Page 5 of A Witchy Spell Ride (31 Days of Trick or Treat, Bikers and Mobsters #15)

Selene

The dream clung to me like smoke.

Thick. Sweet. Suffocating.

A man’s hand on my back. Heat at my throat. His voice low, rough, whispering things I can’t remember when I wake, but that makes my skin flush all the same.

Love spell.

Damn that witch and her velvet grin.

I sit up slowly in bed, heart thudding against my ribs like it wanted out. The charm she’d given me, the one wrapped in red thread, had fallen to the floor. Or maybe it was placed there. I don’t remember knocking it off. But there it is, in the center of the rug, almost like it had been laid there.

Deliberately.

I rub a hand over my face. It was probably nothing.

It was always probably nothing, until it wasn’t.

“Something’s off,” Briar says twenty minutes later, standing in my kitchen like she lives here. She is wearing one of my hoodies, shorts, and socks with glittery bats on them. She looks like chaos and comfort rolled into one.

“Morning to you, too,” I mumble, pushing past her to get to the coffee.

“I’m serious.”

“Do you want sugar or just raw panic in your mug?”

She doesn’t laugh.

That makes me pause. Briar is always laughing. Even in a thunderstorm. Especially in a thunderstorm. If the world ended tomorrow, she’d make a joke about finally skipping jury duty.

I turn. “What’s wrong?”

She gestures around the apartment. “That.”

I blink. “What that?”

“The shelf. The little green vase you keep next to the tarot deck. It’s on the left side now.”

My stomach dips. “So, I moved it.”

“You didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

She raises both brows. “Because I made you clean this place two days ago, remember? And you screamed at me for touching your sacred aesthetic flow.”

I wince. “God, I say the dumbest shit when I’m angry.”

Briar doesn’t let up. “You didn’t move that vase. And your charm was on the floor.”

I open my mouth to argue and stop. Because she was right.

I hadn’t moved that vase.

And I hadn’t knocked the charm off the nightstand.

Something twisted in my chest. That sick little tug that reminded me not everything was in my control.

I set my coffee down. “Okay. Let’s say someone was here.”

Briar folds her arms. “Okay.”

“How the hell would they get in?”

She points to the window. “Wards only work if the person means you harm. If he’s convinced himself, he doesn’t…”

My stomach flips again.

“And the front door?” I ask quietly.

“You triple locked it, right?”

“Yes.”

Briar walked over to the door and stares at the handle.

“What?”

She doesn’t answer. She touches the top lock, pulls it gently and it clicks, not locked.

I swallow hard. “I swear—”

“I believe you.”

“Maybe I forgot. Maybe—”

“Selene.”

Her voice is sharper now. Rare.

“You didn’t forget.”

I turn away, anxiety buzzing like static beneath my skin. “Don’t say it.”

“You need to tell Reaper.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?!”

“Because he’ll go scorched earth, Briar. You know him.”

“I also know that’s what you need right now.”

I meet her eyes. “I need space. I need time. I need to figure out who the hell is doing this before Reaper blows the whole damn Quarter off the map.”

She doesn’t like it. But she doesn’t argue. Not right then.

We stop by the clubhouse later that morning. I have to drop off some charm jars for Thorne’s girl; she is having nightmares again. Carrying them in a box, I feel like the witchy errand girl, though my insides are wired tighter than the thread around that charm.

Ghost ain’t around, which should make things easier.

But instead, I walk straight into Reaper.

And Briar walks straight into tension.

He steps into the hallway just as we head to the side door. We collide, literally. I smack into his chest, nearly dropping the box in my arms.

“Shit, sorry—” I start.

“You good?” he asks, steadying the box, eyes flicking over me. “You look pale.”

“Just tired.”

“Nightmares?”

I hesitate. “Something like that.”

His jaw ticks. That Reaper look, like he was already planning ten moves ahead on a chessboard made of bones. “You tell me if anything’s going on, you hear?”

I nod quickly and move past him, but Briar doesn’t.

She lingers behind, mischief in her stance but something sharper under her skin.

Reaper turns toward her slowly. “Briar.”

She smirks. “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”

His brow twitches. “You staying out of trouble?”

She bats her lashes. “You say it like it’s optional.”

“You know I could have Vex lock you in the basement if you keep poking the bear.”

“I am the bear, sweetheart.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. Just once. A crack in the stone.

Then he steps close.

Too close.

“You keeping secrets?” he asks, voice low.

Her smile falters — just a fraction.

“Always,” she says. “But not from you.”

I blink between them.

What the hell was this?

They stare at each other like something had already happened. Or almost had. And it hung in the air between them like a knife, glittering and unspoken.

“Let’s go,” I say quickly, grabbing Briar’s sleeve.

She lets me drag her away.

But not before Reaper’s eyes follow her the whole way out.

And not before she looks back.

The Quarter is already awake by the time we step outside.

Street vendors setting up stalls, tourists trailing coffee cups, the air thick with powdered sugar and fried dough.

Normally it grounds me, this city is my pulse, even when it breaks my heart.

But today, every corner looks like a place someone could hide.

Briar walks beside me, swinging her arms like she was light as air. But I saw the tightness around her eyes.

“You didn’t have to bait him,” I mutter.

She shrugs. “I breathe; it baits him.”

“Seriously, Briar—”

“Seriously, Selene. You’re worried about me flirting when your apartment turned into a funhouse overnight?”

Her words hit hard. Too hard. I wanted to argue but couldn’t.

I thought about the vase. The charm on the rug. The unlocked door.

And I thought about the dream.

That hand on my back. That whisper in my ear. The way it felt less like fantasy and more like memory.

Maybe the witch was right.

Maybe the spell was working.

Or maybe the spell had opened a door I wasn’t ready for.

I shiver despite the morning heat.

Something was happening. I could feel it in the air, taste it in the coffee I never finished, see it in the shadows that lingered a beat too long.

And I didn’t know if I was being hunted, haunted, or hexed.

But I knew one thing for sure.

The spell wasn’t the problem.

It was the answer.