Mary Lindsey - Havoc

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2021 by Mary Lindsey. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

10940 S Parker Rd

Suite 327

Parker, CO 80134

rights@entangledpublishing.com

Entangled Teen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Stacy Abrams and Viveca Shearin

Cover design by Liz Pelletier

Cover art by GeorgePeters/iStock

ISBN 978-1-64063-417-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition April 2021

Dear Reader,

Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance youve come to expect, and we couldnt do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.

xoxo

Liz Pelletier, Publisher

For Shawna Stringer

Prologue

Blood, as dark as the sins of her ancestors, ran in rivulets down the blade of the machete clutched tightly in the girls hands. With wary, birdlike movements, she stepped over a decapitated body and turned a defensive circle in the middle of the junkyard, her long skirt tangling in the knee-high weeds.

Hed been surprised to find her fighting alone, and even more surprised that shed defeated both of the reanimated corpses by herself. She was stronger than she looked, which was not a surprise. If there was anything hed learned over the course of the last nine years, it was that nothing was as it appeared.

As if sensing his presence, she looked over the top of the rusted-out hull of an abandoned refrigerator and squinted up the hill in his direction. Reflexively, he flinched and lowered his binoculars. Even if she could see this far, he was obscured by the heavily tinted windows of the rental car. Hed been told she didnt have the gift of foresight, so there was no way she could know what was happening or why.

He lifted the binoculars again.

Narrow shoulders rose and fell with her rapid breaths as she lowered the tip of the weapon to the dirt. With a black, lacy sleeve, she wiped at the blood splattered across her face. He wondered if her peculiar, anachronistic clothing was an intentional homage to those who had come before her, or if it was instinctuala need buried deep in her DNA that reached into the past for a bond with the older, stronger magic.

Something to her right pulled her attention from his black car on the hill, and she spun to face it.

Round two, he whispered as another corpse crashed through the fence at the far end of the field. The girls people called these creatures revenantsthe dead animated by residual magic still present in the body after burial. The magic weakened over time, so for his purpose, the fresher the better. This one had been a woman and recently interred. It would be aggressive.

With arms that looked too frail to wield the heavy blade, the girl lifted the machete. She didnt rush the revenant but instead remained planted solidly in place, weapon raised, waiting for it to come for her.

He turned the dial on the top of the binoculars to tighten the focus and smiled as the girls eyes widened with horror and recognition as the revenant neared.

Ah, family reunions are so poignant . His heart rate escalated, and he licked dry lips.

The girl took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes as the revenant, wearing a tattered beige dress covered in filth and gore, staggered toward her, its grisly, rotting arms outstretched.

It troubled him that the girl hadnt asked someone for help. It had been three days since the first revenant rose. Hed expected her to have multiple witches from her coven and half of the werewolf pack whipped into a murderous frenzy by now. But it appeared she was going it alone and hiding the attacks from others, which wouldnt do at all.

A civil war required several essential components: a threat to financial stability, a sense of imperiled group identity, a disparity between groups rights, and an overt act of aggression from one side toward the other to incite chaos.

He lowered the binoculars and leaned back against the leather seat as the girl cleanly lopped off the head of her dear, recently departed Aunt Gertrude.

With a disappointed sigh, he slid the binoculars into their case and snapped it closed.

Below, in the junkyard, the girl pulled the decapitated body through the long grass, then stuffed it into the old refrigerator hull. After pitching the head in, too, she slammed the door and leaned back against it, catching her breath.

Hed underestimated her. It wasnt his fault, he assured himself. His plan had only been as good as the information given him, which in this case was clearly inadequate. Hed been told she was weak. Hed also been told she was close to the younger members of both the pack and the coven.

Why didnt you tell them? he wondered out loud as she wiped the blade of her machete on the grass and headed toward the gate at the far end of the dilapidated fence surrounding the field.

Since she had chosen to go this alone, he was clearly in need of a different strategy, which, of course, he had.

The machete disappeared into the folds of her skirt as she strode out of the junkyard, most likely to return to her home nestled safely among humans.

With a grimace, he texted the number hed hoped to never use again. As the proverbial they always said, desperate times called for desperate measures, and at this point, he was desperate. Hed been given explicit instructions. In order for the plan to work, a trial, conviction, and execution were essential. Nothing would wreak havoc like a good, old-fashioned witch burning.

Chapter One

Damn, shes hot , Rain thought as Freddie prowled toward him between the rows of cherry-red Formica-topped dining tables. She was wearing her usual torn jeans and faded band T-shirt The Grateful Dead this time. Her fluid movements made his heart kick up a couple of notches. Flipping her long, brown hair over her shoulder, she slid into the booth seat opposite him. He inhaled deeply through his nose, taking in the familiar, salty smell of grass and Freddie hed grown to crave. Even after almost five months together, she pushed his needle into the red zone every time he saw her.

She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, and let out a sigh. Merricks acting weird.

No surprise there. Weird was relative in New Wurzburg. On the surface, it looked like a tiny, peaceful, friendly town in the Texas Hill Country. But underneath that calm, welcoming facade, there existed a deadly magical world, right under its human residents noses.

Freddies cousin, Merrick, was a wolf shifter called a Watcher; so were Rain and Freddie. Watchers protected the local coven of witches, known as Weavers, when they wove spells. Weavers could literally weave magic into fabric and other materials with thread. Some Weavers had freakish talents like seeing the future and the ability to make people do or feel things.