Spellbinder

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  Chapter One

  Miranda Kane lay on the floor of her personal waiting/dressing room. Instead of meditating on the spells that she was about to be forced to perform, she committed murder.

  Recently, she’d learned that killing helped calm her nerves. Not anything real, of course. It was just a game. She wouldn’t step on a bug. And a Texas-sized roach, the flying kind, had been hovering in the corner of the room as if unsure her “live and let live” policy included him. It did. Every living creature had a right to life.

  But watching those imaginary demonic shape-shifters clutch their chests and keel over did a girl’s heart good. Especially since Perry, the blond, hot shape-shifter had broken up with her and run off to Paris.

  Not only was he not calling her, he wasn’t taking her calls. She didn’t buy the “you deserve better” line he’d offered. Right now, he was probably French kissing some little Parisian twit.

  And the fact that he was so good at French kissing just made it worse.

  “Die,” she seethed as she took pleasure in running her sword through the belly of the blond demon with bright eyes who reminded her of Perry. “Yes!” She punched the air in victory.

  She’d been playing for two weeks, and so far, this Perry-like villain had escaped her wrath. But no longer. “Victory is mine!” she declared in a cold voice.

  The swish of the door opening brought her out of the game. Since it was too late to pretend to be doing anything other than killing, she continued to watch the touchscreen on her phone. She didn’t even bother straining her neck to see who was invading her privacy.

  She didn’t have to.

  If the sweet perfume wasn’t a dead giveaway, the sound of the high heels tapping on the wood floor announced her visitor. And since Miranda knew she was gonna get hell, she figured she should enjoy the win as long as she could. The dying shape-shifter slowly fell to his knees.

  His light blue eyes stared up from the screen. They looked sad. In pain. And damn if she didn’t feel guilty. No. No. No. This was supposed to feel good. Not bad.

  “What are you doing?” her mom asked in a clipped tone.

  “Nothing.” She groaned when the shape-shifter found a magical bag of healing herbs, preventing him from taking his last breath before she could hit a few buttons and claim it as her own. He healed himself, bolted to his feet, and attacked.

  “No!” Miranda yelled.

  “No, what?”

  Miranda’s finger pushed the kill button and her avatar grabbed her weapon, but it was too late. The shape-shifter ran his sword right through her heart, killing her. The screen went red. Red for blood. Red for death.

  Her breath caught. Her chest actually burned. Tears moistened her eyes. How appropriate. The real Perry had accomplished the very same thing.

  “Since when do you waste your time playing those silly cell phone games?” her mom asked.

  “I don’t do it all the time.” Feeling her mom’s stern gaze, she got up, slid her phone into her jeans, and blinked away the beginning of tears. Her gaze shifted to the window, where only recently the sun had beamed into the room.

  Now, everything felt dark. She reached for the light switch, but her mom magically turned it on.

  “You know, if you used your powers a little more, you might…” She paused as if she regretted saying it.

  Only then did Miranda meet her mom’s calculating stare. Her mother’s eyes, the same hazel-green color as Miranda’s, were tightened in frustration.

  “Are you getting nervous again?” her mom asked. “You can’t. You know you always screw up when you get anxious.”

  No, I screw up because I’m dyslexic. I get nervous because I know I’m going to disappoint you.

  After seventeen years, you’d think her mom would have pulled her head out of her butt and accepted the truth. She’d given birth to a screwup. Miranda Kane was a screwup.

  “I’ll do the best I can, that’s all I can do.” Not that Miranda’s best would be good enough. It never was. Last month, she’d taken third place in the North Texas Wicca competition. It was only because of that fluke that she was in the competition today. You’d think her mom would have been proud. But nope. Third place just means you were the second loser. Ahh, but Miranda wasn’t accustomed to being in the top twenty-five losers.

  “Have you even practiced your spells at all this morning?”

  “Yes.” Just one and just once. She didn’t know what spells came second and third—but her mom didn’t need to know that.

  “Why aren’t you dressed?” The bright green A-line dress with a flared skirt still hung on the hook on the back wall.

  She’d planned on getting dressed. Even a screwup could have good fashion sense. “I’ve still got thirty minutes.”

  “Do you know who is in the competition with you, young lady?”

  Yikes. The “young lady” tag always came right before trouble. Miranda didn’t want trouble. All she wanted was to go back to killing shape-shifters.

  “No, I don’t know,” Miranda said. Nor did she give a shit. She’d been beaten by the best. Even by the not-so-best. Screwups didn’t do so well in competitions. Another thing you’d have thought her mom would have learned.

  “You’re up against Tabitha Evans––the one you caught spying on you at Shadow Falls? You locked her in a cage?”

  Miranda’s mouth dropped open. “How did you know about that?” She hadn’t told her mom. If there was one thing Miranda prided herself on, it was that she wasn’t a tattler.

  “I know about a lot of things, young lady. Are you going to let that … redheaded twit show you up?”

  Twit? Her mom’s choice of word seemed harsh. Not for Miranda, she’d called Tabitha a twit and even worse. But for her mom, “twit” felt severe.

  Not that Miranda could deny it was going to sting being beaten by Tabitha, her archenemy, but … there wasn’t anything Miranda could do. The fact that she even had an archenemy blew her mind. She wasn’t archenemy material. She honestly tried to create positive energy, put good out into the world, and hope it came back.

  For that matter, Miranda didn’t even have a clue why Tabitha hated her. Or why her mom hated Tabitha so much. Or Tabitha’s mom. What was so dad-blasted important about cookies? Because if her memory served her right, that had been what the fallout had been about.

  Miranda and Tabitha had been buddies in kindergarten. Then their moms got into some huge argument about whose turn it was to bring cookies, and the next day, Tabitha, her mom, and her cookies hadn’t come to school. Gone. The girl had disappeared from her life.

  It wasn’t until three years ago when Miranda’s mom enrolled her in the competitions that their paths had crossed again. And the girl had been a bitch from the word go.

  “Are you going to let her beat you?” her mom snapped.

  Did Mom have to rub it in? “I said I was going to do my best.” Miranda paused. “You know what I don’t understand?”

>   “No, let me tell you what I don’t understand. You turned five goons into kangaroos with a mind-to-pinky curse, but you can’t find it within yourself to complete a spell to transform a few apples into oranges.”

  The tightness in Miranda’s throat doubled. “Maybe I was able to do the kangaroo trick because my life, as well as Della’s and Kylie’s, was on the line.”

  “And this isn’t important?”

  “Oh, gosh. How could I forget?” Miranda put on her worst acting abilities. “Winning is everything, right? More important than my life and the life of my friends.”

  “I didn’t mean…” Her mom actually sounded remorseful.

  Wow, that might be a first. Okay, not really, but sometimes she drove Miranda loony. Wanting to change the subject, Miranda asked, “Did you see Kylie and Della out front?”

  “No, I haven’t been out front.” Her mom paused. “I didn’t mean…”

  “Forget it,” Miranda said, afraid this conversation would lead to her mom going into the same ol’ spiel. They came from royalty. Her father, who Miranda loved dearly when he found a few minutes to spend with her, was of English heritage and was a descendent of Merlin. Her mom, as well as her grandmother, had reigned as high priestess for several years. Miranda was expected to follow in their footsteps.

  So. Not. Happening.

  “It’s just … I thought … I thought you’d try harder with the prize being what it is.”

  Miranda might have, if she knew what the prize was. Then again … not really. All she wanted was to be left alone to kill more shape-shifters. Was that asking too much? She moved to the window and looked out. A storm brewed. The morning sky was almost black. Flashes of lightning spidered across the sky.

  A strange sensation of doom and gloom did a stroll down her backbone. Probably Tabitha sending her bad juju. The girl was a nut job. A serious nut job.

  “I mean, since that boy you’ve got a thing for is there, I just assumed you might want to go see him. Peter?”

  Miranda swung away from the storm and faced her mom. “I don’t have a thing for a guy named Peter, his name is Perry and … Wha—what—what do you mean ‘go see him’?”

  Her mom’s mouth thinned. “You didn’t read the brochure I sent, did you?”

  “What’s the prize?”

  “Why do I mail you stuff if—?”

  “Just tell me!” Realizing she came off rude, she added, “Please.”

  Chapter Two

  Miranda’s mom huffed. “They pay your way to the next competition, which happens to be in Paris, France.”

  Air swelled in Miranda’s lungs. “Who gets their trip paid? First, second, and third, or just first? How many of the finalists get to go?”

  “There’re twenty girls competing. I think it’s the top five who get their way paid to Paris, but … you should aspire to win. Who wants to just place in the top five? You want to win.”

  Win? Miranda didn’t give a frog’s ass about winning. But going to Paris? Oh, yeah. She could hunt down her own blond, bright-eyed shape-shifter and … she wouldn’t kill him. Maybe she could make him see reason. Maybe he’d see her and realize he was still in love with her.

  Tears filled her eyes. She wanted that more than anything—wanted Perry to love her.

  Her mom stared. “I’ll tell you what, how about if I sweeten the deal? If you win first place, I’ll pay for that rude vampire and that other strange chameleon girl to go with you.”

  Miranda stood in shock. Thunder boomed in the distance. She pushed away the doom and gloom feeling again and stared at her mom in disbelief. The only thing better than going to see Perry, was going to see Perry with her two best friends, Kylie and Della, there for support. Miranda grabbed her mom by the arm and walked her to the door. “You should leave now.”

  “Why?” her mom asked.

  “Because I gotta practice and get dressed. Oh, and go ahead and buy those tickets. I’m winning!”

  * * *

  The bell rang, announcing they had five minutes before the competition commenced. Panicked that she’d only practiced the first apples-to-oranges spell, and clueless to what the second and third spells might be, she let out a moan. But no time to whine. She bolted from the chair, slipped her feet into her green heels, and gave herself one quick final check in the mirror.

  The dress fit like a glove. A tight glove. Too much breakup ice cream. She recalled Della telling her she was going to get fat and stomping her ice cream into the floor. At the time, Miranda had been super pissed, but now … She supposed she should tell the vamp thank you, or she’d be arriving in front of the council in her fat jeans right now.

  She grabbed her brush from her purse and ran it through her long strawberry-blond hair. While she’d gotten her mom’s eye color, she’d taken those red highlights from her father. As the strands fell together on her shoulders, the streaks of green, pink, and black framed her face.

  Staring at her image, she recalled that in the past, the judges—nothing more than old-fashioned biddies—had made negative remarks about her hair and even docked her a few points. Miranda had thumbed her nose at their opinion and fuddy-duddy sense of style.

  Now she dropped her chin to her chest in resignation. Her thumbing days were over.

  At least for this competition. Because holy hell, she wanted to win. Had to win.

  Their opinion could keep her from the thing she wanted more than anything. Paris with Perry. Paris with Perry, and Della and Kylie as her emotional backup.

  Closing her eyes, she held out her pinky and whispered, “Hair, color of three, turn back to the color that is just boring ol’ me.”

  Opening her eyes, breath held, praying she hadn’t screwed up, she found the streaks were gone. A good sign that maybe her other spells would be just as successful. But seeing herself without her trifecta of color for the first time in two years had her breath hitching in her throat.

  A crazy sensation swept over her. Who was she? Without her trademark streaks of color, without Perry, she felt hollow, lacking a sense of self.

  A sad thought hit. Was she the type of girl who solely defined herself by her hair color and a boyfriend? Was she that shallow?

  Needing a confidence booster, she grabbed her phone off the table to call the person who always seemed to say the right thing. The man who called her angel and never led her to believe she’d let him down. Her daddy.

  But right then, another bell rang, giving them a three-minute warning. The Wicca council, standing as judges, was not tolerant of tardiness. You’d either get docked points or thrown out of the competition altogether.

  Reaching back into her purse, she pulled out her necklace—her Alchemy absinthe spoon pendant, a wearable token of her Wicca heritage. The triangle-shaped emerald-green Swarovski crystal hung right below her neck and matched her dress perfectly.

  “You can do this,” she whispered to the stranger in the mirror and set her phone back down. “You want Perry back, right?”

  When the young woman in the mirror didn’t answer right away, she wanted to scream. Now you start doubting?

  Standing straight, she cleared her mind. She did want Perry back, didn’t she? The two-minute warning bell rang.

  No time to self-analyze, she turned, opened her door, and stepped out. When her feet hit something warm, gooey, and disgusting, she glanced down.

  “No!” She’d marched right into a big—seriously big—pile of horseshit.

  Fresh manure covered her feet up to her ankles. Giggles exploded at the end of the hall.

  Fury, building at the speed of light, had Miranda staring daggers at Tabitha and her sidekick, Sienna, another regular competitor.

  Miranda held out her pinky, thinking pimples, thinking hooked noses, and boobs of a ninety-year-old woman—the kind of boobs old women could flash people with by pulling up their skirts. These two girls deserved floppy tits.

  Then bam!

  Right before she let the thought slip from her mind into her shoulder and tr
avel down her arm to escape from her pinky, she remembered. Any spells placed on other contestants cost points.

  Precious, precious points. Points Miranda couldn’t afford to lose.

  She dropped her arm. With the stench billowing upward, she tried breathing through her mouth. Tabitha and Sienna continued to giggle. Oh, this was sooo funny.

  Not!

  Miranda squared her shoulders. “Why does the perfection of this spell of yours not surprise me?” She aimed her words at Tabitha, knowing it had been her idea. “Oh, wait, I know. Because you are so full of shit!” she seethed.

  The one-minute bell rang. The two girls ran out to take their places.

  Miranda had less than thirty seconds to make the circle on the stage. No time to conjure up a cleansing spell, she held her head high and walked out on the stage, pretending she wasn’t up to her ankles in horse crap.

  Crazy idea?

  Yes.

  Stupid?

  No.

  Was she mortified?

  Absolutely.

  Yet logic trumped embarrassment. The judges docked points for tardiness; she’d never heard of them docking points for horse dung.

  * * *

  Soft music echoed from the loudspeaker as Miranda took her place. She stood ramrod straight. Murmurs of discontent echoed from all directions. The witches on both sides of her in the circle put hands over their noses. Tabitha, one person to her right, held a slight smile on her lips.

  Oh, what Miranda wouldn’t give to turn and make huge dollops of horse manure rain down on her.

  The twelve judges sitting at the end of the stage behind a long wooden table waved their hands in front of their faces. The front-row audience of the dome-shaped auditorium squished up their noses as if the stench was just now invading their air.

  What a way to start a competition. Especially one she was damned determined to win.

  “Ms. Kane?” one of the judges snapped after the one beside her pointed to Miranda’s shit-covered feet. The music came to an abrupt halt.

  “Yes, ma’am?” Miranda answered, her voice magically projecting through the entire auditorium.