A Dangerous Witch (Wildes Witch Academy Book 2) Read online

  Holly Ice

  A Dangerous Witch

  First published by Black Arrow Books 2020

  Copyright © 2020 by Holly Ice

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  First edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

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  Contents

  Author Note

  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

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Author Note

  Please note that I’m a British author and use UK English spelling and grammar throughout this series.

  Chapter 1

  Two long weeks ago today, the witch’s coven announced I’d go to trial for Justin’s murder.

  I kicked my empty breakfast tray. It slid over the concrete floor and clattered against the jail cell bars.

  Murder. Like I could do that to a friend, to someone who cared about helping people and rooting out corruption as much as Justin had.

  I shook my head. The Wild Magic Containment Force didn’t even consider another suspect. Some officers, I was sure, helped frame me – hiding, losing and destroying vital evidence for my defence. No doubt because Justin’s undercover operation hit a bit too close to home. And the rest judged me guilty.

  But even without the corruption, I wouldn’t have dodged a trial. My Wildes ancestors were mass murderers. So when a newly discovered Wildes lived a street away from an officer’s murder, an officer ordered to watch her movements… they didn’t look into other options very hard. Especially when Justin’s partner that night, and witness to his murder, pointed his finger squarely at me.

  I was the perfect scapegoat.

  And finding a lawyer to pick apart their lies wasn’t as simple as the human world. They weren’t allocated. We had to convince them to take our case. Which was impossible. Either they were unwilling to work for me, or whoever arranged Justin’s death was keeping them away.

  I gritted my teeth. Dwelling on Justin’s murder – and the fact his real killer was still out there – was like inhaling shards of glass.

  But torturing myself got us nowhere.

  We needed to get this trial over with quick, force the WMCF to investigate the right people. Or at least get me out of here so I could track down who did this.

  That meant focusing on things I could change. And today I finally had a spark of flickering hope to grasp with both hands.

  Shane promised news for today’s visit.

  My heart skipped a beat every time I thought about his smile tucked into his cheek and the weight of his arms around me. An oasis of calm in my worries.

  It couldn’t be long till visiting hours now…

  I stared at the bright spell which bound my offensive magic, looped around my wrists like bloody glow stick bracelets. They pulsated roughly in time with a second. I counted a few but quickly lost track.

  They’d taken almost everything from me in this place but they took particular pleasure in hiding the time. Without Shane, I’d forget what day it was. I suspected it was step one in breaking me down.

  In this basement cell I didn’t even have a window.

  For two weeks I’d not heard birdsong, felt the wind on my skin or the bristle of grass under my feet. I felt like half of a person.

  Footsteps approached, and the morning guard peered in.

  With her scraped-back ponytail and hard, makeup-less face, she reminded me of an ageing PE teacher. She acted like one, too, not speaking unless she had orders to relay. No chitchat.

  I didn’t even ken her name. A theme with my guards. But she was the best of the lot. She didn’t talk much, but she didn’t jab me when no one was looking, or comment on what I did to another guard like I wasn’t listening.

  ‘Is it visiting hours?’ She had no other reason to be here.

  She gave a minute shake of her head. ‘Step back, Wildes.’

  Could this be a break in routine, from her? I didn’t believe it. I moved right up to the bars.

  Any other guard would’ve hit the metal with their baton until I backed off, but she didn’t react.

  They only let me out of my cell for lukewarm showers, and I wasn’t due one today. So where was she taking me?

  ‘What is it? I am seeing Shane today?’

  I stared, waiting for a blink, for any emotion in her robotic face.

  I’d been mulling on Shane’s news since he visited my cell last night. Without a lawyer willing to speak for me, and barely any witnesses, I’d been stuck in my cell, exactly where Justin’s murderers wanted me. If something changed… I had to see him.

  She rolled her eyes, then slotted a key into the lock.

  There it was, a tiny slip in her bland professionalism.

  I smiled. If she thought I was being overdramatic, they weren’t keeping Shane away. I’d still see him, after whatever this was.

  The lock clicked. She waved her hand and muttered something. The multicoloured spell around the bars dulled to nothing.

  The door creaked open.

  ‘Walk in front,’ she said, jabbing her baton at the long corridor.

  I brushed past her and led the way, pausing every five metres for her to physically unlock and then unravel the spells on each new set of doors.

  So, what waited for me upstairs? Was it an early shower? I didn’t think so. The guard was too cagey.

  I trudged to the next floor. My gut curdled and tugged me up the steps.

  Whatever was there, my spirit powers wanted me to see it. I bit my lip. Was Shane okay? Did something happen?

  ‘Turn left.’

  I paused, and my guard walked into me.

  ‘Damn it, Wildes! Move!’

  I glared at her.

  Right led to the bathrooms, left to the main processing rooms. I hadn’t been there since the day they took my details and gave me my uniform. So why now? I squinted at the brightly lit corridor.

  My guard’s baton poked me. Hard.

  ‘Ugly hag,’ I muttered, continuing my march past several force employees.

  Stay alert. Lyall eyed the hallway behind me from his perch on my shoulder.

  I shouldn’t have felt so alone with my familiar watching my back, but I did. He wasn’t physically here. He couldn’t hug me or fight off the guards. That was probably why the guards hadn’t bothered taking away the weekly potions that allowed me to see and communicate with him.

  I ken.

  It was an effort not to stare out the windows. The rich green and soft blue seemed unreal after so long in my dull cell.

  But the WMCF officers watched me l
ike I was the most dangerous person to ever walk their halls.

  I couldn’t be distracted. Even for a moment. The guards were like tinder. One wrong move, and they’d erupt.

  The two officers who barred the door to the car park were a prime example. They crackled with tension, their eyes dead, and their bodies stiff as statues.

  Beyond those doors, protestors chanted the same old slogans, their signs plastered over every other window. They never quit.

  I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t sure they’d ever look past my name. I was a Wildes. My ancestors were murderers. So in their eyes I was already guilty. How did I beat that?

  ‘Stop.’ My guard opened a plain, unlabelled door on my right.

  Shane.

  My feet drew me to him, my blood rushing through my ears.

  They’d always made him visit my cell before, the guards snickering down the corridor, like we were their personal soap opera.

  Moving me to a private room was ‘too dangerous’. So what changed?

  Mira, Shane’s Canadian lynx familiar, lay on her side, showing her fluffy belly. She stretched an oversized paw towards me in that lazy way cats greet their people.

  Her golden eyes watched me, but she felt dimmer, the waves of contained danger she normally gave off somehow declawed.

  Shane seemed drained, too, hunched over the table, his eyes shut, massaging his temples.

  I bit my lip, aching to wrap him in a hug.

  His ruffled hair had that dark rock star look that usually sent my mind tumbling into sheet-twisting fantasies. But I wasn’t sure he’d noticed me yet, which probably meant his hands had torn through his hair with stress. This wasn’t the happy meeting I’d hoped for.

  I pulled in a breath. His pine-and-musk scent comforted me like a thick blanket. That at least was the same. I reached for his broad shoulders, wishing I could see his face, run my hand over his back and ask how he was.

  A man cleared his throat.

  Heart racing, I swung to face him.

  I’d been so wrapped up in Shane, I hadn’t registered the man on the far side of the table.

  He was in his mid-thirties, though he dressed older in shiny brown shoes and a beige, patterned waistcoat.

  Only the eccentric and the snobby elite dressed like that. Unless they were at a wedding. So who was he, and why was he here?

  He bounced his leg so hard the table jiggled.

  I gritted my teeth, itching to hold him still. After the cell’s quiet, any noise seemed unreasonably loud.

  The newcomer glanced at me, and then his gaze strayed to the walls, the table, his hands… Always moving.

  He wasn’t Shane’s news, was he?

  He doesn’t look that convincing.

  No.

  He firmly belonged in the eccentric box.

  Shane finally looked up and smiled, the tension draining from his face. ‘Bee.’

  My heart slowed, the soft purr of his voice warming me through. Hell, the need in that one word. He’d missed me. My cheeks flushed, drawing his gaze and quick, sexy grin.

  But I worked not to wince. Out of the dingy basement cells, the harsh light emphasised the bags under his eyes. They were so dark they seemed bruised. His face was sharper, thinner. His clothes were baggier, too. He’d lost weight. A lot of it.

  I nibbled on my lip, a knot of guilt growing to a scratchy lump in my throat. This was my fault. I’d put too much on him.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  ‘Can’t complain. You?’ His gaze checked every inch of my exposed skin.

  It was more inspection than sexual, but a shiver ran down my neck with memories of his firm hands pressing into my hips and his featherlight kisses, tickling my neck.

  I swallowed hard. ‘They’re treating me okay.’

  He didn’t need to ken about the bruises on my back, upper arms, and shins from the guards’ rough handling. I’d already laid too much on him.

  I nodded to the new guy. ‘Is this the news you brought?’

  We’d not made any real progress since the WMCF and the coven sent me to prison. If the fidgeter was a potential witness, maybe Shane could finally take a step back and rest.

  ‘Yes.’ Shane’s voice was tired, resigned.

  The new guy’s eyes flicked between me, Shane, and the open door in an endless loop.

  ‘Shut it, guard,’ the stranger said, glaring past me.

  I blinked. Had he just told my guard to shut up?

  She raised an eyebrow, obviously thinking the same thing, but the new guy looked between her and the door, his cheek twitching, until she gave us privacy.

  Well, he had more backbone than I thought. And more sway.

  My guards never listened to me, no matter how much I cursed or threatened or pleaded, so why did she listen to this guy? Was I wrong? Did he have pull?

  ‘Who are you?’ I dragged out the last chair, its legs squeaking on the floor.

  ‘We should get started.’

  I fought not to narrow my eyes. That didn’t answer my question. I turned my chin to Shane.

  He sighed, twisting his hands together. ‘This is Julian Bisset, your representative.’

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Though it came out more like a snort.

  This guy was a lawyer? He wore a suit but he wasn’t the charismatic powerhouse I’d expected to take my case, the kind drawn to a high-profile trial where all the attention was on them and the result.

  Oh, jeez, his eyelid twitched.

  But he hadn’t walked out when I laughed at him. Most people would’ve. So why did Julian take me on? Was he helping? Or was he a plant, bribed or blackmailed into mucking up my defence?

  Julian glanced again at the door and then all around the room.

  ‘Why do you keep looking around like that?’ I asked.

  ‘Cameras.’

  Was he paranoid, too?

  He finally stopped checking the corners and walls, but his fingers tapped the table in intricate patterns. Watching him was exhausting.

  ‘How many candidates did we have, Shane?’ Because this guy could not be the best of the bunch.

  Subtly, he gestured to Julian.

  One. That’s all I got. My stomach overturned, and a shot of fear hit my heart.

  Julian couldn’t sit still. And from what I’d seen, I didn’t trust his mind much either.

  All the trial books Shane found said a lawyer who came across well was key to a good defence or prosecution. Personality. Charm. Magnetism.

  This guy’s twitches and fiddling had me so on edge I could barely look at him, so how could he convince people I was innocent – and help me avoid the death penalty?

  ‘How many criminal cases have you won?’ I asked. Maybe he was eccentric but killed it in the courtroom. Maybe.

  Julian clasped his hands, then readjusted his hold, again and again, but his gaze was over my shoulder. ‘You’ll be my first criminal case.’

  ‘First!’ I sat on my hands before I slammed the table. ‘How can this be your first case?’

  My chest was so tight I struggled to pull in breath. At least one competent lawyer must want to defend me?

  ‘I usually practice contract law.’

  ‘He comes highly recommended by his clients,’ Shane said. ‘He’s handled very successful mergers.’

  Still, he couldn’t meet my eyes.

  This wasn’t what I had in mind when I asked him to find me allies and a good lawyer.

  Contract law doesn’t come under coven jurisdiction.

  Even better!

  Julian looked at me. ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kill Justin Holt.’

  My breath flew out of me. Even this long after being accused of murdering my friend, hearing it hurt.

  ‘No. I didn’t kill him.’ What did he expect, a confession? ‘You’re sure he’s a lawyer, Shane?’

  Okay, that was rude, but asking me if I did it, really?

  ‘He’s a lawyer.’ Shane didn’t bli
nk. ‘Your lawyer.’

  Shane’s bitten nails and rough stubble tugged on that knot in my throat. He’d put everything he had into finding me a defence, and this was the best he’d found.

  I laced my shaky hands together, the hard shell I’d built around what might happen to me shattering.

  They may as well string me up now.

  ‘And the DNA?’ Julian asked.

  ‘What DNA?’ My voice trembled.

  Shane’s eyes snapped to mine, brimming with guilt and concern.

  I bit my tongue. Couldn’t have that.

  ‘You took DNA from students?’

  Did he want me to admit to all my accused crimes? ‘Why are you asking?’ Good. This time I sounded stronger, frustrated.

  ‘I need to know what you have and haven’t done if I’m to successfully defend you.’

  To hell with it. I’d already admitted the DNA thing and been caught at it. My academy roommate, Kaylee, wouldn’t hold back retelling that story in court, so telling him did no harm.

  I glanced at the thin line of Shane’s downturned lips. He’d want me to try, too.

  ‘Shane, Cameron, and I collected DNA for Justin and the Wild Magic Containment Force, aye. It was part of his investigation.’

  ‘Category one punishments will be difficult to pursue for privacy and personal data infraction, though not for murder,’ he mumbled, scratching notes into his pad.

  ‘Category one?’ I asked.

  ‘Death. Or the stripping of your magic through a familiar fade.’

  Such a clinical name for the worst-case scenarios that plagued my nightmares. How was he so practical talking about it?

  Julian slotted his pen through the rings of his pad and collected his things. ‘Thank you.’ He walked out.

  I stared at his empty seat. He’d left. Just like that. Shouldn’t he have gone over strategies, or payments, or witnesses? Or any of the other things Shane and I exhausted over the last few weeks?

  I shook my head.

  Shane stroked my arm.

  Warmth seeped into my bones.

  ‘It’s good to see you out of that cell,’ he said, his eyes catching mine, searching.

  He wanted to ken how I was. How imprisonment was. What I really thought of my chances with Julian defending me.

  I licked my lips, so tempted to tell him everything, like I had on every previous visit. I smoothed his ruffled hair, but he still looked spent. Breakable.