Besphinxed

  BESPHINXED

  A NOCTURNE FALLS UNIVERSE BOOK

  ALETHEA KONTIS

  Besphinxed

  A Nocturne Falls Universe Story

  Copyright © 2018 by Alethea Kontis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction and was made possible by a special agreement with Sugar Skull Books, but hasn’t been reviewed or edited by Kristen Painter. All characters, events, scenes, plots and associated elements appearing in the original Nocturne Falls series remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Kristen Painter, Sugar Skull Books and their affiliates or licensors.

  Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author or Sugar Skull Books.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover design by Keri Knutson

  CONTENTS

  A Note from Kristen Painter

  Prologue

  1. 1

  2. 2

  3. 3

  4. 4

  5. 5

  6. 6

  7. 7

  8. 8

  9. 9

  10. 10

  Epilogue

  Want to Know More About Heather’s Guardian Angel?

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Alethea Kontis

  A NOTE FROM KRISTEN PAINTER

  Dear Reader,

  Nocturne Falls has become a magical place for so many people, myself included. Over and over I’ve heard from you that it’s a town you’d love to visit and even live in! I can tell you that writing the books is just as much fun for me.

  With your enthusiasm for the series in mind – and your many requests for more books – the Nocturne Falls Universe was born. It’s a project near and dear to my heart, and one I am very excited about.

  I hope these new, guest-authored books will entertain and delight you. And best of all, I hope they allow you to discover some great new authors! (And if you like this book, be sure to check out the rest of the Nocturne Falls Universe offerings.)

  For more information about the Nocturne Falls Universe, visit http://kristenpainter.com/sugar-skull-books/

  In the meantime, happy reading!

  ~Kristen Painter

  For my dearest Mary B. Rodgers,

  fairy godmother, parade comrade, and sister in magic

  PROLOGUE

  Midwinter Masquerade

  Heather Hayden’s life was soooo difficult.

  Unlike the preternaturally gorgeous nymphs and mermaids and shifters at Harmswood, Heather had to actually work at being beautiful. As a witch, she could have just whipped up a simple glamour for the evening, but that sort of unapproved spellwork wasn’t allowed at school. Plus, since the whole Nashville incident—when she’d accidentally cursed Kai Xanthopoulos’s stupid wolf boyfriend, long before he even was Kai’s stupid wolf boyfriend—the administration was watching Heather like hawks. She couldn’t pull the “forgiveness instead of permission” card like she had in the past. With all these limitations imposed upon her, it was excruciating work to maintain an ordinary level of beauty and attention, never mind an extraordinary one.

  Mother hadn’t understood why Heather had wanted a new dress for the Midwinter Masquerade, but that wasn’t a surprise. What with Taylor (the sister who could do everything) about to get married and Katy (the sister who couldn’t do anything) causing the usual amount of trouble, Ambrosia Hayden simply didn’t have time for her middle daughter. She’d poured another glass of white wine and instructed Heather to choose something from Taylor’s massive closet full of gowns. Heather had borrowed Daddy’s credit card instead.

  Not that Daddy cared about her needs any more than Mother did. But if there was a problem that could be solved by money, Daddy simply solved it, and the world kept spinning.

  Deciding on her attire for the Midwinter Masquerade had been especially challenging because everyone dressed to the nines. Mildly attractive students that normally flew under the radar were elevated by the “wow” factor. On top of that, everyone wore masks. The obvious way to rise above the crowd was to possess the most ostentatious mask of all. The more subversive route—which Heather preferred—was to make her mark by being completely understated.

  She’d chosen a silk dress—black, of course, her signature color, to stand out against the wintry landscape of the gymnasium, with its frost-lined paths and silver birch trees and snow globe-topped ice pillar centerpiece. Heather’s dress covered more than it revealed, hugging her curves like a 1940s pinup model. She accessorized with strappy dominatrix heels, her star-and-moon choker, an elegant mask made of feathers from a black swan…and Polaris Brighton.

  The second she’d seen the lanky winter elf walk through the gymnasium door she’d made a beeline for him, past the snow globe in the middle of the room, as fast as her designer heels could carry her. Bright was an old family friend, the heir to his father’s fortune and the brother of the guy her perfect older sister was about to marry. He was practically family! Sure, he was also aloof and a bit of a recluse, but that only added to the mystery of him.

  Heather loved the looks on her friends’ faces when she pulled her celebrity almost-brother-in-law-ish over to the trees to meet everyone. But she was only halfway through introducing Bright when that fae-trash girl he’d walked in with rudely interrupted.

  “Owen, you know Taylor, right?”

  Owen Liddell, nobody cat-shifter from nowhere, was suddenly shoved in Heather’s face.

  “It’s Heather,” Heather snapped. The fae girl was obviously crazy. No one in their right mind ever mistook her for Taylor.

  “I know,” the girl snapped back with equal fervor. And then she grabbed Bright’s hand and dragged him away.

  Heather gaped. This sort of embarrassment did not happen to her in public. She needed to find a way to save face, and quickly.

  Her momentary shock gave Owen time to recover.

  “Sorry,” he said, a perfect example of that wow-factor handsomeness. He smoothed his tuxedo and straightened his ridiculous cat-eared headband. Wasn’t he a cat-shifter? Why didn’t he just half-shift?

  He took Heather’s outfit in from head to toe and gave her a rakish grin. She probably should have cringed, but Heather appreciated being…appreciated. Besides, her mask hid most of her facial expressions. She could always tell her friends that she had cringed. They would believe her.

  “Wait.” Owen squinted at her, and the grin faded. “I know you.”

  This time, Heather did grimace. “Of course you know me. Everybody knows me.”

  “The Godawful Gothwitch of Harmswood herself.” His accent was so British, it sounded fake. “I’d say I was pleased to meet you, but I know what you’re about.” He sucked his tongue and wagged a finger at her. “Naughty little witch.”

  “Yes. I’m horrible and evil. I know.” She held her chin high. Owen was Kai Xanthopoulos’s best friend. Whatever he thought he knew about Heather, he’d learned from Kai’s biased lips. The low-class local girls were always making up lies about Heather. They were jealous of her wealth and beauty and power—the power that her popularity afforded her, if not actual magical power.

  “No,” he said dismissively. “I’ve met evil. You’re nothing of the sort.”

  Heather was prepared to argue with Owen just for argument’s sake, when she was interrupted by the imposing form of Duko Bardou. Duko was a senior, a wolf-shifter, and quarterback of the Harmswood football team. All those muscles, combine
d with a mass of dark hair and brows that arched dramatically over piercing gray eyes, made him the most gorgeous guy in school.

  Duko was also a massive jerk. But Heather’s popularity could not afford to dismiss his status or beauty over a little thing like that. Heather put up with a lot in her life. Duko was by no means the worst. Just the most recent.

  “Dance with me,” he said. Duko Bardou did not ask for things; he demanded them.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” lied Heather. She immediately turned her back on Owen and tried to lose herself in the music. Tried, because Duko’s hands were all over her. She used the dancing to subtly move away from him, but he rubbed up against her like he had an itch, and she was a tree. She closed her eyes, pretending to enjoy being manhandled, while she waited for the song to be over. She felt him lean in and sniff her hair like the wolf he was. His breath stank like he’d eaten something rotten.

  “HEAR YE, HEAR YE!” The unmistakable voice of Hubble Hobson rang out across the gym. Oleander, who’d always preferred DJing to dancing, stopped the music so that Hubble and his misfit friends could make some announcement about their latest school-sponsored crapfest.

  “Drama freaks,” muttered Duko. He dropped his hands.

  Heather stepped back, sending up a silent prayer of thanks to the goddess. When the music started back up again, it was a waltz. She instinctively held out her right hand—muscle memory from her coming-out ball.

  She may as well have been offering Duko a bouquet of Hello Kitty pencils. “Seriously?” he sneered.

  In a flash, Owen was suddenly between them. He took her outstretched hand in his and placed the other lightly at her waist.

  “I’ve got this,” he said, deftly spinning her away from Duko and the rest of her friends.

  Heather waited for Owen to continue their argument, or to put his hands all over her as Duko had, but he did neither. He kept their bodies a respectable distance apart and simply danced with her in silence.

  He knew how to waltz, too, a thing Heather would not have expected a guy of his poverty level to know. He danced and he stared at her, his green-gold eyes utterly expressionless.

  Heather went from feeling threatened to wondering what Owen expected from her. But as his silence continued, that feeling began to diminish as well. If he planned to make a move on her, he would have done so by now. If he planned to make Kai jealous, he would have held Heather a lot closer.

  Owen had told her she wasn’t evil. He’d obviously witnessed Duko’s version of “dancing.” Had Owen stepped in with those cat reflexes to save her from the wolf?

  Heather had never been anything but horrid to Kai. Owen had no reason to be nice. Was it possible his intentions had simply been…honorable?

  Did boys like that even exist in the twenty-first century?

  Owen continued to stare at her, as if those green-gold eyes could see into her soul. As if she were the only other person in the world. As if she was important. The longer they danced, the more Heather felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time, possibly ever.

  She felt safe.

  She resisted the urge to cry, or to thank him. She just wanted to go on dancing in silence forever. But he must have noticed something, because the muscles in his hands and arms suddenly became stiff. His brow furrowed slightly. In the next step, he turned them both so that his body was between her and the snow globe.

  Heather was not watching the snow globe when it exploded. She was staring into Owen’s eyes.

  He was on top of her in a heartbeat, his body covering the length of her. Through him, Heather could feel the blast of magic slam into Owen’s back. And yet, almost as quickly as they’d hit the deck he was standing again, offering her his hand. She took it.

  “Are you all right?” she heard him ask over the ringing in her ears. The snow globe—and half the pillar on which it had stood—was gone. Students were sprawled on the floor around them.

  “Heather? Are you all right?” he asked again.

  She nodded, not wanting to break the silence between them.

  He cupped her cheek in his hand and then turned to run into the heart of the chaos—presumably to find Kai. The back of his suit jacket was covered in glitter and fake snow. Heather looked down at her own dress, still completely clean.

  Owen had protected her.

  1

  Five Months Later

  All in all, Owen liked school.

  Education had been a luxury beyond his family’s means back in 1912. When Owen was barely seven years old, his doughty mother had scrubbed him red and dragged him by the ear all the way to London to meet the noble Lord James Liddell, Baron Greymere. She’d been armed with nothing more than her wits and the feeble tale of a weak family connection, but luck was on her side. Just that morning, the baron had decided to pursue his dream of archaeology in North Africa, and he had particular need of a companion. That a poor young boy had shown up on his doorstep with neither agenda nor prospects was more than simple providence. Dubious relation or no, the baron declared Owen a gift from the ghosts of the kings they were destined to discover beneath the shifting sands.

  Owen never saw his family again.

  A decade later, the baron had discovered little of significance, the mass of his fortune had been stolen by a deceptively beautiful descendant of Arachne, and Owen had been bewitched into the form of a cat for all time. Or until he found a legendary Fury, which he had, last year. That Fury had manifested inside his best friend, Kai Xanthopoulos, and she had unmasked him for the cat-shifter he now was.

  The crux of the matter was, his orders had been to kill the Fury once he discovered her. Murdering Kai would release Owen from the Great Sphinx’s spell entirely, turning him back into the young man he’d been once upon a time. But in the time they’d known each other, Owen had become emotionally invested in Kai. He cared about her too much to finish the mission to which he’d been assigned.

  And then Kai had found her soulmate in wolf-shifter Finn Kincaid.

  Stalwart, loyal Owen refused to give up on Kai. There might not have been a romantic future for them, but that didn’t matter. Owen would never, ever betray Kai. She was his best friend and he meant to keep it that way, for as long as they both lived.

  Historically, Owen had not been lucky with friends. A financial barrier—and then a language barrier—had separated Owen from boys his own age. As much as he’d loathed getting to know Kai’s companions—and having to share Kai with them—he’d come to realize that he actually enjoyed having them around.

  Not that he’d ever admit it.

  Owen followed Kai and Finn down the right-hand side of the Family and Consumer Magics classroom and claimed a desk directly behind them.

  “I wonder what adventures are in store for us today?” Owen asked mischievously.

  Kai laughed. Even Finn cracked a smile.

  According to Professor Mayfield, every day was an adventure. Some days were adventures, like the day the professor had taught them how to sew magical bags of holding, and Duko Bardou had used one to smuggle his friend Zev into the girls’ locker room. Some days were great failures, too, like the time they’d tried to spin straw into gold and ended up with nothing but blisters. But Professor Mayfield was a well-meaning, jolly old sort, so the students always played along.

  This day, however, it was not Professor Mayfield who entered the classroom.

  Professor Blake, Head Witch of Harmswood, walked through the door instead. With her wiry salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a tight bun, she looked more severe than usual. She stood between the iron stove and the spinning wheel at the front of the room and cleared her throat. When Duko Bardou kept talking, Professor Blake raised her hand and pinched her fingers together. Duko’s lips promptly pinched shut, and he gave her his undivided attention.

  “I’m sorry to report that Professor Mayfield has taken ill,” said the Head Witch. There were murmurs of dismay in reply. The announcement surprised Owen—Professor Mayfield was not young by a
ny means, but he had seemed quite hale when they’d left him the previous day. “I would like to introduce his temporary replacement: Miss Debbie Sunshine.”

  That was a real name? Owen could not stop himself before a snort escaped. Kai leveled him with her stare. Owen shrugged and motioned to the rest of the snickering room.

  The laughter stopped when Miss Sunshine entered. She wore a fitted purple-gray business suit buttoned casually over a cream silk blouse. The skirt of it fell to right above the curve of her calf. Her bronze skin was flawless, her generous smile equal parts plump red lips and perfect teeth. Her large brown eyes were framed by black-rimmed glasses, and her chestnut hair fell in massive waves to the small of her back.

  It was a wonder that Miss Sunshine had chosen teaching as a profession—she could have easily beaten out Gal Godot for the role of Wonder Woman. (Yes, it was the only moving picture Owen had ever seen as a human, but that was beside the point.)

  The next thought to occur to Owen was that Miss Sunshine was the second most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his very long life. The most beautiful had been Arachne Salamis. A hundred years ago, Arachne Salamis had defeated the baron and dared Owen to stare into the eyes of the Great Sphinx before ordering him to assassinate a Fury.

  Debbie Sunshine bore a remarkable resemblance to the woman. Too remarkable.

  Against his will, Owen’s body began to tremble. Sick to his stomach, he tore his eyes away from the woman standing next to Professor Blake. He diverted his attention to the rest of the room, where the other students gaped at the glorious Miss Sunshine.