Fated Truth (The True Witch Saga)

  Fated

  Truth

  Book One of the True Witch Saga

  By:

  Tasha Gwartney

  Published by Hot Ink Press

  An Imprint of

  Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing

  This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ©Text Copyright 2013 Tasha Gwartney

  Cover By Melodi Simmons

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated first and foremost to GOD who always picks me up when I fall, and to my wonderful husband and gorgeous little man, who have always supported me in any crazy scheme that I have wanted to get into. I also want to dedicate this book to the readers that will take this long journey down an uncertain path with me. I have created this world, picked it out of my imagination and brought it to life on paper for you to enjoy, but with each page you turn, you are the breath that keeps this world alive. That keeps this journey everlasting. So thank you. Without readers, stories lay stagnant collecting dust.

  Chapter One

  An Introduction. I Think?

  I was sitting in the back of our tiny white church, in a pew all to myself, as usual. Being the preacher’s kid didn’t exactly make you Miss Popularity. I had listened to my father go on and on about the sins of the flesh so many times that it all sounded like static white noise anymore, but then smack in the middle of the climax of his sermon, the back doors of the chapel swung open with a huge bang. The noise fairly vibrated throughout the whole congregation. The look on my father’s face was comical. I bet he wished he could catch everyone’s attention that well. Everyone swiveled in their seats to get an eye full of the late comer. I wasn’t the only one with my chin hitting my knees. He was beauty, the purest form of male beauty that I had ever looked upon. I’ve nicknamed him the Nordic god for posterity’s sake.

  There he stood with the sun shining behind him, looking around our gloomy existence. I was sure I could picture what he was seeing. Sardines. Mediocre Sardines. That’s what our congregation reminded me of, so why not him? He continued to look from right to left as if he were searching someone out. Then his eyes met mine. I swear I was struck by lightning. Hair standing on end. Electro shock. That’s what that first glance felt like.

  When his eyes met mine, his facial features didn’t change. He just simply stopped looking for anyone else. He just paused, lifted a brow, in that really annoying way that only hot people can pull off, and he actually smirked at me. Like there was something on my face. I lifted my hand searching for whatever it was about my face that he found so amusing. I found nothing. So I guess it was just me. Yay! So my luck.

  So I did what every self-respecting eighteen year old girl should (notice I didn’t say would) do. I flipped him the bird, smirked right back at him, and turned my apparently humorous ass around in my pew. Yup, I was quite proud of myself at that moment. Apparently everyone else in our sardine can was still gaping like the dead fish we were.

  My reaction elicited a booming belly laugh from the Nordic god. It sounded kind of rusty, so he probably wasn’t used to laughing. Or maybe he just wasn’t used to a member of the female race not simpering. I gave myself an inner shrug and struggled not to turn around and watch what he might do next. Like I said, nothing interesting ever happened here. So it was painful to make myself refrain.

  About two minutes into my staring at my father’s flabbergasted face, I heard another slam. One I assumed was due to the doors closing. I wondered what would make someone want to announce their arrival in such a way. Interrupting a conversation was one thing, but a closed assembly? The boy had stiff biscuits, I’d give him that. It took my father all of three seconds after the interloper’s departure to call the attention, once again, upon himself. Pffffft. And he called me an attention whore. And I’d wondered where I got it from.

  My mother moved to my pew and hissed something in my ear that I wasn’t quite paying attention to. “Why can’t you just pay attention for once Ella? It shouldn’t be that hard. You have been listening to your father lead his flock, since you were in diapers.”

  I turned to her and stared blankly, thinking that maybe if I wasn’t subjected to the same wonk, wonk, wonk of my dad’s voice day in and out, I wouldn’t have a problem hearing or at least pretending to be interested in what he had to say.

  “Mom, I wasn’t the only one distracted by the commotion. I think you might have a bit of drool on your chin.” I pointed. “Just there.”

  She gave an offended huff, straightened in her seat, and pretended, just like the rest of us, that my father was God’s gift to seminary.

  Once the droning on and on was finished, we all filed out of our seats and down the aisle like the good little Chiclets that we were. We shook hands at the front doors and half heartily invited various other sardines over for Sunday brunch. In a small town like ours, you always attend church on Sundays. It didn’t matter if you were a true believer or if you were pretending to believe. You showed up. If you didn’t, you got blackballed. No one wanted to be the person that got sneered at for actually being honest about what they believed. I wished I was that brave.

  The next morning I woke up to my hand lodged in my soaking wet panties. I thought back to the very vivid dream my mother’s screeching had just interrupted. This was the first time that I had ever had a literal wet dream.

  Just the thought of his ice blue eyes trained upon my naked body made me shudder intimately. I knew that if I didn’t finish and make myself come, I would be left feeling frustrated for the rest of the morning. And that was the last thing I wanted on the first day of my senior year.

  I lay back on my feather soft pillows and closed my eyes, trying to recapture the visualizations I’d experienced during my very intense swoon worthy dream. His work roughened hands sliding gently upon my naked skin, moved slowly, I thought as I worked the hand that was still inside my panties. I imagined how he would work his, and enjoyed the feelings it stirred in me. I imagined that it was his hand touching my clit, touching and stroking. Sliding gently, but firmly through my gathering juices. I moaned silently, getting more and more excited as the minutes passed.

  “Ella!”

  My thoughts were pulled quickly out of the gutter as I was interrupted once again by a loud screeching noise. I removed my hand with much regret and a lot of lividly silent muttering under my breath. Unfortunately, it was my mom yelling for me to get my lazy bum out of bed and not my alarm making the annoying sounds. The alarm clock didn’t give me headaches in the mornings. She did. I turned over and tried and squeeze fifteen more minutes out of my sleepy time, or at least wait for my alarm to go off at the time I set it for. Nope, wasn’t going to happen that morning.

  “Ella! Get out of bed before I get the ice water!” she screeched. Yes, she really would dump ice water on me. What a loving maternal figure.

  I rolled my ‘lazy’ ass out of bed and stumbled for my shower, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t bang my toe onto something on the way. This was the first day of my senior year. I wished I could be more excited, but I was just expecting the same bullshit, the same clichés, the same who was wearing what and what great stupendo
us things they played off they’d done over break. There was one bright spot, I thought. Maybe the Nordic god will be attending, or maybe I need to stop with the wishful thinking already. I laughed at myself and rolled my eyes. I just didn’t get that lucky.

  I stayed in the shower until the water started to run cold, then jumped out and toweled off wondering what I was going to throw on to wear that would actually pass muster. My parentals wouldn’t let me leave the house unless I looked like something from an Amish settlement. Well they could try at least. I was technically an adult, being eighteen, so they couldn’t say much as of my last birthday. They could hem and haw about whatever they wanted, but I could also move out of this hell hole that had everyone fooled into thinking was the perfect fifties sitcom family. We had to keep up appearances after all.

  I stood in front of my mirror and really looked at myself. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed that I didn’t look anything like my parents, who were both short, with mousey brown hair and simply boring features. I, on the other hand, topped off at 5’11 last year, had long stick straight black hair that fell to the middle of my back, and a slender body with curves in the right places, but the feature that stood out the most were my eyes. They looked green, even from a distance, but up close, they were a startling jade, and when I was angry, they fairly glowed.

  When I was three and decided to throw a fit because my mother wouldn’t let me go out and play with the other kids at the playground outside the church, she shrieked as if Satan had just poked her in the ass with his giant fork. My eyes had glowed like I was possessed by a demon; at least, that was Mother’s account of what had happened. She and my father tried to have a Catholic Priest perform an exorcism on me. That didn’t quite work out like they had hoped, considering the priest had laughed until he was crying after he met me. Such loving parents I got saddled with. I had always wondered if I was adopted. Hoped really, but they always clammed up and denied it.

  What really drew attention, aside from my eyes, was my face, although I didn’t really see what the big deal was. To me it was just a normal face, just simply me, but my best friend, Jessa, said otherwise. “Wench, you have a face that could launch a thousand hard ons. And you don’t even see it. It just makes the masses of jock-strap swinging boys at our school want you even more,” she always said.

  Speaking of Jessa, I heard her blaring the horn from the front drive of our two story craftsman style home. She refused to step foot in my home. Not that I blamed her. Not in the least.

  I stopped scrutinizing myself, ran for my closet and pulled out the first thing I found. I threw on a short, light-washed denim skirt that was frayed around the edges and a gray fitted tee. I started searching the mound of shoes in the bottom of my closet for my red chucks, and once I put them on I slapped on some deodorant, grabbed my Coach Messenger bag, sprayed on some Tommy Girl, and ran out the door. I’d just have to braid my hair and spackle on some make-up in Jessa’s car. I hoped she drove decently, or I was going to lose an eye trying to apply my eyeliner. I always loved Mondays and this was the perfect start to one.

  My mother stopped me on my way out of the door. “What on God’s sacred earth are you wearing, Ella?”

  Omgosh does she always have to make her voice so shrill? I thought. “Listen, I’m running out of time. I’m well and truly late! I can and will wear what I want and how I want to wear it. If you don’t like it Mother, then please make a scene. I’m sure your cronies down at the quilting circle would love to hear all about it!”

  “You are truly a child of sin,” she accused.

  “And what does that make you, Barbra? I’m your child after all. Aren’t I?” I replied.

  I was pretty sure at that point my mom was going to blow chunks. She looked sweaty and grayish. That was definitely my cue to leave. I booked it out the door as fast as my chucks would carry me and jumped in Jessa’s clunker, banging the door closed. I sat in the passenger seat panting, wondering what the next thing to jump out at me that morning would be. Jessa looked at me like I was crazy.

  “Drive dill hole, she’s in a mood this morning. You should have seen her face when I tried to leave just now. She looked like she wanted to claw my eyes out for not wearing the Amish clothes she bought me over the summer. Ugh!” I explained in exasperation.

  Jessa gunned it out of the drive and squealed her tires as she shot down my quiet little street. I was sure our neighbors were on the phone with everyone they knew exaggerating everything they’d seen out their windows that gosh awful morning.

  Jessa nodded. “Your momma is seriously cray, cray,” she said, explaining it as only Jessa could.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. That was why she was my best friend. She didn’t come from the best home like me, either. Her mom almost died of cancer when Jessa was ten and her father worked all the time. Sure, he bought her whatever she wanted, but what she really and truly wanted was a parent that gave his time, not one who wrote a check and called it a day.

  I met Jessa when we first started junior high. We had lockers next to one another and I had been blocking her way. She called me a wench and told me to move my Amazonian ass so she wouldn’t be late to her next class. And I have loved her blunt, brash ass ever since that day.

  In the looks department we’re basically polar opposites. I’m tall and mostly slender, but she’s short with banging curves, topping off barely over five feet. And while my hair’s coal black and stick straight, hers is short curly and golden blonde. When you see her, you see a Monroe look alike, until she opened her mouth. Then you have to wonder what trucker crawled up her ass and took control of her speaking functions. Some of the most outrageous things could slip out of her mouth at the most inconvenient times. The girl truly didn’t have a filter. It’s one of the many things I loved about her.

  We pulled into the student lot, careening around like we were on a race circuit. Haven’t I told you the bitch can’t drive? Well she can’t. Every time I ride with her, I make good use of the ‘oh shit’ handle. Trust me; she could make the least religious person start to pray with her behind the wheel. We glided into the only open space near the front of the lot with smoking, squealing breaks. I looked over at Jessa and gave her the stink eye.

  “What? You know I know what I’m doing, girly. Stop being such a priss and just go with it.”

  Yeah like that was going to happen. “Have you ever heard of Driver’s Ed? Yeah, well your mini me ass needs to enroll ASAP!”

  “Don’t call me short, glamazon. You know you wish you looked like this.” She looked herself up and down. She was wearing black leather leggings, an off one shoulder sparkly yellow top, and the highest black booties I had ever seen. They had to at least reach six inches. I just rolled my eyes, stepped out of her death trap, shrugged my bag across my body and waited for her while she gathered her things at the front of the car. I seriously didn’t have a clue how she could saunter in those shoes. They would trip me up with every step. When she finally made it over to where I was standing, strutting her shit the entire way, she pulled her new schedule out of her Gucci bag.

  “So, how many classes do we have together for this sem?” she asked as we started walking through the hordes of other students toward the front doors of our tiny high school.

  Pinewood High had an amazing student body count of only twelve hundred. Everyone knew everything and everyone’s business, again, the joys of living in a small town. Nothing changed. Everything stood still. Stagnant. I reached into the back pocket of my skirt, took out my schedule, and handed it to her.

  “Squeeee!” She bounced like a little kid at Christmas. ”We have five out of seven together and lunch. GO US!” she shouted. “I’m so glad we’re going to be out of here soon, Ella. Seniors!! Can you believe it? I wonder if we have any fresh meat this year. The buffet around here can use some new sumthin, sumthin. Ya know?”

  That’s when I saw him, the Nordic god, standing off to the side almost directly in our path. I looked quickly down at my feet
. Trying and failing to fight the full body blush that I could feel coming on. Damn those vivid, mouthwatering dreams. I shook my head to clear the wickedly sexy scenes creeping into my psyche. Keeping my head down wasn’t going to work, so I peeked up through my eyelashes to check that he hadn’t caught me blushing. That would seriously be cringe worthy. To be caught fawning over him like some simpering, stuttering school girl, I thought.

  What I saw when I got another clear view of his smexiness made me huff inwardly. Of course he was surrounded by all the beautiful people that took up the top shelf of our class, but he seemed to only have eyes for me. Again, he was staring at my face like he knew me or like there was something stuck on it. I tried to discreetly wipe away whatever has caught his attention once again. He just smirks at me and continues to lock eyes with me. Today he has his long almost white hair tied back with a leather band, was wearing light wash jeans that probably cost more than three times what Jessa’s car did, a black faded rolling stones tee that hugs his massive arms and chest, with leather cuffs on his wrists. It makes me wonder what he rode to school in or on.

  As we passed by I couldn’t help but snark in his direction. “Stare much?”

  He just did that annoying eye brow lift and leered at me.

  I rolled my eyes and strolled on like I had all the confidence of a supermodel. So not. Jessa was watching all of this and stayed silent for once. I couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say about him once we reached a fairly quiet space. It was so not normal for her to be so closed mouthed about anything. Maybe she was struck mute by his seemingly physical perfection. I wouldn’t doubt it. He seemed to be charming the masses, judging by the horde of giggling priss-bots surrounding him like a lynch mob.

  When we reached our lockers, Jessa pretty much exploded. Not even noticing that our three peat was waiting for us. Devon was the third of our friendship triangle, and one of the most attractive guys in school. He had sandy blonde hair, deep rich chocolate eyes, kissable lips, and stood well over six feet tall. To the dismay of most of the priss-bots of our school, Devon didn’t swing the girly way. Didn’t stop people from thinking we had some kind of friends with benefits on the DL.