Witch Is The New Black (Paris, Texas Romance #3)

Witch Is The New Black (Paris, Texas Romance #3)

Dakota Cassidy




Chapter 1



“Ah, nope. Absolutely not,” Bernice Sutton said, shaking her head from side to side as she gathered up the few personal belongings she’d accumulated since she’d been in magic-abuse prison, located in chilly Salem, Massachusetts.

There was a long, disgusted sigh from a disembodied voice, the gravelly hiss warring with the flagrant tint to the words that followed. “No’s so harsh, Bernie baby. So final. Why don’t we start with a maybe, Pookie? Just a little one.”

“I say we start with never. A big one. As in no chance in hell.”

“Perfection! It gives me something to aspire to. I love a good challenge.”

“This is not a challenge. I am not a challenge, and I’ve told you a hundred times. I don’t need a familiar. I don’t think I even fully understand what a familiar is. In fact, now that I’m almost free, I still don’t know what I am or what I’m supposed to do about what I am. Why would I drag someone else along with me into the great unknown?”

God, this being a witch was all so confusing.

Miss Fee Line, her self-appointed familiar and wannabe drag-queen cat, appeared out of nowhere. Ten months and a various assortment of spells and wands later, and Fee’s popping up out of thin air—an ability among several he possessed—still never failed to make her jump out of her skin.

Fee swished his tail with the pink bow attached to it in indignation. “You’re not dragging me, Bernie. I go forth a willing participant in your witch journey.”

Bernie shook her head again. “No. No. You can’t come with me. That’s that. Now go harass someone else. I hear Knuckles in cellblock C had her boyfriend sneak in a can of salmon. Everybody’s talking about it. Bet if you offered to wax her upper lip, she’d give you some.”

Fee hopped down off the small table that held Bernie’s few toiletries and stretched his spine with a purr of satisfaction, reaching forward with his front paws. “You know, Boo, I don’t want to point out the obvs, but—”

“Oh you do, too. You love to point out the obvious.”

“Fair enough, but you’d know what a familiar was if you’d shown up to all your classes.”

Baloney. She’d damn well been to all the classes. Every single crazy, mind-bending one. How To Be A Witch In 2015. How To Navigate the Muddy Waters Of Necessary Magic Versus Magic For Personal Gain. How To Control The Urge To Shove Your Wand Up Someone’s Ass.

She’d sat quietly in the back of the meeting room in the center of the prison, her hair hanging over her eyes, her hoodie from a borrowed jacket on her head, as she slouched in her chair like some weird outcast and listened to every “how to” support group the prison offered on everything and anything witch-ish.

She’d been to them all, and she still didn’t understand how this had happened or how she’d landed here—with a bunch of women who claimed they were “her people”.

A witch. She was a witch. Not like the Wicked Witch in Oz, but a white witch.

It just didn’t get any more CW Network than that.

Sure, it explained a lot of kooky mishaps in her thirty years of life to date—things she was still coming to terms with—but even after ten months it was proving a hard pill to swallow.

Bernie narrowed her eyes at the black cat and tugged on his fluffy pink tutu. “I did show up to all my classes. Every single one of them.”

“You did not. Your luscious, curve-riddled body might have been there, but your mind was absolutely not in attendance, honey.”

“That’s probably because my mind was still blown. In fact, if you check the stall in the latrines by the mess hall, there are still bits of it scattered on the floor. You try showing up to anything with your mind when it’s blown to smithereens.”

Fee yawned, his sharp teeth gleaming, as though he were bored with her constant protests. “What part of ‘you are a bona fide witch’ is so hard to grasp, Bernie girl? You’ve known for ten months now. I’d think you’d be long past disbelief.”

Ten long months of reflecting on her life—a life she’d spent a good portion of in trouble. At school. At home. At all fifteen of her eventual jobs. The last being a night security guard at a big law firm.

Bernie pulled the two ends of her ponytail to tighten it. “Well, it doesn’t matter what I believe, now does it? I did my stint for the Council, showed remorse, blah, blah, blah. I’m out. Alone. You hear me, Fee? Like a lone wolf—ahrooooooo!” she howled into her drab gray surroundings.

She didn’t have time for Fee’s nonsense today. Today was for fresh starts and moving forward—oh, and figuring out how not to be a witch anymore.