ShadowKiss – Chapter 1
Sloan Ellis offered the crowd her best smile. She did not want these people to be able to tell just how nervous she was. She thought she pulled it off for two reasons: first, she had lots of practice trying to look normal while doing things that twitched her anxiety. And second, she’d cast a spell on herself so people would see a calm, confident sister of the bride.
The problem was, she’d screwed it up. She should have cast a spell to make herself not nervous. Talk about a swing and a miss.
She took a deep breath and heard it reverberate through the mic so everyone else heard it, too. Lovely. Then she spoke. She didn’t make any high-pitched screeches, so that was good. She also didn’t need to pull the paper out of her pocket where she’d written her ever-so-short toast down.
“So,” she dove into the end with gusto. “I would like to wish Rae and Sam good luck on their future together, but I’m not going to. They don’t need it. I’ve seen them in action and they’ve already proven they have what it takes.” She turned to her sister and raised her glass, feeling her heart swell, wishing their mother and father could have been here. “I hope you have sunny days ahead of you, even though I know you two will be fine whatever comes your way. I know Mom and Dad would be so happy for you, Rae, and so ready to welcome you into our family, Sam. Cheers.”
She took a sip from her champagne, almost spilling it in her glee at being finished. Ever so carefully, so as not to trip and ruin a toast that had gone as well as she could make it go, she stepped down from the small stage and headed back to her seat.
It was a good day. Sunny, the beach was cooperating with her sister’s wedding plans. Rae was beaming and Sam looked like a man who was both ecstatic and thoroughly at peace with his life.
The only downside was that Rae couldn’t photograph her own wedding. Sloan had no skills in that area. She’d helped with flowers and picking out a dress and let Rae hand the photo job off to another art photographer she admired. He generally did not do weddings. For Rae and Sam he made an exception.
Settling back into her seat at the head table, Sloan felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Yasmin, her new cousin-in-law and witch extraordinaire. She leaned in and whispered, “Your Veil worked perfectly!”
“You can tell?” Sloan blinked up, aside from keeping her voice low, she was ignoring the fact that there was another person who’d gotten up to make a toast. Yasmin could tell she’d cast a spell on herself?
“I can see it,” Yasmin whispered out the side of her mouth.
“Who else can see it?” Sloan shot back, not so proud of herself any more.
“Probably Tristan. Definitely Delilah. Maybe a few others? I don’t know. Not most people, no worries.”
Yup. No worries, that’s exactly what she was thinking. Because what good was a Veil spell to make people think you weren’t nervous if they could see that you’d cast the damn spell in the first place? She smiled at Rae’s friend Alex as he made another toast to the happy couple. He looked much more comfortable at the mic than she’d been. Probably didn’t need a stupid spell either.
She was truly happy for her sister. She almost cried as the crowd sent them off in their convertible. Rae and Sam would drive up the coast, having decided that LAX was no place to start a marriage. Sloan did her part and helped clean up, then begged off partying and said goodnight to everyone she knew.
She drove herself home in the little red Audi that said things about her that weren’t true. It was an LA thing to have the best possible car—even if that meant you lived in a terrible neighborhood. She didn’t. She had amazing neighbors in her building in West Hollywood. And she’d thought it would be temporary.
Rae had encouraged her to take a job here several years ago. Since her sister was her only immediate family left, she’d come. However, she’d made the arch mistake of thinking that Los Angeles would be full of men. That she’d meet someone and fall in love and…
Do all the things that Rae had done: have a circle of friends, live her dream, find him.
So yeah, she was a little jealous. And now she knew she couldn’t even cast a spell on herself for it because her new family—Yasmin and Luke—and her new friends down at Blessed Be, their family witchcraft shop, would know exactly what she’d done.
Kicking off her shoes, she dropped onto her very plush sofa and held a solo pity party. She pulled out a bottle of her favorite red wine and poured herself a glass. She only had her own favorites in the house. Because no one else came to drink wine with her. Aaaannnndd the pity party cranked up a notch.
One glass of wine was enough to convince her to get out of the very pretty dress she’d never have an opportunity to wear again. Even her pajamas said “party of one.”
Back on the couch, she refilled her wine, turned on the TV and stared into the distance. It was time for some hard choices.
There were, in fact, tons of men in L.A. However, far too many were workaholics. Many were trust fund babies with no life skills of their own. Actors—she shuddered. Producers or agents—too sharky! And kids. She’d had no second dates for over… a year now. Ouch.
So it was time to choose. House? Or Cats? She needed to embrace solo-dom.
She truly liked cats. Yasmin had two. Hex and Voodoo—sweet gray rescues that hung out at the store with her and rode in the car back and forth almost like dogs. Except Yasmin didn’t have two cats, Yasmin and Luke did. Which kept Yasmin from being a cat lady. She was a happily married woman who only took sips of her champagne at the wedding.
Shit.
Yasmin was pregnant and they hadn’t told anyone! Yes, Sloan was putting her money on Delilah’s kids getting a cousin soon. And Tristan and Megan would be tying the knot next month. Though they would literally tie the knot in an old pagan ceremony of handfasting. Sloan thought it was a beautiful idea. Then she fought tears. It just wasn’t meant to be for everyone.
House.
Right then she decided. She was going to buy a house. Dammit, she had a good job. She had a steady income that could afford more than this apartment and more than the wish that she would find a man and fall in love and everything would fall in line. Clearly, it wasn’t going to.
House.
It would be small, but she was only one person. Well, maybe one person and a few cats.
She was halfway through the second glass of wine when she had an epiphany. She couldn’t cast on herself, because all her new witchy friends might see it. But she could scry. Thunking the wine glass onto her coffee table with a little too much force, she bolted for the guest room closet. Her pendulum hung there and she reached out for it, frowning as it looked like the small pointed jade piece reached for her, too. Too much wine, she told herself, and pulled out her maps.
She set out the map of L.A. then realized she shouldn’t be searching for a man if she didn’t know yet that he existed. She had two bowls nested on her coffee table. The inside one held potpourri. Lifting it out, she set it aside and pulled her water out of the cabinet. She got a gallon from Blessed Be when she needed it. She’d even joined the circle of witches who blessed the water monthly. That was cool. Pouring it into the bowl she leaned in and almost knocked over her wine.
She looked through the surface and held her question close. Is there someone out there for me?
She saw the picture begin to form and she watched with abject fascination. There he was. Him. Then the surface rippled and marred the image.
Damn. She couldn’t see him. All she could see was dark hair and a tie with little lightning bolts on it. Little, almost cartoony lightning bolts. That was silly. After three tries she gave up. He was there, but she was clearly not allowed to see him. She went to the map to see if this dream man lived in Los Angeles. She got a huge goose egg.
So she’d come out here for nothing. Great.
Next, she headed back to the closet to pull out the full US map. She spread it on the table, knocked back the last of her wine and started looking.
It was an arduous task. The wine didn’t help. In fact, she must have fallen asleep leaned over the coffee table, because she woke at three a.m. with the side of her face pressed to the map, the fuzz of wine in her mouth, and the little jade pendulum pointing to Chicago.
