Page 1 of The Witch & the Grizzly

Prologue – Eva

Fear laced her heart. The world around her seemed alien, menacing. Too bright, the grass a too-saturated green fluttering upon the hills and along the rippling plains, swaying like a green sea. There, carved out of gigantic trees as tall as skyscrapers, was a twisted kind of castle or palace, woven in unnatural ways from branches, as if the trees had been coaxed to grow in that perfect shape.

She was here, and she was alone. No one to help, to save her. Her only weapon was some little glass vials in a pouch on her leather belt. She was hardly prepared for something as terrifying as this. The sky above clouded gray-black, and flicks of purple lightning pierced the scenery, followed by no sound. When the sun peeked out, it didn’t look like the sun at all but a mockery of one. The storm had come on fast.

Alone, Eva thought, and that single word sent a paralyzing fear through her body, making her break out in a clammy sweat. She wasn’t supposed to be alone. This wasn’t the plan.

Nathan, where are you?

Surely, he hadn’t betrayed her? Please, please…

She was alone, so very alone. And she was hunted.

Chapter One – Present Day – Eva

Sometimes, she felt like a failure. Mostly, she was fine with how things were, fine with how her life had worked out. On occasion, though, she felt the ache of something missing, a notable absence in what should have been a great life.

Eva came from a proud family of tiger shapeshifters. Her older brother, Martin Gallagher – his form as a tiger was beautiful, with burning orange/gold fur, and their parents displayed a similar form.

But that special gene had skipped Eva. Everyone in her immediate family could transform: uncles, cousins, and younger shifters, even some little cubs.

Not her, however. Perhaps some fae being had taken one look at her when she was born and decided to curse her with the inability to transform, stopping her from truly being able to connect with her family and the inherited traits they all bore.

The only thing she really inherited was the peculiar symmetry of tiger shapeshifters, from their amber eyes and reddish-orange hair to their heightened senses. Nothing more, though. She felt no itch to obey the tiger within, no urge to stretch out and transform into a powerful, muscled tiger, the largest of all felines.

Watching her brother run off into the mountain with her parents in their tiger form, celebrating their strength and agility, indulging in their desire to run free – made her feel even more lonely and inadequate.

It’s not their fault. They love me. That should be enough.

Love couldn’t disguise the differences, however. She felt those differences more intensely at family gatherings and clan-related events. No one wanted to be the odd one out, the ugly duckling, or, in her case, the ugly tigress.

At least at Dreadmor Academy, sitting in Professor Valgrur’s classroom, Eva felt a lot more useful. Today, once Eva left home and was firmly ensconced in the classroom, the professor wanted to teach the class how to make a Truesight potion, a potion she could have benefited from knowing about some months before when her brother actually needed one. Still, better late than never.

The wizened old professor paced around the classroom as the students got to mixing and creating their concoctions, following the professor’s precise instructions. Eva worked with Harriet Mooring, a big-boned, muscular woman with a small drop of bear shifter blood. Harriet’s brow furrowed as she focused on the recipe, which required a few strands of eagle feathers. This meant plucking out individual elements of the feather rather than using the whole thing. Potion work required a mixture of precision, timing, magic, and luck, and sometimes a bit of mad inspiration.

Eva concentrated, touched the water in her vial, and sent a part of her magical essence into it. Every vial needed a bit of essence. Otherwise, you’d be throwing ingredients into plain water, which didn’t do much. As potion-making was a branch of enchanting and glamour work, students also took lessons in that, though Eva felt most comfortable in this classroom, where there was a puzzle waiting to be completed. The puzzle took time and focus, and even still, you didn’t always end up with the result you wanted, but sometimes some pretty cool things happened anyway.

“I don’t think I’m cut out for this,” Harriet grumbled while working her potion. “All it takes is one tiny mistake, and the potion’s ruined.”

“Or you end up making a brand-new one!” Eva grinned at her friend. “I say just roll with it. Try to follow the instructions, but if it doesn’t work out, see where your magic leads you.”

Professor Valgrur came to stand beside them at that point, and she gave Eva one of her most piercing glares, the kind that could shrivel your heart and make you wonder what you were doing wrong. However, the older woman just winked and smiled at Eva as she continued around the room, directing her glare at other people.

Phew. Everything was fine. Probably.

“That old bat,” Harriet hissed under her breath, “I don’t know why she’s still teaching. I feel like she hates everyone.”

“Nah, I think she just has resting bitch face. You can’t help that. Not everyone’s born with a naturally friendly-looking face. Plus, some of those wrinkles are deep-set.”

“She could at least try to fake it…”

Both of them got back to work as Valgrur raised her head at the sound of non-potion-related whispering.

For the professor, conversation was fine – but not if it contained, in the professor’s opinion, silly gossip and pointless discussions about relationships. Eva had seen Valgrur pour a potion over a girl’s head when she started complaining about one of her (multiple?) boyfriends in class.

Luckily, the potion only made the girl wet, but you never knew really what might be lurking in one of those bottles. As far as they knew, Valgrur had never seriously harmed a student, but she was also ancient and reticent when it came to talking about anything that happened in the past. There was a trapdoor in Professor Valgrur’s office as well, visible from under a pile of yellowing documents that probably hadn’t been looked at in several decades. Sometimes, Eva liked to speculate with Harriet about what might be hidden there. It could be anything, from rare potions and valuable artifacts to students who’d mysteriously vanished sometime in the academy’s long history.

After they’d finished their lesson, naturally, the talk started up again. Harriet stretched as she said, “She’s, like, three hundred years old or something. There’s got to be at least a few bodies buried there.”

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