A Game of Cat and Witch (Monstrous Shifters #1)

Prologue

Avery

In her life, Avery Alarch had made many stupid decisions.

This one was monumentally, catastrophically, write-it-in-the-history-books-as-a-cautionary-tale levels of stupid.

She followed the stone path through the quadrangle as the dusky sun plunged the University of Caerwyn into a fiery haze.

Enforcers stood guard at the entrance of the building, their rifles blazing with the red core of magic imbued within them.

Students meandered around, lazing in the last dregs of the sun before winter.

They sprawled across the campus in clusters that Avery would never be part of again; some studied, while another group was passing around a bottle that was definitely not allowed on campus.

None of them knew what she was about to attempt.

None of them would attempt it, because they weren’t fucking stupid.

However, none of them were desperate enough either.

Their familiars came easily, while hers evaded her like a rabid squirrel.

If they did happen to know, they would probably pour in droves to her show. “Come one, come all: watch this useless witch attempt forbidden magic. It’s sure to be the comedy of the century!”

The enforcers nodded her through, and she continued along the path that led into the belly of the forest. Trees dropped their crimson leaves in a colorful rain, and yellow wolf’s milk flowers dotted the floor.

The limbs of the oaks twisted into the setting sky, their trunks wider than ten men but still offering little protection against the bite of the October wind.

It was as cold as a witch’s tit. Thanks for nothing, trees.

Her blazer took the brunt of it, the thick fabric flapping against the assault of the weather.

Her nose stung; the tip blushed from the chill.

It was something her sisters always teased her about; her face turned pink from the slightest change or comment.

Both of them had somehow practiced the mask of pale statues, but she displayed every emotion like a billboard in Times Square.

She readjusted her leather bag, hiking it back onto her shoulder. Candles, her grimoire, and her expectations of how this would actually go—which were abysmal, deplorable, pathetic, and every other adjective that belonged in the thesaurus—weighed down the bag.

Arches crumbled around her, relics of a lost time. A statue of their goddess Cerituen still stood. Someone or something had cut away at the statue next to her, leaving just the plinth. No one seemed to know why, or they just ignored its existence entirely.

This was the only private place on the island.

Caerwyn was small but populated, like a sardine can of magical prowess.

There was the university and a town with a pub and shops that were destined to be your legacy if you failed to become a proper witch.

Generally, one person a generation failed to summon a familiar, and lucky her, she was going to be that person.

It seemed to run in the family. The last person to fail was her Aunt Alys, who was currently serving a sentence in Anoddun, for goddess knows what, no one would ever tell her.

For some reason, few people came to these woods. Students labeled it creepy. They were obviously not versed in the beauty that forests held. And, they were cowards.

The sound of crashing waves was a familiar calling.

Rocks marbled the edge of the forest, the floor turning from crunching leaves to mossy stone.

It was the only logical place to do a ritual, away from the prying eyes of others.

Perhaps this was part of her failure. She hated being observed by anyone, and whenever she had attempted a summoning before their watching eyes, they became witnesses to her incompetence, solidifying her position as an underachiever, born loser, good-for-nothing witch.

Perhaps she would win the university award for “Most likely not to succeed.”

Wind whipped through the branches, their crack roaring with the sounds of waves bashing against the cliffs.

The weather had significantly picked up.

Maybe it was a warning from Cerituen that she should heed.

That’s what she would do if she weren’t about to be expelled from Caerwyn and confined to this island for the rest of her days.

In this case, the goddess could go kindly—in case she really was listening—fuck herself.

Avery’s father always told her she was a dog with a bone when she wanted something.

She would show Cerituen how much she wanted this.

How desperate she had become to be a witch.

How could she not be when her only other option was to be expelled?

What job would she be able to get? The one pub on this tiny island?

Listening to balding witches complain about their wives and kids, even though they hadn’t picked up a dish in the sink for the last twenty years?

She secretly always rooted for the wives getting so fed up that they killed their partners, took their money, and moved so they could sip cocktails in the Bahamas’ witch enclave.

Now that was an idea she could get behind.

Maybe life wasn’t so bleak, after all. If only she could leave the island.

She dropped her bag to the forest floor, the wax candles rolling out like they were running away from a monster.

“Ugh, come on,” she muttered, exhaling a sigh and picking them up one by one. She placed them in a circle, trying to remember if the spacing mattered. Probably? Everything in magic seemed to matter, which was honestly exhausting.

Seven candles (normal), seven animal bones (don’t ask), seven sticks of sage (from the corner shop, next to the chocolate bars), and seven wolf’s milk flowers (an odd choice but luckily one that grew abundantly on the island) lay in front of her in an arranged pattern.

For the love of the fucking goddess, she hoped this worked.

Fumbling in the pockets of her uniform, she fished out a matchbox.

Before she lit the candles, she let the sun dip below the horizon, the twilight settling in before she struck the match.

Clutching it in her palm, she hesitated, almost to save herself the disappointment.

If she walked away now, she wouldn’t have to feel like a failure again.

She simply wouldn’t try; she could return to her bed with its Sparky blankets and sleep the rest of the night away, blissfully unconscious for eight hours.

But morning would always come.

Instead, she pushed that feeling down as it gnawed its way through her chest, trying to find something to latch onto, like an army of parasitic anxiety bugs.

If only she could bug bomb herself. If only it were so easy to rid herself of the feeling.

Even on the days when anxiety quietened down to the back of her mind, the bugs would rear their ugly heads again if Avery had the slightest doubt.

She struck the match, and the night came alive around her in red hues.

Heat rolled off the tiny flame as she touched it to the candles one by one, sealing her fate in wax.

The old language flowed through her—as best it could, she still butchered the pronunciations—as she channeled the earth around her, pulling its essence into a summoning circle.

The smell of decaying leaves invaded her senses as the frigid wind picked up at the call of her voice.

The lines carved themselves into the platform, glowing red on the outer ring, the magic running like a river of blood, illuminating more of the circle. Each stream rushed toward her, following its engraved path of symbols and weak, intricate patterns like lava between rocks.

She swallowed, those damn anxiety bugs pumping adrenaline through her veins, her heart thumping so hard she thought it might bruise. Was she really doing this? Was she really so desperate that forbidden magic was what she had to resort to?

Yes. Yes, she was.

She’d rather be dead than not have magic.

Did anyone know how convenient it was to be a witch?

You could turn off the light without leaving your bed.

You could make the kitchen your personal chef.

The possibilities were endless, and she’d be damned if she let such a fantastic opportunity pass her by.

It was kind of ironic the lengths she was going to be lazy, though.

Okay, it was more than that. It was status. Acceptance. It meant she could leave this stupid island she had spent her entire life on. If she got a familiar, if she joined one of the houses, she could finally fucking leave.

The forest suddenly pressed in on her, the tall walls of pines and oaks closing in.

Her limbs shook like branches in the wind.

Her breath caught in her chest, panic lacing her veins with its poison, and all she wanted to do was run.

She turned, following the magic making its way up the stone to the statue of the goddess above.

Her eyes, once stone, now glowed an unsightly red, as if she were casting divine judgment upon her.

Avery swallowed, her stomach twisted with nausea, and she felt the bile climbing its way up her throat until it burned.

She turned away from the statue. Out of sight, out of mind.

Kneeling, she touched her hand to the middle of the circle.

It could be her imagination, but she swore to the goddess she felt a hum underneath her fingertips, like that of a cat’s purr.

Or perhaps they were close to falling off from frostbite. It was hard to tell.

Wind whipped through the branches as she continued the incantations, her voice competing with their cracking and the waves roaring against the cliffs.

She pulled a dagger from her bag, ready to complete the final step.

A drop of her blood was all it took. It would take all her problems away.

She could graduate, she could become a healer like her father, and go about her normal life.

Only, something in her knew that wouldn’t happen, that this would change something fundamental.

That perhaps, she would fuck up more spectacularly.

She had come too far to turn back.

Chanting the words, she called upon the forest to bring her a familiar. Please be something powerful, she had gone to all this trouble. A dragon. A griffin. A pegasus. Not a toad. Anything but a toad. The way they licked their eyeballs with their tongues freaked her out.

The ritual demanded her blood. She stared at the hungry circle, the forest threatening to swallow her if she didn’t heed its needs.

It was far more than forbidden to use blood magic; it was sacrilege.

Even the thought of blood made her sick.

But her fucks were flying away faster than the island’s migrating geese.

So she gave it. She dragged the knife over her wrist, wincing, as sharp pain shot up her arm—because using your palm was stupid; she needed that hand—almost letting out a whimper.

But she would be damned if she let the goddess have any doubt that she was strong enough for this, that she deserved this.

The pungent scent of magic suffocated her nostrils as the circle ate her blood up hungrily, the symbols of the old language now glowing brighter than they ever had.

The last thing she saw before it went dark was the bloodred moon.

A deep voice slithered through her mind.

“Witch.”