Chapter One
“This better work or else we’ll be finding a new place to call home come next month, Luna.”
Sadie smirked at her cat when all she got back was a smug, meow.
She gathered a pinch of crushed lavender and sprinkled in the last of the ingredients needed for her love potion. A puff of purple smoke twined high before diving back into the concoction that would—fingers crossed—work this time and play cupid in a sort of way between a witch and her powers.
“Fourth time’s the charm. I hope.” Sadie tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and let out a deep sigh.
She’d promised her banished coven sister a spell that would help restore her stripped powers. Though Sadie refused payment, Harlow had insisted. Shoved between the snow outside and a hard place, Sadie didn’t have much choice in the matter. Success would net her a cool two grand—enough to save her tavern, The Cauldron Bubble, and the attached apartment. Added bonus, it would also save her coven sister in the process. Double score!
Only if she could get the damn thing to work. Getting the spell to take hold was proving to be more difficult than she’d anticipated. All three previous batches had fizzled out along with her patience.
If she didn’t get this to work soon it was bye-bye to the only security she had and hello cold streets of Sleepy Briar. Panic sent a cold shudder down her spine, and she wiggled her toes nestled inside her favorite warm wool socks. She still had time. Twenty-four hours, to be exact. Her gaze fell to her hands as she splayed her fingers out to call forth her magic, searching for a little calm in her own personal hellish storm.
Encased in the magic-tinged wave of heat that flooded her body came a rush of power laced with memories of the last time she felt so much energy in her palms. Sweet, delicious, mind-blowing, pure masculine strength in the form of the sinfully sexy alpha pressed up against every aching inch of her body. Okay…make that every horny inch of her body.
An unbeckoned smile spread across her lips. “Gah, you need to stop thinking about him, Sadie.” It never turned out well. He didn’t want anything to do with her. He made that much clear the last time.
Sadie flexed her fingers and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.
But that didn’t work. Had it only been three nights ago that he’d almost taken her? Her core still vibrated with pent-up need for him.
No, what she needed was to forget him. Forget the way his lips ignited a fire in her belly as he brushed them across her quivering stomach. Forget the way her body had molded into his strong arms. How his gaze, luminous with an unusual red tinge, pulled her into his world. Body and soul.
But more importantly, forget how he’d left her wet and wanting, spread open for him on her bar top with a growled, “Sorry, pack business.”
She didn’t buy that lame excuse then and sure the Hades didn’t now.
Yeah, forgetting one Aidan Montgomery, featured pack alpha and werewolf shifter of her dreams, wasn’t likely. She took a calming breath and counted out her heartbeats to steady her thoughts.
Sleepy Briar in the winter was like living in Antarctica and served as a damn cold bucket of water to her runaway thoughts when a cold draft whittled through a crack in the window frame at her back. In fact, she was pretty sure the below-freezing temperatures of her small Maine town rivaled anywhere else on the planet come this late in the year and no amount of lusting after Aidan would change that for her.
Sadie tossed a look at the clock hanging above her couch. Almost time to open the bar. She rolled her shoulders and called forth the five elements that fueled her powers, the call of fire her strongest. Heated energy crackled and popped in the small dining room, fusing the air with enough juice to power up to ten love potions.
She needed this to work. Maybe the spell just needed a jumpstart. “Worth a shot anyway,” she murmured softly.
A long, drawn-out growl from the chair where Luna lounged watching the whole fiasco punctuated her thoughts. Pure white fur fluffed into a bushy ball of static. “Not long now and don’t give me that judgy look, missy. We need the money and this,” she wagged a finger at the bubbling cast iron cauldron on her kitchen counter, “…is the only way I know to get the fast cash we need and to keep kitty nip on the shopping list.”
Her feline familiar blinked once as a human would shrug their shoulders.
Sassy puss. Whatever.
She needed to get on with this before one—or all—of her coven sisters dropped in and found her mixing the forbidden concoction. Not that they would turn her into the Silver Circle, but it would definitely put them all in a pickle if ever questioned or placed under a truth spell. Nasty things, truth spells, and very commonly used on witches with rebellious pasts.
She was well-acquainted with the rules governing her kind and right now she was breaking about five of them, which would get her banned or worse, stripped of her powers by the Elders like they had Harlow. Not cool. But Sadie didn’t see any other choice.
It wasn’t as if the Circle issued loans on magic or would return her sister’s powers. So here she was taking on both problems with an illegal potion. Great idea even if it is illegal.
Before starting, she had flicked the deadbolt in place and stuffed a towel beneath the doors, windows, and every other crack she found in the old apartment to help hide the odor. One of her sisters was bound to stop in for a drink, and her efforts would do little in holding them at bay once they smelled the sweet nectar of rose and lavender. If they did show up before she finished… well, she’d rather not think about how many different ways this could go sideways tonight.
Sadie dipped the tip of her pinky into the swirling mass of fuchsia liquid laced with variant shades of midnight purple, and popped it into her mouth.
Much like her favorite Pop Rocks candy, it tingled along her tongue and down her throat as she swallowed the single teardrop worth.
Mmm. She sucked the single-digit between her lips and sighed.
Dazzling white heat burst to life, singeing her insides to finally detonate in the depths of her core with a powerful need she’d never felt before. She swayed in place and let her eyes slip shut. Just as quickly the all-consuming sensations calmed, leaving behind a blanket of warmth to settle over her entire body like a lover had left her thoroughly sated.