The Uptown Witch Read online

  Sebastien grinned up at the waiter. “Nico, you know how I like these.”

  Nico chuckled. “Yes, sir.”

  Paul rubbed his hands together. “Oh, Lord have mercy, how do I pick?”

  Heather smiled. “Nico, why don’t you whip up a variety of different sandwiches for them to try?”

  “Very well, ma’am.”

  As Nico began preparing their sandwiches, Chris’s attention turned back to me. He sat directly across from me, with his parents on either side of him. With his father next to Sebastien and his mother on the other side next to Amelia – who sat on my left side. Deacon sat on my right. I tried to keep my facial expressions neutral, but I was probably failing.

  Chris cleared his throat. “So…Emersyn…you’ve got a tattoo now, huh? Can’t say I saw that one coming.”

  “Oh, that’s not a tattoo,” Amelia said as she took a bite of her little custom salmon sandwich.

  Chris frowned and looked back and forth between her and I. “It’s not? That there on her right arm? It covers her whole upper arm.”

  My pulse quickened and my stomach tightened into knots. I didn’t know why I was nervous, it wasn’t like I wanted Chris back. It wasn’t like our relationship had been all that serious.

  Amelia swallowed her bite. “That is not a tattoo. It’s a soulmate mark.”

  Chris gasped and sat up straighter. “What?”

  Joyce shook herself. “Sorry, did you say soulmate?”

  “She did.” Heather sat her glass of wine down. “From what I’ve heard since the shifters started at SOMA, your soulmate markings work pretty similarly to ours. Except for arcana, it is upon first sight and not first touch.”

  Amelia nodded. “Deacon and Em have been soulmates since late August, right?”

  Chris leaned forward and met my gaze. “Is this true? He’s your soulmate?”

  I smiled and turned to Deacon. I reached out and unbuttoned the top of his black button-down shirt enough to reveal the lavender heart-shaped crystal glistening from the center of his chest – while ignoring the heat of his skin every time my fingers touched him.

  Amelia picked up her glass. “It used to be blue when they first got here, but now it’s purple.”

  Paul scratched his jaw. “What does purple mean?”

  I looked up and met Deacon’s gaze and my whole body warmed.

  “True love,” Heather said softly. “The kind that comes after significant stressful events.”

  “True love,” Chris whispered.

  But I didn’t look over to gauge his reaction. I kept my eyes on my prize even though my cheeks were burning. Deacon grinned like the Devil he was and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. He ran the tips of his fingers over the bare skin on my shoulder and my body was about to melt from his touch.

  “Wow. That’s…intense.”

  Deacon’s hand landed on my thigh and my brain short-circuited. Heat exploded and my whole body flushed. My pulse raced out of control.

  You have no idea. I forced a chuckle.

  “Miss, your sandwich?”

  I jumped and looked up at the waiter, thankful for the reprieve and distraction.

  This is gonna be a long night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Emersyn

  Deacon sighed and sat on the edge of his bed. He bent over and pulled his shoes and socks off, then yanked his belt from his pants. He kept groaning.

  I slipped out of my shoes and strolled over to stand in front of him. “Lots of huffin’ and puffin’ over here. What’s wrong?”

  He reached out and gripped my hips. His thumbs dug into my skin, the heat of his body burned through my clothes. “This dress for starters.”

  My pulse skipped erratically as I placed my hands on his shoulders and stepped between his legs. “What about it?”

  I felt each of his ten fingertips drag across my ass before he slid his hands down the sides of my thighs. His gaze traveled over my chest and I felt undressed in front of him, despite the thin layer of black material between us. But the thirsty look in his eyes had body burning like a volcano about to erupt. I ran my fingers through his hair and pushed his head back then I leaned down and took his mouth with mine.

  We both groaned as our lips crashed together. I cupped his jaw and tilted his head back to deepen our kiss but when his tongue brushed over mine a strangled kind of moan left my throat. He gripped the backs of my knees then pulled my legs up and apart. I gasped against his mouth then took his bottom lip between my teeth. He slid my dress up until both of his hands were completely pressed against my bare skin.

  He broke away and cursed.

  I reached down and grabbed the hem of his shirt then peeled it off of his body. His arms wrapped tight around me like a boa constrictor, squeezing me flush against this bare chest. I moaned and then his hands were in my hair…then on my ribs…then gripping my hips.

  And then I was flipped, and my back hit the bed with Deacon on top of me, lying between my legs. I hooked one leg around his hips and held him tight. His hands were everywhere all at once, leaving a trail of fire in my veins. I was squirming under him. My body was screaming yes, but there was still an annoying little thing in my brain telling me we needed to stop.

  It was like a train whistle, soft and distant at first but with every roll of Deacon’s hips or flick of his tongue the sound grew stronger and closer.

  Deacon gasped and then he was gone.

  I pushed up on my elbows and found him lying on his back beside me. His chest was rising and falling rapidly. A thin layer of sweat shimmered across his chest and abs. I rolled on top of him and slid my tongue into his mouth.

  He kissed me long, hard, and deep and then he pulled back. “Wait, wait. Emersyn, stop.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and let him roll me onto my side. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing and everything,” he said with a groan.

  “That doesn’t make sense.” I cupped his face and tried to pull his mouth back down to mine but he didn’t budge.

  “Emersyn.” He shook his head. “Talk to me. What’s going on in your head?”

  I wiggled against him. “Can’t you tell?”

  He groaned and cupped my jaw. “I can tell what your body wants, but I can sense your head isn’t in the game. Talk to me.”

  I cursed. “I’m sorry.”

  He smiled and brushed his thumb over my cheek. “It’s okay if you’re not ready—”

  “Is it?” I looked up into his violet eyes.

  “Of course it is.” He frowned and shook his head. “What would make you question it?”

  I bit my lip and shrugged. “You. Tonight. With Christian and the showing off and that restaurant. I know he’s my ex and all, and maybe you’re jealous—”

  “This is about Christian?” He gestured between our bodies. “This is about him?”

  “NO. Yes. I don’t know.” I groaned. “I just thought…I don’t know…maybe I needed to give you some…physical affection so you’d know I was yours or something—”

  “Emersyn Howe Bishop.” He took my face in his hands and forced my eyes to meet his. “I love you. I love where your heart was here, but that’s not how this is going to happen.”

  My heart sank. “Don’t you want to?”

  He chuckled and his eyes twinkled. “Oh, you have no idea how much I want to. But I can wait. I will happily wait until you know you’re ready. For you, I am patient. And I have this soulmate glyph to tell me that you’re mine.”

  “Okay, but I just wanted you to know that I’m yours and not his and there’s no competition or chance or —”

  He pressed his lips to mine then pulled away far too quickly. “Listen to me, Butterberry. We’re not the same people we were when we just met. These glyphs are lavender now, that means every time I see it on me or you, I know we have true love. Yes, you’ve got an ex neither of us expected to show up here who definitely still has feelings for you. And yeah, I’ve had…experience prior to you. But none
of that matters.”

  My heart fluttered. “It doesn’t?”

  He shook his head. “And I want you when you’re ready to have me. Not a moment sooner.”

  I closed my eyes. “I love you, Deacon.”

  “I love you, too, Emersyn.”

  Sharp hot pain shot down my arm. I hissed and jumped back at the same time Deacon did. Lights flashed and sparkled from my arm…and then the black lines of our soulmate glyph grew down to my wrist.

  “Deacon,” I whispered and rolled onto my back, holding my arm over my face.

  “I know,” he breathed. “Look at that.”

  We both held our arms straight up toward the ceiling, our soulmate glyphs on full display.

  “It’s like an instant prize for good behavior.”

  I snorted and grabbed his arm, then dragged him against me. His mouth crashed into mine. He licked and kissed me for a good few, far too short, moments before he pulled back.

  “You sure you don’t want to—”

  “I’m sure you don’t. And therefore…” He pulled back and propped up on his elbow next to my face. “I’d rather need a few cold showers a day than hate myself in the morning for giving in when I know it’s not right.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “The Devil is so wise.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emersyn

  There was a knock on the door and then, “You rang?”

  I looked up from the stack of papers in front of me and grinned. “Cheryl!”

  “Hey, you made it!” Deacon yelled with a wide smile and pushed back from the table. He stood and walked toward her. “Welcome back.”

  Cheryl smirked and arched one blonde eyebrow. Her brown eyes were sharp and calculating behind her burgundy glasses. “The school is physically flawless as far as I can see, which means I am genuinely terrified of what the problem is that you’d call for me.”

  Marshall spit his coffee out of his mouth and on the wooden table.

  Claudia leaned back in her seat and nodded. “I like this one so much.”

  “Now I wish our problem was bigger.” Sebastien took a sip of his coffee while petting a blue fluffy cat that’d been curled up in his lap for almost an hour.

  Heather chuckled and shook her head. “At ease, soldier. We’re just doing a double check on things.”

  Deacon gave her a quick hug then stepped away and gestured toward the table we were all seated at. “Come. Sit. Let’s chat.”

  Cheryl eyed us suspiciously, but took the empty seat next to me nonetheless. “Sooo…what’s going on?”

  I sighed and rubbed my temples. “Tennessee will be here tomorrow night.”

  “Oh shit.” Cheryl pursed her lips. “And we have to make sure this school is damn near perfect so he doesn’t kill us all? Figuratively speaking, of course. I hope.”

  “Pretty much.” I pulled out my scribbled notes and groaned. “Because Deacon and I had to leave to deal with Joseph, we weren’t here for the details in the setup. Now, we have faith in everyone who was involved, and we don’t anticipate any problems…but for all our sake, we’d like to just go through things to be sure.”

  “Before Tennessee gets here.” Cheryl frowned and nodded. “I’m assuming Tegan will be accompanying him?”

  “Yep.” Because everyone knows those two are inseparable these days.

  Cheryl cursed. “Great. Which means if there’s any hint of a problem she will sniff it out.”

  “I’m not so much worried about my sister. If she finds anything, she’ll probably just fix it on her own and tell us about it afterward – worst case scenario. She’s super excited about this school happening…” I bit my lip and glanced around the table. “However, like everyone else, I am worried about Tenn. This is his first big project since becoming Coven Leader. I don’t want to be the reason it fails. I want this to work for him, for us, for everyone.”

  “Which is why we’ve called you in.” Deacon slid an iPad across the table to her. “We want to go through every nook and cranny of this school to make sure we’re doing the best we can for the students. One of our new shifter’s parents were rather concerned about academics and potential college scholarships. I don’t know what we have set in place as of now—”

  “Tonya and I spoke about that before I left before…” Cheryl glanced over the iPad screen with sharp eyes. “But I would also love to see what the final outcome was. Honestly, I think you’re being overly cautious, but I believe that will be greatly appreciated by Tennessee.”

  “All right…” I stood up and smoothed the front of my sweater. “Deacon, why don’t you take Cheryl, Marshall, and your father over to Headmaster Muller’s so y’all can handle the checkup?”

  Deacon stood and saluted me. “As you wish.” He smacked my ass and winked.

  I gasped and heat flooded my face. “Deacon.”

  But he just chuckled and rushed into the hallway to join Marshall, Sebastien, and Cheryl. I spun back around and found Heather shaking her head.

  “Nope, didn’t see that,” she said without looking at me.

  “I did.” Claudia chuckled. “So, boss lady, what’s on our agenda?”

  Butterflies were still dancing around in my stomach, but I pushed them down and held my chin high. “The Yule Ball.”

  Heather pulled out her iPad and clicked the screen a few times. Then she nodded. “Right, so we’ve procured the location and got it to physical standards needed for safety and the sheer size of attendance.”

  “We wanted to make sure it had a separate entrance so that everyone attending wouldn’t be traipsing through the school itself.” Claudia already had her iPad out and was scrolling. “The Coven handled the invitations and we’ve obtained accommodations for the evening for those seeking it. We’ve also put all the nearby hotels on tighter lockdown spells to ensure everyone’s safety.”

  “We also made sure to bury this site in a mountain of protection spells, just to be on the safe side. We don’t want a repeat of the gala.” Heather shuddered.

  My stomach turned. “No, we sure don’t.”

  “And, so you know, I reached out to Henley and Lennox for some extra level spellwork.” Claudia looked up and grinned. “Have to say I quite enjoyed those.”

  I snorted. “I bet.”

  “Also, we have arranged shifts for the Knights of New York.” Heather turned her iPad toward me, showing a detailed schedule of times, names, and locations. “We don’t want anyone feeling unsafe while here, so I sat down with my Knights and we all agreed on this arrangement. They will be splitting the Ball in half. Some will partake the first portion, some will partake the second portion. They were all quite willing to serve.”

  “That’s kind of them. Please make a note that we return their gesture in a way that would be appreciated.” I rubbed my hands together as my thoughts spun out of control. “I am sure that Tenn and Tegan will have their own security plans once they arrive, but I’ll let them know about your Knights and I’m positive they will want to meet with them. Tenn is all about comradery. Now, have either of you spoken to Silas?”

  They both shook their heads.

  Heather frowned. “We were concerned that it was…I don’t know…offensive for someone of our stature to contact him? He is the right hand to the king, so—”

  “I don’t think they’re like that.” I pulled out my phone and opened my text thread with my sister. “Silas just doesn’t speak much. However, I understand your hesitation there. I’m actually gonna pull the same thing and have Tegan call them. Let me just text her now…”

  I typed out a quick text to my twin. I probably should’ve sent this to the group chat with Tenn and Deacon, but I really wanted Tenn to think we were handling everything. I froze. What am I doing? I was the Empress. I’d spoken to Silas and Koth myself many times. We fought together side-by-side. If I wanted Tenn to think we could handle this then I needed to handle this.

  I opened up a new text thread with both Koth and Silas, then prayed I wasn’t ove
rstepping. Good morning, gentlemen. This is Emersyn Bishop. I wanted to reach out to you and let you know that we are looking great for the Yule Ball on Saturday, however, I wanted to check and see if y’all need anything particular. Anything at all. We want our fire-breathing friends to be as comfortable here as we are. Thanks!!

  I let out the breath I’d been holding while typing. “Okay, I texted Koth and Silas instead.”

  “You go girl,” Claudia said with a chuckle.

  “Thanks.” I pushed my hair back off my shoulders. “All right, so it seems like you’ve got the background logistics stuff handled, right?”

  Heather nodded. “As far as we know, yes.”

  “But our plan for today was to start the decorations and actual party planning.”

  “Right, the fun stuff.” I forced a grin I wasn’t feeling. “Okay, let’s go over to the location and get to work. Oh, can you call for Caroline and Noah to join us? They’re our Majors, so I’d like them to be involved.”

  Claudia beamed with pride. “I’ll text them now.”

  “Awesome. Let’s go.” I turned and marched out of my temporary office at the school.

  “Caroline and Noah will meet us there,” Claudia said from behind me.

  As we went down the stairs it made me think of another little helper. I smiled. “Heather, why don’t you text Amelia and tell her to meet us. And to bring Landy with her. I’d like their input as well.”

  “Avengers, assemble.”

  I froze, then glanced over my shoulder. “Who said that?”

  Heather grimaced and held one finger in the air. “’Twas I.”

  I chuckled and started walking again. “There’s a lot more to you than meets the eye — wait a second.” I stopped again.

  “We can’t call in Tony Stark, trust me, I’ve tried.” Claudia grinned.

  Heather shrugged one shoulder. “Deacon might have more luck with his…tricks.”

  Part of me was absolutely dying inside that these two grown-ass women were talking about the Avengers, but the other part of me was too busy realizing just how right they were. We needed a team that represented a bit of everything. We needed some shifters, not terrified little Landy. I only invited her in hopes of getting her out of her shell.