Witchness Protection (Grimm, Malphas & Associates #2)

Chapter 1

Hazel Wickwood was not trespassing on Blackwood property.

At least, that’s what she’d tell anyone who asked. The basket of moonbell flowers at her hip: highly regulated, borderline illegal, would be harder to explain. But Mrs. Henderson’s granddaughter wasn’t going to sleep through the full moon without them, and some ingredients were worth the risk.

She crouched beside the ancient oak, its gnarled roots providing cover as she examined the silvery blooms. Moonbells only opened under October’s full moon, their petals unfurling like tiny hands reaching toward the light.

The extraction window lasted maybe four hours.

Miss it, and you waited another month while your clients suffered.

“This is why I don’t get hazard pay,” Azrael muttered from a low branch.

“You don’t get hazard pay because you’re a cat.” Hazel cut another stem, careful to leave enough of the plant to regenerate. Sustainable harvesting. Her grandmother had drilled that into her before she could read. “And I feed you salmon twice a week.”

“I’m your familiar, not your pet. There’s a distinction.”

“The distinction being?”

“Pets don’t file complaints with the Familiar Workers Union.” He groomed one paw with elaborate disinterest. “I’m merely noting that midnight excursions into territory controlled by a supernatural crime family were not in my original job description.”

“Your original job description was ‘keep Hazel alive.’ This is me staying alive. Mrs. Henderson pays on time, tips well, and refers her friends.” She added another bloom to the basket. “Happy customers keep the lights on.”

“Happy customers don’t require illegal botanicals harvested at personal risk.”

“The good ones do.”

Azrael made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a hiss. Over a century they’d been bonded, and he still hadn’t learned that arguing with her was pointless once she’d made up her mind. Or maybe he had learned, and arguing was just how he showed affection. With cats, it was hard to tell.

The forest pressed close around them, ancient trees blocking out everything but fragments of moonlight.

Blackwood Forest had been old when the first European settlers arrived, and it had swallowed them whole.

The Blackwood family had been here even longer, though “family” was a generous term for what they actually were.

Hazel didn’t think too hard about what they actually were. Thinking about it made her hands shake, and shaking hands made for sloppy cuts.

She was reaching for the last cluster of blooms when voices carried through the trees.

Male voices, speaking in the clipped tones of people conducting serious business at midnight. Hazel’s hands stilled on the cutting shears. Nothing good happened in Blackwood Forest after dark. Especially not business meetings.

She motioned Azrael to silence and crept toward the voices, keeping the massive oak between herself and whatever was happening in the clearing ahead.

Her shop operated under barely legal terms: a hedge witch license that required annual renewal, quarterly inspections, and a studied ignorance from local authorities about where certain ingredients actually came from.

The last thing she needed was to stumble into actual Blackwood family business.

Turn around, the sensible part of her brain insisted. Go home. Pretend you heard nothing.

But her feet kept moving.

Through the curtain of autumn leaves, she saw them.

Two figures faced each other in the moonlit clearing. Viktor Blackwood himself, silver hair gleaming like a blade, wearing a charcoal overcoat that probably cost more than her annual revenue. And a tall fae with pointed ears and an expression of barely controlled fury.

She recognized the fae. Tobias Ashford. He ran an apothecary two towns over, specialized in fae remedies for human ailments.

They’d crossed paths at supplier markets, exchanged professional courtesies.

He had a wife. Twin daughters, six years old, just starting at some fancy supernatural primary school this fall.

He’d shown her pictures once, proud father beaming, while they waited for a shipment of dried selkie tears.

“Tobias.” Viktor’s voice was soft. Almost gentle. “We’ve known each other for sixty years. Why make this difficult?”

“Your family’s been breaking every treaty we have for decades.

” Tobias’s voice shook, but he held his ground.

“The fae courts were willing to look the other way on the smuggling. The protection rackets. Even the soul-trading, gods help us. But weapons? Fae-killers flowing into human black markets?” He shook his head. “Someone had to say something.”

“And you decided that someone should be you.”

“I decided my daughters deserved to grow up in a world where the Blackwood family doesn’t own everything and everyone.” Tobias straightened his spine. “I went to the Marshalls. Gave them everything. Names, dates, shipment routes. It’s done, Viktor. Whatever you do to me now, it’s already done.”

Viktor sighed.

“I understand. Truly.” He stepped closer to the fae, one hand reaching toward his coat. “You did what you thought was right. I can respect that, even if I can’t forgive it.”

“So what now? You kill me and my family spends the next century wondering what happened?”

“Your family will be fine. I’ve already made arrangements.” Viktor’s hand emerged from his coat. “Your wife will receive a settlement. Your daughters’ tuition will be covered. They’ll be told you died in an accident, a lab explosion, perhaps. Something befitting an apothecary.”

Tobias went pale. “You’ve already…”

“I’m not a monster, Tobias. Just a businessman protecting his interests.”

Hazel pressed herself against the oak’s bark when she saw what Viktor withdrew.

An obsidian blade. Lightless, humming with dark magic that made her teeth ache. She’d seen illustrations of fae-killers in her grandmother’s grimoires, but never the real thing. The weapon was illegal in forty-seven supernatural jurisdictions. Possession alone carried a century in the Pit.

The fae saw it too. His face went gray as ash. “Viktor—”

“It’s nothing personal.” Viktor examined the blade like a man checking his watch. “You have a family. I have a family. We both do what we must to protect them.”

“I’ll recant. I’ll tell them I made it up, that I was settling a personal grudge…”

“We both know that won’t help now.” Viktor looked up. “I’m sorry, old friend. I truly am.”

“Please. My girls—”

The blade moved faster than human eyes could follow.

But Hazel’s witch sight caught every detail.

The way Tobias’s hands came up too late, a futile gesture against the inevitable.

The obsidian edge sliding between his ribs with terrible ease.

The way his silver blood, fae blood ancient and bright, bloomed across his white shirt like ink spreading through water.

The exact moment his life force flickered and died, his eyes going flat and empty while his mouth still shaped his daughters’ names.

Then the explosion.

Magic erupted from the fae’s death like a bomb, waves of silver and gold power crashing through the forest. Hazel’s defensive shields flared to life, wrapping her in purple light as the death magic slammed into her barriers.

The impact drove her backward into the oak’s trunk, bark scraping through her jacket. She couldn’t inhale. Couldn’t move.

She gasped.

A tiny sound. Barely audible over the settling magic.

Viktor’s head turned toward her hiding spot. Slowly. Deliberately.

Their eyes met through the curtain of leaves. His expression didn’t change. He simply looked at her the way he might look at an unexpected line item in a ledger.

Then he smiled. Small. Polite.

Hazel ran.

She crashed through the underbrush, branches catching at her jacket and whipping across her face.

The moonbell basket was gone, dropped somewhere in those first panicked seconds, hours of careful work scattered across the forest floor.

Behind her, heavy footsteps pounded through the fallen leaves.

More than one pursuer. Viktor had called in backup.

“This way,” Azrael hissed, streaking ahead on a path only he could see.

Hazel followed, lungs burning, feet catching on roots she’d walked around a hundred times before.

She’d known these woods for twenty years, had mapped every game trail and hidden stream, but panic made her stupid.

Her boot caught on a root and she stumbled, catching herself against a birch tree.

The bark was cold and damp beneath her palms. Real. Grounding.

Move, she told herself. Mourn later. Move now.

The footsteps were getting closer.

She pulled a handful of sage from her gathering pouch, whispered a quick misdirection charm, and scattered the herb behind her. Not enough to stop determined pursuers, but it might buy her a few minutes. Might make them question which direction she’d gone.

“Stop using magic,” Azrael called back. “You’re leaving a trail.”

He was right. Panicked hedge witches made stupid mistakes, and magic left signatures that anyone with the right senses could follow. She bit down on her power, forcing it back into the careful shields she’d maintained since childhood. The magical signature would fade, but slowly. Too slowly.

The town’s edge appeared through the trees. Streetlights casting orange pools on empty sidewalks. Neat suburban lawns with their sleeping houses and ordinary problems. The comforting bulk of her shop building, three stories of converted Victorian with its hand-painted sign: Wicked Brews.

Home. Safety. The only place in the world that was truly hers.