Witch's Curse (The Bone Coven Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Witch’s Curse

  The Bone Coven Chronicles

  Jenna Wolfhart

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Witch’s Curse

  Book 1 of The Bone Coven Chronicles

  Cover Design by Orina Kafe

  Copyright © 2017 by Jenna Wolfhart

  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, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  When I’d thought that levitating a morgue table would be a great way to convince someone he was being tormented by demons, I’d been right. The table shook and rumbled as it spun in the air, and the pathologist choked out a cry of alarm before stumbling back. Sharp fluorescent lights glinted off the metal surface, adding to the aura of danger. I waved the burning herbs in a wide circle, chanting nonsense just loud enough for the wide-eyed man to hear me. It wasn’t like this shit actually meant anything, so who cared if it made any sense?

  Certainly not me. In fact, upping the ante had become a bit of a game these days. How ridiculous could I get before people stopped believing my con?

  “What kind of demon is it?” the man asked in a breathless whisper, clutching at his white lab coat. “Can you get rid of it?”

  “The kind that eats souls.” I pressed my lips into a mock frown. “Better step outside of the room. This one’s pretty angry.”

  With a tremble in his chin, the pathologist disappeared through the thick doors, leaving me alone with the demon that had taken up residence in his morgue. The fake demon, that is, made up entirely from his own overactive imagination and more than a small dose of encouragement from me. And now, it was time to pretend to banish it back into the dangerous realm from whence it came.

  A twinge of guilt went through my gut as I used my magic to ease the metal table onto the floor before blowing out my flaming herbs. In some alternate reality, my con artist existence wouldn’t be my life. Instead, I’d be just another normal student, finishing up her senior year of college and applying for her first real job at all the best companies in Boston. I wouldn’t be practicing witchcraft, and I certainly wouldn’t be screwing people out of their hard-earned money.

  Of course, in this particular instance, the pathologist was kind of an asshole. It was hard to feel guilty about conning a guy who sold hospital drugs to kids in his spare time.

  With a sigh, I moved about the room, dropping a few herbs onto the floor and drawing a chalky banishment rune on the morgue table’s slick surface. The little details can count in a con, and I wanted the man to be convinced I’d taken care of his nonexistent demon. Didn’t want any unsatisfied customers demanding refunds, after all. Especially not when I was behind on rent and more than a little tired of cold showers.

  When I finished wrapping things up in the room, I opened the door and gave the man a nod.

  “All done. You’re good to go.” I held out my hand, palm up. “I’ll take the other half of the payment now.”

  The man’s eyes widened as he glanced behind me, his eyeballs darting around the witchified room. He took in the scattered herbs, the chalk-drawn rune, and the small bottles I’d knocked over to make it look like I’d put up a fight with the demon. To top off the effect, I spun my ever-present dagger in my hand and shoved it into the waistband of my black jeans where I kept the sheath. It got the response I was hoping for. The pathologist looked impressed. And relieved as hell.

  “It’s gone?” He took a timid step into the room. “No more demons?”

  “No more demons. Your soul is safe.” I shot him a wicked smile, even though I knew I should play nice. I just couldn’t help myself sometimes. It was too easy to wind up regular humans about these kinds of things. “For now, at least.”

  With a relieved sigh, he grabbed my shoulders and began to shake me hard, his eyes almost wild. “Thank you so much. You’ve saved my life. I could have died from this horrible, evil creature. How can I ever repay you, Zoe?”

  “Just give me the other half of the payment,” I said as matter-of-factly as I could. “A hundred bucks, and we’re done here.”

  Again, guilt threatened to break through my steely resolve. Even though I’d been doing this for the past year, I’d never felt one-hundred percent comfortable with my con. It was unethical as hell, to say the least, and my grandmother would lose her shit if she knew this was how I put food on the table and kept the roof over her head.

  But a girl’s gotta do what she can to survive. And I needed the money.

  We needed the money.

  After collecting the final hundred bucks, I left the man to pick up the trashed pieces of his morgue and stepped out into the cool Boston night through a back door leading into the alley behind the hospital. I tripped when my feet hit shadowy debris, and my hand flung out to steady myself against the rough brick wall. My nose wrinkled. The stench out here was almost overpowering. Mildew and wet cardboard sliced through with the rotting stench of the Chinese leftovers oozing from the dumpster.

  Part of me wanted to turn back around and go out the front doors of the hospital, but I didn’t want anyone to see me coming and going, just in case a warlock or another witch got suspicious and figured out no demons had actually been here tonight. Even though magical trickery wasn’t against my coven’s laws, it was definitely frowned upon. And I couldn’t afford to get on their radar right now.

  With a satisfied smile, I flicked through the twenty-dollar bills and slid them into my pocket. The night was young, the crescent moon still inching above the towering buildings, and I had more than enough time to get started on another job. All I had to do was find another poor schmuck who thought he was being haunted by a ghost or tormented by a demon. In this city, that wasn’t too difficult to find, especially if you frequented the right bars.

  As I leaned against the grimy brick wall in the alley, the loud crunch of boots on gl
ass sent every hair on my arms on end. In a flash, my dagger was in my hands, and my knees bent into fight-stance mode. My heart thrust forward like a rocket in my chest as I blinked hard into the dark alley. Even though I was more than confident when facing fake demons, the idea of standing off against a real attacker—a human one—sent a buttload of fear through my veins.

  “You know, you really shouldn’t be doing what it is you’re doing.” A man shifted out of the darkness, dressed in all black and hiding his features with the shadows permeating the alley. From what I could see, he was tall and commanding with a body corded with some serious muscle. And even though his strong jaw was lined with dark stubble, the lack of lines around his eyes suggested he wasn’t too much older than me. Twenty-four or twenty-five, maybe.

  “Who are you?” I gripped my dagger tighter and danced a step back like I was trained in hand-to-hand combat, but my feet slipped sideways in a sticky puddle of grime. So much for looking badass. “What are you doing here?”

  “No need to wave that around,” he said instead of answering my questions. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  That didn’t relax me. If he were there to hurt me, he certainly wouldn’t go around announcing it, at least not while I had my dagger out and ready to go. Though…there was something familiar about him. The way the shadows clung to his tall frame, the way he shifted through the alley with a grace I rarely saw.

  In fact, I realized I knew exactly who he was. Well, kind of. I’d seen him a few times these past several months, though this was the first time he’d made direct contact. There was the time he passed me in the Granary Burying Ground while I was on my way to banish a demon from a grave. And then there was the time when he ordered a drink next to me at the goth club, Descent, while I’d been scoping out potential “clients” to con. He’d also dropped into the bar where I worked a few times. I’d figured he was a local, someone who lived in the same patch of city blocks that I did.

  Until now, I’d thought these random crossings were a coincidence, but now I knew the truth. This guy had been following me.

  “Who are you?” I repeated as I tightened the grip on my dagger. “And why the hell are you stalking me?”

  “I’m not stalking you,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “But I am concerned by what you’ve been doing. I know you’ve been using your powers to trick people out of their money.”

  I blinked, my arm—and the dagger—lowering to my side. After his comment, I should feel way more on edge than I did before, but instead of making me run in fear, it only intensified my curiosity. Most people in the world had no idea that magic truly existed. “What do you know about my powers?”

  He took a step out of the shadows and reached up to the black shirt clinging to his thick neck. Shifting the material aside, he showed me his skin. Etched deeply with dark and swirling ink was a tattoo of a rune. The same mark I sported on my collarbone.

  “You’re a warlock? In the Bone Coven?” I asked before rolling my eyes at myself. Of course he was in the Bone Coven. He wouldn’t have that mark if he wasn’t. But it was so rare to stumble into someone with powers, so rare to meet another witch or a warlock. There were only a few hundred of us now. The last war with the demons saw to that.

  He nodded. “I am, which is how I know what you’re doing, Zoe. Your actions are shedding far too much light on yourself. You’re being reckless. Too visible. You need to stop it now.”

  Shivers slid across my skin, and not just from his words of warning. “How the hell do you know my name?”

  I took a step closer, raising my dagger before me once again. He would know my weapon was far more dangerous when paired with magic than as a sharp and pointy knife, but it was the best line of defense I had. I didn’t know who this guy was or why he was following me, or even how long he’d had me in his sights.

  “I know more than just your name, Zoe Bennett. And I’m not the only one who does.”

  There was something dangerous in the hooded look in his eyes. Not to mention the fact he’d cornered me in a dark alley. His tall and commanding frame suddenly seemed hostile and combative. The way he curled his hands into fists seemed designed for one thing and one thing only. Pain.

  I stumbled back, swallowing hard. I needed to get out of here. Now.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked with a sharp, nervous, bitter laugh. “Kill me if I don’t agree to stop conning people?”

  “Some people would vote for that option,” he said in an icy tone. “They’d do anything to protect the coven.”

  “Well, if you know anything about me, and it seems like you do,” I said in a trembling voice, “then you’d know that the coven has done very little to help me out, so why should I care what works for them?”

  “That’s an interesting perspective. Listen, I need to tell you something, but stop pointing that thing at me. It’s only going to get you into more trouble.” With a deep frown, he made his way across the dark alley and grabbed my wrist in his strong hand. He twisted it sideways, his fingers digging into my skin. Pain flickered through me, and I choked out a cry as the dagger fell from my grip, hitting the ground with a loud clunk.

  My heartbeat picked up speed, galloping forward like a startled horse. I glanced around me, looking for any sign of help, any sign I could escape, but there was no one and nothing there. I was all alone in the alley with the strange and dangerous warlock, and there was no telling what he had in mind. Breath stilled in my lungs, and my blood ran cold.

  “Listen to me, Zoe.” His voice was deep and serious, sending a new storm of goosebumps across every inch of my skin. Cloudy breath spilled from my lips as our eyes met, his irises churning with power and something else. Something I couldn’t quite read in the moonlit city night. “We don’t have much more time. You need to stop doing this, and you need to get out of here. You need to run now or—”

  A loud crash echoed in the distance.

  He dropped my wrist like a grenade and stepped back, flicking his gaze around as if he expected demons to surround us at any moment. Clearly paranoid, I thought, though I wasn’t surprised. The few coven members I’d met over the course of my life always were, especially those old enough to remember the demon war, including my grandmother. They would only whisper when they spoke about it, still too afraid to mention it out loud, like the demons could hear us from beyond the veil.

  And truthfully, they could.

  Boots pounded on pavement, and several men appeared at the mouth of the alley, each wearing a coven badge on their dark sleeves. My eyes widened, and I sucked in a sharp breath, glancing at my dagger on the grimy ground. These men were Enforcers of the coven, and they were headed straight toward me. They must have found out I’d been conning people with my magic, and they were here to take me in for a serious reprimand.

  “Dorian!” One of them called out as I began to take slow steps toward my weapon. It was more than a terrible idea to fight them off, but I needed some line of defense. I couldn’t afford to be taken in. But more than that, my grandmother couldn’t afford it. If I wasn’t free to make money any way I could, she’d be out on the streets in a matter of days. That thought alone had me kneeling down to grab the dagger. “Is that the suspect? Don’t let her get away!”

  “Zoe.” The warlock who I assumed was Dorian spoke in a low growl that sent shivers across my skin. “Don’t pick up the dagger. That will only make things worse. They’ll see you as a threat.”

  “How did they find out about my cons?” I asked in a whisper, trying to distract him from the fact I was about to go for my weapon. It was a technique I’d used before. Get the person talking and maybe they won’t notice when you snatch and run. “From you? Because you’ve been stalking me?”

  He shook his head, almost sadly. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before. They’re here to take you in but not for conning people. For murder.”

  Chapter 2

  Needless to say, I didn’t snatch my dagger and run after Dorian told
me I was a suspected murderer. While magical trickery might not be against my coven’s laws, murder certainly was, and fleeing from the scene would only be an express ticket to big trouble. If this guy knew my name, where I worked, and the nightspots I frequented, he sure as hell knew where I lived. And I couldn’t take this home to Grams.

  The men quickly surrounded me, Dorian taking a step back so they could hold their flaming orange wards around my stick-straight body. They were the same wards I’d seen the Enforcers use when my father got carted off back when I was barely ten years old. He didn’t get thrown into mage prison though. Some humans did know about our powers, and the coven secretly worked with the FBI to send him straight to human jail.

  For conning people.

  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  “You get an ID on her?” One of the men stepped forward. He was older than Dorian by at least two decades, and he carried himself with a raw confidence and ease that tagged him as the leader. Despite his age, his body was ripped, his black Enforcer shirt clinging to his massive biceps.

  Dorian didn’t look at me when he gave the leader a nod. “I did, Vincent. Zoe Bennett. Twenty-one. Lives here in Boston.”

  “Coven?”

  “Bone.” Dorian spoke in a monotone voice like a soldier rattling off a report. “Mark is on her collarbone, though it’s faint.”

  How the hell did he know that? I’d done my hardest to hide the faintness of my mark, even from my own self. But surely he wouldn’t guess the reason why. If he did, I was toast.

  “One of ours then.” The man sighed and closed his eyes, running a large palm down his weathered face. “Well, at least that makes things easier.”

  “Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on here?” I finally asked. Even though I knew I should stand here and play good girl, I was getting increasingly irritated by this entire situation. For starters, there was no way in hell that I, Zoe Bennett, would ever murder someone. And I hated being discussed like I was some kind of specimen in a laboratory.