Forbidden Witches (Tarot Witches Book 2) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Forbidden Witches

  Copyright

  About

  The Hierophant

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  Dear Reader

  FORBIDDEN WITCHES

  The Tarot Witches

  SM Reine

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  This book is sold DRM-free so that it can be enjoyed in any way the reader sees fit. Please keep all links and attributions intact when sharing. All rights reserved.

  Copyright © SM Reine 2014

  Published by Red Iris Books

  1180 Selmi Drive, Suite 102

  Reno, NV 89512

  SERIES BY SM REINE

  Seasons of the Moon

  The Cain Chronicles

  The Descent Series

  The Ascension Series

  Preternatural Affairs

  Tarot Witches

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  About Forbidden Witches

  In a week, straight A student and total good girl Leah Todd is supposed to graduate with her bachelor’s degree. Then she receives a mysterious tarot card in the mail…and everything changes.

  The tarot card seems to serve as a VIP ticket into a show by a metal band called The Forbidden. She’s never heard of them before, but the instant she lays eyes on the lead singer, Rage, she knows that she’s much more than a fan. She’s found where she needs to be.

  Weirder still, the band agrees. They’ve been waiting for a tarot witch like Leah to save Graham, a dying werewolf, by mating with him. The problem is that Leah’s not a witch, she doesn’t believe in magic, and she quickly falls for the wrong werewolf. But Donne doesn’t seem to return the feelings. In fact, he might kind of hate her.

  As high priest of his coven, Rage has solutions for Leah. All she needs to do is surrender her life to the coven, the werewolf pack…and to him.

  The Hierophant (V)

  The fifth card of a tarot deck’s major arcana, The Hierophant possesses divine insight that allows him to form a bridge between Heaven and Earth. He is a teacher shining a light upon paths to righteousness. His words impart the deepest truths to his followers, if only they will have wisdom enough to listen.

  Drawing The Hierophant is a call to reexamine the world and search for faith. To obey The Hierophant is to obey destiny. To disobey him is heresy—and disaster.

  I

  The girl in the mirror looked nothing like me.

  There was no way that my reflection was showing Leah Todd, who was a gawky, awkward nerd. This was a woman with curves. She had cleavage, for goodness’s sake—two great big boobs squeezed together and pushed up under her chin by a corset. I didn’t have boobs like that.

  A lacy black choker suspended a ruby in the shockingly deep valley between those breasts. The corset cinched her waist into an hourglass shape, exaggerating the flare of her hips.

  A tiny plaid skirt barely covered her jiggly thighs. I twisted to peek at this stranger’s butt and found that the skirt was not doing the job that I expected skirts to do. The globes of this woman’s ass were hanging out just as much as her knockers.

  Reflection-woman was voluptuous, sexy, and showing off everything that would have made my mother faint from horror.

  That woman in the mirror wasn’t Leah Todd. She wasn’t me.

  “No way,” I said. “I am not wearing this in public.” I twisted my arms behind me to try to unlace the corset.

  Chad slapped my hands away. “You look fabulous. Stop obsessing.”

  He attacked my hair with a brush and I jerked away from him. “Ouch!”

  My best friend gave me a horribly offended look. “You’re not going out with your hair like that. Let me fix you.”

  “I’m not going out like this at all. My mom would kill me.”

  “Felicia is in North Carolina, which is like hundreds of miles away. She can’t kill you if she doesn’t see what you’re doing.” He winked at me. “And if she figured it out, it would take a while for an assassin to get here anyway.”

  “But this isn’t me, Chad.”

  “This is the ‘you’ that has been screaming to get out for years,” Chad said.

  It was easy for him to be so relaxed about this. He had already gotten dressed for the concert without struggling with any angst or guilt, and he looked fantastic. Nothing new there, of course. Chad always looked fantastic.

  He wore a see-through mesh shirt that showed off his pierced nipples, six-pack abs, and the dramatic vee of his muscular hips. The leather pants looked like they’d been painted onto his body. His eyes were encircled in dramatic eye shadow, and the glitter in his hair sparkled every time he moved the tiniest bit.

  We were a matching pair, Chad and me. Gothed out and glamorous.

  I still couldn’t help but try to smother my cleavage with my hands, hiding it from my own eyes. It didn’t work. There was too much boobage going on.

  Chad shoved my hands away again. “Stop that! Don’t you trust my sense of style?”

  “Yes,” I said reluctantly. “Mostly.”

  My friend was only Chad during the day. At night, he was Twilight Destiny, a six-and-a-half-foot-tall drag queen in go-go boots with incredible makeup and the kind of sparkly dresses that I could only ever dream of pulling off.

  He was an amazing singer, too. He’d started getting invited to a lot of clubs to perform, and even had a regular gig at The Leather Strap.

  If fabulosity and rainbows could be distilled into a single human being, the result would have been Chad. He was everything I would never be, no matter how hard he attempted to transform me.

  It didn’t help that I couldn’t fit into his drag wardrobe. He was tall and skinny. I was a couple inches over five feet and more than a few pounds over my doctor-recommended weight. I’ve got at least two or three rolls on my back, but I can’t say exactly how many because I make it a habit not to look in the mirror. My thighs could probably crush skulls if I tried hard enough—not that I would, mind you, because nobody gets between my legs ever, not for skull-crushing and not for more enjoyable activities.

  Yet Chad was still trying to squeeze me into his clothing. On my short figure, his underbust corset was long enough to cover my breasts, but there was a three-inch gap on my back where it laced. Everyone would be able to see my squishy back.

  And my butt. And my thighs. And…

  “No,” I insisted, ducking away from the hairbrush again. “Help me get this off.”

  Chad caught my hands and held them in his. His fingernails were painted to sparkly perfection. “Leah…”

  “Chad,” I said, mimicking his serious tone.

  “You are gorgeous. You need to show off your gorgeousness. It’s a community service.”

  A nervous giggle escaped me. “But I’m fat.”

  “You’re right. You are fat. You’re also gorgeous and doing the world a disservice by hiding your perfect knockers. Anyway, you’ll embarrass me at the concert if I let you dress yourself. You don’t want to embarrass me, do you?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer. “So the boobs are coming out to play whether you like it or not.”

  “You don’t want anythin
g to do with my breasts.”

  “Are you kidding? I’d motorboat the hell out of you. Even gay men love boobs.” Chad dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s a secret. Don’t tell anyone.”

  Another nervous giggle. I even snorted.

  God, I was such a dork.

  “Can’t I at least wear a t-shirt? Like a band shirt or something?”

  “No,” he said gravely. “No, you definitely cannot.” He brushed his fingers through my hair, piecing the locks out. “You don’t feel confident because your look isn’t complete. Once I do your hair and makeup, you’ll see that this is what you’ve been waiting for your entire life. Okay?”

  Ugh, what a waste of time. “Okay.”

  Nervousness thrilled through my stomach as Chad sat me down to work on my hair again. I kept my eyes firmly shut so that I wouldn’t have to look in the mirror.

  All I had to do was survive this makeover, and then Chad would realize what a mistake he had made.

  The thrills of nervousness were quickly turning into big, queasy knots. “Maybe I shouldn’t go to the concert,” I muttered. “It’s a school night. I have finals in the morning.”

  “I’m not listening to this total absurdity. You could skip all your tests and still graduate with a four-point-oh GPA.”

  As always, Chad had a point. I was going to finish up my bachelor’s degree two years early no matter what I did at this point. I already had the cap and gown hanging in my closet—an outfit that I was much more excited about wearing than the concert gear.

  I didn’t need to worry about my grades.

  If I was going to be honest with myself, I didn’t want to miss the concert anyway. Ever since I’d gotten the invitation to attend, I’d been kind of obsessed.

  That mysterious invitation was currently sitting on Chad’s vanity. I’d tucked it underneath his Naked eye shadow palette, afraid that it would get lost if I let it out of my reach.

  I picked it up and my fingertips traced over the waxy texture of the tarot card. I’d already memorized what it looked like, what it was called, the number on the bottom.

  It was The Hierophant: a man in holy raiments with a scepter, uplifted hand, and worshippers at his feet. The imagery didn’t mean anything to me. But there was something entrancing in The Hierophant’s expression, and I’d spent hours gazing at him. Literally, hours.

  I wished I could crawl into the card and kiss his feet.

  Crazy, I know, but the art was that cool.

  That card had arrived in my mailbox at the dorms last week, and I’d known instantly that it meant business. It had been safely ensconced in a thick black envelope sealed with crimson wax. My name had been written on the outside in fancy calligraphy—not a computer font, but handwritten. No address or anything. Someone must have delivered it directly to my mailbox.

  The Hierophant hadn’t been the only thing in that black vellum envelope. There had also been a slip of yellowed paper with a short poem on it: “The wheel of life turns / and the Forbidden yearn / for a world that no longer exists. / Solve the card and you’ll find / you can leave this behind / and join the rest of us in the mists.”

  “The mists?” I’d said aloud, stepping into my dorm room again after checking the mail.

  “Oh my gosh, is that a ticket to The Forbidden concert?” Lily had asked. She was my roommate and a huge music fan.

  “Huh?” I’d turned the card over to inspect every inch of it again, as if I hadn’t already memorized it on the stairs between the first floor and the fourth. There was no sign of a band logo anywhere on The Hierophant. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look at this!”

  She’d opened the Facebook page for a band called The Forbidden, and I was stunned to see that their band picture was trimmed by the same pattern on the back of the card.

  The elaborate abstractions were breathtakingly beautiful. A little bit steampunk, a little bit art deco.

  It was no coincidence. That card, and this poem, belonged to this metal band called The Forbidden.

  “I guess it must be,” I said.

  A ticket to a concert. Who knew? I must have won a prize that I didn’t know about.

  According to their page, they were going to be in Portland a week after I’d gotten the card. Tickets were being scalped on eBay for literally thousands of dollars. Guess there’s something exciting about a farewell tour for a big band like that—everyone and their cousin wanted to go.

  Yet I was the one who’d gotten a personalized invitation to attend.

  Lily had been so excited that she’d told Chad. Chad had revealed to me that he already had a ticket of his own, which he’d earned by giving singing lessons to a budding drag queen, and he was jazzed by the idea of us going together.

  Long story short, that was how I had ended up at my best friend’s mercy.

  “There!” Chad said. “You’re done!”

  I opened my eyes.

  While I’d been lost in thought, he had finished up my hair and done my makeup.

  Now the woman in my reflection really didn’t look like Leah Todd.

  But she did look incredible.

  “Wow,” I breathed. I didn’t feel silly anymore. Chad had been right about that, at least.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  He pulled me to my feet and started cinching the corset tighter. It squeezed my chest. I gasped for air. “Are you sure this is right? I can barely breathe. What if we start…moshing?”

  “Honey, you’re about as likely to mosh as you are to fail your advanced calculus test. Don’t worry about it. Your job is to look beautiful tonight and enjoy the music. That’s all.”

  “That’s all,” I echoed.

  Chad brushed a kiss over my cheek. He was gorgeous and perfect in the reflection, and you know what? I almost matched his gorgeous perfection, too.

  “Think you can handle this?” he asked, massaging my shoulders.

  “Yeah.” I managed a smile that didn’t look nervous, but sultry. This woman was Leah. Sexy, confident concert-goer Leah, who was going to dance with her boobs out and enjoy herself the whole time, darn it. “I can handle this.”

  II

  I’ve been to concerts before. I saw Matchbox 20 with a friend when I was in elementary school, and that was pretty cool. I also got to see the Backstreet Boys when they were on their Millennium tour, which eight-year-old Leah had thought to be pretty much the best thing ever.

  There had been fire and explosions on stage when I’d seen the boy band. Considering that every live performance I’d attended before then had been the temple’s holiday show, featuring the wild and exotic stylings of Baby Jesus birthed in a manger, the fire had been a pretty intense experience for me—even if the performers had been crooning nonsense pop lyrics about baby this, baby that, baby I want you, whatever.

  I had a feeling that The Forbidden was going to be slightly more intense.

  Outside the stadium where the band would be performing, the queue was lined with flamethrowers (which my internal eight-year-old Leah also squealed over). Lasers danced over the clouds and swung down to illuminate the lengthy queue, populated by people who looked a lot like me. They were all dressed in outrageous, sexy costumes, with giant wigs and fishnet everything and the kind of makeup that would have given Mom an aneurysm.

  The band was already blasting music from speakers twice my height. I didn’t know if that rock music belonged to The Forbidden or not. I’d never heard them before. The depth of the bass rolling through my chest and forcing my heartbeat to sync with its cadence made me sway on my feet.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered, gripping Chad’s arm.

  My confidence had withered and died a horrible death on the drive to the venue. I felt naked.

  Everyone else was so exotic: the women with nothing covering their breasts but electrical tape, the guys with stripes of paint down their faces and onto their chests, all the tattoos, the shining muscles, the incredible costumes.<
br />
  I’d stepped out of my safe college world and entered a wild place filled with wild people nothing like me.

  I needed to leave.

  But when I tried to turn back to the parking lot, Chad propelled me to the end of the line. “Don’t even think about it, little Miss Leah. We are here and we’re going through with the concert.”

  “I can’t do this!”

  “I already talked you into it once. I’m not doing it again.” He dragged me into the line. It wrapped around the building, contained by a silver chain as thick as my arm instead of the traditional velvet rope. As soon as we got in line people lined up behind us, too, blocking me inside the press of bodies.

  Chad was riding high on adrenaline, totally in his element. He belonged with all of these other people.

  The smell of sweat and smoke and alcohol was making me dizzy.

  It felt like being trapped in a dream.

  “You’ll have fun,” Chad said, using a tone like he was trying to soothe a wild animal. Like I was a deer that might bolt.

  Maybe I was.

  If I was the prey animal, then it was easy to pick out the predators. Not the people in line, but the men in black t-shirts unloading equipment from the buses. They rolled studded metal cases through the staff door and barked at anyone who tried to jump ahead in the queue.

  The staff looked like a pack of dogs keeping the sheep attending the concert in line.

  One of the men in a black t-shirt stopped beside me, and his gaze penetrated deep into my soul.

  I looked up at him—and up, and up. His broad chest was marked with white letters that said “Road Crew,” embellished with designs similar to the art deco card back. Then my eyes made it all the way up to his square jaw, the cut of his cheekbones, the short mohawk sprayed red for the night.

  His piercing golden eyes were focused on my chest.

  It should have embarrassed me to realize that someone was enjoying the sight of my body. I’m a sweater, leggings, and Uggs kind of girl. Every inch of my body that can be covered gets covered. Given the opportunity to wear a burka, I probably would have tried it out at least once or twice.