Miz Spelled Read online

  Synopsis

  Previously titled Hexual Healing and published by Ellora’s Cave Publishing in their 2012 Hex Appeal Anthology. This story content has been refreshed and expanded for this release.

  It takes all hell breaking loose in Washington DC for hedge witch Missouri Hess to leave her mountain retreat and join her lover in the nation’s capital. Someone has unleashed a snake-eyes death hex against Thomas’s boss, Shep Buchanan. And if the spell doesn’t kill Shep, his own crew might.

  Nothing in his military, shapeshifting, Special Forces background has prepared Thomas Hunter for the torture of jaguar mating-heat or the wrath of a furious witch. Though he’s on a mission in DC, his beast wrests control, racing to the mate he's left behind.

  After Thomas delivers his own brand of healing, Miz returns with him to duty. They’ve got forty-eight hours to figure out the twisted magic at work—and time is not on their side.

  Miz Spelled

  Hexual Healing

  Bitter Creek Holler Book 2

  ISBN 978-1-62622-912-9

  Copyright © 2015 by Gem Sivad

  Published by Gem Sivad LLC

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Manufactured in the United States of America.

  Cover Design

  SelfPubBookCovers.com/Island

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Contents

  Synopsis

  Copyright

  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

  Epilogue

  A preview of Ursus Horribilis

  coming soon

  An excerpt from Miz Behaving

  coming soon

  An excerpt from Call Me Miz

  available now

  More Books You May Enjoy

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Missouri Hess stood on her porch and used her shirttail to polish an apple as she admired the cedar shed she’d built with her own hands. Moonlight cast a warm glow, highlighting her work.

  Thanks to a recent increase in business, Miz had been able to afford a panelized building kit. After she’d poured a square of cement to seat the building on, all she’d had to do was assemble the boxed parts—and pacify the house.

  When Miz had begun peeling back the top layer of grass and soil in order to prep for pouring the concrete pad, House had thrown a hissy-fit and immediately repaired and replaced what had been removed.

  It had taken three tries and a clash of wills to convince the antiquated structure it was time for the upgrade. Other than coaxing the old house she lived in to accept the addition, the project had been a breeze.

  Perseverance and bargaining had won. No doubt House would have preferred a hitching rail for a horse and buggy, rather than the Harley motorcycle parked inside the new mini-garage. But the sentient dwelling had stopped interfering with Miz’s project after it had extracted her promise to heal the woods.

  Now it was time to pay up. Miz sighed. She wasn’t a frigging botanist and she didn’t have a clue what kind of blight was loose. And if she didn’t stop the spread at its source, the infection would probably reenter the trees as soon as she fixed them.

  Woo-OO-oo-oo-oo… Though hours before dawn, the mourning doves in her neck of the woods didn’t pay much attention to clocks. They called to her now, their doleful song predicting rain. Feeling more than a little mournful herself, Miz walked to the side porch, and peered over the rail at the grass.

  She’d already stored her old push mower in the new shed, not figuring she’d need it again, until next year. Thanks to her scheduled trims, her lawn in the front and around the shed looked tidy.

  Her backyard was a different story. It had begun to look like a jungle, the once lush thick Kentucky bluegrass, now over-run with nettles, poison ivy, and other noxious weeds.

  “Guess I’ll have to take a scythe to it,” Miz muttered. It didn’t matter. Another weekend loomed in front of her and she needed something to fill the hours.

  And just like that, her gaze tore loose from her determined grip and slid across tree tops, focusing on the vacant cabin at the top of the opposite hill. Peering wistfully at the house, she could see that it was still empty.

  The place belonged to Shep Buchanan. He called it a fishing cabin and loaned it out to his friends. When he was in town, Shep stayed in his main house, a country mansion in Point Harmony.

  She’d heard a lot of stories over the years about Shep just being a regular guy. Miz snorted, shaking her head. Regular guys didn’t have heated and covered swimming pools, redwood decks, hot tubs, and helicopter landing pads.

  Standing on her side porch, she could look directly across at the fishing cabin where Thomas had spent the summer. She didn’t know if he was rich, too. When she’d thought they were going to be a couple, it had worried her.

  Guess I got ahead of myself on that one. Depressed she focused on the yard behind the cabin.

  A patch of red she’d first spotted a week before, had spread and now resembled blood creeping down the slope toward the woods. It hadn’t reached the tree line that connected Buchanan and Hess property—yet.

  “Wonder what Shep’s got growin’ over there.”

  The house shifted under her feet, groaning loudly. Ahhh… So that’s what has you worried. Uneasily, Miz remembered her promise to heal the woods, not certain what to do if the tree disease had started at the neighbors.

  She studied the foliage lining the narrow corridor between Hess House and Shep’s cabin. In the moonlight, the trees all shared a uniform brown but the infected grass across the way, glistened with drops of ruby red.

  Miz shook her head, trying to adjust the odd picture as she stared at the heavily wooded valley between the two properties. As if they knew she watched, ancient oaks aligned with younger maples, hickory, and elm, to widen the path to Shep’s place.

  “That is just too weird.” Even though the wind was nonexistent, the evergreens swayed as well, inviting her to visit the ridge beyond.

  “Looks like something out of a freaking Stephen King novel,” Miz muttered and bit into the tart, Granny Smith.

  “Okay, I’ll check out the soil in our yard tonight, test the wards, and visit the trees in the valley.” The floor tilted sideways and if it hadn’t been for the railing, Miz would have been dumped on the ground.

  As it was, she stood frozen, her feet rooted to the floor mesmerized when a silver birch beckoned to her, its bare branches twisting eerily, its demeanor beseeching.

  “Why would I want to visit Buchanan’s place? Thomas doesn’t live there anymore; and even if he did, I’m done with him.”

  She couldn’t decide whether the pain released by her words came from her, the house, or the trees. Maybe all. The emotional cascade flowed over her, smothering her in misery.

  “And furthermore, if the cretin walked back in today, I’d tell him to get lost.”

  Feeling as though even the foliage judged and found her wa
nting, Miz snarled her final remark loud enough for tree ears to hear and threw her half eaten apple at the offending birch.

  Furious for no apparent reason, she stomped inside, made herself a cup of coffee, and carried it back to the porch.

  “Dammit,” she muttered. “Enough with the self-pity party. I’m not hanging around looking woebegone and whining, anymore. I accept that it’s over. Heck, maybe it never really began. From now on Thomas Hunter is nothing to me but a memory.”

  While Thomas had been in Bitter Creek Holler, they’d been summer lovers. When Miz had ridden her Harley through the woods to the fishing cabin the trees had displayed its approval in the form of huge, out-of-season bursts of color unfolding in perfumed blossoms as she rode past. They’d been happy for her. She’d been delirious with joy.

  Unfortunately, the end of his vacation had meant that Thomas—Mr. Special Forces, Jaguar Shapeshifting, Sex-on-a-Stick—Hunter had places to go and things to do that didn’t include her. He’d been gone six weeks, five days, and—she paused and looked at the clock—eight hours. Not that she was keeping track or anything.

  Miz wished she had the apple back because thoughts of Thomas made her want to bite something. From her porch every morning, she had a bird’s eye view of the cabin where she and Thomas had made ferocious love for the first time.

  He’d put a mat the size of Texas in the middle of the cabin’s main room where they’d sparred until the session had ended with sweaty sex. Miz unsuccessfully tried to block the image of Thomas circling, taunting her with words as he found ways past her guard.

  Her defense had mainly been a kick to his skull, but dammit, he was so hard-headed she’d barely made a dent. He on the other hand, had gotten close—heart high close.

  I had no claims on him. I knew that from the beginning, regardless of what he said. We didn’t have a relationship. We had fantastic sex, and my tiny, hormone-saturated brain was mesmerized by his skill; but now he’s gone. I need to get on with things.

  Get on with things? Miz could barely force herself to get on with the day. A blanket of depression sapped her will. It wasn’t as if Thomas had cured the downside of her gift before he’d left. Nope. Her body hummed with all the excess pheromones trapped inside.

  Laying-on-hands cured others, but ingesting the poison of their illness left Miz burning with sexual arousal. Thomas had handled her problem, transforming the experience into pure pleasure.

  Before he’d left, he’d promised to call every day, and he had for a week. Then nothing. After he’d been gone over a month, and she’d received no answers to her calls, texts, instant messages, or mind to mind communications, she’d sent a joking text.

  Hey, it’s Friday—again. Should I look for a date tonight?

  She’d figured that would get his attention. Instead, whether it was her own psyche saying, Whoa Nelly, or a warning from farther away, she’d immediately experienced nausea that rivaled the aftermath of a deep healing.

  Evidently just thinking about fooling around with someone other than Thomas could make her puking sick. God knows she’d gladly embrace celibacy forever if she could just figure out how to deal with her carnal overload.

  Now that Thomas was gone, she could see the error of thinking she could have a normal life. Well, okay, he was a little different from average, but so was Miz. She’d thought they were good together. Now she had to relearn self-reliance.

  Thomas was history. Unfortunately, she missed his sly humor almost as much as she missed him in her bed.

  Dammit, I ache for the man. Her eyes watered and she blamed it on dust in the air. She dumped the rest of her coffee on the grass, set the cup on the rail and tried to keep her teeth from clenching. If she didn’t stop grinding them soon, she’d wear off the enamel.

  Before the sun had fully risen, she was ready to flee Bitter Creek Holler, home of all her depressing thoughts.

  She walked her Harley from its new shelter and mounted as a swarm of mosquitoes attacked. She’d never been bothered by bug bites before, but recently… Remembering the way Thomas had battled a horde of insects constantly, she shook her head.

  Maybe he infected me with some insect-attracting disorder. Irritated at the thought, she pulled on her helmet and started the motor. It was less than a week until Samhain, and magic pulsing in the mountain air doubled her witch power.

  Easing her bike to the end of the driveway, she paused to reset the ward, making certain there would be no two-footed or four-legged visitors invading her home while she was gone.

  “Time to go to work,” Miz muttered. Opening all her senses, she rode through Hess magic, taking the first bend in the road faster than wise as she sped out of the country to her shop in the city.

  Traffic was heavier than usual for so early in the day. Adding to that, a car wreck on the turnpike slowed things even more. She ended up skipping carry-out coffee just to make it on time to Hands-On, the massage parlor she co-owned.

  Chapter Two

  I’ll have to do some sprucing up if I’m to find a buyer. Miz sipped her coffee and studied the lobby of Hands-On. It wasn’t really a lobby. It was a spot between the front door and the counter. The floor was covered in cracked linoleum tile, alternating between cream squares and green. They’d planned on replacing it someday, but that someday never happened.

  The walls were cream colored. She and Jenny had painted them back when they’d been friends. They’d gone to school, earned their certifications and licenses for Massage Therapy at the same time, and set up shop together. It had been fun.

  But, it wasn’t now. The business had become a chore. She had more immediate worries than Thomas’s defection.

  What am I supposed to do with a lying, cheating partner? All things had changed. Miz had discovered that her business partner’s friendship had been nothing more than an assignment from the local werewolf pack’s alpha. Jenny had been spying on Miz for Hank Wyatt.

  And of course, that was the other issue she tried not to deal with. Apparently, Miz had missed the subtext of her life completely, and Jenny, her one friend, had aided and abetted the conspiracy to fool her.

  Half the people living in Bitter Creek Holler had magic in them that made them more than plain human.

  Jenny had purchased a fancy coffee maker, added a whirligig carousel stocked with Miz’s favorite brands, and made a point of maintaining a steady supply of coffee creamer in the shop. That was her way of saying sorry for ten years of deception.

  Besides that, none of Jenny’s ‘I’m so sorry’ bullshit rang true.

  Damn—all my life spent here and not one real friend. Worse than that, none of the three lovers Miz had hooked up with had been loyal either.

  Her first, Hank Wyatt claimed she’d been his intended mate but she’d burned out some imaginary bond between them. Hah. Miz wanted to punch someone every time she heard that story.

  Yeah, right. Talk about blaming the victim. She’d been seventeen, scared and on her own after her granny passed on. She’d missed so many days of school, she’d almost failed her senior year. But then, like her own personal knight in shining armor, Hank had stepped in and taken charge.

  She’d known him only as Mr. Wyatt before then. Even though he didn’t look much older than her, folks paid attention to what Hank said. After he’d talked to the principal, she’d ended up walking with her class and getting a signed diploma.

  She’d been so sure it wasn’t real on graduation day, she’d compared her piece of paper to other classmates’ to make certain they had the same seal.

  Before Granny Hess died, Miz had no problems with the local pervs bothering her. Afterward it seemed as though every Bitter Creek Holler male found an excuse to pester her, some even venturing up her lane.

  Hank had put a stop to that, too. All in all, she’d had plenty of reasons to be grateful to him.

  Once they’d had sex, she’d convinced herself that they were in love. Being young and dumb, she’d only counted her half of the equation. But even after h
e’d stopped dating her, Hank had found ways to use her.

  Miz frowned. Hank’s defection had left her wide open for the next flawed relationship with Milo Davis. She and Milo had shared a common contempt for all things related to Hank Wyatt. They’d been friends with benefits.

  And, as a good buddy would, when she’d seen sparks of interest flying between Milo and Jenny, Miz had stepped aside, glad that her two friends had found each other. Unfortunately, it had all been part of an elaborate fabric of lies.

  Hank had wanted Miz for her abilities, Milo had wanted her for her connection to the secret shifters in the area, and Jenny had been instrumental in channeling information about Miz to both men.

  Miz peered at her once-friend over the rim of her cup. Anger at being a dupe, stirred inside of her, but mostly she just felt sad. “Tell me something, Jenny. Are you still spying for Hank?”

  “Not my job now,” Jenny said quickly. “The walk-ins Hank sends us, keep him posted on the happenings here. As for Bitter Creek Holler, everybody knows everything anyway.”

  Thomas had still been in the holler when Miz had been called to an emergency pack meeting and he’d insisted on accompanying her, ignoring the absence of an invitation from Hank.

  When she’d refused Hank, and said ‘no’ to practicing unlicensed medicine in his hidden clinic in the mountains, he’d revealed her ability to the pack.

  “If you’re injured but mobile enough to get across the mountain, Miz is your girl,” Hank had said after he’d lured her to a meeting and introduced her as if she’d just moved to the community.

  “Pay her for her help. Otherwise stay away,” Thomas had warned.