Spellbinding Love

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  More from the Coven of the North Star

  Conjuring Affection Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  SPELLBINDING LOVE

  Elizabeth Davis

  Copyright © 2018 Elizabeth Davis

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  ISBN-13:

  To my readers:

  thank you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Katie knelt down next to the raspberry bushes and frowned. Giroud flopped down in the meagre shade with a huff, panting from the heat. “Lazy dog,” she muttered, patting his stomach while she peered at the soil. The raspberries were big and juicy thanks to her powers, but they were getting the sour tinge that sometimes came from over-witching.

  “The hell are you doing way out here?” Micah’s voice sounded across the meadow. Giroud was up and running before he even finished talking, flipping over at his feet eagerly for more stomach rubs. Katie pushed herself to standing. “Witch shit,” she said with a vague hand wave. “Growing or fixing?”

  “Fixing. Or trying to,” she said. Micah plucked a raspberry from the bush and popped it into his mouth.

  He chewed thoughtfully. “A little sour, I think?” “Why do you think I’m trying to fix it?” “So do you have to do a potion again, or is this one of your wait and sees?”

  “I think it’s a wait and see.” Katie’s powers were significantly less showy than some of the other women in her coven, but that just meant she didn’t feel she needed to be so secretive about them. After all, “I can make plants grow faster and larger” was a dubious power to begin with, not to mention difficult for to prove to anyone who didn’t already understand that witches were actually a thing.

  They fell into step beside each other, the white farmhouse growing closer. Giroud raced ahead and then doubled back before sprinting back to the porch. “I thought you weren’t coming out until tomorrow?” Katie asked, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm.

  “Got a call about a catering thing tomorrow, so I figured I’d come out here now instead. Have you eaten lunch?”

  “What time is it?”

  “That means you haven’t,” Micah replied.

  “No, it means I want to know what time it is so I can properly mock you for fussing over me like a grandma if it’s only like, 11am.”

  “You get up at five. And it’s noon.”

  Katie rolled her eyes and they climbed the steps to her porch. “I haven’t eaten lunch yet, no.” She flopped onto one of Opa’s old Adirondacks and pulled out her water bottle from underneath. She and Micah had helped Opa paint the chairs the summer they turned twelve, laughing on the lawn and flicking paintbrushes at each other until they were scolded enough to stop.

  Micah leaned on the railing across from her. “I could make us some sandwiches?”

  “You drove all the way down here to make me lunch?”

  “No, I drove all the way down here because I said I’d come tomorrow and I can’t, and because I know you are terrible at eating at regular times.”

  Giroud rested his head against her knee. She scratched at his thick white fur and watched Micah carefully. “You’re twitchy,” she said bluntly. After a solid two decades of friendship, Micah barely even flinched. A small chunk of ice rattled at the bottom of her water bottle as she drank.

  “No I’m not.” It wasn’t the truth, but she let it go for now. He would tell her when he was ready. Micah gazed out across her small lawn towards the fields that stretched out almost to the horizon and sighed. “There’s a thing next week. I want you to come with.”

  “What sort of a thing?”

  “Beer tasting for Carrie and Anna’s brewery. Since I’m considering carrying them, I figure I should check out the goods.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I want you there?”

  Katie raised an eyebrow. Micah sighed again. “I trust your judgment. And the restaurant is practically half yours anyway.”

  “No, it’s thirty percent mine,” she corrected. “Twenty percent investment, ten percent assorted fruits and veggies.”

  “Then twenty percent is Oma’s because that was her money to begin with,” he said with a soft grin.

  “Oma’s dead.”

  “No, really? I just assumed I hadn’t seen her in ten years.”

  Katie stuck her tongue out at him and he made a face back at her. “Need any help in the kitchen?”

  “Have I ever?”

  “You set Oma’s stove on fire.”

  “That was one time. And I was twelve,” he said and disappeared indoors. Normally she came in and helped— she wasn’t sure if it was the Earth Witch in her that liked cooking, or if she just did— but she was exhausted and ready for a break.The screen door banged shut and Katie leaned her head back. She was starving, to be sure, and she was planning on eating, she was just currently distracted. She’d have gotten around to it, but Micah liked to fuss and she liked to let him. A bee buzzed past and she made a mental note to check on the Xiongs next door— they’d gotten a new hive and she wanted to see how it was going for them.

  Her brain meandered back to the problem of the raspberries. She wished Oma was still around to help her puzzle this out, even though Oma didn’t have powers herself. Katie’s powers came from the other side of the family and witch powers were a women-only thing, passed down through her mother. And her parents’ untimely death in a car accident when Katie was just five years old meant she was left mostly on her own in terms of figuring them out. Oma was always pushing Katie to think of ways to use her powers creatively, and of ways to complement them. Oma was the one who found her the coven up in the Cities and drove her there every Tuesday night when Katie was just a surly sixteen year old who vaguely resented having to spend so much time with women in their forties. Oma was the reason Katie understood her powers, the reason she had a coven, and the reason she had the farm. Oma had always encouraged her to play around with potions, even if her own concoctions rarely worked the way she’d hoped. She owed Oma so much, and she missed her palpably.

  But with slightly sour raspberries growing out in the eastern field, she had a problem and needed to figure out a way to fix it, and neither Oma nor Opa would have stood for her wallowing instead of solving it. A rabbit loped across the grass towards Opa’s rosebushes and Giroud’s ears perked up. He took off chasing it just as Micah emerged with tomato, basil, and mozzarella sandwiches. Her favorite.

  “Giroud is getting slow,” Micah said, taking a seat next to her.

  “You’re getting slow,” Katie grumbled petulantly. At six-four he infuriatingly resembled a slightly more midwestern Thor, just with shorter hair. And he might not be a world-renowned sprinter, but he was athletic enough to make her jab fall flat. “Besides, he almost got that rabbit.”

  Micah snorted into his sandwich. “Almost being the key word.” They ate in silence and watched Giroud try his luck barking at the squirrels that resided in the oak tree near the gravel driveway. “So that beer tasting thing,” Micah prompted. “It’s Thursday. You coming?”

  Katie took a large bite of the sandwich to buy herself some time. She loathed these sorts of things— people things, where she had to talk to strangers and pretend to care about their lives— but Micah thrived at them, even if he hated going alone. And he did drive all the way down here more or less to make her lunch. “I’m staying at your place, then,” she said and swallowed. “And you’re buying all my drinks.”

  “The drinks are free,” he chuckled, stealing her water bottle to wash down his own sandwich. “And it’s a date.”

  As usual, the coven meeting began with Barb standing in the middle of the room trying to get everyone’s attention. And as usual, all the women were mostly ignoring her in favor of chatting. “Hey, wine night; my place,” Linnea whispered just as Barb clapped her hands loudly.

  “Ladies, ladies— please,” Linnea’s mother called, and the chatter slowly died away. “Let’s begin.” The women of the coven bowed their heads and recited,

  “We call on our Mother to bless our gifts,

  To show us how to use them to the best of our ability,

  And to help us improve mankind.”

  Linnea waited until Barb gave the official nod to begin the meeting before speaking again. “Wine night. You in, or you too busy farming?” Katie wasn’t sure if law school was what stripped away Linnea’s ability to make small talk, or if judging by Barb, it was more of an apple/tree situation.

  “What night? I’m usually finished with chores by seven or so. Too mosquito-y after that.”

  Alison wandered over. “Are we discussing wine night? Because Erik and I are busy on Friday.” Erik happened to be Linnea’s little brother, and the friction over Linnea’s best friend dating her brother had been a rather sticky spot for the coven last year, one that was fortunately smoothed over by now.

  “Yeah,” said Linnea. “Thursday?”

  “Can’t,” Katie said, waving hello to Jess. “Got a thing.”

  “I need more details than that,” Linnea pressed. Jess sat down and started rummaging through
her bag for the nail polish. She’d been giving Katie a manicure every week since she started coming to coven three years ago, and in exchange Katie fixed the shit around Jess’s apartment that her landlord was too cheap to do.

  “What color?” Jess interjected.

  Katie considered her options. “Purple. And how’s the bathroom fan?”

  “No more clunking,” Jess informed her cheerfully.

  “Okay, but why not Thursday? Also, Jess, if you didn’t hear, we’re doing a wine night next week. But apparently not Thursday or Friday.” Linnea Peterson did not like being put off, that much Katie had known for years.

  “Micah and I have a thing.”

  “Katherine Frankowski, I swear to god—“

  “Some beer tasting thing,” Katie conceded to the force that was a Peterson woman who wanted information. She’d seen what happened to Karen when she didn’t give Barb her brownie recipe.

  Jess opened the nail polish and started on Katie’s pinkie. The nail polish would be chipped by the end of the day tomorrow and almost completely gone within three days, but still. She could be a farmer and have her manicure, dammit, no matter how pointless. “Micah’s your boyfriend, right?” Jess asked carefully.

  “Just a friend,” she said a little too briskly. “We’ve been friends forever,” she added, trying to temper her tone. They were just friends, after all. There was no reason to get rankled after all this time.

  “Got it,” Jess said without looking up.

  “Okay, so Thursday is out. What was wrong with Friday?”

  “Erik and I have tickets to Dessa,” Alison reminded them. She and Erik had an awful lot in common, including being quiet and a love of indie music, and it was honestly surprising Linnea hadn’t seem them falling for each other coming.

  “Saturday?”

  “Works for me,” Katie agreed, knowing Linnea would keep listing days until they all found one that worked. And she did like the blonde, as different as they were. She had a good heart and Katie admired the way she always took charge of a room. Granted, being the most powerful witch of her age— with apologies to Hermione Granger— would do that to a person.

  “I could do Saturday,” Alison agreed.

  “Jess?”

  Jess smiled shyly, like she always did when they tried to include her in their plans, and held her hand over Katie’s nails to dry them with her powers. She was an Air-and-Fire witch, which mostly meant she could create breezes with her mind and turn on and off lights without using switches, since for some reason Fire Witch powers extended to electricity too. Alison was Spirit-and-Ice Hybrid, but since her powers were dependent on each other that meant she could cool down a room by a few degrees only if a ghost was present. Honestly, most of their powers were bullshit. Linnea was the rare Hybrid who had more than two powers (in fact, because Linnea Peterson never did anything halfway ever in her life, she had all five) and none were dependent on each other. Air, Fire, Ice, Water, and Spirit, all rolled into one blonde bombshell. The rest of them were party trick witches at best, but Linnea was the real deal. “I’ve gotta be in the lab every night this week. Can barely even be here. Don’t worry about it, okay?” Jess said.

  “Sunday afternoon?”

  “It’s fine,” she assured Linnea with that same soft smile. “You guys go on without me.”

  Linnea cast her a measured look and nodded. “Saturday it is. And then you can tell us all about your daaaate with Micah.”

  “I’m going to hate it; that’s what there is to tell,” Katie deadpanned, ignoring the needling about their relationship status. She was used to it at this point.

  “Wrong. You’re going to tell us all the details,” Linnea wheedled. What details, Katie wanted to snark. Micah and I will show up, at least half of the guests will assume we’re together, he’ll get me a beer and chat with people while I pretend to be listening, and then we’ll go back to his place and watch a movie before falling asleep on the couch. They’d spent dozens of nights just like that, especially when he was getting the restaurant off the ground. Although lately, their routine had been sitting oddly on her shoulders and she couldn’t figure out why. But whatever it was with Micah, she figured they would work it out. They always did, after all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Katie shifted her dress to her other hand and dug her keys out of her pocket. Micah’s apartment was upstairs in an old Minneapolis fourplex, and the entryway was stifling. His apartment was slightly cooler thanks to the window air conditioner, but he’d also drawn all of the curtains which left the whole place feeling vaguely like a cave.

  Micah was still at the restaurant, so Katie tossed her dress onto his bed and hopped into his shower. She half-lived here in the winter anyway, since the farm needed less maintenance while under two feet of snow and Micah sometimes needed her help in the restaurant. In the years since Opa died they’d started spending more and more time together, crashing at each other’s places instead of bothering with the commute home. At this point, his apartment felt like home, so she ducked her head under the water and blindly grabbed for his shampoo. Her red pixie cut generally required little maintenance but after a full day under a hat while she re-staked the tomato plants, it was in need of some refreshing.

  She’d dried off and was fumbling with the zipper on the back of her dress when she heard his key in the door. “How are things?” she asked, emerging from his hallway.

  Micah was rarely surprised to see her in his apartment, but this time he blinked and swallowed hard. “Uh, not bad. The new server’s working out pretty well, so that’s a relief.”

  “That’s good,” she said distractedly, twisting her arms around to her back to try and get her fingers on the zipper. Her dress was black and knee length with a deep v-neck, but thanks to the tight fit she always had a hard time getting it zipped up over her ribcage. “Mind helping me with this?” she groused.

  Micah took half a second to respond. “Yeah, of course,” he said. She spun and he tugged the zipper up. His fingers trailed over her spine and completely incongruous sparks trailed in their wake. “I gotta shower though,” he said, clearing his throat. “Then we can head out.”

  Katie flopped onto his couch and listlessly scrolled through the channels while the water screeched through the pipes. She settled on an old rerun of Charmed to distract herself rather than let her mind ponder what the hell had just happened. She and Micah were never awkward. Nothing had changed with them, aside from— well, no, that was nothing. Except maybe it wasn’t, if he was being weird.

  Or maybe he wasn’t being weird, and she was, but that didn’t make any sense either, and she decided it was best just to forget it.

  His hair was still damp when he came out, his white button down tucked neatly into his chinos. She’d envied how easily he carried fashion off for most of their lives— he was like a long-lost Hemsworth brother who managed to make jeans and a t-shirt look like a look, while she was short and curvy and wore unironic overalls. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate fashion, it was that fashion was not made for women with her hips and breasts and stumpy legs. Dresses and skirts and delicate detailing was for women like Linnea, women whose legs went on for days and whose breasts didn’t make button down shirts impossible to wear. Katie did all right, but Micah always looked effortlessly fresh. She stood and smoothed down her skirt, which was now a little more rumpled than she’d like. “Lookin’ sharp,” she said, and Micah grinned and fiddled with his watch.

  “Does anyone else give you shit about the fact that you talk like a 70 year old man, or is that just me?”

  “Just you,” she said and grabbed her shoes, relieved the earlier awkwardness had passed. “You driving, or am I?”

  “I’ve got it, Gramps,” he replied.

  The drive to the brewery in Northeast was quiet, but Katie liked quiet. That was part of why she’d become friends with Micah all those years ago. Even as a child she had been a little intimidated by groups and chatter, and starting at a new school in addition to losing her parents had been almost more than she could handle. All-day school was already terrifying, barely four months into kindergarten, and then she had to leave her house and everything she’d ever known to move in with Opa and Oma when her parents died in a car accident. Her grandparents had let her stay home with them until January, but then there was nothing for it— she had to go.