Page 3 of Head Witch in Charge (The Sherwood Witches #2)

Erik Svensen…

You and I need to get one thing straight right off the bat: I am not the good guy.

I’m exactly who you think the heir to the Svensen magic would be.

I cheat.

I lie.

I steal.

I excel in double-dealing.

I’ll use every advantage, every loophole, every witch’s awww-he’s-not-that-bad-you-just-have-to-get-to-know-him good intention without hesitation.

And I do it all while looking like a WitchyGram model who does thirst traps in well-worn sweaters that scream “old money.” Using pretty privilege and charm for my benefit?

Every damn time and twice on Sunday. Only an idiot wouldn’t use every single tool at their disposal to do what needs to be done.

I am a lot of things, but a fool isn’t one of them.

Of course, some plots call for a little more finesse and subterfuge than slick charisma or a strong-arm push.

That’s why I’m sitting here at the Lunar Resort and Casino’s rooftop pool bar reading a book I’d never take off the shelf, nursing a too-fruity mai tai complete with a stupid yellow umbrella, and using a camouflage spell to look like every other basic, dorky white guy who is only in Vegas to have a little fun.

It wouldn’t do for my target to know who I am. If she did, she’d probably turn me into a toadstool on sight. I’d magic my way out of that, but it would take some time, and that’s the one thing I don’t have.

Next year, I take over as head of the Svensen family, which means I’ll control the family magic after the traditional power transfer ceremony.

The Witchingdom tradition is for the next generation’s heir to take over as head after thirty or so years to ensure magical continuity in a power sharing ceremony.

This also helps stop the heirs from offing the current heads to gain that power—or the other way around.

That used to be a real problem a few centuries ago.

However, we’re supposedly more civilized now, which really just means we do our bad shit in the dark rather than at high noon in front of the entirety of Witchingdom.

Of course, my father made other plans.

The kind of plans you’d expect from a Svensen—the deceptive kind.

His big idea, as I recently discovered, is to pull a swap spell during the ceremony, which will strip me of all my powers.

Yes.

All of them.

Then he’s going to tell the other families that the family magic rejected me. Therefore, he has no other choice but to continue being the family’s magic source—so much sacrifice, he’ll tell them, but that’s just what the head of a family does.

As far as plans to rid oneself of an heir go, it’s not a bad one. I might have never realized the extent of his plans, but his ego got the best of him and he ignored the number one rule of screwing people over: Keep your big mouth shut about it until the deed is done.

But the only thing my narcissistic father loves more than fucking people over for his own benefit is to brag to his sycophants about just how damn clever he is. If he were half as smart as he was an evil bastard, he just might have gotten away with it. But he isn’t, and now he’s not gonna.

I spot Leona Sherwood the second she walks out of the elevator surrounded by a group of friends.

Because this is the most popular you-don’t-ask-about-me-I-won’t-ask-about-you witches’ resort in Vegas, she doesn’t look like herself—or more correctly, she’s using magic to make other people think she doesn’t look like herself.

It’s part of the allure of the place (and why they can charge a premium) that you come as you are or as you want to be, and no one asks any questions.

For most folks it’s because they’re married or attached or hiding their real identity for Svensen-like reasons.

None of those apply to Miss Too Sweet Sherwood.

So it doesn’t take a genius to realize she’s using a camouflage spell to hide from the WitchyGram users with weirdo levels of parasocial relationship entitlement who follow every member of their family around, trying to be the first to post a new sighting.

And if that’s what she gets for being one of the good witches, I’ll pick being bad any day of the week.

However, to be honest, I choose that anyway—which is why I’m using the revelare spell to see past the brown hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin to get a look at the real Leona Sherwood, with her signature red hair, big round eyes (one blue eye and one green), and the kind of pale skin that only looks a little bit tan if you squint so all her freckles seem to meld together.

Is me doing that playing by the resort’s rules? No.

Is it legal according to Magic Regulations and the anal-retentive witches who police them? It is if you don’t get caught.

And I never do.

That doesn’t mean the revelare spell doesn’t come with drawbacks.

In this case, it’s the ground primrose in my mai tai, making it taste like shit.

As far as sacrifices went, it wasn’t cutting off a limb, but I was having to remind myself what was at stake if this plan works—which it will—to stop myself from gagging with every sip.

I made a few plans of my own that include bringing a surprise to the power transfer ceremony: the worst possible thing for my dad, the thing that will make it impossible for him to double-cross me—a Sherwood wife.

That’s right, my father’s downfall will come because of the sugar-and-spice-and-only-things-that-are-nice family who’ve been the Svensens’ enemies for generations.

Even better, my bride will bring with her so much influence, power, and magic to back my claim as heir that my father won’t have any choice but to relinquish his position as head of the family.

At that point, I’ll do to him what he’s planning for me and cut off his access to our family magic.

Impotent in all the ways that matter in Witchingdom, he’ll have to make a choice: either face the public shame and shunning or run away and die in some miserable corner of Witchingdom.

It’ll be societal death or actual death—I’m good with either.

My second act will be to banish my brother and sister from the family so they can live their lives with as little taint from our ancestors’ dirty legacy as possible.

Then, finally, after forty or fifty years, I’ll die without an heir and the Svensen magic will cease to exist. Our family Mississippi will dry up and die, like it should have long ago.

And that will be the best fucking day of my whole entire life.

But that day is not today. Unfortunately. Today I have to balance being the unscrupulous Svensen heir on assignment for my dad to get some intel about the location of an ancient spell book and my own mission to bag a Sherwood bride by hook or by crook.

So I sit at the bar and watch my mark as she laughs with her friends like a woman who has had the world offered up to her on a silver platter and has never had to make a hard decision in her life.

The thick rope of her braided hair points straight down to her black bikini–clad ass—and her ass, her real ass?

It’s epic. Big. Round. Definitely hold-on-able.

It’s the kind of ass a man doesn’t forget—even if they’ve only seen it once at a distance during some mind-numbingly boring society event when she was wearing an emerald-green dress that clung to it.

Seriously.

That happened five years ago and I’m still jerking off to the memory on the regular. You would too if you’d seen it.

Trust me, the woman has a juicy fucking ass that has been living rent-free in my head for years. It’s inspired a lot more than just this plan to depose my dad.

Does it make me an asshole to tell you all that? If it does, I can live with that. I’ve definitely been called worse.

By my own dad.

About five seconds ago.

And he’s still going on and on during the phone call that will not end.

Don’t bother with the pity. I’m used to it. If I couldn’t put up with the old man’s diatribes, I would’ve crumbled into dust years ago. But until it’s time to go public with my wife in a year at the power transfer ceremony, I have to play dutiful son—even when I don’t want to.

Especially when I don’t want to.

“You need to get home now before you fuck up this deal any more,” Dad says, his bitter voice coming in through my earbuds and jabbing me right in the brain.

“It’s not every day a line on where to find The Liber Umbrarum comes in.

You do what it takes to get that information from the Kiehls by any means necessary. ”

“I thought they were our partners in this little endeavor to recover the spell book,” I say, just to wind him up.

“Partners,” my dad scoffs. “Don’t be simple, boy.”

I can’t see him over the phone, but I can picture his scowl—it’s his usual expression whenever he paces his dark office at the family home and lists out the many errors committed by his disappointments, which is what other fathers would call their children.

“This deal with the Kiehls to use The Liber Umbrarum’s ancient alchemy spells to pay off your debts was your baby, not mine,” I say as I watch Leona lounging in the cabana with her friends.

“Family debts. Not mine! Family debts. And I’m making it your baby.” Translation, dear old dad is in over his head with the Boston werewolf pack and needs me to get the job done that he couldn’t. “The meeting has already been set. You go. You talk. You get the information we need.”

The Sherwood heir picks that moment to take off the fabric tied around her waist over her bikini and walk from her cabana to the pool.

My dad’s voice fades into the distance, because I never thought she’d look any better than she had in that emerald dress.

Fucking A was I ever wrong. Curvy with the kind of tits that overflow a man’s hands and an ass that could not be contained, she has long legs, thick thighs, and a wide, honest smile that almost makes me feel bad about what I’m going to do.