a wish, pennies or dimes for his kiss—no, we’re not looking at it this way,” I sang and the magic swirled through me, one spell to capture Rika before she got too close to that sword, and the second I flung right at our buff, and very nude guest. “Your stare might be golden, but your skin is still showing, hot night, wind blowing, ripped jeans and t-shirt unfolded.”

  The clothes slapped onto him with a snap and Rika jerked to a halt at the foot of the stairs.

  “The sword, witchypoo. I recommend disarming him.” Martin was right at my shoulder, his presence a balm.

  “Where you think you’re going baby?” I twisted into the song. “Sword to me, no ands ifs or maybes.”

  Definitely not my best work, but the broadsword vanished from his hands, landed in mine, and damn near took me down with it.

  What the hell was this thing made of? It weighed a ton. Staggered, only Martin gripping the blade kept me from landing on my ass.

  “Bridget!” Rika shrieked. “I summoned him. Let me go.”

  Yeah, that’s what I thought she’d said earlier. Still not on board with whatever mad plan she’d concocted. The Scotsman—oh, Angus, for beef and damn if he wasn’t beefcake…

  “Witchypoo,” Martin’s voice took on a distinct note of disapproval. “You’re drooling.”

  “Dude, he’s hot, but I love you and you’re way hotter.” To prove my point, I twisted, caught Martin’s face in my hands and planted a sinful kiss on his lips. His package came to life against my belly and now I really wished I’d had a chance to wake him up before the Celtic invasion.

  My guy moaned against my lips. Soon, he had his hand in my hair, and I forgot all about our audience until the sound of Rika gagging penetrated the gorgeous sensual haze. “Oh, right…” I murmured against Martin’s mouth and he chuckled. Separating took actual effort on my part, but I managed it.

  Returning my attention to the scene below, I studied Rika’s ill expression then Angus’ offended one.

  Pointing a finger at the Scotsman, I said, “You are familiar with witches?”

  “Aye.” And he definitely didn’t like them from the harsh slash of his mouth compressing together.

  “Good, then behave like a good guest, or I’ll do something magnificently unkind to your pecker. Got it?”

  “Aye,” he snarled, then folded those massive arms. The man was the size of a Redwood tree.

  “Martin, would you be so kind as to take our guest into the kitchen for some coffee while Rika and I have a little chat?”

  “Of course,” he said, hefting the sword as though it didn’t weigh a hundred pounds. I had to fight the urge to girly-sigh. Didn’t matter if he wasn’t as big as the highlander, he was all the stud I needed.

  Martin winked, then descended the stairs. “Right this way, mate.” He said to the highlander, not giving Rika even a passing glance. The outrage on the teenager’s face faded as the Scotsman disappeared behind Martin and I descended the stairs to join her.

  “In short, complete sentences not peppered by objection or hormones, explain to me the I summoned him statement.” Folding my arms, I waited. I was still dressed in a nightshirt which declared I Coffee Therefore I Am and in all likelihood, my hair was still sticking out at the sides ala Pippy Longstocking since I always looked like a wild woman, but comical appearance aside, Rika’s rebellion seemed to drain out of her.

  “I summoned him using a spell from your diary.”

  Cogent. To the point. “And way over the line.” When had she gotten my diary? “Summoned him from where?” Because we needed to put him back and depending on what spell she used…

  “I used the spell to get a muse.” Rika actually grimaced. “Before you get all high and mighty, I just did it because—I’m a raging brat with delusions of grandeur and I don’t like rules, so why should I have to follow them?”

  I blinked. Had she really just said that?

  “Did I really just say that?” Stunned didn’t begin to cover the teen’s face. “That isn’t what I meant to say, what I am trying to tell you—is I’m hormonal, overindulged, and never paid a real consequence in my whole life.”

  Rika clapped a hand over her mouth
, and I hummed under my breath, not only to give myself a moment to consider her actions and words, but to release her from the holding spell keeping her locked on the stairs.

  “Come with me,” I ordered and abandoned the stairs to head for the small office Martin had been converting into a study. We didn’t have a lot of books yet, but we would have privacy which was more important. Once she was inside, I kept the door open and sang three perfect notes, “Come to me!” The spell lashed through the house, raced to my bedroom, snaked under the mattress and drew my diary out. A moment later the book hurtled into my hand.

  So armed, I closed the door and turned to face her. Rika wore her anger on her sleeve and her bewilderment in her eyes. When she would have opened her mouth to say something, I held up a finger. She silenced.

  “Write it down,” I suggested, then pointed to the stack of sticky notes and pens on the desk. Martin took copious notes on everything. He was a professor down to his sexy bones.

  While she did that, I flipped through my diary. No magical disturbances arose from the pages. I usually kept it spell locked, so I would know if anyone got into it and the words would be just scrambled enough to be useless. Except Rika was a witch, a powerful one, for all that she couldn’t control her magic.

  Rika straightened and extended the sticky note to me.

  I’m under a curse.

  “Read it to me,” I told her.

  Fresh annoyance flashed across her expression. “I’m a danger to myself and others because I don’t consider how my actions affect them.”

  Rika let out a little scream, and I had to feel sorry for her. “Yes, you are definitely under a curse.” Which explained a great deal. “So, we’ll go with you not spinning tales since apparently the curse keeps you from telling me what you want to say.”

  The teen nodded emphatically, then wrote another note quickly.

  Not a teenager. I turned forty-five three weeks ago, not that you can tell.

  No, I definitely hadn’t been able to tell that.

  Pissed off Baba Yaga.

  Clearly.

  Summoned a muse to free up my magic.

  Huh. “I’ve been thinking about calling your familiar for you, to help you get some measure of control.”

  Another stomp of her foot and impatience. “I know that.”

  “Do you?” Interesting, since I’d just thought of it today. “I know I didn’t write that in my diary, so how did you know?”

  Rika’s face went beet red, and her hair caught fire. Sliding onto the desk, she said, “Promise you won’t hate me?”

  “Not a chance.” Any conversation that began with those words meant Rika had done something else horrible. I tried to keep my cool. This behavior had to be why the Baba Yaga stuck her with me in the first place. Martin was right, Rika and I were a lot—wait, when did Martin and I have that conversation? We’d avoided discussing her after the initial assignment, mostly because Martin wanted me to learn how to do this on my own. Life, as he liked to say, needed teachable moments. “What did you do?”

  “I don’t want to tell you now,” Rika admitted, though the flames in her hair went out and left her with some limp, dull dishwater color. Whatever she’d done had to be bad.

  “If you don’t tell me, I can’t help you fix it.” I flipped through the diary to my muse spell. It had been a lame attempt at entertaining myself when the vamps had me in lock down all the damn time… “Oh Rika, you didn’t summon this guy from a book did you?”

  Fictional alpha males were the worst. They could be such dicks.

  “Maybe.” Another wince, then Rika added, “I need my magic under control and you don’t have time to teach me. Frankly, I think you need to learn a little control yourself, but you’re too busy worrying about your problems to care about mine. You’d rather send me off to school to suffer through the 21 Jump Street years all over again than deal with me.”

  She had a point. I didn’t like it, but she did have a point. “I was more a 90210 girl myself.”

  Throwing her hands up, Rika glared at me. “You’re doing it now. I may look sixteen, and I may have an ass you can bounce a dime off of, but I am not a—smartass who fails to listen to my elders when they give me advice.”

  Wow, Baba Yaga threw a mean curse. I had to laugh, and when Rika looked ready to stab me with that pen, I held up my diary as a placating gesture. “Look, I get it. You’re screwed and so am I.” Only, if she wasn’t really a teenager then I wasn’t really responsible for her, was I?

  Food for thought. The shaft of guilt stabbing me in the gut said otherwise though.

  “You laughing at me is not helping—even if I deserve it.” Rika let out another shriek. “I love the Baba Yaga, she is the most awesomest of Baba Yaga’s ever. She’s Baba-licious, and I owe her a big bottle of wine when I’m old enough to buy it.”

  Yeah, okay, now that was taking it too far. “First, we deal with your special friend in the kitchen with Martin, then we get a grip on your spellcasting, and then we’ll work on breaking that compulsion.” Being forced to kiss anyone’s ass was just mean.

  “Really?” Shock coupled with hope filled Rika’s face.

  “Really. Besides, the sooner we get you sorted out. The sooner we can part ways. I know you don’t want me looking over your shoulder twenty-four seven…” Wait. I’d said that to her before.

  “No, I really don’t…”

  “Bridget,” Martin called. “I’m making pancakes, did you want sausage or bacon with yours?”

  A flash of sausage went through my mind. I’d burnt it and the smell was…

  Across from me, Rika sank a little lower on the desk. “About that…”

  White flashed through the room.

  4

  Rika

  “Dammit,” Rika swore as she found herself standing in the center of her bedroom once more. She’d come clean with Bridget, and Bridget hadn’t kicked her out or turned her into an amphibian when she admitted to the Baba Yaga’s curse, snaking her diary, and summoning the really hot highlander.

  Angus.

  Crap.

  Her spell reset to three in the morning, before anyone was awake. It was a limited time window, but she’d given herself five hours to loop. The idea being she could search while they slept. But it hadn’t been anywhere near five hours when it reset them…worry about that later. Find Angus now.

  He’d come through the loop, and he’d been in a different place and arrived at a different time.

  Rika hurried out of her bedroom as quietly as she could manage. Sometimes Bridget had the reflexes of a cat. Other times, she slept the sleep of the dead. Another inconsistency in the loop. Damn annoying one.

  At the bottom step, she halted. Angus stood in the center of the living room. He wore ripped jeans, which hugged his massive frame and an ordinary t-shirt which stretched across his broad chest. Thunderstruck expression aside, he was the sexiest damn thing she’d ever seen.

  And since he’d ripped off the green tartan earlier, she’d gotten an eyeful of the whole package.

  “You’re here.” Relief swamped her or it did until he pinned her with a furious look. His eyes were the perfect shade of blue, and they seemed to shimmer in the low light of the lamps in the room. His dark hair hung past his shoulders, giving him a roguish appearance. She kind of missed the kilt, but he could definitely work the jeans.

  “Witch,” Angus said angrily, storming over to her. He towered over her, and she didn’t think of herself as short 5’7, but he had to be well over six feet. This close, she had to crane her head back to meet his gaze. “What did you do to me? The sun was up, then it vanished. I was in the kitchen with the male who speaks like a priest, and now I am here.”

  And his accent had definitely modernized a little, even if the brogue remained thick. Or perhaps she’d already acclimated to it. She’d always had an ear for languages.

  “I can explain,” she assured him, though her gaze remained fixed on the fullness of his lips. Man, did he have to
be so damn gorgeous? Of course, he’d looked pretty delish on the cover. Not to mention, what she’d read he could do with those lips…

  “Then explain, witch.” The emphasis he put on the word witch sent heat coursing through her. Man, she could climb him like a pole. Of course, they didn’t have time for that right now, but she probably had more flexibility than she’d ever possessed.

  “I summoned you.”

  “I’m clear on that part.” He folded his arms, and invaded her personal space. The warmth of his nearness seemed to cling to her. As did the intensely masculine scent perfuming the air. It wasn’t cologne. No, it was all male and provoked images of the moors and the mountains. “Why did you summon me, witch?”

  “Because I needed inspiration.” She didn’t usually let big men intimidate her, but he was different. Nothing spare on him, and she’d swear nothing gentle except despite his obvious fury, he didn’t make any move to hurt her.

  “Inspiration?” He canted his head, disbelief flickering in his eyes.

  Oh, boy howdy, and was she inspired. Her nipples tightened, and the flutter in her belly seemed to extend to the rest of her. Before she could think better of it, she placed her hand on his arm. Solid. Sturdy. Strong.

  Her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. He glanced down at her hand, then at her. “Are you trying to enchant me with your magic, witch?”

  “My name is Rika,” she managed to squeeze out past the need to drool. “Rika Tallulejah Smythe. Not witch.”

  “Is that so?” Instead of being impressed, he appeared amused. “Well then, Rika Tallulejah Smythe, what am I to inspire in you?”

  “Lots of lascivious thoughts at the moment.” The honest answer earned her a speculative smile, then he unfolded those gorgeous arms of his and slid his hand beneath her chin. The light caress sent another wave of shivers to riot in her system. “I need help.”

  “What can I do for you, lassie?”

  Her brain melted for a moment. “Um…”

  “Ye kin tell me,” he assured her, then stroked his hand along her cheek and she rubbed her face against his palm. Suddenly, she felt like a cat and wanted to purr. Leaning toward him, she rose on her tiptoes. Would he get the hint? Would he…then he was bending his face toward hers and his lips just brushed across hers when the white light struck.