Page 5 of Witch Bound and Down

"I can smell her," Deputy Jenkins announced, his tail wagging proudly like he'd just won Best in Show at the supernatural police academy. "And the prime rib."

"We need to throw this deputy a bone.”

Hazel jabbed Hopper with her finger. "Shush!"

Sheriff Lawman's heavy footsteps approached their cauldron. "Come on out, Hazel. You're only making this worse. Think about poor Smokie. He spent three weeks practicing his vows. Got them down to almost-rhyming and everything."

That did it. No more hiding. If she was going to get caught, at least she'd go down swinging. She gripped her wand. A simple stunning spell would be satisfying, but it would be illegal. A confusion charm might work, but werewolf deputies had notoriously good recovery times.

"Hopper," she whispered, "I need you to create the biggest distraction you can manage."

"Sweet lily pads, the last time you asked me to create a distraction, we ended up hitchhiking with a vampire pizza delivery guy who kept calling me snack-sized."

"Just do it."

Hopper sighed dramatically. "Fine. But I want it on record that this is a terrible idea." He puffed up his throat and let out a croak that sounded like a foghorn having an existential crisis.

The response was immediate and overwhelming. Every frog, toad, and amphibian within a five-mile radius suddenly felt an irresistible urge to attend what they apparently perceived as the social event of the season. They poured through open windows, hopped up from storm drains, and squeezed through cracks in the foundation. Within seconds, the kitchen was a writhing carpet of croaking, hopping chaos.

"I may have overdone it," Hopper muttered as his distant cousins swarmed the room.

"Perfect," Hazel whispered, then pointed her wand at herself. “Velox Strideus.”

The speed spell hit her like a shot of espresso mixed with liquid lightning. Her legs suddenly felt like they could outrun a centaur, though the magical drain made her vision swim for a moment.

"That's still not proper Latin," Hopper said from his perch on her shoulder.

"Grandma always said magic responds better to enthusiasm than accuracy."

"Your grandmother also thought dating a wood nymph was a good idea. We had splinters in the couch for months."

Sheriff Lawman's roar of fury mixed with genuine confusion as hundreds of amphibians began their impromptu invasion. "What in the Sam Hill? Deputy Jenkins, why are there frogs in my crime scene—I mean—wedding ceremony?"

"I don't know, sir. They just keep coming. Should I call animal control?"

"Animal control? That's spellwork without a permit. Call the Wand Breakers. We’ve got an incident on our hands.”

Hazel didn't wait to hear more. The speed spell made everything feel like slow motion as she darted between the chaos. A werewolf deputy lunged for her, but she was already gone, weaving past him like he was moving through molasses. Another deputy slipped on a large bullfrog that croaked indignantly at the insult.

She burst through the kitchen's swinging doors at supernatural speed, Hopper clinging to her shoulder like a scaly racing flag. The main reception hall erupted in startled screams as wedding guests dove for cover, though she noticed her Great-Aunt Iris calmly continuing to sample the charcuterie boards, completely unfazed by the high-speed bride. Then again, this wasn't even the most dramatic exit from a family wedding. That honor still belonged to Cousin Marnie and the incident with the enchanted chocolate fountain and the lovestruck bigfoot.

"You know," Hopper shouted over the wind whipping past them, "when I signed up to be a witch's familiar, the brochure mentioned mystical wisdom and spiritual guidance. Nothing about aiding and abetting a runaway bride."

"Less complaining, more navigating." Hazel dodged a startled bridesmaid who shrieked something about the bride going rogue. "Where's the exit?"

"Left. No, other left. Bog's breath, who taught you to run at superhuman speed? The same person who picked this venue? Because this place has more dead ends than a fairy tale hedge maze."

Behind them, the sounds of hot pursuit were building. Sheriff Lawman's bellows mixed with the confused yelping of his deputies and the increasingly loud chorus of frogs that seemed to be multiplying by the minute. The speed spell was starting to fade. Her supernatural pace dropped back toward merely Olympic levels.

Bursting through the venue's front doors like a leather-jacketed comet, Hazel left behind a reception hall full of very confused wedding guests, several hundred displaced amphibians, and one very angry bear sheriff who was definitely going to have some explaining to do to the insurance company.

And right there, gleaming in the afternoon sun like salvation on wheels, sat a black Trans Am with a minotaur in the driver’s seat. How did he even fit in a car like that? Must be magic. But as she got closer, the mating bond her grandmother had whispered about—the one she always thought was malarky—suddenly made perfect sense. Because the moment their eyes met, everything just clicked into place.

This stranger, this strange creature, was her one true mate.

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