Chapter 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Stacey Kennedy. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact Stacey Kennedy.
Stacey Kennedy
Edited by Lexi Smail
Copy Edited by Terry Grundy
Cover Design by Regina Wamba
Manufactured in Canada
Chapter One
“This ghost is a pain in my ass,” my best friend, Gwen, declared the moment I entered her apartment. Like most days, her red-painted lips were pulled back, the light glistening off her fangs as she lifted a bundle of burning sage in the air waving it around the room.
I kicked off my shoes and flopped into the chair next to the windowsill full of plants. I’d heard from the owners who lived in the apartment above my bookshop before me that the place was haunted. But the ghost had never bothered me in all the years I’d lived in the apartment. Nor had I ever felt it’s watchful eyes on me. The only thing I felt was slight jealously over how Gwen made even pajamas look glamorous.
While I shared the fangs with Gwen now, that’s all we shared on a physical level. Where she was tall and lean, I was only five foot six with more curves. Her shiny mid-length blonde hair always had a unique stylish cut and her brown eyes were deep and wise, where my hair was long, and brown, and my eyes blue.
Gwen lived and breathed grace. I faked it.
“What’s the ghost doing?” I asked.
“It’s driving me mad, that’s what,” Gwen snarled at the invisible pest, doing circles with the smudge stick. “It leaves cabinets open, drops my things on the floor, knocks everything over, including my plants.” She glanced over her shoulder, looking the deadly vampire she was with glowing eyes. “It’s like I have a cat or a terrible boyfriend living with me, which right now, I don’t have either.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.
Our friendship blossomed after I hired her on at my bookstore, Cauldron Boil Books, which catered to vampires, back when I first moved to Charleston after being banished from my coven for being magicless. Of course, all that changed now, and I felt the Goddess’s magic flowing endlessly through my blood, as I did the darker magic of the vampires. When I moved in with Killian, my gemina flamma—which made us bound together by the rich, dark magic running though our veins, our souls a mirror of each other—Gwen had moved into the apartment to save herself the high rent in Charleston.
I frowned, glancing around the space hoping the ghost saw that. “The ghost seriously never bothered me. I didn’t even believe the old owners when they said the place was haunted.”
Gwen snorted, lifting the smudge stick higher toward the ceiling. “Well, apparently, this ghost likes you, and doesn’t like me.” She cursed and grumbled the entire time she smudged all four corners of the room. She kept on until she placed the smudge stick on a small plate and let it continue to burn, and said to the ghost, “You don’t have to leave, but you must behave yourself. Stop acting like a messy boyfriend I do not want.”
I fought back my laughter.
Gwen caught me immediately. She narrowed her eyes, pointing one red-painted finger. “This isn’t funny. My plants, Willa,” she snapped. “It’s knocking over my pretty plants.”
I glanced at her windowsill and stroked one of the leaves of the pothos. “Okay, that is very mean.” With my heritage not only as a vampire but also a witch, I had a special connections to nature, as most witches did, and experienced a soothing peace whenever I was near trees or plants.
Releasing the smooth leaf, I glared into nothingness. “You were nice to me. Be nice to Gwen too.” Then I added for safe measure, “Please.”
Gwen held her breath. I held mine.
When nothing dramatic happened, I asked, “Does that mean the ghost is happy?”
Gwen rolled her eyes. “That’s doubtful,” she said with a slight shrug, “but come on. I’ve got to turn you into a princess.”
I internally groaned, jumping up and grabbing my gown bag that I’d placed over the back of the kitchen chair.
I followed Gwen into her bedroom that had once been my bedroom. When I moved into the Manor—which was where Killian, the Warden of Charleston lived, and was the headquarters for Charleston’s Vampire Sovereignty—I didn’t need furniture and only took my clothes and personal belongings. Though, as I noticed Gwen’s makeup case on the queen-size bed, I discovered that Gwen bought a new flower-patterned duvet cover and changed the space a little to fit her much trendier style.
She promptly pointed to the bed. “Sit. Let’s turn you into a starlet.”
My entire life I was a witch—a magicless witch—but a witch, nonetheless. Until Ezra Von Stein went on a full-fledged power trip against his brother Ari, the Vampire King, wanting to overthrow him. In that quest, I got caught up in the middle, when it came out that I wasn’t only a witch, but I was also part vampire, and the daughter of the Vampire King. All of which was hidden away with a binding spell. When that spell was broken, my life forever changed: with the return of my magic, both witch and vampire, and the return of my witch mother, Zara—the love of Ari’s life—who had been trapped in the same spell that bound my magic.
Which all led up to tonight with my being introduced to the vampire world as the daughter of Ari, and I needed to play that part.
With a sigh, dreading the night ahead and the spotlight that I didn’t want shining on me, I sat down, and Gwen got right to work.
Hair pinned back for the moment, she put her makeup to good use, until she finished by gluing fake lashes into place. When she finally took a step back, she gave me a long, long look over. “Oh, I have nailed this.” She smiled, taking my hand, pulling me up and leading me to the antique vanity.
I blinked at my reflection as I sat against the velvet cushion. “Gwen… I…”
“Are stunningly beautiful, I know,” she breathed, standing behind me, her hands on my shoulders. “You can thank me later.”
“I’ll thank you now,” I countered. I’d never considered myself elegant by any stretch of the imagination. I loved books, coffee, and comfort. Somehow my smokey makeup made me look red-carpet ready, making my eyes pop, without looking too over the top.
Gwen just smiled and then got to work on my hair. I always thought that if she hadn’t been turned into a vampire against her will, she’d likely have been a makeup artist to the stars. The talent just oozed out of my best friend, and I could see the joy in her eyes whenever she got to fuss over anyone.
“Are you nervous about tonight?” she asked after she released a curl from the curling iron.
“Very,” I replied, not bothering to lie. I’d already experienced a similar event when Killian introduced me to the Charleston vampires, as well as his friends and his guard, as his gemina flamma—which basically meant the bonded one of their leader—and that had gone well enough. His guard had become protective—sometimes to a fault—over me, but I had made new friends within Killian’s ranks. But tonight’s event with Ari, the Vampire King, was on a much larger scale. I was meeting every Warden from every state they governed, and I was doing so as part witch.