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

Bernie made her eyes round and Thumper-like when she gazed into Baba’s beautiful face. “I’m sorry, Baba. It’s my nerves. I promise to try to curb my tongue. Sometimes I speak out of turn when I’m frazzled.”


Baba adjusted the torn shoulder of her pink sweatshirt and gave Bernie that stern expression she dreaded. “Sometimes you magic out of turn, too, Bernice, which is why you’re here in the first place, isn’t it?”

Bernie fought a hard roll of her eyes. If she ever forgot she’d done something heinous, Baba Yaga was always two steps behind, reminding her she was a shitty witch. But she was determined to get the hell out of here at all costs.

She didn’t know what she was going to do once she sampled the sweet taste of freedom, but anything had to be better than being in here.

Swallowing her pride, something else she’d done more times than she cared to count since her incarceration, Bernie let her eyes fall to her cell floor in contrition. “You’re right. I did do that. I’m sorry.”

Baba snapped her fingers, making the cell doors grind open until they clanked against the walls. “Good to hear, inmate. Now, for your parole hearing.”

“But—”

“But! First Bernie’d like to thank you for her stay here. It’s been beyond fabulous, right, Bernie? She’s learned sooo much about being a good, unselfish witch. So much, her pretty blonde head’s spinnin’ like the teacup ride at the fair,” Fee said, jumping from the bed to the floor to wind his tail around Bernie’s calves.

If a cat could give side eye, Fee was giving it to her. Which meant shut up. In true applying-for-the-job-of-familiar fashion, in the time since she’d been sentenced, Fee had doled out more than his fair share of witchly advice. Whether she wanted it or not. Though, in all honesty, he was usually right.

Squaring her shoulders, Bernie nodded in silent agreement. Some freedom was better than no freedom.

Instead of railing against parole, she turned off her thoughts about how unfair this all was and followed up with, “What Fee said.”

Baba’s face wreathed in a smile—but it wasn’t the kind of smile that said, “Good inmate.” It was the kind that said, “Nice ass-kissing.”

Baba crossed her arms over her chest, thinning her lips. “Are you ready for your sentencing, inmate?”

Bernie cocked her head. Like right here, right now? “What? No flickering lights and a circle of candles while the wind howls outside and all those old dudes without faces wearing rank-smelling robes mumble to each other?”

“They’re napping,” Baba provided with an almost smile. Then she caught herself. “Those old dudes without faces are your elders, Bernice. You’d do well to pay them some respect, especially on the day of your parole hearing, inmate!”

Fee swished his tail against Baba’s legs, circling her. “She just meant she was missing the ambiance of the old-school hearings at Council. You remember I told you about those, right, Bernie? You know, the hangings. The beheadings. The death by drop from atop Kilimanjaro into a pit of writhing snakes.”

Oh, yeah. Those.

Bernie gulped, tugging at the sleeves of her orange jumpsuit. “I do, and yes, that’s what I was referring to. I guess I just expected…”

More.

More pomp and circumstance, maybe? Like the “more” she’d encountered when she’d first been dragged to this place that, from the outside, was glamoured to look like a quaint bed and breakfast, but was really protected by thick walls of magic.

Like that big, long podium thingy and all those faceless dudes who sat behind it as she looked up at them, their long, musty robes covering their bony limbs, as she stood terrified before them.

She was expecting the ominous but invisible hum of something electric, that strange noise that, out of fear, she’d jokingly asked if it belonged to one of the Council’s life-support machines. Expecting the final sound of the gavel as it cracked on the top of the tall podium thingy when she was sentenced.

That was what she expected now.

Instead, there was nothing but the gloom of her dark prison cell with its sparse furnishings, and Baba, glaring at her.

Baba Yaga’s eyes narrowed. “You know, I can always wait until the elders are up from their nap, Bernice. We can put on the show you appear to crave, if you’d like. Spooky ambiance, smelly robes and all.”

“No!” she shouted then bit her lip and lowered her voice. “I mean, no thank you, Baba Yaga. That’s very kind, but I don’t want to wake anyone. The Council works hard. So hard. They need their rest.” And deodorant.

Baba Yaga sighed her irritation. “You’re a stubborn one, Bernice. And BTW, you’re not fooling me. I know you haven’t come to terms with the magnitude of what you’ve done yet. Not totally. But that’s because you’ve run wild for far too long, like the word is hyphened on your name. How you slipped under the radar for all these years is beyond me. But we’re going to fix that as of now. These are the conditions of your parole, Bernice—heed them. Condition one…”