Someday my Witch Will Come, page 1
Contents
Blurb
Title
Copyright
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Epilogue
Thank you for reading
Sneak Peek of Four Witches and a Funeral
Also by Daisy
About Daisy
Bonus Chapter of Get Witch Quick
You know those little girls who dress up as Disney princesses in the bright, shimmery costumes and dream about their prince rescuing them?
That was never me.
In this story, it's the witch who saves the prince.
Ever since I joined the Wicked Society, my tarot readings are always about sacrifice for the greater good and martyrdom. In other words, any day now I’m going to lose something or someone I love. Evidently, my spirit guides are the ride or die types.
For years, I’ve asked the cards the same question about my crush. Will Tate Winthrop fall in love with me? The answer is always someday.
As in someday Tate will love me back.
Someday there won’t be a group of witches using dark magic to destroy our coven.
Someday I’ll stop having the same dream about a handsome prince with long, blond dreadlocks kissing a woman wearing a sparkly, poofy ball gown.
Someday my witch will come.
This is book two in the Wicked Society series of interconnected, lighthearted paranormal romances with a cozy mystery twist.
Copyright © 2018 by Daisy Prescott, All rights reserved.
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. 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 written permission from the author/ publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Renee George
First ebook edition: October 2018
This edition is part of Love Spells. For more information and to see other books in the Love Spells collection, please visit www.lovespellsromance.com
Thanks for reading!
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One
We’re a month into our internship at the Wicked Society and I’m still not sure why I’m here.
What am I doing? The Victorian brownstone in Beacon Hill is a long way from the country club pool where I typically spend my summers as a lifeguard. I’m not fancy enough to be a member.
Every day, I spend hours studying the tarot, pulling cards and looking for clues to who and what is behind the rise of dark magic in Salem. Me, Samantha Spencer, the only non-witch in the group. The others all have inherited skills from their ancestors.
Empath. Elemental. Spirit.
Tate, Andrew, and Madison make sense as members of a coven. Between the three of them they cover all of the major facets of magic:
Emotion. Environment. Everlasting.
Add in Alice, our friendly ghost, our truth keeper. Our true north.
Then there’s me.
How do I fit into this coven? What skills do I bring besides the ability to read tarot cards? Is that enough?
Am I enough? Can I ever be enough? Daily, I’m plagued by these doubts and think about begging the club for my lifeguard job even though it’s already the middle of summer.
Would I even be here if my best friend weren’t a witch and descendant of the original Salem witches? Probably not.
I can’t shake the feeling of being an outsider. Only made worse by the fact that my crush is now living right across the hall. Four steps and two walls separate us on a nightly basis.
Proximity should be a good thing. All of the time we spend together should help dispel whatever unrequited feelings that have taken up residence in my heart for Tate Winthrop. If only that were true. The way my body freaks out whenever I think about him, I suspect Tate will be the death of me and my tender heart.
I don’t know which would be worse—Tate never falling in love with me, or his realization that I’m in love with him.
A foreboding idea flaps its wings and settles on a branch in my mind. As an empath, what if Tate can already feel every one of my emotions? Arrows of pining being shot in his direction every time we’re together. A wave of longing and silly swoons crashing over him whenever I’m near.
Fracking figs, I curse in my head.
Death by a million small rejections would be worse than to be known and labeled a lovesick nuisance.
Like every other day this summer, I try to shove these thoughts under an imaginary bed and get on with the bigger issues we’re facing. Our shared internship at the Wicked Society headquarters—Boston’s super secret supernatural society—is the reason for the forced closeness. Fighting against evil takes priority over a lovesick heart. Good needs to triumph over evil more than I need Tate to kiss me.
Dark magic. Stolen bones. Ghosts. Kidnappings. Theft and deception. None of which can go on my college transcript. How do you get course credit for casting spells and defeating generations of dark magic and patriarchy?
So far, we only have a few random clues as to who our enemy is and what’s motivating them to steal, curse, and hex their way through Salem.
The most recent signs point to the Putnam and Howe families along with Andrew’s father, Stanford Bradford. Not sure how much of threat he can be in a coma, but we’re not ruling him out. After all, a few weeks ago he did kidnap his son’s girlfriend and stole what he thought was our secret history. Lying unconscious in a hospital bed isn’t enough karma for all of his evil deeds.
He’s not the only scourge we’re dealing with. I suspect Miss “I’m a kitty cat” Lucy Putnam from campus knew what she was doing when she asked me for a tarot reading last fall. I can’t rule it out that she was aware of magic and the Salem Coven from her grandmother and mother. And if they told her about their heritage, did they also tell her its secrets?
If Lucy’s a witch, and if my tarot deck being ruined by her energy is any indication, she’s not messing around with love spells.
I should’ve known.
I thought it was just bad energy.
It’s so much more.
How did I miss this before?
Two
Andrew and Madison are out and everyone else has disappeared too— leaving Tate and I alone in the brownstone’s main living room. On summer weekends, Boston, and especially the Beacon Hill neighborhood, empties out. Residents flee the city for the beach, preferably Nantucket, the Vineyard, the Cape or the North Shore. Some head to lake homes in New Hampshire and Vermont or more remote getaways in Maine. A tide of sunkissed beachgoers returns on Sunday evenings and the city refills with people. Outside, the regular hum of city sounds and traffic is absent, creating the feeling that Tate and I are the last two people alive. Not that I’m complaining.
While I pretend to study a book about Cotton Mather and the fallout from the Salem witch trials, Tate scrolls through his phone. Despite no music or TV playing, the silence between us isn’t uncomfortable.
“It’s summer. We should go outside.” Tate drapes a long leg over the arm of the wingback chair he’s currently occupying.
“You sound like my mom.” I flip a page in the book I’m trying to read. At this point, it’s more of a prop because I’ve been rereading the same paragraph for the past half hour.
“Does your mom have dreadlocks and infinite good ideas? If so, I’ll take the compliment.” With a smirk, he sits up straighter in the chair and stretches. Peeking out from his T-shirt sleeve, his biceps curve and bulge.
“So hot,” I mumble.
“What was that?” His eyebrows lift and his eyes widen.
Cheeze Whiz. I said that out loud.
“Uh, it must be hot to have dreads in the summer, especially when it’s so humid.” I make a circle shape around my head in case he’s confused by my randomness.
“I don’t have that much more hair than you do.” With a shrug, he runs a hand over the thick ropes of hair. “I’ve been thinking about cutting it all off.”
“What?” My voice comes out as a screech, like nails on a chalkboard. “Why?”
He stands, prowling closer like a hipster lion about to go in for the kill. I don’t think he realizes how much power he wields over me by simple proximity. “Maybe I’m like Samson, only my hair is a curse instead of the source of my power.”
Unlike my overall blonde hair, his is darker at the roots, fading to a paler shade at the ends. An unintentional ombré that women all over Boston would kill to have along with his super long, dark eyelashes framing his warm brown eyes. And if we’re listing all of the ways to be jealous of his genetic makeup, might as well throw in his wide but full mouth and the tiny, miss them unless you’re really paying attention, sprinkle of freckles across his nose.
Did I leave off his long fingers and wide, strong palms? Those too.
His ears are even well shaped. Dear gourds, I have it bad if I’m noticing his ears.
As I watch, he gathers his hair at the nape of his neck. The movement causes his arm muscles to bunch and stretch in ways that are not at all fair.
Holding the black ponytail holder between his teeth, he grins at me while he bundles his hair back into a contained mass. I try to imagine him with short, regular guy hair. I fail. It would be a loss if he cut off his mane.
My crush is off the charts. Far worse than the period I wrote One Direction fanfiction in high school. Much to my teenage broken heart, none of the band members ever knew I existed. Another screaming fangirl in the crowd at Foxboro.
However, the way Tate is focused solely on me in this moment confirms I’m no longer invisible to him. For the first two years of college, I swooned over him from afar. Other than Tate being an RA in my dorm, our paths rarely crossed outside of the dining hall or random campus encounters. All that changed last fall when Madison and Andrew got together. Suddenly, Tate and I started spending more time together. Even then, nothing has ever happened between us. Yet. I haven’t completely given up hope.
His grin turns wicked as he finishes retying his hair. “What are you thinking about, Samantha?”
My neck heats and I brush a hand over the damp skin beneath my braids.
“Biblical stories,” I manage to mumble, blinking away the lust haze from him simply staring at me.
His lips press together, revealing a faint dimple in his left cheek. “Well, it is Sunday.”
Sweet cheeses, I’m tempted to fan myself with my tarot cards.
“Want to give me a reading?” He points at the deck on the table in front of me.
I hesitate. Among our group, I’ve only ever done readings for Madison. Never for Andrew or Tate. They’ve never asked and I definitely haven’t offered. I feel out of my league around the two of them. Reading cards for them would be like my mom offering to cook dinner for Martha Stewart. An amateur trying to play in the big leagues.
“Really?” I pick up the cards and hold them close to my chest. “Don’t feel obligated to ask. It’s totally cool. Totally.”
Great, now I sound like a surfer or some chick in an ’80s rom com.
“I’m serious.” He slides out the chair across from me and flips it around so he’s straddling it. The absence of amusement on his face supports his declaration.
I hand him the deck and busy myself by brushing invisible dust off of the table’s clean surface instead of staring at the wide spread of his thighs and the blond hair on his arms where they rest on the top of the chair. “Shuffle these and focus. Please.”
His voice is low when he speaks. “What should I focus on?”
Lifting my eyes to his, my breath catches in my throat. There’s an intensity in his gaze I’ve only had glimpses of before. Once on Halloween last year in the middle of his party when he first saw me. And a few times this year. The emotion there is unreadable, but something more than the friendliness of whatever casual friendship boundaries we’ve established.
“Uhh, um. Whatever you want to ask the cards. Past, present, future. I’ll, um, just do a simple spread, three cards instead of five. Nothing fancy. So, I guess, keep it simple.”
“Hmm,” he hums, barely audible. “Should I ask about untold riches? No, those are a given with my family name. Curses? Mystery and adventure? Seems we have enough of those two things to spare.”
His fingers are still on the cards and he straightens the deck before handing it back to me, keeping his eyes focused on mine the entire time. “How about love?”
Like a deer caught in the garden, I stare back at him, frozen.
The quiet stillness envelops us for a moment.
“Now what, Sam?” he whispers. “I’ve never done this before.”
I blink my eyes, snapping myself back from wherever I went. “Sorry? Do what?”
“The reading?” He taps the cards in my hands.
“Oh, right. Wait, really?” My conversation skills have left the building.
He nods. “I’ve never been curious before.”
I don’t ask him to clarify before what, and instead plow ahead with a fake confidence covering my nerves. “Okay, it’s simple. I’ll pull three cards and lay them out on the table in a row. Then we’ll see what we’re working with. Okay?”
“Seems simple enough.” He gives me an encouraging smile.
With a shaky exhale, I close my eyes and try to concentrate. Having him so near, close enough to smell the soap and masculine scent of him, is distracting. And that’s an understatement.
I attempt to center myself, to call on my spirit guides, ancestors, ghosts, ancient, unformed balls of energy, the Goddess, and whoever else wants to show up to assist me. My chest expands with my deep inhale and inner chant telling myself I can do this. It’s just my friend Tate. Emphasis on the “just” and “friend” parts. Buddy o’mine. Dude I know. Guy I hang out with.
Ugh. Stupid soggy corn flakes.
World’s lamest pep talk over, I flip the first card: the ten of wands. Next comes the three of wands followed by the lovers.
Because, why not. Thanks, Universe.
“These are allegorical, not literal, right?” He focuses his attention on the rectangles laying in front of him.
“In most cases, yes.” I point to the ten of wands. “This is your past.”
“What does it mean? A bunch of sticks?”
“Technically, they’re wands, not sticks.
“Cool.” He nods. “Tenfold the power of one wand? Like wand superpowers?”
He jokes and I can feel the levity he’s attempting brush over me. Of course, I can’t tell if I’m genuinely amused or if he’s sending out an energy cocktail of whatever emotions he’s tapping. It’s highly unsettling, as my grandmother would proclaim for almost everything besides crochet and quilting.
I laugh and I’m not sure if it’s because I find him funny, or because he wants me to. “You’ve taken on a great deal and may have felt over-burdened with responsibilities. It’s a reminder to reduce your stress and maybe enjoy a taste of freedom from whatever load you’ve been carrying. Does that make sense?”
His eyes flash to mine. “I was right. We should get out of here and go play.”
“Now? Or do you want to know the rest of your reading?” I’m quietly hoping he’ll say skip the rest and I can get out of talking about the last card. Instead, he rolls his wrist to indicate I should continue.
“The three of wands is your present. It’s about a desire to maintain the status quo in existing relationships while maybe keeping your eyes open for new opportunities.”
“Interesting.” He gives nothing away. “Could it be about my hair?”
Unable to read his expression, I have no idea if he is joking. “Doubtful. Unless you consider your hair to be one of your most meaningful relationships.” I chuckle, glad he didn’t take the relationship aspect seriously or worse, make it about us. Because that’s exactly where my mind went. Status quo in the land of platonic friendships.
“And this one?” He voice lowers to the gravelly whisper that does funny things to my belly.
“If we were being literal, the lovers card is about love. But it also represents the known and unknown. You could be asked to sacrifice something, or someone, dear to you in order to move forward.” I don’t point out the couple, standing together in all of their naked glory. Their intimate embrace leaves little to the imagination and only fuels the awkwardness of this moment. The lovers are the closest to porn in the entire deck.
“Again, could be about my hair?” He’s joking now, barely able to suppress his grin. “Anything in there about vanity and narcissism?”
I shrug off his question. “No, but you could be facing a choice. One that shouldn’t be made lightly.”
“Good thing I’m not vain, nor am I a narcissist.” He releases his beautiful smile, revealing his straight white teeth.
