From Bad to Cursed (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #2)

by Lana Harper

Shit, even when you play it safe, there’s nothing quite like a demon summoning to make you feel alive.

“I wanted to tell you,” I said, still taken aback by her vehemence. My sister had always been protective when it came to me, but this was a touch over the top. “I just . . .”

I flung a panicked look to the stage, where Emmy stood with her chair overturned behind her, her hands spread wide as she prepared to mount some magical counterattack. The wreath on her hair glowed a bright, unearthly blue, which surged down her arms and danced around her hands in blinding sparks before flowing toward the blight in sapphire waves. Even her wide, furious eyes had a cobalt tint to them, pulsing to some inner rhythm that likely attuned to Thistle Grove itself.

In my opinion, she didn’t particularly look like she needed anybody’s help.

“Fuuuuuuck,” Letha exhaled next to me, nostrils flaring, the equivalent of someone less composed shrieking at the top of their lungs and rending their hair.

I entirely trusted Emmy to see this through as fairly as humanly possible, but Rowan Thorn, investigating a crime committed against his own family, with us as the usual suspects?

In cases involving such a strong presumption of guilt, the Grimoire allows the family under suspicion to participate in the investigation, to even out the scales. So I’ve appointed a coinvestigator of our own to collaborate with the Thorn scion.”

“To represent our side of things,” my mother announced, a touch of pride lighting her jade eyes, “I’ve chosen my daughter Isidora Avramov.”

Hey, so, it turns out some of us do occasionally hex the Thorns . . . but only when they deserve it. Pinkie-swear it wasn’t me this time!

Of course I had to do it. Even if it meant the misery of spending an indeterminate amount of time in proximity to Rowan Thorn.

On the upside, imagining the appalled look on his face when he discovered who he’d be working with gave me a bright, electric jolt of pure delight.

You could never be absolutely sure what it would make of your intentions, how it might interpret a human witch’s perception of truth. Swearing by it was an oath of last resort, and I’d been willing to take that risk, just to assuage his fears.

Rowan licked his lips in thought, drawing them through his teeth again. It was an extremely distracting habit, as contemplative expressions went. I wished he’d pick a different thinking face, mostly for my own peace of mind.

“Sounds corny, somehow. Like someone’s been watching too much CSI.” “ ‘Scene of the crime’ is the accurate term. Don’t you want us to be precise about our investigative process? And excuse you, I have not,” I’d retorted. “If you must know, I’m an NCIS girl at heart. A vastly superior show in most respects.”

Maybe I was possessed, by an extra-horny succubus or something, or possibly Talia’s teasing about hot archnemeses had somehow infiltrated my subconscious, taken root. Because this could not possibly be my own brain at work.

Worse yet, I didn’t even hate them. Clearly I was going to have to redouble my efforts.

Shit, no wonder he thought he was the bomb; I wouldn’t have put it past the tree to speed-grow an apple and then drop it into his waiting hand. Clearly far too much positive reinforcement in his life thus far.

He’d probably been afraid of having to give me mouth-to-mouth or something, and the deathly dose of Avramov cooties he might contract while saving me. In hindsight, I really hadn’t made the most of fainting.

“But we’re a lot more than just two-trick ponies. We can feel the other side, connect with anything dead and gone—anything at all that used to be alive and isn’t anymore. And time dies, too.”

Rowan Thorn, shame and forsooth, had beautiful hands.

“It does take some getting used to,” I admitted, attempting not to feel offended on all of ectoplasm’s behalf.

“Cool, cool.” Rowan resolutely shut his eyes again, holding himself so still he almost quivered in place, as if the ectoplasm were a venomous snake that might turn on him at any moment, sink fangs into his wrist. “Now make it go away.”

“Fine, then, prove it.” I extended my own hand, sliding it toward him across the table. “Go on, Thorn, turnabout’s fair play. Show me yours.”

His face scrunched with amusement, lips pressing together as he shook his head. “The sass mouth on you is really something else, you know that?”

A wave of intense well-being and clarity washed through me, as he somehow righted all the imbalance the necromantic magic had left me with in one fell swoop. My lingering headache faded, taking the rest of my fatigue with it. I felt shiny, scrubbed new—and more than that, meltingly relaxed, like I’d just stepped out of a hot tub after the best massage of my life. With a banana bag of fluids and CBD thrown in for free.

Shit, several genuine smiles and a laugh from Rowan Thorn, (Supremely Stoic) Wildlife Hero, all in one day? I was really breaking some personal records here.

Given how good it felt, I could think of certain other, considerably less PG applications for the magic, not that I was about to bring that up.

“And you, daughter of the void . . . return sometime, when the sun is stronger, and sit beneath me for a spell. I will not mind.”

“For sure,” I said, nodding sagely. “You don’t get to cultivate moral superiority overnight. It’s more of a long-term commitment to the brand.”

So we weren’t even at that level of courtesy yet, I thought, with a queasy twist of ache. Not that I needed any man to give me the shirt off his back, but it would’ve been . . . nice, a companionable gesture between two people who were working together. A tacit show of good faith.

It was a weird vibe, very budding spring–meets–thunderstorm, a clash of opposites—but

It took me longer than it should have to realize that I was riffing on green magic and necromancy, orchard and void. I was designing based on me and Rowan, only gender flipped.

But maybe, sometimes, knowing you’d be caught with such tenderness when you stumbled could make you feel a different kind of safe.

She nodded, eyes clear and resolute, obviously not regretting her decision one iota. Good for her.

“Sounds like a charmer,” I said sourly. Probably a fucking Pisces man. In my experience, male Pisces were always the ones with too many overflowing feelings, forever foisting them on everyone else in the vicinity.

Under different circumstances, I could almost see us becoming friends.

“When have you ever done ‘polite’ with me?” He winced a little at that, as if it were a low blow instead of the simple truth.

“And when we do, we’ll find the total waste who did this to Holly, and haul their wretched ass straight to Emmy’s doorstep. Possibly after just the tiniest of beatdowns. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Because it makes me want to kiss that look right the fuck off your perfect little face.”

The kind of ravenous kissing I would never in a million years have expected from Rowan Thorn, Wildlife Hero (and Utmost Gentleman).

That anyone should look like that after kissing me made me feel like a black hole had opened inside my chest. Roaring and insatiable, sucking everything around it into a compact core of pain.

“You can’t be seen making out with an Avramov,” I finished for him, still hoping against hope that he was going to tell me no, of course something so stupid and hurtful couldn’t be the case. “Not when you have a reputation to maintain.” He said nothing, but that muscle in his jaw jumped in the streetlight, giving him away.

The hole in my chest yawned, aching so badly that I pressed a hand against my sternum, trying to will myself into believing this wasn’t that big a deal.

I’ll show you a tower-dwelling evil sorceress, you sanctimonious prick.

I wasn’t here to build any bridges. Rowan Thorn had made sure of that.

Talia met me at the door, in a clinging body-con dress with her face painted like a harlequin’s in black and gold. Emmy hung on her arm like her equal and opposite, her dress white to Talia’s black, her face paint reversed. Sometimes, the two of them could really stand to be less cute together.

“Wiping the floor with an obstinate man is the very best revenge,” she answered with a sly flourish.

I’d settled on a strategy of killing him with oblivious kindness—acting as though That Forsaken Night had never even happened, as if nothing between us were amiss at all. The exact opposite of what he might be expecting from a spurned Avramov. It was working wonderfully so far, in terms of keeping him off balance.

Fresh pain flared in my gut that he’d let it go so easily, before I squashed it into oblivion.

Wow, the Pisces was strong in him. He probably had the sign as an ascendant, too; it would explain a whole lot.