The werewolfs fate rested in the witchs hands...
Mireio Malory is a quirky witch whos on a quest to complete a dark spell that will grant her immortalityat the expense of a live vampires heart. Shes ready to conjure that dangerous and life-changing spell when she meets a lone werewolf and beekeeper.
Lars Gunderson has secrets of his own. His alpha allure is obvious, but Mireio senses that theres something more to him than his raw sexiness. When Lars entrusts her with a devastating revelation, Mireio has to make a choice. Will she sacrifice the most potent magic shes ever worked on to be with the man she loves?
Her fingers clutched his shirt and the connection zinged his every nerve ending, sending scintillating tingles all over his skin.
It was as if together they created a sort of sensual electricity. And Lars couldnt get enough of her mouth, her tongue, her sighs.
Pressing a hand against her back, he coaxed her forward and bowed to continue the kiss. Her moan said everything he was feeling: yes, yes, all the yeses in the world. This tiny witch felt so right in his arms. He had to thank the gods for putting him in her backyard, even if it had been a strange night that had scared the hell out of him.
MICHELE HAUF is a USA TODAY bestselling author who has been writing romance, action-adventure and fantasy stories for more than twenty years. France, musketeers, vampires and faeries usually populate her stories. And if Michele followed the adage write what you know, all her stories would have snow in them. Fortunately, she steps beyond her comfort zone and writes about countries and creatures she has never seen. Find her on Facebook, Twitter and at www.michelehauf.com.
The Witch and the Werewolf
Michele Hauf
www.millsandboon.co.uk
MILLS & BOON
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For Jeff. Our souls agreed to this.
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Introduction
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Extract
Copyright
Chapter 1
Feet floating up so her toes peeked out of the frothy bubble bath, Mireio Malory wiggled the little pink beads as she sang to the music filling her bathroom. She sang along with the Meghan Trainor tune about loving herself and not having time for a man because she was all about having fun. A fitting theme song for Mireio at the moment.
Guys were great, but she didnt have the time to focus on a relationship if her plans to achieve immortality came to fruition. A simple spell could prolong her life a hundred years, guaranteed. But to actually perform that spellwhich involved drinking the blood from a live vampires beating heart? Shed been avoiding the spell for years, but she couldnt do that anymore. It was time to honor her departed mother, and to take back her power.
Baths were a common ritual for her in the evenings, after a long day of work at the brewery, or after shed flexed into a few yoga moves and watched an episode of Bones on Netflix. Born a witch, yet pretty darn disappointed shed not been born a mermaid, Mireio honored her water magic by feeding her bodys innate craving for water. Surely she owned the biggest bathroom in the city. It was hexagonal, tiled like a Moroccan temple and the big round marble bathtub sat at the center of it all. It was the size of a hot tub, but there were no bubble jets in this tub beyond the sensory explosions from her homemade bath bombs.
Singing loudly, she blew a handful of bubbles skyward and laughed when some landed in her pinned-up red hair. The water was starting to cool, and shed been in for forty-five minutes. Her fingers and toes were pruned, providing her tractionif she were an amphibian. Or a mermaid.
With a reluctant sigh, she rose from her watery haven and reached for a toasty towel hung over the towel warmer. It wasnt the wet porcelain tile floor that almost caused her to slip upon exiting the bathit was the scream.
And a very familiar scream at that.
Really? Mireio wrapped the towel around her ample curves and padded wet tracks to the back window to peer out, though she knew she couldnt see into her neighbor Mrs. Hendersons yard from here. The windows were also fogged.
She often mentally compared her neighbor to Mrs. Kravitz, the nosy neighbor on the 1960s TV show Bewitched. They didnt look at all similar, but they possessed the same snoopy, and unwelcome, curiosity and annoying voices.
Yet another scream, this one curling the hairs on the back of Mireios neck, prompted her to use the side door in the bathroom that walked out onto the patio.
Pushing open the screen door, she leaned out into the cool spring air and scanned her backyard. It was close to midnight, yet her yard was always illuminated from the house light above the door where she stood, and the dozen solar lights pushed into the lawn at five-foot intervals that framed the backyard.
Suddenly something ran into view. A deer? Wildlife always dashed through the neighborhood yards. Raccoons, beavers, deer, once even a black bear.
Mireio stepped out onto the bamboo patio rug, holding the screen door open with two fingers. She peered into the night, thinking her species, witches, had gotten ripped off because they didnt have cool night vision like vampires and werewolves. Suddenly an animal stopped, twenty feet away, in the middle of her yard.
She recognized the creature with an ease that made her heart sink.
A werewolf, she gasped.
Removing her hand from the screen door to put her fingers to her mouth, she suddenly felt a cool breeze skim her bare skin. More skin than should have been exposed. The towel had gotten caught in the door and fallen away, leaving her standing naked beneath the house light, unable to form words as she met the werewolfs golden gaze.
The creature, who in fully shifted form was half wolf, half man, thrust back his shoulders and lifted his chest, looking ready to howl. But when his gold eyes dragged away from hers and down her body...
Mireio tried to cover herself as she actually said, Eek!
The wolf snorted and a low growling noise rumbled in the night. It didnt sound threatening. In fact, to her it sounded...amorous.
Mrs. Hendersons scream sounded again. It was the catalyst to setting the werewolf off in a dash out of the yard.
Released from the spell of the creatures piercing gaze, Mireio grabbed the door pull and opened it, reaching for the towel and quickly wrapping it around her body.
Just in the nick of time because from around the corner of her backyard appeared a policeman, and in his wake, Mrs. Henderson.
Did you see it? Mrs. Henderson, wrapped in a thick white terry robe, scampered over to the patio, the ears on her bunny slippers bobbing.
Tugging the towel up higher and this time clasping it firmly, she stood before the elderly policeman, whom she knew lived on the other side of Mrs. Henderson. Mireio nodded. Uh, yes?
I told you! Mrs. Henderson slapped the policemans back, who shrugged and winced. He was accustomed to answering Mrs. Hendersons cries of wolf at all hours of the day.
But had this been a true cry of wolf? Best not to let humans know that.
It was a deer, Mireio hastily tossed out. Or maybe a moose. Yes, Im sure thats what it was.
A moose? Mrs. Henderson jammed her bony fists to her hips. It was Bigfoot!
All right, all right, the policeman said, placating his neighbor with a pat to her back. Miss Malory here says it was a moose. Shes got very good eyesight, and her backyard is well lit. So if she says it was a moose, I believe her. Lets go home now, Mrs. Henderson. Leave Miss Malory to...her bath.
To his credit he didnt eye her blatantly, only tipped a nod to her and turned Mrs. Henderson around, walking her back to her yard. All the way they argued over why a moose would be wandering through the tulips when it had very obviously been Bigfoot.
Mireio stepped inside the bathroom and closed the door and locked it. She peered out the now-defogged window, attempting to sight the werewolf. Perhaps spy a wolfish shadow backlit by the moonlight.
Whispering a protection spell to encompass her yard, she sent it out with a blown kiss.
Why had a werewolf been wandering through the neighborhood? That wasnt common. Too risky. And it wasnt even the full moon. Werewolves were much smarter than that. They knew to stay away from humans when shifted.
It was a good thing for him I scared him off.
Mireio winced. She had scared the wolf away with her naked body? Not one of her finest moments.
On the other hand, that look it had given her. Definitely animal, but also...maybe kind of...sexual.
She shook her head. Youre a silly witch. Just be thankful you didnt flash the whole neighborhood. Ha!
The music now blared Taylor Swift. Dropping her towel, Mireio performed a hip shimmy as she reached to drain the tub and then blew out the candles one by one, blessing the water goddess Danu as she did so.
* * *
Three nights later, Mireio stayed late after her shift at The Decadent Dames. She and her three witch friends owned the microbrewery in Anoka. Mireio was the master brewer. They all brewed and worked shifts and took turns scheduling, but Mireio was the early riser, so she generally arrived around six in the morning to start the days brew and finished about an hour before they opened in the afternoon. Today, shed gotten a late start so had finished the brew hours after opening.