Witching Moon (Twisted Dark, #1)

Chapter Three: Poor Banishment

I stroked the child's damp hair, satisfaction wrapped around me as the need inside of me was satisfied. Children were an intense need for me. I needed to just touch them and it was fulfilled. It was an intense need that burned my very skin the longer I went without touching a child that was near. This one sat on my lap, content with my petting and patting. Such a sweet little thing.

I glanced at the werewolf that was driving the truck. I bit my lip slightly. Fuck was he fine. His hair was longer than I was used to but all I could think about was running my hands through it as he feasted on me. I clenched my legs together tightly as I watched as his muscles bulged as he inhaled deeply.

Sensitive noses they had. I turned back to the little girl. "What is your name, sweet heart?" I chucked her chin and her nearly glowing eyes looked up at me with such a stark innocence that it made me want to pepper her face with kisses and wrap her up in bubble wrap to keep her safe from the world.

"Bo." It was a faint whisper and I smiled at her.

"Bo is a very nice name. My name is Miranda but everyone calls me BamBam." Everyone being myself. I didn't have a lot of friends. One didn't make friends with witches when one seemed content to fuck with all the rules. They were all stuck up assholes anyway.

I watched as she mouthed my name and I nodded happily before giving her a tight hug. I loved children. I really did. Holding her made me feel content and happier than I had in years. Children were rare in the Covenants the single witches were forced to live in. She was the first one I had touched in years.

"Ren." The growling rumble that made my body shiver came from the large male sitting behind the steering wheel.

"Ren." I rolled his name around in my mouth as if tasting it. I wanted to shudder because that name felt sinful on my tongue. Witches and Weres weren't allowed to mix. It was one of the big four. The four big rules of our kind that could get you jailed, banished, or killed.

Never use emotions or unpurified tools to cast magick.

Never go leave the compounds or go to the Territories without an escort.

Never take off your contraceptive spell outside of specified reasonings.

And never fuck a werewolf.

The way things were going I was going to break one of them. I was banished so I was technically not a part of the law system anymore but if someone found out I was lusting after a beautiful hunk of weremale called Ren, I would be burned at the stake. The oldest trick in the book.

Burn the witch.

It was what they did to Rowenya Stoneheart. She had gotten preggers by a werewolf by the name of Ragnor. He dumped her, the kid died before it was three months old, and right before they burned her alive for the crime of loving a werewolf. She cast herself a nasty little curse on the werewolves that somehow managed to bounce back on her own species. No one ever said using emotions to fuel one's magick as going to result in a perfectly predictable spell. She was probably the reason the first rule existed in the first place and was therefor the reason I was banished.

I didn't care. The witch had mad respect from me. She managed to fuck over two species and spit in the face of those lighting her pyre. A bad bitch like that deserved all the respect in the world. She was my personal hero. I mean what rebel wouldn't idolize a female who had broken so many rules they created new ones just because of her? A rather shitty one in my personal opinion.

They used to teach her to us as a cautionary tale about the evils of the Weres but I was always more impressed by her than the fact we were cursed by her. The tales did their best to spin the Weres as evil creatures who were responsible for our woes but I knew it was stupidity that caused that. They took a grieving witch, denied her a chance at vengeance to kill the werewolf who duped her and burned her at the stake. I am positive if they had let her merc the asshole on her own terms then there wouldn't have been a curse to begin with.