From The Shadows A Psychic Will Rise – The Order of the Bear Series (Book 4)

Mirror, mirror on the wall . . . who’s the baddest witch of all?

The world’s population is being reduced one juicy vampire snack at a time. Crystal knows it’s up to her to stop it, but she lacks the supernatural skills. With no other choice she goes crawling back home to ask her mother to train her. Too bad her mother has been holding a grudge all these years. Will Crystal learn what she needs to in order to re-imprison the vampires? Or will her mother’s brutal training be the death of her?

Find out who put the diss in disfunction today and get your copy!

No one gets to choose their family. Will Steel go running the moment he meets her mother?

This is book four, so if you haven’t already done so, please make sure to read books one through three first. The first book in the series is free, and you can download that ebook here: http://josiewalkerbooks.com/index.php/something-shifter-this-way-comes-the-order-of-the-bear-series-book-1/

***Contains new added scenes from Steel’s POV

***COMING SOON***

CHAPTER ONE

CRYSTAL

Welcome back to my journal. I hope you’re not expecting glitter pens and butterfly stickers because happy sparkly stuff doesn’t mesh with the darkness I battle on a daily basis. I should probably switch to a thin black Sharpie with a red pen for comments!

I’ve tried hard to stick to the facts as I recount my story, no matter how ludicrous they might seem. Don’t be surprised if the details to follow skew towards fictional territory. I don’t even believe half of this stuff, and I lived through it!

I spent so many years in school, dying to get out and live in the real world. Now I’d give up Thai food forever if it meant I could go back to the endless homework and sleep deprivation of my college days. I’d even pack back on my Freshman 15 if that’s what it took to get the job done!

But I had a feeling that none of these acts would help atone for my sins. This wasn’t ancient Greece, and I couldn’t simply offer up a sacrifice to the gods and pray for absolution. I was going to have to roll up my sleeves and get busy if I intended to save the world and put the vampires back in their prison. Before you begin to think nasty things about my overinflated ego—know that I didn’t feel I was especially qualified to save the world. I didn’t have a messiah complex or anything, but as it was my fault for letting them out, I figured it was my job to re-imprison them somehow.

I was settling for eliminating them one at a time until I could figure out the whole magical prison thing. However, those nasty bloodsuckers weren’t making it easy for me. In fact, there were times when I could swear they were all gunning for me. Of course, I’d been told that might have had something to do with the fact that witch blood smells and tastes incredible to vampires.

It was impossible to say for certain one way or another, but that didn’t stop me from postulating ever wilder scenarios. The fact that I had just mated the leader of the Order of the Bear had probably painted an even larger target on my back. But after learning that my shifter boyfriend only got one fated mate—and therefore couldn’t have anyone but me—I’d felt it was the only tenable course of action.

On the plus side, no one knew we were a mated couple yet. With any luck, Steel and I could keep that as our little secret. I’d just have to make sure to wear my hair down to cover the big bloody bite mark he’d just inflicted on the back of my neck.

I liked the idea of a clandestine relationship. It would be like having an illicit affair without any cheating. A smile tugged at the corner of my lips as I imagined all of the locations we could sneak off to alone.

I shouldn’t have been daydreaming. Given the fact that I wasn’t all that coordinated to begin with, it was downright dangerous. I tripped on a bit of loose turf, and Steel grabbed my arm, steadying me before I fell. I shot him a grateful look and tried to pay more attention to the act of walking, boring though it was.

It must be awesome to have the grace and strength of a shifter. But neither of us had gotten to choose our supernatural gifts. We’d been born a shifter and a witch. I would have given anything to have been born normal, but fate had played some nasty tricks on me.

Most recently, fate had pushed my hand and forced me to do something downright awful, something I’d sworn never to do again. It had made me return to my messed-up family to ask for help. So there I was, dragging my feet and trying to delay the inevitable pain that would ensue.

Who knew I was such a coward? I was striding towards the old Victorian home I’d grown up in. But I didn’t have time to admire the gingerbread scrollwork lining the eaves, or the fanciful dormer windows. Nor did I pay heed to the meticulous landscaping, or the rose bush that I knew for a fact bloomed year-round thanks to one of my mother’s spells.

My attention was all focused inward. If that meant I was self-absorbed, so be it. I realized that I’d reached a new level of pathetic in my life . . . I’d officially moved back in with my mother.

Yay! To be perfectly clear, yes, that was a sarcastic yay. To say that my mother and I failed to see eye to eye on things would have been a vast understatement. We weren’t friends, and she didn’t do friendly. But she had something I needed.

So, I was just going to have to sit there and take it while she insulted me. However, I hadn’t expected her to be quite so catty, especially not in front of my boyfriend. It wasn’t the fact that we were dating that I expected to deter her, but the fact that Steel was the leader of the Order of the Bear.

She was a patron of the Order, which I figured made her his subordinate technically. That should have meant something. Yeah, no dice.

I was probably going to require a trip to the dentist after all of the jaw clenching and teeth grinding, but if that’s what it took to save the world, it was a price I would happily pay. No, strike that, it was a price I would begrudgingly pay with lots of complaining and foot-dragging.

I’d imagine that most daughters who’d been gone as long as I had would have felt like hugging it out right about then, but personally, I wasn’t feeling the warm fuzzies. Why was my mom so awful? It was like she took some kind of perverse delight in bringing me low.

My mother was quite possibly the only witch strong enough to help me break through my magical block and teach me how to control my powers—which simply wasn’t fair! If we’d been a normal family, I probably could have gone on avoiding her indefinitely. But no, I had to be a dangerous, out-of-control witch in need of a tutor. Life, like my mother, was mean and full of nasty surprises.

All I’d wanted was a little time alone with Steel before facing her down, but the woman always did have a sixth sense when it came to me and the men I was dating. She had just burst in on Steel and me, post-shifter-mating-ceremony in my not-so-secret treehouse. At least she’d given us a couple moments of privacy to get dressed.

Was policing people’s sex lives one of her superpowers? After all, her name was Imogen, which meant “innocent maiden.” Of course, she certainly didn’t hold herself to the same “purity” standards. Nope, as for the woman herself, there was nothing innocent or maidenly about her.

My mom was the slinky-dress-wearing epitome of sensual appeal. She made every man want her and every woman hate her. She didn’t look her age, and she certainly didn’t act it.

I was vacillating between horrified and livid about her interrupting me and my newly mated bear-shifter-boyfriend. But to hear her describe it, you’d think she was nothing but polite, given the fact that she’d waited for us to finish before announcing herself. If you ask me, that was fifty shades of creepy. Holy crap! How long was she listening? Was it possible that she already knew my secret?

Did I scream? I’d probably screamed. He’d bitten me, and it had hurt. Whatever, it was too late to do anything about it now. I refused to allow her to ruin Steel for me; our relationship was one of the few things in life I had to enjoy.

It was a good thing I was dating a billionaire because every minute I spent in my mother’s presence was a minute I would later require therapy to recover from. All those hours sprawled out on the shrink’s couch were going to add up to one whopper of a bill, not to mention a sore butt.

Killer heels and skin-tight dress aside, Imogen moved quickly as she led us into the house I’d tried so hard to forget. Obviously, I’d failed at the endeavor because life had landed me right back in the thick of Herman Munster’s formal dining room. My mom had been rocking the dark Victorian look long before steampunk became a thing.

The antique silver candelabra cast a warm glow across the enormous wooden table. There were bodies in almost all of the seats, and it looked more like an official council meeting than a dinner party, given the fact that Steel’s people were lined up along one side, and my mother’s entourage was lined up along the other. There weren’t any visible name cards, but it was easy to see that my mother had placed everyone exactly as she wanted them. For all I knew, she’d snapped her fingers and forced them to sit down with a simple spell.

She seated Steel respectfully at the foot of the table, and I grimaced when I realized that the only unoccupied seats left were all the way at the head of the table, where my mother had left a spot for me adjacent to her own. Oh goody. Was five minutes of mother-daughter bonding time enough to earn me a trophy?

Probably not. She’d intentionally seated me as far away from my emotional support animal as possible. What I wouldn’t have given to sit next to Steel, Bryan, Mrs. Turner, or any of the shifters instead of where I was. If she hadn’t shown me the kindness of seating my Aunt Viola on my other side, I might have refused to sit down at all.

I loved my aunt. Viola had been one of the few people I’d regretted leaving behind. When she opened her arms to me, I fell into them with a happy sob. Apparently, I could do reunion hugs, it just had to be with the right person.

Viola and Imogen were polar opposites in everything from physical appearance to behavior. While my mother was all thin lines and harsh-angular beauty, my aunt had embraced brightly colored cardigans, gypsy skirts, and chunky jewelry. She also held on to thirty or so extra pounds, which softened her and made her seem motherly, even though she’d never had children of her own.

No one would have ever guessed that the two women were sisters, although they both shared the same dark hair and were of similar height. But that was where the similarities ended, except, of course, for the fact that neither of them looked half as old as they actually were. I’d often wondered if the whole fountain of youth trick was genetic or the result of magic. Either way, I planned on dipping my cup into it and drinking my fill when the time came.

Why have wrinkles if you don’t have to? Also, judging on how flipping fantastic Mrs. Turner looked, I was going to need all the help I could get to keep looking hot for Steel! I glanced briefly at Eric, sitting so far away at the end of the table, before returning my focus to my right.

My aunt Viola had been the one to nurture my young, fragile heart. She’d been my safe haven during all those occasions when my mother’s harsh words and actions had reduced me to tears. She was also a seer, and as such, had a flighty, not quite focused air about her that showed that half of her attention was occupied on some other plane. Because of her psychic gifts, she seemed just as much a spectre as the ghosts she spent so much of her time communing with. She lived equally in the present, past, and future realms.

“I apologize for having kept you all waiting,” Imogen began. “Although, really, it is my prodigal daughter who’s responsible for delaying dinner.”

My mouth popped open in indignation, but before I could formulate an adequate defense, my mother was daintily ringing a small crystal bell to summon the servants. There were several slack-jawed expressions on the shifter side of the table when the servants appeared bearing the silver trays, but it wasn’t due to the sight of the mouthwatering feast. No, it was the fact that the servants weren’t quite human.

In hindsight, I’m amazed that no one shifted into their animal form on the spot! Each servant walked in a way that could never be graceful. There was an awkward shuffling to each gait, and the classic black and white maid costumes didn’t hang quite right on their partially decomposed corpses. Heavy-duty iron muzzles were affixed securely to each face, so that there would be no removing the gags without my mother’s direct magical intervention.

The iron plates served dual purposes. Firstly, they served aesthetically to block the view of the disgusting facial rot that plagued all zombies from the nose down. And secondly, they eliminated any pesky concerns about zombies trying to gnaw on the guests if something went wrong with the enchantment keeping them docile and subservient. The last thing we needed was a zombie apocalypse to coincide with the Vampiregeddon.

Iron muzzles or no, they were still a disturbing sight. I particularly disliked the way their clothing hung on their gaunt frames. And they walked in awkward, shuffling gates, as though their limbs could no longer quite coordinate as they once had.

“I see you still have the zombie maids,” I muttered as I helped myself to a crescent roll. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to choke it down with the lump of stress rising up in my throat, but I had to have something with which to occupy my hands.

“Well, I’ve just grown so attached to them, darling. I don’t know why they’ve always upset you so. You have no idea how hard it is to find good help these days,” my mother explained. She flicked her hand dismissively, and the zombie maids went to stand at attention against the wall.

There should have been the clatter of silverware against plates, but none of the shifters had reached for so much as a crumb yet. They sat tensely, as though at any moment, they were prepared to leap into battle. I set my roll back down and took in the scene before me.

The shifters weren’t exactly keen on having such an obvious threat behind them, and more than a few growled while several simply stood and turned around to face their smartly dressed undead adversaries warily. I expected to hear the sound of ripping clothing any second. I met Steel’s eyes, and he gave me a strained look as we had one of those special wordless tête-à-têtes of ours. 

“I told you my mother was awful!” I communicated with a wordless head nod. 

“Fix this, or I will.”

“Like she’s going to listen to me.”

“I’m not the one who can’t control my powers.” 

Ouch. Even though he hadn’t actually said a word, I still felt like his last comment hit below the belt. I took a deep breath and tried to speak in a calm and composed manner, but what I really wanted to do was scream at my mother.

“Mother, perhaps my friends would feel more comfortable if you sent the ghouls back to the kitchen. Since you are such a kind and considerate host, I’m sure it must have escaped your notice just how on edge everyone is.”

“I see you’re still a giant stick in the mud,” my mother sighed dramatically as she waved her hands and sent the zombie maids from the room without voicing a single verbal command.

There was a muffled sound of feet shuffling and dragging along the ground as they exited. More than one of the zombie maids bumped into the door on the way out. But that didn’t diminish the fact that Imogen’s spells were powerful and effective.

And that’s when I recalled why I’d come in the first place. My mother knew things, things I needed to know. I had no choice but to stay put, no matter how miserable she chose to make me. The shifters relaxed visibly once the last of the maids had departed.

The grumbling animal sounds ceased altogether, and those who’d been standing took their seats once more. I didn’t look too closely, but there were probably some fabric tears and missing buttons in their clothes. Being a shifter can take quite a toll on one’s wardrobe.

Only then did they begin loading their plates with thick slices of roast dripping with gravy. There were heaping mounds of mashed potatoes and corn all around. And green beans with more bacon than vegetable to be found. It was the type of meal that everyone would need to release a few buttons after consuming.

It should have been fun, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was a strained and awkward dinner. My mother played the gracious hostess, keeping topics on light matters like the weather and if everyone had found their rooms satisfactory. All the while, she excelled at finding little ways to poke and ridicule me. She mocked my useless degree, bemoaning all the time I’d wasted, and how training me now would be even worse than working with a child.

“Unless I’m mistaken, and you know I’m never wrong, you’ve developed a horrid block. So much unnecessary work you’ve created for me,” she sighed dramatically, dabbing at the corner of her eye with a black lace handkerchief.

I don’t know who she thought she was fooling with the fake tears act. So far as I knew, she was no more capable of crying than her grotesque servants. After the ghouls finished clearing away the dinner dishes, they returned with the dessert course. Well aware that I was eating my feelings, I piled an assortment of cheesecakes and candied nuts on my plate.

“You’ll never keep your figure if you continue to gorge on sweets,” Imogen remarked. “My superior genetics can only take you so far. A little restraint must be applied if you intend to keep that strapping young man of yours.”

And to think, just a few weeks ago, I was being accused of starving myself to death and wasting away. Life’s funny like that. Was it too much to ask that my mother take a break from tearing me down?

Steel stood up abruptly, his chair flying out behind him as he stood there with clenched fists. Apparently, I wasn’t the only person who didn’t appreciate my mother insinuating my looming weight struggles. I waved at Steel in a “down boy” sort of gesture, and he reluctantly reclaimed his seat.

Of course, by that point, Imogen had ruined dessert for me altogether. I had no choice but to push my plate away with a huff. After the dessert dishes had been cleared, my mother led me personally to my old room. When she tried to escort Steel to a separate room down the hall, I put an end to that notion immediately. 

“He stays with me,” I said in an unyielding tone.

“Take care not to appear overanxious,” Imogen replied in a loud whisper. “It’s no way to keep a man.” Of course, she’d fully intended for Steel to hear every single word of it, as she was no stranger to his heightened hearing capabilities. Then she pulled me close in a hug that chilled me to the bone as she added eerily, “I’m so looking forward to catching up tomorrow. You have so much to atone for.”

“Me too,” I lied through my teeth. I violently dragged Steel into the room with me and locked the door as though that might offer up a small measure of protection against my crazy mother’s rage. It wouldn’t have. I waited for my mother’s footsteps to recede down the hall, ear scrunched up against the door like a scared child. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what I was. 

“I made a terrible mistake coming here,” I said, frantically gripping his hand. “We need to get out of here while we still can.”

STEEL

I focused on deep, calming breaths as I resisted the urge to throw open the door and punch my mate’s mother in the face. But my parents had raised me better than that, and I didn’t hit women. I was starting to understand Crystal’s reluctance to return home, and I was tempted to do exactly as she’d requested and flee to one of my numerous estates.

My eyes ran a quick scan of the room, noting three other doors in addition to the one that led to the hallway. One led to a private bathroom, which wasn’t something I’d been expecting in a home of this age. The square footage of the exterior facade didn’t seem to line up with what I was seeing on the inside. I decided to stop overthinking things and just be grateful I wouldn’t have to share a bathroom with anyone but Crystal. The other two doors were open, revealing modest-sized closets.

I noted both of our suitcases perched neatly on the top shelves, and all of our belongings had been neatly unpacked into the small closets. I shuddered at the thought of the ghastly zombie maids touching my personal possessions. How was Crystal as normal as she was when she’d grown up in this madhouse? Part of me longed to tear down the suitcases and hurl our possessions inside, and to drag Crystal somewhere else . . . anywhere but her mother’s house.

But I couldn’t take the coward’s way out. My bear’s strength wasn’t enough to keep my mate safe . . . not now that the vampires were out of their prison. As much as I hated to admit it, we needed Imogen, and the worst part of all was how well she knew it. That farce of a dinner had been nothing more than a show of power. For all that I resented Imogen, I was amazed at her abilities.

So in the end, it came down to how I could best protect my mate, and sadly, that meant staying. If I could have, I would have just locked her away in a tower somewhere, but she never would have allowed it. I ran a hand through my hair and turned resolutely to face her. This was a fragile operation. One wrong word, and I might well wind up on the couch, or worse, alone in that room down the hall that Imogen had tried to relegate me to. All I wanted to do was savor my mate. I still couldn’t believe she’d let me claim her. Had that really happened scant hours ago?

I wasn’t good with words, so I reached out and pulled her into a hug, running my hands over her silken hair. I began to sway gently from side to side as though we were dancing a slow dance, one that required no music. There was no world outside of that room, no people except for us. Eventually, I felt her stiff body relax. If it was Crystal’s job to learn to control her magic, then it was my job to support her. I tried to remind myself that we’d been through worse together, but I hadn’t had to be on my good behavior with the vampires.

CHAPTER TWO

CRYSTAL

Somehow, Steel managed to persuade me to stay. It was in times like these that I wondered if he was the witch because it felt an awful lot like he’d worked a spell on me. Whether or not he’d used any magic, his powers of persuasion were legendary. That growly bear of mine . . . he had moves.

“I’m beginning to understand why you froze everyone in the ballroom the last time you saw your mother.”

“You have no idea.”

“Is she always this horrid?”

“Amateur! That was her good behavior.”

“How are you so normal?”

“Beats me. Actually, I’m one hundred percent certain it’s because my aunt is an angel.”

“Was she the one who kept talking to the empty chair to her right?” he asked, sounding perplexed.

When you grow up in Crazyville, sometimes you forget what it might look like to other people. I should have seen this question coming, but my aunt Viola’s eccentricities were so commonplace to me that I honestly hadn’t given it a second thought.

“Yeah, about that . . .” I didn’t know where to begin with my explanation. “So the chair wasn’t empty, you just couldn’t see who was sitting there.”
He stared at me with a dumb look that clued me in to the fact that he was going to need some more clarification. It was a good thing I’d mated with him before bringing him home to meet my weird relatives because they could easily have scared him off. Would he change his mind and decide that never having his own family was preferable to being a part of mine?

“My aunt’s dead boyfriend was sitting there.”

“Your aunt is being haunted by the ghost of her dead boyfriend?” he asked incredulously.

“Not exactly. You see, he was dead long before they actually started dating. He’s super old.”

“I’m trying to keep up here, but I’m going to need more to go on than that.”

“His name is Lance. He’s a pirate, or he was a pirate. I don’t know if you can still be a pirate if you don’t have a pirate ship anymore, and his is long gone. That would be like calling someone a teacher if they no longer have students. I guess you could say he’s a retired pirate, but I don’t think he ever officially chose to stop. The whole death thing is a big-time career killer.” Even I knew I was rambling.

“Miss Banks, I’m choosing to terminate this conversation.”

“You asked,” I pointed out petulantly. “Now you see why I want to leave.”

He studied me for a long moment and then reached out to squeeze my hand. It was comforting—a nice gesture by any standards. I squeezed his hand back warmly.

“Let’s take it one day at a time.”

That made enough sense that I nodded my head in agreement. I stepped away from my spot by the door, no longer feeling the need to flee. Well, to be clear, I still wanted to leave, but it was no longer life-or-death urgent. Miraculously, he’d convinced me to stay one more day. One day at a time was such a simple solution.

“Not at all how I pictured your bedroom,” he interjected thoughtfully.

“Do I even want to know what you expected?”

“Probably not.”

My childhood room was just how I’d left it. It was like an embarrassing time capsule of boy-band posters and frilly white lace draped over every conceivable surface. Back in the day, I’d worked very hard to combat the dark gothic vibe running through my mother’s domain.

I hadn’t even made a dent in it. I was like a brunette Marilyn Munster, dressing in sunshine colors and sticking out like a sore thumb among my cuckoo relatives. It had been awful enough the first time until I’d found a way to escape and go live the normal life I’d always wanted.

But destiny had drawn me back into the thick of it—only this time, it would be worse—much worse. Back then, I’d been able to hope for a better future. But I knew better now. There was no escaping my “blood.” No, I was the direct result of my witchy lineage, and there weren’t enough teen heartthrob posters in the world to distract me from the fact that I was never going to be normal again.

Steel and I brushed our teeth—the zombie maids had left our toiletry bags on the counter in the bathroom when they’d unpacked our luggage. At least the toothbrushes were still inside the plastic pouch, or I think he might have demanded a new one. We went to bed straight away. It was a little crowded on my old double mattress, but we were determined to make it work. I don’t think he wanted to be alone in the house any more than I did.

Suffice it to say, I didn’t sleep well. In fact, I felt as though I’d only been out for a few minutes when I heard my mother’s annoying sing-song voice as she knocked on the door. I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes. I couldn’t face whatever punishment she wanted to inflict on me . . . not yet.

In addition to the jet lag, I had a sore neck from the mating ritual, and the verbal sparring with my mother had left me completely drained. Maybe if we’re both really quiet, she’ll give up and leave? Spoiler alert . . . she didn’t leave.

The knocking persisted, and Steel roared savagely at the disturbance. It was only my hand on his arm that kept him from leaping out of bed and giving my mother a piece of his mind. I should have anticipated something like this. Silly me, I’d forgotten she was a night owl.

Actually, she was worse than a night owl. I’d suspected for a long time that she didn’t actually require sleep to function. Which made her some kind of robotically inhuman entity, not to mention annoying to boot.

I peeled open my eyes and blinked groggily at the face of the clock until I could make out the numbers. I couldn’t believe it. She was waking me up at 2 a.m. The reason I was exhausted was because she’d hardly let me rest at all. Who does that?

“What, Mother?” I groaned, sitting up in bed.

Steel was glaring daggers at the closed door, but to be fair, that was pretty much the expression he wore all the time, so it was impossible to say if he was actually peeved or merely indifferent. That’s when I heard bones clicking in his tightly clenched fist. Scratch that, he was definitely angry.

“I’m coming in. I do hope you’re dressed,” Imogen warned.

The locks clicked uselessly to the open position. Stupid ineffectual locks. If you aren’t pitying me yet, imagine how unbearable it was for me to endure the mortifications of puberty with no privacy. Therapy. I need so much therapy.

“Is this really necessary?” I asked around a yawn.

She ignored my question and told Steel, “You can go right back to sleep, Eric. This is witch business.” 

He nodded tersely and remained put. I looked yearningly at him, the lucky jerk who I knew would be going back to sleep. Then I followed my mother out into the hallway. I was reaching out to close the door when it jerked out of my hands and shut itself with a clap. The house did things like that from time to time.

I used to think it was haunted, or that my mother was using her magic to make things move. But it was more like the house was a living entity. It couldn’t speak, and it didn’t have arms, so to speak.

So, it expressed itself in other ways. Sometimes, it even made things go missing. I still wanted to know what it had done with my high school essay on Julius Caesar. And my yearbook had disappeared the day before I’d had the opportunity to ask anyone to sign it.

Sometimes doors would refuse to open, no matter how hard one pushed. Also, I had vivid memories of playing in rooms of the house, rooms that later I’d never been able to find again. Other times, items would appear out of nowhere, no doubt from previous generations. Like I said, the house was special and way more complicated than I knew how to explain.

The only positive thing I have to say about the miserable hours that followed was that my mother didn’t try to make me light any candles. In fact, she didn’t try to get me to draw from my supernatural powers at all. She dropped a pair of rubber gloves at my feet and waved her hands dramatically to encompass the floor.

“The maids haven’t been keeping these floors to my standards,” she said frantically in a loud stage whisper, as though she was afraid they might hear her and be offended.

“You want me to mop the floor at two in the morning?” I asked incredulously.

“Of course not!” she replied instantly. Right when I started to get my hopes up, she dashed them. “Mopping will never be enough to return that filthy grout to its original white.”

My jaw dropped open in disbelief, and I flinched when she slid her hand under my chin to gently push my mouth shut. I blinked at her, waiting for her to finish with her ridiculous instructions. Was I surprised that she was taking out her anger on me in petty, awful ways? No. I wasn’t. She waved her hand, and a toothbrush and a bottle of scrubbing solution appeared next to the gloves.

“Chop chop!” she said, clapping her hands as she turned on her heels and began her slow hip-swaying saunter exit from the hallway.

I flinched, feeling triggered as she used the same phrase that Lauren had always used on me. But unlike Lauren, I was supposed to be able to trust my mother, right? It never even crossed my mind not to follow her orders. I sighed in defeat, carefully lowering myself to my knees as I donned the rubber gloves and quickly scanned the instructions on the bottle. I flinched when a bucket full of warm water magically winked into existence directly in front of me. She’d waited for me to lower my guard so that she could startle me. She got off on little things like that.

I dipped the toothbrush into the bucket of water and got to it. It was an impossible task and felt like something that should be assigned to convicted felons, not supposed loved ones. Minutes crawled by, stretching into hours as I set to work with the toothbrush in the grout. It was a good thing Steel was loaded because I doubted my pants would survive the encounter without bleach stains.

The chemicals were giving me a headache, and my knees ached. Would it have been too much to include knee pads? What the what, Mother? Why did I feel like I’d just entered the set of the Karate Kid movie? Was wax-on-wax-off next on her agenda?

I don’t know how many square feet the old Victorian consisted of, but the house was so large that I’d long ago come to the realization that my mother or my ancestors had somehow added onto the structure magically. The home was at least four times larger inside than the city lot it occupied on the exterior, and probably more.

The floor was composed of encaustic tiles in an impossibly intricate pattern. There had been a time when I’d admired the vast networking of interlocking shapes. A series of small, white square tiles formed a grid of sorts.

At the connecting point of each of those grids was a black octagon tile, housing a decorative pentagram with a flame burning within the circle. Given how old these floors were, I couldn’t help but think that such an overtly occult design blurred the lines between ballsy and just plain stupid. What happened when someone came over for dinner and looked down? It was like inviting mobs with pitchforks to come hang you.

What really made the tiles beautiful, however, was the use of different colors in the patterns. These weren’t hand-painted or manufactured like modern ceramics. The pigment was actually infused into the clay, and then the clay was pressed into molds, starting with the inlay color, and backfilling the other clays from there. They were irreplaceable and held great historical value.

But the tiles were also connected by so many grout lines that I could probably scrub for the next ten years and not make a dent in them. Why did my mom have to hate me so much? I was gradually losing feeling in my feet.

The hours trickled by, and my knees were painfully bruised. My arms, hands, and neck were weary from holding the impossible position, as well as the repetitive scrubbing motion. Even though it was clear I might never be able to straighten my stiff spine properly again, I wasn’t about to admit defeat and throw in the towel. I was too stubborn to let her win, even if the battle crippled me.

She never came to check on me, but I worked as though she was spying on me through a creepy camera system. Of course, she would have been far more likely to utilize a crystal ball than modern technology to do her snooping. It was 8 a.m., and I’d been absorbed in the harsh manual task for six hours by the time she sent one of her ghouls to escort me to breakfast.

I peeled off the gloves disgustedly and moved to stand with all the bone-creaking protest of a centenarian. I felt like whimpering, or better yet, crying, but I refused to give her the satisfaction as I limped on. My feet-dragging walk was so awkward that the creepy zombie maid looked downright graceful in comparison.

The same guests from dinner occupied the table, and I nodded glumly at Steel as I shuffled towards my seat. It was probably a good thing there was so much distance between us because I didn’t exactly have a lot of nice words to share with him at the moment. Why had he made me stay? We should have gone while the getting was good.

Mrs. Turner had a pinched look on her face, and I could see her clutching the tablecloth as though she intended to do it bodily harm. My weary brain envisioned an epic battle between my mother and Steel’s grandmother, and it was all I could do to stifle the giggle. Now there’s something I would have paid good money to see. My champion may have been ancient, but she was in killer shape, and her stalwart devotion gave me the warm fuzzies.

“Good morning, Mother,” I choked out with forced politeness. 

“You look absolutely frightful,” Imogen tsked. “Don’t you ever take time for your appearance?” she asked, motioning to my sweaty and tangled hair. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to give you any competition,” I muttered under my breath. Like she’d given me any other option!

“Hmm . . .” she replied, her raised eyebrows indicating that this was not a likely cause for concern.

“I was wondering if there’s a space suitable for my men and me to conduct business while we are here,” Steel asked from his end of the table, providing a blessed change of topic.

“Of course, there’s a small sitting room that should suffice,” Imogen replied coolly. “Do try not to break any of the furnishings; you animals can be so unruly.”

“We’ll do our best,” Mrs. Turner said through gritted teeth.

The conversation was stilted, and I ate little. After breakfast, I was dismissed because even prisoners were allowed short bursts of reprieve now and then.

“Meet me in the gardens at noon, and do take a few moments to tidy yourself up a bit first. You’re frightening the servants,” Imogen tsked disapprovingly.

Right, because the reanimated corpses that she called servants had such high sensibilities! I officially hated my life. Steel trailed behind me silently as I wearily headed towards my bedroom. I would have slammed the door if I’d had any strength left in my arms . . . but I didn’t. I flopped down face-first on the bed, intending to catch up on a little of the sleep I’d been deprived of.

I groaned when I felt the bed dip to the side as Steel climbed up beside me. He moved over me, straddling my lower back. I was just contemplating the best way to let him down gently—because fun times were not going to happen—when I felt his strong fingers begin to rub the tension out of my shoulders.

“I freaking love you,” I mumbled into the covers. 

As Steel continued to knead my muscles into relaxed submission, I sighed and turned my head to the side, resting it on the crook of my elbow. I closed my eyes and yawned.

“Promise to wake me in time to shower?” I asked wearily.

“Get some sleep, Miss Banks. I’ll come back and wake you.”

Knowing I could trust him completely, I drifted off to sleep.

STEEL

As much as it rankled my pride, I found myself sneaking down the corridor like a child in fear of a reprimand. Imogen likely had eyes and ears everywhere in the sprawling Victorian mansion, and I certainly didn’t want to bump into one of those horrid zombie maids. The intricate tiles lining the hallway looked like they had been commissioned by the same artist who had painted the morbid murals in my ancestral home. I winced, remembering anew that those paintings were no longer in existence because the mansion had burned down on my watch.

No rugs softened the cold encaustic tile. From what I could see, Imogen wasn’t into warm finishes and likely hadn’t wanted to cover up the occult designs. I paused at an intersection, carefully ensuring that no one lurked about, before continuing down the long hall in my slow, stealthy walk. The walls in this stretch were lined with a dark, hand-painted wallpaper featuring a strange blend of skulls and pink floral accents.

There was a muted smell that aggravated my senses, like the smell of rotting flesh masked with the scent of furniture polish and rose oil. This was no doubt a hazard of employing zombie staff. It wasn’t strong enough to be detected by human noses, but my bear’s senses were heightened. I passed a series of framed oil paintings featuring portraits of witches from centuries past. Their pale faces housed unsmiling eyes, and their features seemed too sharp to be considered traditionally beautiful. Shuddering, I forced my gaze back to the creepy floor tiles, but that wasn’t much of an improvement.

At last, I reached the small sitting room designated for our use by our host. I rapped twice on the black painted door before opening it and stepping inside. The room was significantly smaller than the formal parlor closest to the mansion’s entrance, but still lavishly decorated. Blood red wallpaper coated the walls with color, with a repeating pattern of black ravens. There was a fire in the ornately carved black fireplace, but not even a fire could add warmth to the cold space.

The room contained black velvet settees, and there were two black wingback chairs positioned by the fireplace, one of which was occupied by my grandmother. A quick scan of the room let me know that everyone else had arrived ahead of me. Good. That meant we could get right to business.

“You’re late,” Bryan informed me with a smirk. He was holding a stuffed raven, stroking its lifeless feathers like it was a cat. I shook my head to clear my vision, but it remained unchanged. Something told me the house was having a bad effect on all of us, not just Crystal.

“Nice to see you’re finding new ways to express your eccentricities,” I said dryly.

“Taxidermy is a perfectly respectable hobby!” he said in mock offense before returning the stuffed bird to its place of honor on a side table.

“I couldn’t leave Crystal until I got her calmed down and resting.”

Mrs. Turner took that as her cue to pipe up. “Crystal’s training is taxing enough, but her mother is vindictive. The poor girl is crumbling under the pressure.”

“I watched her scrub the floor with a toothbrush for a solid ten minutes, and she didn’t even notice I was there,” Bryan said in a rare moment of seriousness.

“Her mother is despicable,” I growled, moving to pace the short circuit between the door and the window.

“Have you noticed how she criticizes every bite she takes?” Mrs. Turner asked.

I nodded. I’d noticed, all right. Crystal still had a long way to go to make up for all the weight she’d lost during her depression. My knuckles cracked, and I took a deep breath to calm my animal, who was threatening to push his way to the surface. The last thing I wanted to do was break the furniture and prove myself to be the wild animal Imogen had accused me of being.

Antonio spoke from the settee farthest from the door. “You are all so quick to take sides. Imogen isn’t our enemy. She is a hermosa bruja, and I think there is more to her than meets the eye.”

We all turned in unison to stare at Antonio, who threw up his hands defensively.

“I’m just saying we would do well to remember that she didn’t hesitate to open her home or to undertake her daughter’s training. That has to count for something.” His Mexican accent grew stronger, the way it did when he was passionate about something.

I raked my fingers irritably through my hair. And then I stopped pacing. Inspiration struck, and it was either a genius idea or a doomed venture that would blow up in my face later.

“Crystal needs a buffer between her and her mother,” I said, turning to look Antonio square in the eye. “You will be that buffer.”

“What makes you think her mother will listen to me?” he asked, sounding more interested than intimidated.

“Because you are going to woo her.”

Mrs. Turner looked horrified, and Bryan let loose a loud guffaw.

“Antonio charming the wicked witch, now I’d pay to see that.”

“I won’t take advantage of her,” Antonio warned.

“Of course not. Just spend time with her and see if you can get her to cut her daughter some slack,” I replied.

“If that’s what you wish, Alfa, I will do my best to woo the hermosa bruja.”

“Then Crystal might have a chance to actually learn to harness her powers.”

“The sooner the better,” Bryan said before plucking the stuffed crow off the table and resuming his gentle stroking motion along the black feathers.

“One day at a time,” I muttered softly under my breath. That just might be one more day than I could handle.

“Well, I’ll be on my way then, unless you have anything else to discuss,” Antonio said, rising to his feet.

“That’s all for now,” I said.

I watched incredulously as Antonio made his way for the door in what seemed more like a tango than a walk. What had I done? It was as though I’d unleashed his inner Don Juan. It was too late to do anything but sit back and watch the train wreck.

***COMING SOON***