Author's note: Hello and thanks for reading my werewolf romance. A new chapter will be released every Sunday night. BUT, you can read each chapter two days early by subscribing to my Ko-fi. For further updates on my writing, feel free to join my Discord. The next chapter will be released on November 3.

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The black void of slumber draped my vision like curtains of night. Except. . . I wasn’t asleep. My mind wandered. And where I wandered, I couldn’t be sure. Probably because of all the curtains of night. They made it difficult to see.

Or maybe there just wasn’t anything TO see.

I walked in a realm of obsidian shadow. And though I could see no path beneath me, my feet never once failed to stand on solid ground.

“Well, well. The newborn sorceress walks in dreams, her magic lovely as pedals unfurling from a flower in the welcome moonlight,” a familiar voice said.

I turned to see Phenna behind me, hovering over whatever the hell I was standing on, drifting up and down like the tide in a harbor.

She wore a yellow dress of wafting light that did little to illuminate the space around us. Phenna’s long blonde hair floated as she did, swaying this way and that, not unlike the tail of a curious cat.

And suddenly, my mind splintered, like a goddamn hammer and chisel had been set to the skull. The yolk of my Understanding spilled out across the void as both eyes rolled back into my head.

Pain raced down my neck and into my shoulders as I unleashed a stream of curses that would have put even the penguin that raised Jake and Elwood into a coma.

“Fuck me!” I hissed, sinking to my knees and feeling like my brain was a trampoline with 30 kids jumping on it.

Phenna laughed.

“Would that I could, but my lack of a body and your lack of being single seems to stand in the way of that. Your heart belongs to that werewolf now.”

I cradled my head in my arms as white light shot through my shuttered eyelids, pulled tight as curtains drawn for a midday nap.

Staying like that for a while and enduring the worst migraine on Earth, I hissed. And eventually, the searing pain started to recede. But it didn’t leave my imagination in its previous state.

All the walls and support beams that made up my prior mind were knocked down, expanding the corridors of my subconscious in limitless directions.

I was suddenly accompanied by that feeling of falling in a dream before I bolted up, rigid and still as a statue.

Phenna waited patiently while I took several heavy breaths, looking around in all directions.

“A Dreamscape,” I mumbled. “A space for my mind to occupy while my body slumbers.”

Glancing over at the floating woman, I noticed things that were invisible to me the first time we met. For starters, a massive orange flame engulfed her at all times, and it hurt my eyes to stare at it for long. Within the fire swam all the magic she’d amassed from her life residing within the Mágissa Biblia and studying for two centuries.

All that raw energy waved through the air like heat above a charcoal grill.

Curiously, I cocked my head to the right and noticed a translucent red string that hung loose between her body and mine. It pulsed with the exchange of knowledge.

“A marker to show our connection from the bargain we struck,” I said. The voice was mine, but it almost felt like I was speaking in a trance. My mind was expanding from the deconstruction and rebuilding of Understanding finally coming to fruition. It was dizzying.

As my subconscious rebuilt itself to receive arcane knowledge, it felt a lot like stretching when you first get out of bed in the morning, groaning and leaning against the doorframe.

“This string allows us to find each other,” I mumbled.

Phenna smiled.

“Truly. It is glorious to watch another sorceress awaken. When I awoke, I was alone in an attic with the same Mágissa Biblia you released me from. I found it to be a rather lonely experience. But somehow, seeing your eyes widen to the arcane truth hidden from mortals, I feel. . . warmed by your awakening. There is comfort here.”

“Y — you were alone?” I stammered, looking up at her again and trying not to focus on the fiery magical aura.

She nodded.

“I was alone often. You see, that was preferable to being around people who refused to understand me. If you believe the minds of your time have trouble understanding that a woman may reside within the body of what they believe to be a man, imagine how much more so that was the case for me in 1816. It was a mercy that Lord Wylde allowed me to reside within his manner, away from the cruel eyes of the public. His wealth shielded his oddities from their judgment, and to hide behind that shield, I gladly became one of his oddities.”

My heart sank for this woman. Any hardships I had in this century must have been multiplied by 100 for hers. Without thinking, I walked forward to give Phenna a hug and passed through her, the whisps of her magic trailing over me like a beaded curtain.

I turned with a gasp to find her sighing.

“No body, remember? Though, I appreciate the sentiment,” she said. “Over the last two centuries, it seems that I forgot how much I missed hugs.”

“Phenna. . .,” I started, the edges of my eyes watering.

“Be careful with your bargains, Lilith.”

I took a step toward her.

Phenna held up a hand, stopping me.

“I’ve brought you something,” she said. “The Maiden sent me.”

I raised an eyebrow. The Maiden sent her? The giant spider woman? Of course, I now knew she was far more than that. She represented a third of the Triumvirate of Understanding. A daughter, a mother, and a grandmother who sought to bring arcane knowledge to all women, and in so seeking, became beings of immense magical power, as well as the path all sorceresses walked to find Understanding.

Wow, I thought. My brain has a goddamn wiki of magical knowledge inside it now.

This must have been how Trinity felt, downloading the knowledge of how to pilot a B-212 helicopter. When the egg inside my mind finally shattered, all this basic lore came spilling out. I got to skip History of Witchcraft 1008 and Traditions of Witchcraft 2008 on my way to earning a sorceress degree.

Is a sorceress degree a bachelorette of science? I thought.

Unfortunately, the Understanding I gained didn’t have answers for snark, which was at least 33% of what went on in my head.

“What did The Maiden send for me?” I asked.

Phenna smiled.

“Your Bouquet, of course.”

Cocking my head to the side again, I stammered for a response.

“F — flowers? The Maiden sent me flowers?”

“Yes, Lilith. But these are no ordinary flowers. A Bouquet is a gift of five beginner spells that sorceresses may receive shortly after tasting the fruit of Yggdrasil.”

I took a slow breath to process this. The Maiden was giving me five spells? For free? That didn’t quite compute. Was this a bargain? If it was, how was I supposed to tell my mate from within my Dreamscape?

“You can rest easy, Lilith. I couldn’t give you anything for free. But The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone carry no such limitations. They are the embodiment of all Understanding. So, when they give you a gift, it is truly without strings.”

With another steadying breath, I nodded.

“Do all sorceresses get a Bouquet?”

The floating woman reached behind her back, and when her hand returned, it held five passion flowers wrapped tightly in brown paper. Each flower wore a lower level of wide pedals with a second level of needle-like pedals above them. All of them were decorated in a gradient of purple and white.

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“You do,” she said, a coy grin poking through her words.

Phenna handed them to me, and my hands felt like pins and needles the moment they touched the paper. I nearly dropped the Bouquet.

My mind became instantly ravenous once I realized there was magic stored in each flower. They all held secrets. Five different spells. And I drooled as though I was holding a slice of pizza or a carton of chicken nuggets.

“I’ve never been given flowers by another woman before. And for reasons I’m having a hard time quantifying, I’ve never looked at a set of stems and pedals like they were a bag of salty French fries before, either.”

With my free hand, I reached toward the uppermost flower and then stopped.

“Do I get to pick the spells?” I asked.

Phenna shook her head.

“The Maiden chose them for you.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“And how did she do that? Did I accidentally take a Fuzzfeed quiz when I was stuck in her web? Pick your favorite flowers, and we’ll tell you what spells best match your magical abilities,” I said, grinning.

Phenna crossed her arms and stared down at me.

“You’ll see. Go on. Eat one. I know you’re dying to.”

My hand reached for that uppermost flower again, and at the last second, I pulled it back, my brain screaming in agony and frustration. But I tucked that frustration aside to ask one more question.

“I don’t suppose one of these flowers holds the spell of flesh made clay you spoke of,” I said.

Phenna shook her head again.

“That’s an advanced spell, Lilith. If you desire to learn it, you had better start studying the Book of Magdylena. These spells are basic in nature. The reasons they are gifted to you now are twofold. First, a sorceress, especially one who is the fated mate of an alpha werewolf, tends to attract magical chaos and danger. These spells are meant to grant you a simple defense until you gain more arcane knowledge.”

I pulled the first flower from the Bouquet. It felt like one freshly yanked from the cooler at a flower shop. Tiny drops of dew dotted the lower stem.

The magic hidden within his flower giggled like a school child carrying a pocket-sized secret that they wanted everyone to know they had.

“What’s the second reason a Bouquet is gifted to sorceresses?” I asked without taking my eyes off the white and purple pedals.

“The second reason is to wet your whistle for Understanding. You will consume these and be driven by the desire to know more. A sorceress's purpose is to Understand all she can. The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone gave their lives so that women in the future could have a measure of power for themselves.”

I locked eyes with Phenna while she gave me a history lesson on sorcery.

“They watched as many men of the ancient world wielded their power foolishly and brought great strife and pain to the planet and Her people. Unable to stomach any more, the family worked tirelessly to grant women their own capacity for power. Good or evil, it mattered not. They simply wished for other girls to have the same opportunities to shape the world as kings and princes before them.”

That all felt so much bigger than I believed myself to have any right to be a part of. The grand potential to inflict change upon the world had been given to me and all I wanted was to be free of my dick.

Well, there’s way more to my desires than that, I thought, bringing the flower to my lips. I also want a killer set of tits.

“Alright, then. Here’s to my first spell. Down the hatch!” I said as though I was at brunch with a table full of other young women surrounded by waffles, mimosas, and French toast.

Gingerly placing the bulb in my mouth, I bit down on the stem, severing it and feeling an icy chill wash over my tastebuds. The taste of snow, the taste of raw cold, and the taste of cruel stalactites hanging at the mouth of a winter cave, all filled my mouth.

After I’d chewed up the stem like a piece of asparagus, words filled my mind, and I spoke them aloud, “Chilled in sight without a touch. Flesh robbed of heat, no warmth to clutch. A bite of frost and fangs of ice. Wintry flesh will suffice.”

My hands grew frigid as I Understood now that with proper focus and a right nasty stare, I could render someone’s flesh as cold as snow.

“My first spell. . . Frostbite,” I whispered.

Leaning over, my mind freshly fed with a new spell and its required costs, I coughed, my lungs filled with frosty air. When I exhaled, I actually saw my breath.

“A lovely first spell. The Maiden chose well for you.”

I just nodded and looked back at the flowers, already feeling hunger pangs within my mind again. It was as though I was holding a plate of cookies, steam rising from the dough, taunting me. And in a Scottish voice, my brain said, “We’ve had one spell, yes. But what about second spell?”

Phenna giggled.

“I think she likes it.”

Grabbing another random flower, I threw it into my mouth and chewed as quickly as I could. My ears popped, and roaring laughter filled the space around me. My mouth grinned uncontrollably as more words popped into my mind.

“Words that hurt and bring the pain. Bludgeoning phrases that batter your brain. An insult so wicked it shatters the shield. Unending mockery until you yield,” I said as I now Understood how to tuck daggers into my words.

It took a few seconds for the laughter in my ears to die down.

“My second spell. . . Savage Ridicule,” I said, taking a breath.

Phenna put her arms behind her head as though she was lounging on a bench.

“Oh, that’s a fun one. You know, I once used that spell to give Governor William King a bloody nose and a severe migraine after he referred to me as a dress-wearing vagrant,” the floating sorceress said.

I snickered at that.

Grabbing the third flower, I chowed down and immediately felt like my tongue was being hit with static shocks from each tooth. My hair rose as I heard thunder booming across the sky on a hot summer day just before the storm rolled into eastern Colorado. Big old nasty clouds of lightning and hail would climb down from the Rockies and race across the plains.

“Sparks and bolts and arcs of light. Booming thunder that quakes all night. A deafening noise falls from the storm. Rattles each person, no matter their form,” I said with a voice louder than any I’d heard before.

Lightning crackled in the palm of each hand, and I knew that if I slammed them together, the result would be a blast wave of epic proportions.

Willing the lightning in my hands to fade, I mumbled, “My third spell is. . . Thunderous Applause.”

Phenna cleaned one of her ears with a pinky.

“Yeah, be careful not to use that one indoors. I do not know how expensive glasswork is in your time, but in mine, windows are very expensive. Lord Wylde had to replace quite a few as I studied in his manner.”

Before I could say something snappy, I doubled over, sweat falling from my forehead as anxiety and fear rattled inside my chest. The right side was. . . a racehorse thundering down the track. But that wasn’t where MY heart was. Why do I feel like — shit! That’s where I sensed the heartbeat of my mate. She’s terrified.

“I need to go. Something is horribly wrong with Mars,” I said, trying to stand up straight again but feeling winded from using so much of my arcane appetite.

Phenna’s eyes flew over to the remaining two flowers. I crumbled them into a messy ball and stuffed them in my mouth like a vegetarian trying frantically to finish her salad five minutes before the restaurant closed.

My jaw exploded in pain, and a searing headache arched through my skull as I grimaced and swore.

“I’ll — mother of god — figure those spells out later,” I hissed with just one eye open. “Fucking hell. This must be what my poor Dragonborn felt like when I made her eat all those spell components at once.”

The migraine only grew worse, and I barely heard Phenna say, “See you soon, newborn sorceress.”

And then everything went dark.

***

Bolting awake in a cold sweat, I looked around the den for my mate, but she was nowhere to be found. It was dark. No lights trying to pierce the curtains. My phone told me it was 2:42 a.m.

I quickly threw on some clothes.

Before I could call out for Mars, a booming thud and splintering wood echoed from the porch. I could have sworn I felt the entire farmhouse shake from whatever hit the front of the building.

Stumbling toward the front door, I threw it open and spotted my mate in her hybrid werewolf form. Mars was trying to stand up from the mess of two wooden chairs she’d shattered to pieces as she hit the house.

The werewolf was covered in blood-soaked patches of fur and panting heavily.

My heart sank, but before I could run over to her, the werewolf’s stare and growling voice commanded me, saying, “Get back inside! It’s not safe!”

“What’s not. . . safe?” I mumbled, feeling my legs turn to jelly.

A man’s voice called from the driveway, his southern accent as thick as molasses. He spoke slowly with a drawl like there was not a single need to rush in all the world.

“Oh, I’m sorry to intrude, madam. But I do believe the werewolf is referrin’ to me.”

I turned slowly to see a wiry pale man wearing a gray button-down shirt and a black vest. His hair was brown and spiky, eyes as black as the shadows he crept from. And his stroll was as casual as a boomer dad walking through the lumber aisles of House Depot.

As he spoke, I spotted the fangs, pointed canines that were an inch longer than they should be. A bloody aura crawled all over him, from his polished shoes to his jeans to his vest.

“Vampire,” I hissed, my mind Understanding the basics of a mortal body being kissed with living death, thus preserving it and caging the soul inside with an unnatural bastardization of life.

If Mars’ body pulsed with the magic of wildlife and raw nature, this man walking down the driveway was the exact opposite, dry as bone dust and still as a land forgotten by time.

“A Vampire Lorde, actually, young sorceress. But an easy mistake to make for one whose mind is so. . . new to Understanding,” the vampire said, putting his hands in his pockets. “Your blood smells mighty fine, all that fresh magic just a buzzin’ like a fresh cup of joe in the mornin’.”

I shivered as the vampire spoke. His words and gaze were beyond chilling, and I felt like I was drowning in ice water just by staring at the man.

“You may call me Beauregard. I am a simple servant of Telsyn with an even simpler message to deliver. The Wraith wishes you congratulations on findin’ your mate, Mars. But as she is sworn to bring you nothing but loneliness and misery until you reveal the Wolf Cemetery, I’m afraid I must relieve you of this rather delicious-looking morsel.”

My heart jackhammered inside my chest, but then Mars shifted into her full wolf form and stood before me, a massive beast with fur the color of ink. And hearing her growl lit a fire inside my guts. What was it Phenna said? The Bouquet was meant to give me some measure of defense until I could gain more arcane knowledge, right?

Well, no time like the present to test out that defense.

I Understood that all spellcraft carried a cost. And said cost could be paid one of two ways: spell components that were spent to complete an arcane purpose or a sorceress’s own magic and vitality that pooled inside her. I didn’t have time to gather any components, so we were about to find out just how many spells I could cast before I was drained like a tightly squeezed sponge.

“I take it this display means you don’t intend to simply hand over your mate then, Mars?”

Swallowing my fear, I tried to boast as best I could with small bits of lightning illuminating my palms.

“You want my blood? Come and get it, leech,” I growled.

“Well, now that is as enticin’ an invitation as I’ve heard in weeks. Be right there, darlin’.”

Gritting my teeth, I prepared myself for things to get downright ugly.

I thought, Guess we’re about to figure out what those other two spells are.