A Barrel of Whiskey - (An Urban Fantasy Whiskey Witches Novel)
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Authors: S.M. Blooding
Tags: #Whiskey Witches Novel Number 3
This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events within this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to business establishments, actual persons, or events is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Whistling Book Press
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Published by Whistling Book Press
Whistling Book Press
Denver, CO
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Table of Contents
Other works by SM Blooding:
Devices of War Trilogy
Whiskey Witches (Paranormal Thriller)
A Barrel of Whiskey
The Dream Killers (Fairytale Adventure)
Season 1
Episode 1: Graveyard of Dreams
Dreamland Stories (Fairytale Romance)
The Dustman (free on Smashwords)
To Kenna and Kallie:
The words are here
if you just listen.
I will
always
love you
T
he car shifted hard to the left.
Paige jerked awake, her hands out. She grasped the dashboard of the 1970 Dodge Challenger. Empty blacktop road. No potholes.
The car careened toward the ditch again.
Dexx growled low. His normally sharp features flickered in and out of focus. His nails elongated as he gripped the steering wheel.
He was starting to shift. Fuck!
“Don’t hurt Jackie,” Paige shouted. Jackie was the car, the one thing in this world Dexx loved more than anything.
“Trying
not
to,” he ground out. His teeth grew, two long fangs protruding from his upper lip.
“I thought you said you had this under control.” He was a newly turned shapeshifter and his inner animal was a saber-toothed tiger. Sorry. Saber-toothed
cat
.
“I did.”
Biggest damned cat in the known animal kingdom. At least, as far she knew. “Pull over!”
“I’m trying!”
Dexx stopped Jackie on the narrow gravel shoulder. He opened the door and fell out. A long, low growl issued from him.
Dirt settled around the car, but he hadn’t gotten enough off the highway to be safe. Long, two-lane highway like this, people stopped paying attention. Easy drive. Easy to do other things. Easy to nod off. She slid over and pulled Jackie almost into the ditch, then cut off her rumbling engine.
At least they weren’t dead.
By the time she got out of the car, he was gone, his long tail disappearing over a hill. His clothes were everywhere.
Shit. Where were they?
The highway stretched into the far forever. Trees, brown grass, and rolling hills. Well, that and barbed wire fences.
Could still be Colorado. Could be Oklahoma or Texas.
She stretched her kinked back.
Dexx needed more time in Nederland with the other shifters to help him with his shift.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t had the time.
The Eastwood witches were on their way to Texas. Her home. Where her family lived, not knowing that war was about to knock on their front door.
Paige didn’t know if the Eastwoods were driving. Did they have to fly commercial? Did they have their own jet? How many of them were coming? How big was their coven? What would this war look like? A couple of women bitching at one another, threatening to set each other’s hair on fire?
If that was the case, they wouldn’t have required a treaty to end the original war.
Probably bad magick and blood. Crap.
Dexx needed to get his naked human ass back to the car so they could
go.
How much time did they even have?
She sighed and picked up his clothes off the highway.
An eighteen-wheeler approached from behind. He was maybe a mile back, his grill warbling with the building heat.
She grabbed Dexx’s boot out of the middle of the road, set it beside the ditch, and perched on Jackie’s hood, trying to settle her nerves.
Tumble weeds. When was the last time she’d seen a tumble weed?
The last time she’d lived in Texas.
The thought of coming back made her stomach twist in knots. A lot had happened since she’d been here last.
She’d lost her daughter in a custody battle with her mother—an unfair fight since the woman had used angels to help her side.
She’d had her memories and gifts banished for five years.
She’d been captured by a demon and had a door to Hell installed in her soul.
The man she loved was a shifter.
She was a witch with an animal spirit inside her helping to keep the demon door closed.
And there was a treaty between the shifters and witches. A treaty that had ended a pretty brutal war a couple hundred years ago.
A treaty Dexx and Paige had broken by being together.
And, now,
she
had to tell her grandmother, the Whiskey crone and overall matriarch of the family, that the other witch families were on their way to start a war.
A flock of birds flew in. An owl, an eagle, a hawk of some sort, a smaller bird like a sparrow or something, and a dove.
Paige stood as the eighteen-wheeler blew by, the wind of its passing swiping her hard.
He blew his horn.
She lifted her arm and waved to let the trucker know she was okay.
Her attention, however, was trained on the odd assortment of birds flying in. Was it coincidence that Dexx had lost control of his shift and then a bunch of shifters showed up?
It had to be shifters. No way a group of birds of that variety would fly together in the natural world.
A group of about five wolves of varying shades, three horses, and two mountain lions crested the hill to the south.
Paige swallowed hard. What had she
just
said about flying under the radar? This wasn’t that.
Do not do anything hasty
, Cawli, her animal spirit, said softly in her mind, his voice gentle, adding a calming balm to her unsettled nerves.
Good advice. Impending war with other witch families. Didn’t need
another
one with the local pack.
Paige crossed the ditch to greet the pack of mixed animals.
Two of the wolves, one black and one mottled, leapt over the sagging barbed wire fence. Two of the others crawled underneath it, their grey bellies digging into the dirt. The fifth stayed on the other side with the horses.
The mountain lions, however, loped toward the hill Dexx had disappeared behind.
Paige wasn’t worried about Dexx. He was easily twice their size. While he didn’t have a great deal of experience with his animal, he had a lot of instinct. He’d be able to take care of himself.
The dove and the sparrow settled on the fence.
The black wolf rose on his hind quarters, his fur slipping into his morphing body. His legs unbuckled and grew longer, his back straightening into a more natural, human curve. His black hair hung past his shoulders in easy waves. His blue eyes were startling against his tanned skin. He looked Mediterranean.