Page 10 of Bewitched by the Wicked Witch (The Bewitching Hour #4)

Six

Sage

I nside Hexes and Brews, Cosmo growled at Caroline, who stood next to us clutching a bouquet of winter herbs.

She owned the flower shop up the street and specialized in herbs for any magical brew, but also loved pretty flowers.

Her flower display was always an impressive bouquet, even in the winter months.

"Do us all a favor and try not to fall into a pile of lavender, Carol," he muttered under his breath, followed by a sneeze.

I glared down at him in warning. Cosmo had a tendency to get moody when he was hungry.

Caroline frowned at Cosmo, and in a moment of weakness I fell into old habits as I tried to look apologetic.

But as her gaze shifted to mine, her lips pursed together into a tight line, then she wrinkled her nose, her lips curling up in disgust. Reminding me why I didn't care, I let my eyes harden to steel and my lips turned into a devious grin.

"Careful now, he's famished. He might just gobble you up. "

Cosmo, to his credit, took that moment to jump from my shoulders and grow to a bigger height.

Cosmo was now as big as a panther as his starry night gaze settled on her.

Then he growled loud enough to make her jump back a step and flinch.

Her face drained of color as she kept her eyes pinned to the threat during her backward retreat, all the way until her back hit the door, and she rushed out with the door dinging at her exit.

I chuckled and scratched Cosmo behind the ears.

Another customer, an elderly woman I recognized as Mrs. Randolph, the teacher I'd, along with my entire class, turned into a frog many years ago, leaned close to another white-haired woman who looked like someone I recognized, but I didn't know her well.

"There's that corrupted girl I told you about.

Her gran is the greatest of our time. But that girl there is a bad apple," she muttered quietly, but not quite quietly enough.

I kept an eye on Cosmo, making sure his sensitive ears didn't catch it. His tail twitched in agitation. He'd heard.

"You think the rumors are true?" the other elderly witch asked. "Is she behind the disappearances?" The woman leaned in conspiratorially, though she made no effort to lower her voice or hide her stare in my direction as Mrs. Randolph whispered her response.

"Who else could it be but our very own town wicked witch," Mrs. Randolph retorted, then turned her sharp, narrow eyes directly at me.

I felt my lips twitch upward as a delicious memory surfaced, Mrs. Randolph frantically trying to hop across the town square, hands covered in frog pee, desperately attempting to catch flies with her tongue after one of my more creative hexes.

Of course she would blame me. She still hated me all these years later.

"Sage," Cindee grumbled, breaking through my memories. "You can't run off all of my customers. We still have a business to run."

I let out a long exhale. "Sorry, Cindee. Cosmo wanted a danish. And you know how he will do anything for a cheese danish, and I mean anything."

We shared a chuckle as I stared down at Cosmo, who had shrunk back down to big cat size. He jumped up onto the counter and stared into Cindee's eyes, waiting. "Yes, very famished," he added as he sat back on his haunches and examined his extended claws.

Cindee rolled her eyes, not in the least bit intimidated by him. "Cosmo, you know you aren't supposed to be on the counter. If you want a danish, you'll get back on the ground like a good kitty," she said, but her voice lacked warning as she sighed.

Cosmo rounded his eyes as they went big and doe-like, as if he'd taken pointers from that orange cat cartoon he loved with the cute accent. Cindee melted and gave into the desire to scratch him behind the ears right where he loved to be scratched, causing him to purr at her in delight.

"Fine, I can't say no to you." She turned and washed her hands before pulling out, not one but two cheese danishes just for Cosmo.

She never did that for me. After putting them in a bag, she handed the bag to Cosmo, who gripped the paper bag filled with danishes in his teeth and hopped off the counter.

Cindee then sighed at the kitty print marks on her counter before she sprayed it down and wiped the evidence away.

Cosmo was already waiting at the door with his prized danishes still packaged and ready to be opened, an expression of impatience on his cat-like features. He sat the bag down and growled, "Come, witch, I'm starving!"

"I should have left you in the woods that day," I grumbled back at him.

"You wouldn't have dared. You need me," he retorted, his voice laced with arrogance and challenge. His tail flicked upwards with defiance, and he rolled his eyes in a remarkably human-like gesture. With a huff, he plopped down, his body tense with impatience.

I turned my attention back to Cindee. It was then I noticed the way her usually neat appearance was different. Her rumpled clothing clung to her figure, while soft curls of light brown hair escaped her ponytail and framed her face. Crescent moons of dark circles rested beneath her amber eyes.

"Are you okay, Cindee?" I asked finally.

Something I rarely did, but there was no one in the shop at the moment to see my odd behavior.

Her eyes widened for a moment as if she caught me in a moment of true concern.

"If you're not okay, the coffee will taste horrible," I blurted. But really, I was concerned.

"I look that awful?" Cindee's hands went to the messy strands that were coming undone from her ponytail, tugging more than fixing it, the curls springing back into place and brushing the top of her shoulders.

Curls that looked similar to mine. It was one reason Cindee liked me, despite my reputation.

I reminded her of how her daughter could have looked more like her and less like her mate, Danny. But Brexley looked like Danny's twin.

"No, you just don't look like you usually do. You look worried."

And she did. Her eyes kept going to the door as if some big bad was going to barge in, but I was the only big bad in this town. And I liked her.

"You know Dan's mother is a shifter, right?" she said as she picked up a rag and began moving around the cafe, working to clean and keeping her hands busy as she talked.

"I didn't know that," I said as I moved closer, understanding her fear now. Paige had said all her missing friends had shifter blood in their background. Paige even had some from her father's side. Now Brexley was also on that list. "Paige said a few of her friends went missing at school."

Cindee nodded, her lip going between her teeth as she chewed it. "One of Brexley's older friends went missing, too. I think I'm going to pull her from school. Just to be safe..." she trailed off, worry flashing in her features, "and Sage?"

"Hmm?" I hummed as I straightened the napkins.

"Be very careful." Her voice dropped to a whisper, the kind that made the hairs on my arms rise.

"I was scrying the other day, and something.

.. shifted." She closed her eyes, drawing in a sharp breath like she'd touched something electric.

"I opened myself to the source, and your energy surged through.

You, my dear, were at the center of what was coming. "

"What was coming? "

She reached for my hand, her fingers cool against my skin. As our palms met, her pupils vanished into white, eerie and glowing, her gift snapping awake like a storm breaking across still water.

"Two paths stretched ahead ," she said in a voice not quite her own. "One ended in fire. The other righted a long-buried wrong. The choice was yours, but beware. There were those who feared what you were capable of. And fear, more than anything, made people dangerous. "

Then just like that, her eyes cleared, her face returned to the worry that had etched her features before as if nothing had happened, and she continued to stock the clear glass display to the right of the cash register as if nothing had occurred.

Danny walked out from the back, wrapping his arms around Cindee and nuzzling her neck.

I used to think he was a low-level warlock, but the way he clung to her made sense now.

Shifter blood. They expressed love physically, and Cindee melted into it, her frown softening into a grin. I turned away, cheeks warming.

Watching Danny nuzzle Cindee reminded me painfully of when my warlock.

.. No, not my warlock. Not anymore. It reminded me when Callum had once been just as openly affectionate All the way until he blindsided me and broke things off.

I'd rewarded him with a nasty curse, one that ensured he never enjoyed the act of intimacy with anyone else. Unless they enjoyed dying from it.

I'd hexed his anatomy to be so oversized any time he let it out of his pants that women would run screaming.

In hindsight, I realized it had probably done the opposite of what I'd intended.

I snorted at the memory, wishing I'd been there to see his face after that. Did he know I had done it? I hoped so.

I hoped every time he got aroused, it made him light in the head until he passed out. Because even now, thinking about him made my wicked little heart hurt. Now, it yearned for something taken from it. Black magic weilding witches like me, we didn't deserve a happy ending.

"Sage?" Cindee's worried voice pulled me from my petty, dark thoughts.

I blinked and focused back on her concerned face.

"You okay? You looked like you went somewhere else for a minute," she asked.

I forced a smirk. "Just plotting my next evil scheme. Nothing for you to worry your pretty head over." I waved a dismissive hand and winked.

Cindee rolled her eyes, but a small smile played on her lips. "Well, keep your schemes away from my cafe, if you don't mind. I've got enough problems without you hexing more of my customers."

"No promises," I quipped. Cosmo let out an impatient meow from the doorway, his tail thumping against the floor. "Duty calls. The fuzzy overlord demands sustenance."

"Here, take an extra danish for yourself too." Cindee grabbed one from the case. "And Sage..." She hesitated. "Just be careful, okay? With these girls going missing... Even with your reputation, I don't want anything bad happening to you either."

Unexpected warmth bloomed in my chest at her concern.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. "I'm always careful.

It's everyone else who needs to watch out for me, remember?

" I winked to lighten the moment. A bit of shadow and star magic formed in my hand as I flickered it to show her I was ready for anything.

But I forced a grin at her, knowing that if trouble brewed in the town, they would point at me first.

Cindee shook her head, but smiled. "How could I forget? Now go, before that cat of yours stages a revolt."

With a last nod, I turned and followed Cosmo out into the crisp air. He pranced ahead of me, danishes swinging from the bag, eager to return home and enjoy his spoils.

As we walked, an uneasy sensation prickled along my spine, like unseen eyes watching from the shadows.

I glanced around but saw no one, just the typical Old Hollows quiet this time of day.

Everyone was at work. A restless churn stirred in my chest, like the air before a storm, whispering that something was about to shift.

Missing girls, worried friends and family, a town already suspicious of me and my "wicked" ways. As much as I tried to brush it all off, I knew deep down I couldn't ignore it forever. Trouble had arrived at Old Hollows.

Knowing my luck, I'd end up at the center of it, whether I wanted to or not. But then again, what else was new? I was the town’s evil black magic wielding witch, after all. Trouble and I went hand-in-hand.

With a sigh, I pulled my coat tighter and quickened my pace after Cosmo, thoughts churning. It looked like my quiet, reclusive life was about to get a lot more complicated. Lucky me , I thought sarcastically.

I played the part of the bad witch, but I wasn't about to let innocent girls disappear without doing something about it. Even if the rest of this judgmental town would probably think I was the one behind it. If only they knew the real me. But that was a closely guarded secret, buried under layers of snark and dark magic. Callum Renshaw had broken my heart, and I’d stopped trying to be good, at least in a way that I’d hoped would change people's opinions of me.

I had learned the hard way that was impossible.

Once people decided you were something, it was as good as written in stone.

So I stopped caring, and now here I was, the wicked witch of the town.

But bad witches could do some good when it suited them.

I looked up at the sign just at the junction into the downtown strip of Old Hollows: Old Hollows founded 1694.

I shoved my hands deeper into my coat pockets as I watched the golden and red leaves flutter around the sign as they landed on the cobblestone under our feet.

"You have that look," Cosmo remarked, his voice slightly muffled by the bag in his mouth. I turned to look at him as he dropped the bag and stared up at me with dark star-flecked eyes. "The one that says you're about to stick your witchy nose where it doesn't belong."

"Guilty as charged." I smirked at him. "But someone has to figure out what's going on. And we both know I'm the best one for the job."

Cosmo sighed dramatically. "Does this mean I have to do actual familiar work instead of napping and eating snacks?"

"Afraid so, fur ball. Time to earn your keep." I reached down to scratch behind his ears, earning a purr of contentment as I snatched up the bag of cheese danishes. That purr turned to a warning growl.

"I'm not going to eat them, silly." Rolling my eyes, I turned toward the path leading out of town. "But if you want to keep carrying a bag and talking through a muffled mouth... then by all means." I offered the bag back to him.

"Actually, you have a point. You should be carrying that for me. You're already turning me into a slave laborer. I should take advantage when I can."

As we made our way back home, I started mentally cataloging everything I knew about the missing girls and the shifter community in Old Hollows. It wasn't much, but it was a start. Gran might have some useful intel too, with her long history on the town council.

Deep down, a small part of me hoped this investigation would prove to everyone that I wasn't the villain they thought me to be. That Sage Blackstone was more than just a bad reputation witch with a chip on her shoulder.

But I quickly shoved that na?ve notion aside. I had a reputation to uphold, after all. And a mystery to solve before more girls vanished.

Game on, Old Hollows. The wicked witch was on the case, like it or not.