Page 1 of Reckless Witch

Chapter One

LEILAH

A Dragon Walks into a Bar

I was four when The Shadows came. Perhaps the vague nightmares and the images I can’t quite identify stem from those days. I don’t really know.

I don’t want to know.

World governments attributed the near annihilation of Margidda as a pandemic virus that science cured. But those of us who survived face constant reminders of the apocalypse: a flash of fear that arises from the illegal use of magic, the unexplained disappearance of one precious remaining member of our kind, and our need to hug natural shadows in an effort to cloak ourselves from The Shadows. According to my grandmother, the apocalypse left behind a compulsion to hide our true selves from humans.

For me, it’s first nature to hide what I am from the mundane world. Margiddians were once numerous. Now, we number fewer than three million worldwide, which makes each life valuable. Still, despite the fear of discovery and the threat of annihilation, we find a way to live.

It’s ten past midnight at The Witching Hour Cabaret Club. From my table at the rear, I watch three long-legged drag queens strut down a twenty-foot runway. Leave it to vampire queens to own glittering, sequined evening gowns that any woman would kill to own. The lead queen tosses loose blonde hair over her ebony shoulder and the crowd cheers as she sashays back to the stage, the other two close behind.

A man in the audience shouts, “You free after the show, baby?”

All three queens spin toward the crowd and throw kisses as they back toward the rear curtain. I sip my vodka. How would the man who wants to hook up with the queens react if he knew the three beauties had lived a collective millennia? The blonde, Desiree, owner of The Witching Hour, is over six hundred years old. There are older vampires, though many ancients perished in The Shadow War. A few were murdered by Margiddians who fed on The Shadows in an attempt to grab power during the war—as well as after the fall of Margidda. According to Grams, those criminals were almost as hard to extinguish as The Shadows had been to drive away. At least, we were able to kill the criminals. The Shadows never die.

My heart clenches as her words haunt my memory. “Sweet pea, when we began to reveal ourselves, the world called it the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Then The Shadows came.”

This last Shadow War was even worse than the war in fifth century BCE Athens, which killed nearly three hundred thousand people. Modern historians attributed the deaths to everything from smallpox to typhus to the bubonic plague. They classified the plague that swept through Egypt, Libya and Greece as the most lethal in all of Classical Greece. This most recent war, however, claimed twenty times those numbers. It’ll be millennia before Margidda recovers the eighty percent loss of our population.

A shiver slides down my spine when I remember the evil that I seemed to inhale at the deserted academy Grams took me to in Massachusetts. If what I experienced were remnants of The Shadows, how much worse had it been for the victims when The Shadows spread their infection of fear and hatred?

What would life be like if The Shadows hadn’t destroyed the possibility of our acceptance by humans? I wouldn’t have to hide my magic from the Illumina.

I gulp half my drink. As a result of the war, the Illumina now rules our magic with an iron fist. What right have our leaders to forbid Margidda from practicing magic without their permission? Guilt stabs. It’s the one subject Grams and I argued about with heat. She informed me I would one day attend The Academy, just as she did. Admission to The Academy is by invitation only, but Grams had an uncanny way of knowing things. I told her I wouldn’t attend that prison. Was that why she’d kicked me out at fifteen?

“Stop it, Leilah,” I mutter.

Seven years is long enough to have tortured myself over that question.

She’s gone. You’ll never have the answer.

Maybe I made a mistake in returning to New York. So far, I’ve only succeeded in dredging up old resentments I’ve worked hard to put behind me. Why should I care that the only family I’ve ever known is dead? Is taking possession of the only real home I’ve ever had worth facing the memories that fill every corner of that house? In the two weeks I’ve been here, why haven’t I visited her grave…or tried to call her from the dead?

Loud applause jars me from my thoughts and I realize the queens have left the stage. Dammit. My customer is late. I scan the club but see no sign of him. The door opens and I tense when, instead of the large, muscled shifter I’m expecting, tall, dark and handsome steps inside. I blink. That isn’t just any tall, dark and handsome. That’s war hero and Illumina Academy student recruiter Commander Ethan Bordeau. I’ve only seen Ethan from afar, and that was before I left New York seven years ago. Ethan Bordeau and Illumina Cadette Commander Raith Vanderkoff are two of the oldest beings to have survived The Shadows. Grams said that Ethan’s strategy and Raith’s sheer strength saved The Academy forty miles north of the City, maybe even saved what remains of Margidda.

Since when do the high and mighty slum with peasants?

Ethan’s eyes slide over the crowd until—

I go perfectly still. No way he’s looking at me. He’s got to be looking at someone near me. I glance left, where a man and woman hold hands across a table. To the right, two blondes have their eyes glued on Ethan. I grimace. Their breasts, practically spilling out of their tiny dresses, look as fake as their hair color. So, the dragon is on the prowl for bleach and silicon.

He starts forward. I hunch over my drink and allow my long, dark hair to cascade round my face. If there was a way out without passing him, I would take it. He’s not a Watchman, but he’s too damn close to the law for my taste. Hell, if he gets in the way of tonight’s deal, I’ll kick his ass and take whatever’s in his wallet.

A shadow falls over my table. Through the veil of my hair, I glimpse jean clad legs that go on forever. I lift my drink. When Ethan slides into the chair opposite me, I freeze, the glass barely touching my lips. I snap my head up and lock gazes with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. Dragon eyes are almost as compelling as a siren’s.

I stare for three heartbeats. “You’re sitting at the wrong table.” I tilt my head toward the blondes. “You’ll get a twofer there.”

He lifts a hand to signal the waitress who, I realize, must have followed him. “Glenfiddich, neat,” he says without taking his eyes off me. “Would you like another drink?”

I only stare. He flashes a smile at the waitress and she hurries off. His attention returns to me.

I command my pounding heart to slow. “I’m not in the mood for a hook-up.” Damn, if he were anyone else, I would hook up, down and any way he wanted me. I’m dying to run my fingers through that dark hair.

Something flickers in his eyes. Amusement? I blink. Can’t be. Dragons aren’t known for their sense of humor.