Witch Bitch
Ididn’t expect a gorgeous woman to materialize out of nothing. Her beauty startled on impact. I thought she’d be a haggard witchy thing, not this goddess with light blue hair walking towards us in nothing but see-through fabric. She barely looked twenty.
Another immortal being to fight.
She’d apparently done enough blood magic to retain her youth.
Cash said centuries, so she definitely hadn’t aged by human standards.
From the way I remembered it, witches were humans with strong magic.
They weren’t meant to be immortal, but with blood magic they could be.
Immortality in witches was a mark of darkness.
Her body was covered in gold tattoos, patterns that flowered and slithered around her arms, legs, and itty-bitty waist. They had a pattern, but I couldn’t make out what any of it meant.
Her caramel skin beamed under soft pink silk, naked everywhere I looked.
I could definitely see how someone would be ensnared by her beauty alone.
Even I was having trouble recovering my jaw from the floor.
The necklace around my throat went from hazel to white, bleeding all its color. I dropped my gaze to it, surprised to see it change. When I looked over, Cash tossed a cute wink at me. Guess she’d already tried to subdue us with pheromones, but like promised, his necklace rebuked it.
Thank fuck.
After the Siren I encountered, I didn’t want to fight myself before I could even lay a hand on my enemy.
It would be that moment with Sloan all over again.
Cash might be the resident Fae Karen, but he was my resident Fae Karen, and I didn’t want to watch him fall prey to her after all these years because he thought he had something to prove.
Sparkling light glided around the gorgeous woman’s arms as she cut a sharp look from Cash to me, clearly upset her number one trick hadn’t worked.
“I always knew you’d come crawling back, Cash.
You’re nothing without your magic, even with those necklaces keeping you out of my control.
You’re a lot of things, but I never thought you’d be stupid enough to bring some girl by your side.
What is she? A treat? Bait? You think I can be won over by something so… ugly?”
Okay, rude. I hadn’t won any beauty pageants, but I was hardly ugly.
I mean, I’d been trying at least. I put on makeup and did my hair pretty much every day.
Wasn’t that enough? Why did all these people insist on outer beauty being all we had to offer to the world?
Did a badass bitch who’d escaped death a handful of times not count?
Or at least, that was what Kate would say.
Cash seemed to take more insult to her comment than I did, though. “Watch your words, witch. That’s my darling you’re talking about with that sadistic mouth of yours.”
“Is that any way to talk to me, baby?” she hissed, walking closer.
But she slowed with her eyebrow quirked up when he didn’t cower like she expected him to.
“You should be groveling if you want to know where the amulet is. On your knees, Cassy-baby. You know how much I love you on your knees, and let’s not pretend you don’t like it as much as I do. ”
I couldn’t hide my disgust.
For the first time, his eyes dropped to the ground, remembering the things he’d done under the influence of her pheromones. It was all there on his face.
This bitch.
She’d gotten to him. I’d seen it before with Kate and her previous douche-canoe boyfriend when he broke down her confidence.
That gross asshole convinced my strong, quirky but brilliant friend that what he did against her will was something she liked.
Like Harmony, he made it her fault. I’d made a promise not to attack this witch bitch, so I couldn’t punish her like I had Kate’s ex-boyfriend—with every weapon I owned—but I could get through to Cash. I knew I could.
Saying something to him wasn’t enough. Instead, I reached out and took his hand. His eyes shot over to me in confusion at first, but when I squeezed his stupidly soft hand to let him know he wasn’t alone anymore, his smile was the most radiant it’d ever been.
Strength returned, Cash pulled me closer. “Believe what you want, slag, but you didn’t break me. I still found the very thing you couldn’t conjure with all that blood magic you’re so fond of.”
Her steely-eyed gaze narrowed, anger twisting her features unattractively.
“You’re dreaming if you think those necklaces will save you from what I have waiting on the other side of that barrier.
With a snap of my fingers, they’ll use the power I give them without hesitating.
You might’ve figured out how to rebuke my pheromones with those trinkets, but they won’t protect you forever.
You’ll be mine again before the night is over, and that will be dead. ”
I’d never been called “that” before, so it took me a second to figure out what she was referring to.
But Cash was right—her desperation to enslave him again made her irrational and reckless.
She didn’t see me as a threat, and she hadn’t sensed the return of his magic.
Everything was falling perfectly into place, but I kept my wits about me.
I’d learned my lesson, and I’d never underestimate another enemy.
But, um, why the hell did every villain I crossed paths with insist on monologuing? Why did they ramble self-importantly as if this was a cut scene in a video game? Did they not know how incredibly stupid that was? Attack first, talk later. It was practically fighting 101.
Not that Cash was any better. He suffered from a villain complex.
He monologued with the best of them. Guess we all had our flaws.
I’d keep my promise. I’d let him handle her, but I wouldn’t hesitate to freeze time and decapitate her if she got even the slightest edge on him.
She’d given me plenty of reasons to want her dead.
Guess I should be happy that, like everyone else, she’d underestimated me from the jump.
My young girl appearance had served me well.
Crossing my arms, I tossed the man at my side a sarcastic look, and he laughed to himself.
My ridiculous Cash was back, totally in his element.
His sassiness had returned, and fuck, I’d missed it.
He wasn’t Cash without it. If the gorgeous man wasn’t talking absolute shit with a hand on his hip, were we even really fighting?
The rock in his palm levitated higher as he landed a hand on his hip. Oh yeah, there it was. My Fae Karen had returned.
“As much as it pains me to say this, if not for you, I would’ve never crossed this one’s path.
” Our eyes met, and the smile he gave me had my stomach instantly in knots, butterflies fucking fluttering like this was a goddamn rom-com.
“It hasn’t been long, but I’ve found something I never thought I would, so I guess I should thank you for that.
If not for your forcible removal of my magic, I might’ve never met her.
But play time’s over, witch. You’ve gotten…
boring. Pity. I expected you to have more to say after all these years. ”
That was the second time he’d mentioned that he found something. What had he found? I was normally perceptive when it came to the people around me, but why did I feel like I was missing something important right now?
Harmony quietly seethed, her magic dancing around her body, ready to do damage but not attacking. What was she waiting for? Was she really that desperate to have him back?
“As it turns out, this beauty and I have an enemy in common, so here I am. My darling wants you dead, and I couldn’t be any more tickled that she’s given me permission to be the one to do it.
Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Magnus is given the freedom you’ve never given anyone in your entire bloody fucking life. ”
I hated to say it, but Cash cursing and flipping his fuck-you switch was a major turn-on. The normally whiny baby of the group transforming into a terrifying killer was a personality gap I never thought I’d be into. I couldn’t help but wonder how it’d translate to the bedroom.
The nympho returns…
Probably most surprising was how much monologuing had occurred without a single attack. I’d journal this as one of the more…unusual encounters I’d had.
The rock in Cash’s hand cracked after Harmony sent her sparkly magic spiraling towards it. I’d never felt a sensation like it. Her magic even at this distance scorched my flesh. The stone became sand in his hand, but he didn’t seem bothered by it, and that gave the witch pause.
Finally. It was time to give her hell.
Harmony’s confident grin slipped away as Cash poured the sand out and a black sea of magic flooded the space around us, wrapping around her so fast that both she and I hadn’t seen it happen.
Her luminous eyes widened before she tried and failed to call on her magic to save her.
I wasn’t familiar with the witch the same way he was, but even I knew she was frantic to fight back.
The cave behind her shuddered with activity, and I looked over as a flood of creatures appeared.
“You can’t fight them all,” she screeched, her body mummifying before our very eyes. “You’re no match for my collection.”
Her collection?
I eyed the army coming out of the opening, all different shapes and makes—some I’d never seen before, and some that looked oddly familiar but different. Both beautiful creatures and terrifying ones headed our direction, ready to defend their captured queen.
Again, really wished I’d bothered to read through the endless tomes Sloan gave me so I could name a few of the creatures pouring out of the cave, but I wasn’t sure I’d remember them well enough to know off the cuff how best to fight them.
Retrieving my crossbow, I picked off a few at a distance. They crashed to the floor before more took their place. My arrows couldn’t take out this many, so I started to call on the power in my core.