Witchful Thinking (2 page)

Queen
.

I’m not even really sure what to make of the word
.

And the worst part is that it’s not a detached, unfamiliar, or unthreatening word. Nope
, Queen
is an up-close-and-personal sort of thing, as in I’m going to be living and breathing it. Some would say being
Queen
is my destiny, I don’t know about that but what I do know is that
Queen
is now my reality
.

I am Queen of the Underworld
.

Jolie Wilkins, Queen of vampires, werewolves, and other creatures you wouldn’t want to invite to dinner
.

Somehow the title just doesn’t fit me. It’s like trying to wear a pair of shoes that are way too big for my size eight feet. I’m not a Queen, I never wanted to be a Queen, and I definitely don’t have the makings of a Queen. I’m just me—a witch with some magical abilities, one of which is the power to reanimate the dead. But Queen? Not by a long shot
.

One of the lessons I learned when I first became involved with the Underworld (less than two years ago) is that whatever the Underworld wants, it gets. It’s like the mob—once you get in, ain’t no gettin’ out. And I’m in—up to my neck
.

So how did I become Queen? Was there a royal celebration? Were Prince William and Harry in attendance?
Was Kate Middleton pissed? No, no, and no. My entry into the royalty of the Underworld was more like trial by fire—I’d been in the middle of a war; Gwynn (the bitch) had just run me through with a blade in return for destroying her lover; I’d died and then I’d been on the receiving end of reanimation, myself
.

The crowning glory of the whole battle came when Mercedes Berg, the supreme witch of all witches (also known as the prophetess), basically shell-shocked everyone with a magical burst of energy that lit up the entire sky. It was like God’s television had short-circuited. Everyone just stopped in their tracks, as if their brains had gone dormant. No one had been able to function. As if waving their white flags of surrender, everyone laid their weapons on the ground and just stared at one another dumbstruck. And that was the end of that
.

Well, for them. For me it was just the beginning
.

After Mercedes put the kibosh on our little war (a war for independence against the tyranny of the witch Bella, who wanted to be Queen), she informed me that I was now the Queen of the Underworld. And it wasn’t like I ever submitted my résumé for the position. It had come completely out of left field, and the craptastic part of the whole situation was that I couldn’t say no. Mob, remember?

So now I’m Queen and I want nothing to do with the position
.

About now, Diary, I imagine your head is spinning. Crap
, my
head is spinning and I’m the one who lived through all of it. In a fit of desperation, I decided to write it all down—to document how absurd my life has become in an effort to make sense of it all
.

Actually, this is my first journal entry. I never really got into diaries because my life didn’t warrant recording. It was a quiet, mundane existence fixed in routine, but I liked it well enough. I had a best friend, Christa,
who never ceased to amuse me with her frivolous talk about sex, sex, and more sex. I had my cat named Plum and I owned my own business—a tarot-card-reading shop. My skills, though limited, included reading people’s fortunes through cards as well as detecting auras to determine if someone was sick or healthy by glancing at the colors reverberating off them
.

The day Rand Balfour walked into my life, he changed it forever. Rand is a warlock and the first to inform me of my witchiness. He taught me pretty much everything I know … not to mention, I’m also head over heels in love with him. But more about Rand later
.

At this point the important things to know are: First, the Underworld is polarized in a battle of good (Rand’s side, which includes me, a handful of witches, a few hundred vampires and werewolves, and the entire legion of fairies) versus bad (the evil witch Bella and her minions, including an equal number of vampires and werewolves, none of the fairies, but all of the demons)
.

They say religion is at the core of most wars. Well, that wasn’t the case with this one. This war began over me—and I’m not saying that to sound vain or to make you think I have an inflated sense of self-importance. Trust me, I’m really not that great. But once word spread throughout the Underworld that I could reanimate the dead, all the creatures went into a tizzy because no one before me had ever been able to do that. Bella, in true Bella form, wanted me on her side because like most villains, Bella sought power—power over all the Underworld species. I guess I was a sharp arrow to have in her quiver
.

As with any other war, what happened was heart wrenching—vamp fighting vamp and witch fighting witch. Of course, I didn’t get to observe too much—just as I was impaled by Gwynn’s blade, I was whisked back in time to Alnwick, England, in the year 1878. There I
met the prophetess, Mercedes Berg. Well, as it turned out, she’d been the party responsible for sending me back to 1878 in order to save me as well as herself. To put it bluntly, Mercedes needed a ride back to the future to avoid her own untimely death, and I played the part of bus
.

As I mentioned earlier, Mercedes ended the war by raising her hands and causing that big ol’ magical burst, looking like a conductor leading the orchestra of the skies. After Gwynn stabbed me, Mercedes brought me back to life and I learned that she was the only other person besides me who could reanimate the dead
.

And now? It’s only been about two hours since Mercedes stopped the battle. Now I find myself sitting in a cottage, alone, in a fairy village in the middle of the Cairngorms Forest in Scotland, waiting for I don’t know what. After the war ended, we took care of the injured and the dead, while also taking Bella’s remaining forces captive. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention our victory—Mercedes was on our side … thank God
.

So here I am, camped out in this room, with not a whole lot to occupy myself, just waiting for word on what our next course of action will be
.

At the sound of a knock on the wooden door, I lifted my gaze from the parchment in front of me where I’d scribbled my journal entry. I laid my pen on the oak desktop and stood up, catching a glance at my outfit as I did so, and I had to laugh.

One fact about the fae and fae communities in general was that magic ruled. When you were in a fae village, and if you happened to be female, fae magic dictated
you be dressed in what looked like Renaissance garb. My dress had an empire waist and was so long that it skimmed the ground. The material was light and gauzy, off-white, and bedecked with pink ribbon piping around the waist, the bust, and the wrist-length sleeves. I didn’t even have to look at my hair to know it was three times its usual length, now grazing my butt in a mass of golden sausage curls, kissed by pink cherry blossoms.

I’d gone into battle dressed in stretch pants and come out of it looking like Rapunzel.

I pulled open the door and found Rand standing before me. His chest was bare, revealing ripples of sinuous muscle. Rand’s physique is nothing short of awe inspiring, but his muscles aren’t the type you’d find in the gym. He’s not into lifting five hundred pounds and grunting as loud as he can to make sure everyone knows he’s lifting five hundred pounds. No, Rand’s physique was sculpted from hard work and training with werewolves, master vampires, and fae kings.

I couldn’t help but stare as my eyes trailed his beautiful upper body and rested on his blue-and-green-tartan kilt. While fae magic bedecked women in gowns, the same magic endowed men with kilts. It was like living in the book covers of every Highlander romance in existence.

Rand still wore the filth and misery of the war—blood and dirt staining a face that surpassed all others in its beauty. Well, maybe the master vampire Sinjin Sinclair (who just happened to be Rand’s detested ally—long story) could compete with Rand’s good looks, but at the moment I wasn’t thinking about vampires. No, instead, I was getting drunk on the beauty of a warlock.

Rand is tall enough, maybe six-two or six-three, but he appears even taller by the proud way that he carries himself. He has chocolate-brown hair, cropped short. If you took that same chocolate, melted it, and added just
a touch of cream, you’d have the color of his eyes. His complexion is what could only be called sun-kissed, without interruption by freckle or mole. And his face is pretty angular—a strong jaw, cleft chin, and high, sharp cheekbones. The beauty of his lips—full and plump under his strong nose—is on par with his gorgeous eyes. When he smiles, his dimples light up his entire face until you would swear you were beholding someone heaven-sent.

Neither of us said anything for a second or two. We just stood there, staring at each other as if we were from different planets and unable to communicate. And it made sense because, although we definitely loved each other, the best way to describe our relationship was as an emotional roller coaster. As such, I still didn’t know where we stood—whether we were together as in boyfriend–girlfriend or … not.

Jolie
.

It was Rand’s voice in my head—complete with his thick English accent—a form of communication he and I have shared ever since we first met at my shop in Los Angeles two years ago.

“Rand.” I said his name out loud and suddenly his arms were around me, holding me tightly. I felt the heat of his skin against my cheek as he pulled me close. He smelled like spice and sweat, the scent of masculinity, the embodiment of Rand. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, wanting nothing more than to fill myself with his very essence.

“I lost you,” he whispered with a strained voice. He was referring to my death, when Gwynn’s blade had pierced my stomach. He pulled away from me, and his eyes were glassy. “I will never forget the pain of watching you die. It will stay with me forever.”

I didn’t want to think about pain. I’d known my fair share but I also couldn’t deny him the ache in his eyes. I
wanted nothing more than to soothe him, to promise we would never be apart again. “Mercedes brought me back,” I began. I’d only really been dead for a second or two, so did it really even count?

He crushed me against him, almost as if he was trying to remind himself I was truly flesh and blood, and not some figment of his imagination. He held me incredibly tightly, as if he could erase the past twenty-four hours by smothering me.

“I don’t know whether to be indebted to Mercedes or furious with her,” he said. I wasn’t sure where my feelings leaned on the subject either. I had a damn good hunch that Mercedes knew beforehand that I was going to die—there didn’t seem to be much of anything she didn’t know. But at the same time, she was the one who brought me back to life, so how mad could I be?

“Let’s put it behind us now,” I whispered.

“You said Mercedes was the prophetess,” Rand continued. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. If I was sure of anything, it was that Mercedes was the prophetess—the fabled and legendary witch to end all witches. The prophetess was rumored to be able to change history, something Mercedes had artfully demonstrated by pulling me back to 1878. Her magic was so potent, it was scary.

“Yes, I’m positive.” The image of her manipulating the sky came to mind. “Didn’t you see how she ended the battle?” I mean, hello, if that wasn’t proof I didn’t know what was.

He nodded but didn’t say anything else, just continued to hold me, stroking my head like I was a child. Finally he spoke, and his voice was soft.

“And what is this about you being Queen?”

That was a tough subject, and I could read lots more into Rand’s question than the mere fact that he asked it. Rand wasn’t crazy about any form of monarchy, no offense
to the Queen Mum. He’d rebelled against Bella’s plans to become Queen of the Underworld, and even though he and I were allies and I was as different from Bella as day is from night, I couldn’t imagine he’d be any more eager to see me ascend to the throne. No, Rand believed in the ideals of democracy and justice. Even though he was as English as tea and crumpets, he could easily have been an American revolutionary from the eighteenth century based on his feelings about equality, liberty, and freedom. And he did make a mean apple pie.

“I don’t know,” I answered, which was sort of the truth. I mean, I didn’t know what Mercedes had in mind for me, and although Rand had been there to witness everything she had to say about me becoming Queen, there hadn’t been much. In fact, as I recall, she said I’d become Queen and it was my destiny to unite the creatures of the Underworld, and that had been that.

“Mercedes made it sound like prophecy,” Rand continued, eyeing me as if he thought I knew more than I was letting on.

“You heard everything I did,” I answered simply. “I don’t know what to make of it or what it means, but I imagine Mercedes will fill me in at some point.”

“You have freedom of choice, Jolie. If you don’t want to be Queen, you don’t have to.”

How ironic—this was the first time “freedom of choice” had ever been mentioned with regard to the Underworld. Freedom really wasn’t something that came easily to Underworld creatures. Their society wasn’t structured like ours—a lesson I’d learned the hard way.

“Mercedes assumes I have no choice in the matter.” I sighed, not really wanting to shatter the beauty of the moment with thoughts of my new career path. “She said it was my destiny to unite the creatures. And if it is my true destiny, how can I avoid it?”

Rand was quiet for a second or two before he shook
his head. “Let’s not think about it right now,” he said, pulling me closer. “We can figure out all of the details later.” He kissed the top of my head. I closed my eyes as I held him, but it was a false sense of security. As if foreseeing my own future, I realized Rand would most likely oppose me if I chose to follow my destiny to become Queen. It wasn’t a reality I wanted to face.