ATwistedMagick

Shara Lanel

Shylah, a small-town teacher, has put her arcane history behind her, until two students are murdered occult style. Her Wiccan religion is outed. She loses her job and deals daily with ridicule. The obvious thing would be to leave town, but she refuses—she’s innocent.

Gabriel is a PI from California dealing with his aunt’s cold shoulder. She wants him to fly to Virginia to solve his cousin’s murder, but he doesn’t have the money or the time until he breaks a big case he’s been working on. Now his cousin’s case is three months cold with one
hot
witchy suspect and no proof. As soon as he sees Shylah, he wants her, for a lot more than just questioning.

Gabe has the power to make Shylah’s insides melt and her judgment fade. She knows he can bring her down if he discovers the twisted magick of her past, but every time he touches her, she can’t say no. She needs to get him to see past prejudice and help her find the real killer. Together, they make magic in more ways than one.

A Romantica®
paranormal erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Dedication

To those who have never given up on me

Author’s Note

I referred to many sources while investigating Wicca, the occult and sex magick, such as books by Farrar, Buckland, Cunningham and Amber K, not to mention numerous websites. Special thanks to Judith Oliveri for her witchy insight! Please forgive any creative license I have taken in the name of a good story.

The outside of the house sat square in the middle of the noisy French Quarter, but the scene inside might’ve fit better in Salem. Heavy curtains blocked out the college frat scene on the street below and gave the room’s occupants the privacy they needed to dance the circle skyclad. The priest and priestess in the middle touched and tasted in foreplay for the Great Rite. Many, perhaps most, modern covens used the symbolic lowering of the
athame
into a chalice of wine, but Alain, their priest, preferred to perform it truly, feeling it magnified the magical energy. Shylah Lewis had to agree. She’d never felt so invigorated working with her family’s coven back in Georgia. As Alain pinched the High Priestess Clair’s nipples, leaving them reddish peaks, Shylah actually longed for her robe or at least her panties as the dampness between her legs liquefied, her own arousal growing as she watched the scene before her. Her hands were linked with the other ten coven members, creating a protective circle around the loving couple as they asked for the divine gods to enter their bodies and speak through them. Shylah wasn’t the only one with signs of arousal; the dampness between Christine and Laura’s thighs glistened in the candlelight. The men couldn’t hide their feelings either, their hard cocks protruding proudly in honor of the Horned God. Shylah longed for one of those cocks between her legs, wanted to share in Alain and Claire’s pleasure, wanted to feel the goddess enter her as well.

She’d been a member of her aunt’s coven ever since her parents had died and it had been a safe place to learn the basics of practice, but when she’d left for college, she’d wanted to find a coven that could take her beyond the familiar. When she’d joined the Black Waters Coven, the first adjustment had been worshipping skyclad, naked. Alain said the magick flowed better without the hindrance of clothes. With each circle, he’d stretched their mystical study, introducing theory and history and aspects of ceremonial magick. This was their second time exploring the power of sex during ritual.

Alain turned Claire away from him and guided her to her knees so he could enter her from behind. He slipped on a condom, the one reminder that even magick couldn’t protect against everything, gripped her hips and thrust, eliciting a moan of pleasure from his priestess. Shylah was beyond aroused; liquid ran down her thighs. If she couldn’t ease this tension soon she would burn up in flames, but it was that same tension in all of them that would raise the cone of power. Alain grunted with each thrust, and it was only the coven members’ linked hands that kept Shylah from touching herself. Alain, black hair slick with sweat, was chanting, calling the Horned God into him. Claire, long hair nearly covering her face as she braced herself on hands and knees, echoed his words, asking the goddess to share in their ecstasy. This primal mating was how everything in the world was created, something to dwell on with reverence and awe.

Alain’s orgasm was sudden and powerful. The tattoos on his body seemed to writhe as his body shook with release. He never let the high priestess come during the ceremony, telling her she was the vessel of power and the coven would send her theirs as well. She whimpered with desire as her god withdrew from her. Then she sat back on her ankles and placed her hands palm to palm in front of her breasts.

The Horned God spoke, “All must increase their arousal for the spell we are about to perform. Touch each other, but I forbid you to come. Touch and taste until you are at the brink but no further.”

Shylah dropped her hands from her neighbors’ and waited for their touches and lips; the other women did the same. Candles flickered around the room and she could hear everyone’s breathing. Her own heartbeat seemed loud in her ears. The last time, Alain had instructed them to touch themselves, no one else. This time he wanted full contact between everyone and Shylah had never even kissed one of these men before. She dug her fingernails into her palms in nervousness.

Scott, who’d been standing to her right, was incredibly tall but thin, not someone Shylah would’ve been attracted to in the outside world, but here she saw him as one of the goddess’s many perfect creations. He pushed her back as he moved forward to connect with her, until Shylah was stopped by the rock-hard chest of Henri. Henri was someone she wouldn’t have minded picking up in one of the many bars on Bourbon Street. His skin reflected coffee and cream, denoting his mixed heritage. He’d learned French from his grandmother, but his only accent was a Southern one. He purred in her ear, “We want to fuck you. Spread your legs for Scotty.” He held her tight at her rib cage under her breasts, lifting her a small amount so she could wrap her legs around Scotty’s pelvis, giving him easy access so he could complete the wish.

Scott’s eagerness nearly undid him until Alain touched his lower back, as he had the others in the room. “Ah, the power you radiate. Give it to me.” Alain closed his eyes and kept his palm against his glistening skin. Scott went flaccid inside her, but when he pulled back, he looked drained yet happy. Alain spoke again, “Now, Henri, I want you to give before you get.”

Henri bowed in acquiescence and lowered to his knees. He turned Shylah to face him and pressed against her thighs, signaling he wanted them wider. Then he pressed his face among her private curls and blew warm air on her clit, doing the impossible—increasing her arousal even more. Alain moved behind and above Henri, facing Shylah, combing his fingers through her hair, smoothing the tendrils along her cheeks. Behind her, she could tell Scotty’s cock had grown hard again since it pressed stiffly into the small of her back. He wrapped his arms around Shylah so that he could twist and tug on her nipples. She relaxed back with a moan. Alain, standing to the side with half-lowered lids, slid his thumb into her mouth and she sucked, her eyes locked with his.

“Good girl,” he murmured. “A very good girl. Your god is pleased.”

Then he walked away to the center of the coven’s circle. “Do you feel the power crackle around you? Do not stop, for this is a difficult spell we work.”

As Henri’s tongue continued to explore Shylah’s clit and hole to be soon followed by his thick cock, Shylah let herself think of a powerful cone of magick forming above the loose circle, magick that Alain and Claire would direct into the spell. It took a bit of practice to keep intention in the back of her mind while losing herself in the erotic energy of the male witches’ touches, but she wanted to please Alain and she wanted to heal the pain of her coven.

Shylah unpinned a jolly Santa Claus from the bulletin board outside her classroom. The school board allowed the teachers to decorate for the holidays as long as they stuck to secular themes. She bent this directive a little by focusing on the myths that surrounded the various winter holidays, such as the story of St. Nicholas and of Myra and Odin delivering gifts to children’s boots. For Hanukah, she depicted the history of the temple and the miracle of the oil. Kwanzaa celebrated the roots of African Americans, and she focused on the Germanic and Celtic myths associated with Yule, the winter solstice. She decorated the borders of the cork board with holly, mistletoe, oak wreaths, snowflakes, menorahs, dreidels, kinaras and the Unity Cup for Kwanzaa.

She and her students had had a party this morning, the last day before the beginning of winter break, and the parents had been invited. So far, she’d had no complaints about her board. On the contrary, many parents were happy to see equal space given to their traditions right next to Santa Claus.

She never posted a pentacle. That would be pushing the goodwill of the denizens of Smith Creek too far. Too many still considered Paganism devil worship, despite the fact that Pagans did not believe in Satan. Hard to worship him, if he doesn’t exist.

Shylah shook her head at that thought. Despite standardized testing in the Commonwealth of Virginia, she made time to teach the history of the Paleopagan cultures, prior to Roman take-over. It came out of left field as far as the curriculum was concerned, but Shylah did it just the same, exploring it as a piece of history, not as a religion. She knew the kids would get no future education on this subject unless they chose to follow it in college.

Every now and then, her old rebellion flared up, and she’d want to teach the children about Gardner and Doreen Valiente and the god and goddess. She’d even made up worksheets once, but then she’d remembered the sexual rituals, the murder, the rampant suspicion. Everything had gone so wrong.

Certainly not a lesson for sixth graders.

The rest of her classroom was sparsely decorated. It was too much work to take down everything at the beginning of winter break since she wanted to get home as much as the children did, so she’d just get a start on the bulletin board and come in the week before classes resumed to finish the rest.

After unpinning the illustrations and putting them in a box marked HOLIDAYS, she went to her desk and packed up her take-home stuff. A stop at Starbucks was definitely in order since she was working on exam prep for January. She shrugged into her coat, pulled her long black hair out of the collar, and found her iPod in the pocket. Once she had the playlist she wanted, she plugged in her ear buds and sauntered down the empty school hall toward the exit.

Principal Ackers had to step in front of her to get her attention. She pulled out her ear buds and assessed his panicked face. She could never get past his striking resemblance to James Earl Jones. Not just his skin color, but his short cropped salt-and-pepper hair, his deep voice and his kind eyes.

“What is it?”

“The cops are on their way here.” His voice was a rumble, though it did seem an octave higher than usual.

“Another locker raid?”

“No. Lalia Gustava and Matthew Horton are missing!”

Shylah’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, missing?”

“They’re gone. Their parents haven’t seen them since yesterday and since they didn’t appear in school today, they’re frantic.”

“They didn’t wait overnight to call the police, did they?” She tried to picture the two kids. They were at least a couple of grades above what Shylah taught. She’d never had them in class.

“No, the cops have been working on it overnight, canvassing their neighborhood.”

Her street, Shylah realized. Her house was outside the “neighborhood” since her nearest neighbor kept a horse in a pen on one side and the opposite neighbors had a junkyard in their front yard. In other words, her end of the street was not governed by some homeowners’ association. Their houses predated the 50s building boom and lacked the planned streets, sidewalks and street lights. “I guess they haven’t gotten down that far,” she murmured. Louder she said, “So they’re searching the school? Will they be talking to the students?”

“They’ve talked to some of them already. Tonight they want to search the boiler room and places like that and talk to the janitorial staff and teachers.”

“I thought I was the only one left.”

“I’ve corralled most of the staff in the teachers’ lounge, so if you could wait there?”

“Of course.” She ignored her grumbling stomach and the images of microwave pizza. Finding missing children took precedence, of course, but she wondered if she had anything in the fridge in the teacher’s lounge. If she did, it was probably prehistoric and inedible. She tended to avoid the lounge if at all possible.

The lounge was across from the main office and next to the clinic. Usually, the teachers staggered break times, so they were never in there all at once. There were three round tables and eleven chairs, so a few of the male teachers were standing in a klatch near the microwave.

“We’ve ordered pizza,” Cat Mann, a petite redhead who taught science, said when Shylah walked in. Shylah hoped one of them would be meatless. She was vegetarian. She’d tried vegan once, but she couldn’t make it without cheese and milkshakes. She reasoned that cows were not slaughtered for their milk and chickens were not killed for their eggs.

Shylah wanted to sit in quiet or at least talk about something other than the missing ninth graders, but of course that was the topic on everyone’s minds. Plump Al Porter, the dullest English teacher in the school according to the students’ whispers, spilled over the edges of one of the school chairs while eating from a thermos. It smelled like chicken noodle soup. It was the season when everyone started popping vitamin C and coating their hands with Purell, but Shylah used herb tinctures and teas to boost her immune system.

She focused on Porter, trying to catch up on the conversation. She was not the most attentive at the end of the school day.

“I think it’s the stepdad.”

“Lalia’s? But then how do you explain Matthew? As far as I know, his parents have been happily married for fifteen years.” Clement Wann cradled his coffee cup in his two hands as if he was in love with it. Since Shylah knew him for a coffee addict, that could very well be true. He was also from Baton Rouge and had a copy of the
Times-Picayune
, the New Orleans paper, in the front pocket of his computer bag. Shylah turned away. She didn’t want to think about the memories, the distant ones or the ones closer to hand.

Candice Self spoke up. “That Mrs. Horton wears too much makeup and too short skirts. I don’t think she and her husband go to church at all.” Every teacher in the room turned to glare at her for blaming the victims. Candice was a Believer. She pulled out her Bible during every break, but not to read silently and meditate. No, she brought it out to thump it, quoting scripture, calling them all sinners if they didn’t go to her church, quizzing them on their beliefs. Shylah found herself biting her tongue a lot around her. The last thing she wanted was for that woman to know that she was Wiccan. “Her daughter’s following in her footsteps with that Matthew.”

The pizzas arrived shortly before the police did. The dogs went snuffling down the hall toward the lockers. What were they sniffing for? Blood? Drugs? A tall, thin female detective, in plain clothes except for the heavy gun perched on her hip, came into the lounge. She introduced herself as Detective Hain. “Principal Ackers has given us the conference room to conduct our interviews in, so I’ll take you in one at a time.” She looked longingly at the steaming pizza and Shylah wondered when her shift ended so she could eat. “Once you’ve been interviewed, you’re free to go home. We’ll find you if we need to talk to you further.”

Instantly Detective Hain had several interviewee volunteers. Since everyone else was so willing, Shylah relaxed into her chair and stuffed pizza into her mouth. She’d been on lunch monitor duty today, so she’d only eaten a mushroom sandwich.

“I didn’t know those two were dating,” Eva Hector, one of the social studies teachers, commented after Candice left the room to be questioned.

“Yeah, I saw them making out in the hallway the other day,” Porter said as he took out a folder of essays and started grading. Two more teachers followed suit. Shylah glanced at Wann to see a deepening scowl on his face.

“Do you think they could have run away?” Eva asked.

Shylah shrugged. “I’m sure the police are considering every angle. I just hope they’re found quickly.” Just as she wiped the last of the pizza grease from her fingers, she was tapped on the shoulder.

“The detective wants to talk to you next,” Candice said, her lips so tight she barely opened her mouth.

“I thought she was taking us as we volunteered?” Uh oh. What did Candice know? What had she said? Shylah’s religion should have absolutely nothing to do with this, but it would as soon as the police found out. Suddenly she’d be suspect number one just because she was a practicing witch. She’d been run out of two towns, once when she was very young. She’d received abuse at school every day from the other kids once they knew her parents were witches, or, in their parents’ minds, devil worshippers. Her parents had decided to move to spare her. The second time was after she’d graduated college, fresh teaching degree in hand. It was the suburbs, which for some reason she’d thought would be more open-minded than small-town folks. Not true. They expected her to conform even more, especially if she was to teach their kids. The principal had asked her personal, unnecessary questions and she’d been too green at the time to refuse to answer. She never got hired at that school and word got around so that the other schools wouldn’t even return her phone calls. Then she started getting notices and fines from the homeowner’s association and tickets on her parked car. Eventually she chickened out and decided to move. She hadn’t had a whole lot of backbone at the time, and not enough funds to remain unemployed on principle.

She’d learned two things from that experience—keep her religion a secret and know the law.

“This time she asked for you specifically.” Candice’s eyes gleamed knowingly, but how had she found out?

Shylah threw out the remnants of her dinner and walked out of the room head high. She was well-versed in her rights now, both as a teacher and as a citizen, but her stomach churned just the same.

Detective Hain gestured for her to sit down. There was a digital recorder on the table and a uniformed officer standing near the door. The detective also sat and gestured to the recorder. “I’m going to record this, all right?”

“No, it’s not all right.”

She looked taken aback. “Do you have something to hide?”

“No.” She didn’t say more.

“Okay.” She pushed the recorder to the side and pulled out a notebook and pencil. Though her blonde hair was cropped short, her bangs covered her eyes for a moment. She looked up. “Please tell me your name and address.”

“Didn’t Principal Acker provide you with that information?”

“Yes, but I would like to hear it from you.”

Shylah complied, reminding herself that paranoia would ping a cop’s radar. She was innocent; she needed to come across that way, but her previous run-ins with cops had left a bad taste in her mouth.

“Mrs. Self told me I should pay special attention to you, but she didn’t tell me why.”

“Didn’t she?” So maybe Candice didn’t know about her religion, but then what did she mean? “I’m shocked that she had such forbearance.”

Detective Hain allowed a bit of a smile on her face before going back to ominous, truth-seeking mode. “So you know what Mrs. Self is getting at?”

“She’s a very close-minded woman.”

“I could tell that just from the few minutes I spoke to her. I’m guessing her animosity has to do with your promiscuity, sexual preference or your religion. Which is it?”

“Goddess, I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a date.”

“Religion then.”

“I’m Wiccan, but I didn’t think she knew that.”

“Ah.” Now Hain’s smile was full-blown. “I used to walk the beat in New York. I’m familiar with quite a few religions, and they have no bearing on a case…until they do, if you know what I mean. So far religion doesn’t come into this at all. We’re checking with all the sex offenders countywide, but we’re also wondering if the kids have just taken off on their own. They are teenagers, after all. Any thoughts on where they may have gone?”

“I don’t really know them except by sight, since I’ve only been here a couple of years.” She paused in thought. “We’re smack between Richmond and Charlottesville, so they could’ve gone to either. The only places teens seem to hang out here are the bowling alley and the diner.”

“You live on the same street as the two kids, right?”

Shylah nodded. “The folks on my end of the street, you know, the ones outside of the Holly Oaks subdivision, have a few eccentricities but seem fine. Mrs. Green was born in her house, from what I’ve heard, and has lived there all her life. Her son moved in with his wife and kid about two years ago. The Collinses have a serious lack of concern about the appearance of their yard, but they bring me pies around Thanksgiving, so I can’t complain.”

“Do any of them visit or drive through Holly Oaks regularly? Any of them in regular contact with children?”

“We all drive through the subdivision—it’s on the way to downtown. Mrs. Green is a deacon at her church.”

“What about her son?”

“Andy and Greta are friendly enough. Greta works in a call center and Andy sells cars at Max’s. Willy goes to the elementary school. Fifth grade, I think, so I’ll get him next year.”

“How many Collins are there? What are their names?”

“I’ve lost track. Have you knocked on their door?”

“We will.”

“There’s the couple who don’t believe in birth control.” She shouldn’t judge, but… “Kid after kid, and I don’t think they make that much income.”

“How old is the eldest?”