Ana is pregnant. She’s never had sex.

Ana is surrounded by terrifying shadow people. She’s never seen or heard of them before.

Ana has upset the balance of the world. Her actions will cause the collision of dark and light, possibly destroying the Earth. But she’s never even heard of this balance before, and definitely hasn’t done anything to upset it.

At least, not that she can remember.

Book of Shadows Trilogy, Book 1

I was going to publish this book this summer, but due to a car accident that has left me with mild brain trauma, I will be recovering instead Subscribe to my newsletter to find out when this book will be available! And much more!

Here is the first chapter for your reading pleasure:

Before

Ana didn’t run. She didn’t even try.

The forest was dark. Not just dark. Fully shadow. Ana wasn’t in the human world. She was in the shadow world. And the shadows… weren’t exactly happy about it.

“Don’t move, witch!”

She almost had to laugh, in spite of her dread. How could these morons believe in something so absurd? She wasn’t a witch! That wasn’t even really a thing!

Slowly, carefully, she raised her arms above her head – a hopefully-universal sign of surrender. She wouldn’t hurt them. They didn’t know it, but she couldn’t hurt them.

Then the breath was knocked out of her. She was thrown to the ground by rough hands; hands barely visible to her, and then only as a slightly thicker darkness against the empty dark around her. Not even the slight glow emanating from her own body cast light on the shadow soldiers. They were shadow.

She gasped, trying to fill her screaming lungs with air. Before she could, with stars popping into her vision, cord wrapped roughly around her wrists, so tight it cut her skin. She was pulled upward, her arms extended painfully behind her so that the soldier could lift her without getting too close.

Because he was scared of her. He was scared of the witch.

Moron.

The soldier pushed her callously forward, and she fell instantly to her knees. Searing pain as one of her knees hit a sharp rock and sliced open. Like everything, the way ahead was invisible to her; more perennial darkness, more featureless shadow. Her lungs were still burning, her arms bent at excruciating angles, and her knee felt like it may have broken. Ana tried to breathe and found she could only cough, spitting and sputtering. She wanted to cry.

“Not so powerful now, are you enchantress?” One of the soldiers laughed – the sound of a man taunting an animal he knew to be unequivocally dangerous, even bound and gagged. Trying to abate his own fear.

But why call her enchantress? The shadow people’s mythology held humans to be incredibly dangerous witches whose power was only to destroy. That’s what Baron had told her, anyways.

Baron told me a lot of things, she thought bitterly, as the man pulled her pitilessly to her feet again. She still couldn’t believe that she had fallen for it. It was the oldest line in the book: we can’t get pregnant, baby! No need for condoms!

Of course, in Baron’s case, it had seemed legitimate. The man wasn’t exactly a man. He was… well, a shadow. And there had never been any instance of a human and a shadow getting pregnant. Granted, there had also never been any instance of a human and a shadow having sex. That was another one of the things that Baron had conveniently not told her. The man had some serious explaining to do.

The soldier pushed her forward again, this time holding onto her wrist to keep her upright as she stumbled over the uneven, invisible ground.

Another of the seemingly limitless things that Baron had conveniently not told Ana was how to get a hold of him. He was always the one setting dates, showing up in her bedroom when her parents were asleep, arriving in her dreams. Having never had a supernatural boyfriend before (or any boyfriend, for that matter) Ana hadn’t really minded the one-sidedness of it. Besides; she was shy and undemanding, and she loved him.

Really loved him.

The soldiers pace was such that Ana still couldn’t catch her breath. Her throat was raw from coughing and gasping, and she focused on trying to take deep, steady breaths. She just had to tell them that she was there by accident, and they would let her go. Right? Even if they thought she was dangerous, they had no reason to hold her. They should want her gone as quickly as possible. It was all a mistake, a misunderstanding.

The funny thing was, it was the truth. Ana was just trying to contact Baron. Send him a message, or get into his dreams the way he was always doing to hers. So that night, after peeing on three separate pregnancy tests in disbelief, she lay down beside the old redwood tree in her backyard and tried to focus on Baron. It was easy – she couldn’t get him out of her mind, couldn’t stop thinking about how much she loved him and how angry she was and how utterly screwed up her life had become. Pregnant, dating a shadow, and constantly surrounded by fog. The fog was really weird, and she hoped he would be able to explain it.

Or would choose to explain it.

So she focused on Baron.

When she opened her eyes, she was in the shadow world.

“You’re making a mistake,” she managed, still gasping. “I’m here by accident, I don’t know what’s happening.”

It was almost the same words she had said the night that she met Baron for the first time. She had come into the shadow world by accident that night, too.

“Save it for the trial, succubus,” one of the men grunted.

Trial?

“What trial? What are you talking about?”

But the men were silent.

Some time later, her legs throbbing and her arms asleep and tingling in a way that she could not stand any longer, she heard an invisible door creak open. She tripped as she was thrust forward, but one of the guards caught her. She only knew that she was in a building because of the change in sound her feet made on the ground. There was now another sound, too – murmurs, maybe. She thought it was voices, but she couldn’t tell.

Finally, she was pushed up a short series of steps and left alone, wobbling on her screaming legs. She looked around wildly, willing her eyes to see something – anything – in the impenetrable darkness around her.

“Where am I?” she cried, “What’s happening?!”

For the first time since meeting Baron five months before, Ana was terrified.

“Order!” a booming voice to her left. The murmurs she had been uncertain about before ceased. Yes, they had definitely been murmurs. Whispers.

What the hell?

“You have been brought here,” the voice continued, “to stand trial for the commandeering of an innocent man’s mind. Your evils have corrupted him and his station.”

Ana’s eyes went wide. Baron had always said that their relationship was dangerous. That if they were ever caught, there would be terrible punishment. But how had they been discovered?

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

Ana couldn’t think. Were they going to kill her? Just like that? Before she could think of anything to say, she heard another voice, to her left, on the far side of the Judge-Voice. This one was familiar.

Baron.

“She bewitched me,” he croaked. His voice was broken, nasal, bloody. Like his nose and jaw had been broken. “Please, don’t kill me. I am free of her enchantments now. I am myself again. She is the one responsible…”

Ana’s eyes slipped closed. They were going to kill Baron. This wasn’t happening.

“Is this true, witch?”

“I…” Ana tried to think. If she said it was false, they would kill him. The man that she loved. She couldn’t let that happen. “Yes. It’s true.”

Gasps now, and more whispers from all around her. Was she on display then? On a stage of some kind? Ana hung her head, trying to look the part of guilty enough that they would believe her, and let Baron free.

“The Priest Baron will be supervised by another until his soul is healed,” the voice boomed. Ana felt tears of relief spring to her eyes. “The witch will be killed.”

No.

This seriously wasn’t happening…

“Wait!”

Baron’s voice. The hubbub of the crowd ceased instantly.

“She is not alone. There are others, much stronger and more powerful. If you kill her, they will know. They will come for us!”

Ana held her breath, listening to the silence, straining to hear any clues as to whether the judge believed Baron’s bald lie.

She heard the judge’s voice again, this time so low that the words couldn’t be made out. It was speaking with another, also muted.

“There is only one choice, then. All memory of this abomination must be struck from her mind. She must not remember us, not at all.”

Ana’s jaw dropped. What? Could they do that?

As chanting sprang up from the soldiers behind her, she made a mental note never to trust Baron again.

Then blackness stole over her, and the thought, along with every other she’d ever had about Baron, the shadows, or their baby…

Were lost.