by Skyler Andra
Life’s a Witch
Guild of Guardians #1 (A Paranormal Prison Series)
Skyler Andra
Life’s a Witch (Guild of Guardians #1) © Copyright 2019 Skyler Andra
Cover art by Atlantis Book Design.
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, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher/author.
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.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Author
Foreword
To Andrea, my boot wearing, whip bearing ARC Queen and angel. And Angie, my Ride or Die, shot slamming, cheesecake toting gun slinger. Thank you and hugs. And please don’t kick me in the shins. I’m sorry about the Assassin’s Creed Limited Edition souvenirs…
Special thanks to Jessica Houck, Galina Sulaiman, Joi Maples, Leila Soroko, Emily Jividen and Milly Dowten for BETA reading this for continuity with regards to Aspergers and Autism. You gals are my superheroes!
Lastly, to Missy, my fabulous editor, who polishes this zirconia into a diamond ;) And to Amanda for that extra shine!
Introduction
Welcome to my Guild series universe where my heroes and heroines protect the world from supernatural and magical threats.
Guild of Shadows
Darkfire
Wifdfire
Crossfire
Heathrfire (A Christmas novella available by subscribing to my newsletter)
Hellfire
Nightmare (coming ???)
Guild of Guardians
Witch Hunt (a prequel novella coming 2020)
Life’s a Witch
Hindsight’s a Witch (coming 2020)
Guild of Sorcerers (coming 2021)
The Guild of Sorcerers will feature in crossovers with the Guild of Shadows and Guild of Guardians as well as my Evil Queen series (Dark Fae Legacies coming 2020). Keep your eyes peeled. Subscribe to my newsletter for updates skylerandra.com/index.php/subscribe/
Check out the About the Author section for more of my exciting and addicting series <3 Skyler
Chapter 1
Astra
The call came in the middle of Familiar Husbandry Class. Angela looked at the cell then at me and frowned. We weren’t supposed to bring our phones to class, but my BFF had been expelled from the Guild, tossed out like a piece of moldy pastrami, and I kept it on hand in case she needed me. Under Angela’s crow-like glare, I reached my hand beneath the table, pretending to scratch my itchy thigh. All the while, I kept my focus on my stuffy and uptight instructor, dressed in his neatly pressed uniform, hair parted down the middle, beard trimmed short.
Pft. This guy was a real stickler for the rules. If he caught me checking my phone or my watch, I’d end up writing a thousand-word essay on the mating habits of trolls. That’s why old goody two shoes Angela didn’t want any attention her way. Last time Nelle got caught texting her fuck buddy, the teacher thought she and Angela were sending messages about the lesson, and gave them both detention. Screw her. If my bestie needed me, I was gonna be there.
When the ringing could no longer be ignored, I slid out my cell. A selfie of Luna and me flashed on the screen. Only she wasn’t texting, she was calling. I had to take this.
“Err, sir,” I called out to the instructor, jumping out of my seat. “Lady emergency. I’ve got to go the bathroom. Can I get a pass, please?”
The movement woke Obsidian, my gargoyle, from his lion nap, and he ruffled his fur, shaking himself awake.
Two girls in the back of the room snickered.
“Astra,” Angela hissed. “Really?” Apparently, Angela didn’t like the fact I’d broadcast my pseudo-lady issues.
Other students spent a lot of time scolding me, shaking their heads, laughing or whispering about me behind my back. Honesty was my thing, I couldn’t help it. Asperger’s. Truth was truth. Of course, students didn’t get it. And I didn’t really get them either. But Luna understood me, and that was why I’d do anything for her.
I lifted my middle finger, using it to push up my glasses as I stepped out from behind my desk. Angela shook her head as I strode up the aisle to stand in front of the instructor’s desk. His face flushed red as he scribbled his signature on the pink slip of paper.
“Thank you, sir.” I stuffed the pass into my pocket beside my phone.
I grunted as Obsidian my gargoyle landed on my shoulder. One part eagle (his head), the other part lion (his ass), he was one of the better looking Guild guardians, but a tad heavy lately. I overfed him last night. Too many rocks. Nonetheless, I hurried out of the classroom, clearing thirty feet in a mad dash.
The phone started to ring again and I answered. “Babe!” I cupped my hand over the microphone as I scurried down the hall. “How are you? Where are you?”
“I’m good.” A lie if I’d ever heard one. If she hadn’t spent the whole day crying, I’d eat my shoe. “But I need your help. My grandparents are after me.”
Fuck. Damned snakes never gave up. “No. I’ll dissolve the dirtbags!”
Shit. My threat echoed down the stone hallways. Gargoyles perched on hooks sticking out of pillars turned to stare, their necks scraping from the movement.
I scanned the space for any more instructors or students. Couldn’t be too careful. Between the gargoyles who tattled to the sentries about lurking students, no doubt someone I didn’t want to would hear about this. Because Luna was by bestie, I was on the watch list. Eyes narrowed with suspicion everywhere I went. I hadn’t helped her. Hadn’t gone to the djinn world to enlist their army to defeat the serpents. And even if I had gone with her, threw my hat into the helper ring, it certainly didn’t mean anyone should’ve been expelled. Just thinking about how they’d treated her made my blood boil. My body temperature scaled up a few degrees, and I exhaled some of the heat to cool off.
A guy and his girlfriend emerged from an empty classroom, giggling, hands in places they shouldn’t have been. The chick scowled but her guy pulled her away. I checked over my shoulder to make sure they’d gone.
“Babe.” Luna’s voice went tight and high. “I hate asking, but I really need to get a copy of something that will give me answers about my missing pas
t.”
Obsidian nipped at my cell and my fingers. God, he was almost as bad as my instructor. I put my hand over the microphone and pushed him away. “Cut it out, Obsidian.”
His stony eyes narrowed, and he turned his head away. Good. A little silent treatment from my gargoyle was never a bad thing.
I dashed into the bathroom and leaned against the marble sink. “What do you need?”
Luna sighed, long and low. “Before I left, Venellan took a magical print of my mind…”
Her words made my head spin. “What?”
As a speed reader with no boyfriend who only slept about four hours a night, I’d pretty much read the library twice. Must’ve skipped the book that said this was possible.
“The headmaster tricked me into letting a conjurer pull it from my mind and record it on a magical parchment.” Luna’s normally high-pitched chipmunk tone turned low and gravelly. “Then he kicked Cole and me out.”
“Bastard!” My body burned from the inside. I expected this sort of bullshit from a sniveling weasel like Kymbal, not the headmaster.
Years ago, Luna’s parents had hidden something in her mind that her grandfather—Lord of the Serpents—wanted. More than once, he’d tried to kidnap her to get it. Then he’d broken into the Guild and stolen a powerful dark magick spell book. My gut soured because he intended to use the book for the extraction process once he got his scaly claws on Luna. Now that she’d been kicked out of the Guild, there weren’t a whole lot of places she could hide from all knowing, all powerful granddaddy. Of course, I would help protect her.
Luna sniffed, and the line scratched. “I don’t know who to trust anymore. Everyone has their own agenda or wants something from me.” She sobbed, and my heart lurched. I just wanted to hold her, eat some chocolate, watch funny cat videos and have a good cry with her.
I didn’t need convincing. “I’ll do it. Give me a day to get the scroll and search for a translation book.” I also needed to figure out a way to get to the parchment without being busted. Then lift it and find her so she could have it. Simple.
She went silent, and I didn’t breathe as I waited for her to cry.
Obsidian clucked on my shoulder and nudged me with his wing.
Footsteps pounded the hall outside. Closer. Closer. Humming a tune. Closer. Shit. Someone was coming. I pressed my cell phone to my chest. Luna murmured something, but I didn’t hear it. Detention was a very real possibility.
The door to the bathroom flung open.
“Shit.” I hung up without speaking. She’d know we were taking chances by talking during school hours. She’d also know I’d call her tomorrow.
I shoved my cell in my pocket. The girl who entered gave me some serious side eye as I moved to the mirror, running my hands through my orange-streaked hair. I remembered the time I’d colored Luna’s hair purple.
Stealing a magical parchment from the headmaster was a little more serious than a bottle of hair dye. If I got caught… But the Guild had turned Luna out. Wrongfully. They were the ones who’d left her vulnerable to the serpents, the Guild’s enemies. Like I said. Wrongfully.
I stared as the girl closed the door to her stall.
I turned back to the mirror. I was paler than usual. My eyes had lost their spark. Tension clenched my jaw and mouth.
If I got caught stealing the parchment, I’d end up like Luna. Out on my ass. I’d worked so hard at the Guild. I wanted to become a Gildron or a Hadrian. But Astra Nomical didn’t back out of anything. Maybe that was my problem.
Chapter 2
Astra
Secret compartments in the Guild’s walls allowed me to bypass the gargoyles standing alert at the entrance and avoid setting off an alarm. I used the light on my phone so I could navigate through the narrow passage. Then I deactivated the function, switched it back on again, and repeated the action three times. Mild case of OCD. It helped appease my Asperger’s, which triggered in out of the ordinary situations.
I hunched my shoulders and back to fit through the small space, bending underneath low overhangs. I pinched my nose at twenty years of dust, holding in a sneeze. Spider webs hung from every corner, lodged on joists and braces. One brushed against my head, and I did a frantic dance, smacking my hair with my fingers. Obsidian, my gargoyle, dug in his claws to stay perched on my shoulder, and I whimpered.
“Easy, Obsidian,” I muttered and he loosened his grip.
Ten minutes later, I stood at a stone door cut into the wall. My muscles trembled as I used all my strength to shove it open. Every time it scraped, my heartbeat shot up another ten beats per minute. I paused, listening for any movement inside the chamber. Nothing stirred, and I continued. I left the door ajar since I didn’t plan on staying long. I paused by the door, knocking three times for good measure. With my OCD criteria met, I tiptoed deeper into the restricted area of the Guild.
A month ago, Luna’s boyfriend had shown us the passageways he’d discovered as a boy. Since then, I’d explored, mapped out every nook, cranny, and recess and where they led to. Useful information in case the Guild was attacked again and my friends and I needed an escape route. Couldn’t be too careful since we’d already suffered an elemental invasion and the leader of the Serpent Brotherhood had broken in to steal a dangerous spell book.
Obsidian gave a soft rumble from my shoulder. I patted him on the head. He’d heard whispers about Luna’s mind parchment through the gargoyle network, saying it was locked in the restricted magic chamber. I was about to find out how reliable his gargoyle reports were.
Every nerve in my body strummed on high alert as I moved from the artifact room to the forbidden repository where they kept the medicinal herbs that could get a person high. In the library, a long wooden table occupied the center of the room. Someone had left a few scrolls unraveled and pinned underneath candles. Shelves packed with items and books stretched to the tall ceilings. There must have been at least several hundred documents in here. How the hell was I going to find Luna’s?
“Obsidian,” I whispered. “Where Luna’s parchment?”
My gargoyle flew off my shoulder to land on the top shelf where a bunch of parchments were shoved into a gilded cage. That’d be right. A locked cage.
Obsidian’s gaze directed up at two ugly stone demons with their heads protruding from the corner of the chamber. Their eyes glowed neon green, and their stone necks grazed as they twisted to look at me.
Crap. Watchers. The Guild had them in every corner. They warned of danger. I had to hurry before they alerted the sentries.
Quickly, I scanned the ledges of countless artifacts and documents. I grabbed the closest ladder. My legs stung from the adrenaline pumping through them as I climbed up and down a few times before continuing the rest of the way. At the top of the ladder, I locked it in place and dragged the golden cage over to me.
Equations flashed in my mind. All the chemical components of the cage. I’d dissolve them and break open the lock. Easy peasy.
I fired my palms with my magic and ejected a blast that broke up the chemical bonds that held the metal together and dispersed it. I brushed my hands together three times. In about three hours, the atoms of metal would reform and the chemicals would bond together into solid form.
I stuck my hand into the cage and pulled out documents, hunting through them, searching for Luna’s parchment. A few minutes into my search, a door scraped open and closed gently. Crap, the sentries had arrived to take me to the headmaster. I froze, clinging to the ladder so hard my hands ached.
They shuffled in the hall outside, moving into the artifact room. One person by the sound of the footsteps pattering the stone. My breath hitched as I listened. Items scuffed as a person moved them. Something heavy thumped, and I imagined it tipping over.
“Shit,” a voice muttered. The person continued to hunt for something in the other room.
Wait a minute. That wasn’t a sentry here to apprehend me. They were looking for something else.
Alert and on edge,
I scrunched my hands several times, before continuing to sift through the scrolls, peeling them open to read. Finally, I found one etched with Luna’s name.
Thank fucking God.
I rolled it up, tucked it down my top.
Now, I just had to sneak out past the person in the other room to get back to the secret passage. Hide behind the table until the person left, then make my escape. No biggie.
Each wrung of the ladder creaked as I descended, and I winced, biting my lip. Objects clinked and clattered as the person in the other room kept rummaging and muttering to themselves. My heart raced as I took three final steps up and down the ladder, then crept out of there.
On my way to hide behind the table, the person from the adjacent room entered, bumping into me. All warmth from my body vanished. Blaze, my instructor. Hot as hell, but as serious as a stake to the heart. One of the best Gildrons, but a hard ass who tested physical limits in practice exercises and fried many a brain with homework. We didn’t call him the punisher for nothing.
Paler than usual, red around the eyes, lips blue, he didn’t look well. Maybe he’d caught the flu. Although, rumor had it he’d gotten hell from the Gildrons after Luna was expelled. Stressed more like it.
“What are you doing here?” His steely voice promised me detention for the next month.