Chapter 1

1

Any self-respecting witch worth her wand would have shrunk their unfaithful lover's man stick when they caught him making some trampy pixie squeak.

"Why couldn't you have popped us here? I'm not dressed for hiking, Carol."

My judge and punisher huffed at my words. "The wandering path from the main road to the inn is one of the best parts of the property, Lady Whiner. One should stroll the path and not rush the experience."

"You ordered me to wear my formal black witch's robe today. I figured I'd be walking prison hallways, not hiking through the freaking woods. My mud boots are back at my house."

"Wow, Selene. Did you get a master's degree in whining? Because you could give lessons."

She was wrong. I wasn't a whiner. I was a thirteenth-generation witch who had done nothing illegal except defend my honor. My family was legendary for their magical talents and their teaching abilities. My parents were as important as Ethan's. They sat on councils, ran magic programs, and taught countless witches their craft.

My two older siblings made my parents proud by emulating the magic they practiced. I was the youngest child. I loved my parents deeply but felt no pressure to become the third clone in our family.

While I hadn't followed in their footsteps, I easily could have. I wasn't lazy and I loved learning new spells. Sure, I had some limits, but I was more powerful than witches like Ethan. While my powers weren't quite Baba Yaga level, I was on her emergency witch list and she called me often.

I happily spent my time crafting unique spells and searching for lost objects—or people. I liked variety in my magical work. Sometimes I helped healers. Sometimes I grew herbs and sold them for potions and spells. Being a free-spirited witch allowed me unique opportunities to earn a living and keep a roof over my head.

No matter what I did for a living, though, I never dishonored my family. They had to know I would never shame them on purpose. Didn't they? The thought of my parents viewing me as a criminal bothered me. They hadn't been allowed to be at the trial, so I hadn't told them that I'd left to face my punishment.

I'd just have to explain it to them later. Knowing that the Baba Yaga was involved, they probably wouldn't care what she was doing to me.

"Stop stomping and being broody. If you must make noise, try singing. Have you ever watched Disney's version of Snow White? All the little birds used to come to help her when she sang to them. You could enlist them to be temporary familiars."

"You must be kidding," I said.

I rolled my eyes when the know-it-all witch laughed at my emotional pain. Nothing about my punishment was fair. I'd had every right to avenge my grandmother's bed after what my cheating boyfriend had done in it. Shrinking Ethan's most prized body part had been more than justified.

If Ethan was going to cheat on me with a trampy pixie, he should have had the decency to bonk her in the meadow of her people. Pixies didn't like being indoors, so I know he had to talk her into it. If the act had taken place in a meadow rather than on my grandmother's cherished bed, I likely would have remained clueless.

But hiding it wasn't what Ethan meant to do. Why was I sure of that? Because anything less than public humiliation wouldn't have been enough after I'd dared to refuse his marriage proposal.

No, that wasn't true. I hadn't outright refused to marry him because I hadn't wanted to admit that I didn't like, much less love, him enough. So I asked him for more time. I needed it to screw up my courage to break things off.

It was Ethan's ego that interpreted my request for time as permission to act like he was single again. Or at least, that's how it seemed to me. Yet how would I know what went on in Ethan's head? His bonking a pixie tramp in my house proved I'd never truly known him.

I figured out at the trial that Ethan had wanted me to catch him in the act, and he'd wanted me to react. It was tough luck the liar got his wish. He never dreamed I'd physically maim him. His idea of me didn't include violence or rebellion.

"I can feel you frowning, Selene. Please trust me that this is for the greater good."

I huffed. "Me hiking through the woods in formal wear and dress shoes is not for my greater good. My greater good would be erasing Ethan's energy from my home while he takes a month to regret what he did. If I had it to do all over again, I'd also lock him away until his man stick grew back. Then it would be his word against mine, and his mommy would never have known."

Ahead of me, the Baba Yaga grunted. "Now you know why hindsight is twenty-twenty."

At the trial, I'd repeatedly assured his mother and the rest of the council that the spell I cast wasn't permanent. I used the shrink spell once in high school when a wolf shifter got too pushy with me. His grew back in a month, and a month of celibacy hadn't hurt the wolf. But it had given him time to accept that my no meant no.

I could have done much worse to the wolf shifter. I had the skills even back then. And I could have done much worse to Ethan.

Ethan was a devious snake and deserved it. He hadn't owned his betrayal of me and taken his punishment like a man. No, he'd wanted his parents involved so he could lie to them about me.

Lord and Lady Meagan were helicopter parents of their forty-year-old teenager, which is just as pathetic as it sounds. They were also fools for never seeing the truth about their son, but then so was I for letting Ethan move in with me.

My instincts had shouted at me not to do it, but I'd done it anyway. Why? Because it had been nice to have company at night. Looking back, I should have just gotten a dog—a big, giant dog I could have trained to bite Ethan in the ass.

At the trial, the pixie-bonking man who'd asked me to marry him sounded so sincerely confused that even the Baba Yaga had believed him to be innocent. It never once crossed my mind that she wouldn't believe me over him. Yet the proof of my foolishness vibrated with impatience beside me, staring at the entrance's broken steps and porch just as hard as I was.

Normally, I respected the Baba Yaga. She was Carol to her witch friends, which was a select group of hand-picked magicals that, evidently, no longer included me.

I didn't understand her defection at all. We'd worked together many times. She knew what kind of witch I was. That's what hurt the most.

I had believed we were friends. Not that I would make that mistake again after the never-wrong Baba Yaga declared I was stuck here until Ethan's man stick grew back.

I had no choice except to call that a hard lesson learned.

Between Carol dolling out punishment and Ethan lying, I hadn't smiled in several weeks. I hadn't even left my house after the trial.

Telling my parents or siblings would have brought more lectures, so that had been out. Like most witches, I enjoyed my privacy, but being this alone was more than even I could stand.

The one genuine mistake I'd made, outside of sleeping with the most wicked male witch I knew, was forgetting that Ethan's overprotective mother served on the Baba Yaga's Council of Witches.

Lady Meagan hadn't cared that I'd let the squeaking pixie run out of the bedroom before Ethan and I engaged in our huge break-up fight. I only did the man stick shrink spell when the argument wasn't getting me anywhere.

But the cowardly female Ethan bonked was no better than my former boyfriend. She didn't appreciate that I'd spared her life. Just like the cheating bastard I now loathed, she had declined to back up my story, which meant I had no one to help me support the truth.

I stood in the woods at least twenty miles from any sort of town, staring at a condemned inn. It was too late now to be more clever or wish I hadn't reacted so fiercely. The shrinking deed was done, and I'd barely left him enough to hold on to when nature called.

Or that was what his mother claimed. No one asked how she knew the size of her forty-year-old son's private parts.

And can we say... ewww ?

I wasn't the only one grossed out by her declaration. His father's reaction was to cover his face with his hands.

Speaking of hands, it might have been just as effective if I'd zapped off Ethan's hands instead of shrinking his philandering Johnson. Maybe Carol would have laughed at my creativity and let me off with a warning.

I would never know now because I'd gone with my gut.

Today was Day 1 of my punishment and being trapped in the broken-down inn. My sentence was renewable in monthly increments until Ethan officially could make trampy pixies squeak again.

I sympathized with whoever the Baba Yaga assigned to check the growth progress of Ethan's man parts. My former whatever would hold out for two months if he thought my magic might endow him with a couple more inches.

Like I would ever let that happen.

The Baba Yaga turned to smile at me. "Isn't the inn magnificent?"

"No," I said flatly, feeling zero need to be positive. "It's a disaster."

The witch protectress chuckling surprised me.

Once upon a time—and I mean, like in fairy tales —this place allegedly had been a specialized paranormal hotel, serving only a few select clients at a time. Looking at it now, I was convinced whoever said that had been spinning a myth.

Centuries had passed since it had seen guests, and it was now in ruins. When small Podunk towns like Assjacket grew up several miles away, I could see why no one paid attention to the dying inn. It sat in the middle of nowhere. How could it serve as my ‘minimal incarceration' prison for the next thirty days?

And I was about to get warded from being able to leave the place.

Inn or Out was the inn's kitschy name, but in reality, the place was the stuff of nightmares. Surely, Carol could see that. I hadn't had many nightmares in my life, but my prison work assignment to get this place back in shape was a dream killer.

Nothing I'd done deserved this level of punishment.

The least Carol could have done was make the trampy pixie help me. Her choice to keep Ethan away was wise because I definitely would kill him next time I had a chance.

The bastard cried crocodile tears at my trial—cried and whined that he didn't understand why I was so upset. I still couldn't believe his nerve. Because of his award-winning acting, though, I was going to have to do manual labor in the middle of nowhere for a month.

I stared at the dilapidated house. How was I supposed to fix this place if I couldn't use my magic? Did Carol expect me to use nothing but manual labor to get things done? If I couldn't leave the grounds, how could I find people to help?

The shingles on the roof and the shutters covering the windows were falling off. I was no carpenter. Every square inch of paint was peeling. I was no painter, either. The yard was full of weeds, which was the only thing I might be able to fix.

I rubbed my forehead. "I don't know how you expect me to do this without magic."

"When did I lay that restriction on you? You can use your magick," the youngest witch protectress on record said. "But only within the boundaries of the property, which is about ten acres."

"Well, thank the goddess I'm not restricted."

"The ten-acre limit is for defense and protection spells. Leaving you defenseless is out of the question, as Lady Meagan could seek revenge at any moment. I highly recommend you set a ward that allows no one to do any harm here. It also goes without saying that you can call clothes from your house since you can't go get them. Fashion is critical to a witch's self-esteem."

I snorted. "When did you come to that conclusion?"

"I heard that sarcasm," Carol said with a grin. "To show you how nice I'm being, I know a handyman who needs work. He's willing to do the manual stuff and has three grown sons to help him. They're brilliant in various ways. His brother and Hildy helped raise his children before they died. Being a single father has been quite a challenge for a lone bear."

"Who will be paying this handyman? Because I'm not paying."

"Don't get worked up over money," Carol said with a disparaging sigh. "I invested in this old place because it spoke to me. I don't expect you will finish more than a tiny bit of it in a month, but please make a space ready for one guest as soon as possible. The fairy arrives next week. She's in hiding and no one will look for her here. You're not expected to do anything during her stay except see that she gets fed."

"This place is only fit for spiders. Who would voluntarily stay here? You can't be serious."

Carol huffed. "I am— unfortunately —always serious these days. I lost my humor when Hildy died, and I don't think it's ever coming back. Don't let my blue eyeshadow and orange lipstick fool you. The rest of the world is gray to me now." She pointed at the house. "The house Hildy worked out of looked far worse than this before she fixed it up. The previous shifter healer only cared about the basement. He didn't live in the rest of it, and it showed."

I pressed my lips together. Just because I understood how badly she felt about losing her magical sister didn't mean I had to help fix this goddess-forsaken house. "Hildy was an optimist. It's a trait I've always admired because I struggle with it."

Carol turned to smile. "You dated Ethan, didn't you? That was incredibly optimistic. It was also stupid, but what woman hasn't slept with a selfish male or two? It builds character to survive them."

I needed to stop talking about Ethan. "I'm sure being the witch protectress requires a lot of optimism."

Carol shrugged. "It requires having a lot of faith in people. I wish I'd told Hildy how much I admired how she trusted her instincts. When Inn or Out is restored, it will give me a place to stay when I absolutely, positively have to be here to support my head-strong witch almost-child who draws trouble the way spoiled food draws flies."

I chuckled. "What's an almost-child?"

Carol looked at me and sighed. "I loved the girl's father, and he loved me. A witch rival spelled him to love her instead. And while they were together, they had a child. Then she turned the warlock into a cat so he couldn't know his child. The child's father and I discovered the child's existence at about the same time. If it makes you feel better, I had to put her in prison too."

I knew the Baba Yaga hadn't had a peaceful life. And no, it didn't make me feel better to know she would imprison a witch she thought of as her almost-child. What kind of chance did an innocent witch friend have of avoiding incarceration? The answer to that question was none—no chance at all—because here I was.

But I still had to ask one more important question. "Do you genuinely think I would hurt Ethan for no good reason?"

Carol didn't hesitate. "No, I think the narcissistic ego-maniac gave you many reasons, but it was the infidelity that caused you to snap. You're not the first female that mama's boy has screwed over, Selene. However, you are the first one with enough backbone to avenge yourself."

"If you truly believe that, then why am I being punished?"

Carol sighed heavily before answering. "Because Ethan proved to everyone that he has to grow back his man stick, and you boldly claimed credit for shrinking it. Your creative brilliance deserves applause, but I cannot openly endorse your magical assault. The fact that I believe you is why you're stuck here at the inn for thirty days instead of being sent to the magical pokey for three or four years. Also, I know Ethan bonked Harmony because she told me it was true. Extenuating circumstances prevented her from backing up your story at the trial. It was a hot mess to sort out."

The Jezibaba had walked a political line because the Council of Witches controlled what she did. But those days were long gone. The Baba Yaga answered only to Morgana, and it wasn't like Carol to not make sure the entire truth, no matter how shameful or embarrassing, got told. The woman didn't mind being brutally honest or forcing others to be.

I couldn't imagine what circumstances Carol had been willing to accept from the tramp as a legitimate excuse for not telling the truth. "But you didn't say anything in my favor at the trial. All I was told was that the tramp refused to testify. How do you even know her?"

Carol glared at me, and I glared back. She threw up a hand before glaring harder and lecturing louder. "Without Harmony's testimony, the only evidence was Ethan's shrunken man stick. If we had argued your sentence more than we did, Lady Meagan would have demanded you be put in real prison. My warlocks tell me she's after Harmony too, even though Lady Meagan swore that her honorable son would never do such a thing ."

I grunted in disgust. "Lady Meagan would be shocked at what her deceitful son would do. I can't believe I ever slept with him."

Carol sighed. "Most men will take sex from whoever they can whenever it's offered. And when they're not willing, they can be spelled into doing it. I know that personally. Ethan is a horny toad by nature and uses sex to control women, but I'm sure you knew that when you started up with him. Yet because of his lies, I'm having to put you here and put your alleged pixie in the last place she will ever be found."

"She's not my alleged anything, Carol. I saw her under him . Where did you hide the tramp? I deserve to know."

Instead of yelling at me, Carol laughed at my demands. "She's not what you think she is, Selene. And it's funny you think I'd be stupid enough to tell you. If I did, as soon as you're free, you'll go take revenge on her as well. I can't let you do that because Ethan lied to her about you, just like he lied in court. That lying bastard is the one who deserves to be punished. I just haven't found the way to do it yet."

I waved a hand. "Fine. Think whatever you want. I don't care what Ethan does with anyone anymore. The tramp saying yes to Ethan probably did me a favor. It would have been worse if I'd married him before this happened. No witch should be imprisoned for murder just because her husband is a loathsome prick."

Carol laughed at my outburst. "See? This place has been good for you already, and you haven't even started fixing it up yet. Being here will be better for you than any amount of therapy."

I made a face behind the Baba Yaga's back and mocked her laughter as I navigated the broken steps to enter the inn from demon hell.