10 Ways to Spellblock a Warlock: Magic and Mayhem Universe: The Cursed Quartet, #2

By Virginia Nelson

So you've heard of cockblocking, right?

Gannon Wilson is cursed. Although he's not sure how or why, everyone believes his curse killed his beloved wife, Gilmore, just after she gave birth to their beautiful little girl, Emmie. Even Gannon believes he might have caused her exceptionally untimely demise, if inadvertently. So, although he's a single father—functioning on lack of sleep, exhaustion, and otherwise pretty frazzled most of the time—he's not looking for a witch girlfriend to ease his troubles. Anything but, in fact. Gannon only dates humans… because he's scared of what the curse might do if he dared love another witch.

Henrietta Fannyfartle is on a mission. She learned of the tragic tale of Gilmore and Gannon through the witchy grapevine, but she doesn't think the Taradiddle curse is what ended Gilmore's life. Since she's working on her thesis—magical university is such a drag, amirite?—she needs evidence to support her suppositions, and there's only one way to get it.

Henri needs to get close to Gannon and his daughter to verify her theory is correct, so she can write her paper, and then go on to be one of the leading witch professors among her contemporaries. One problem? Gannon is wary of witches, which is wise. What's a witch to do but pretend to be a human in the middle of nowhere West Virginia so she can get the story of a lifetime.

Wait… one more problem. The one thing the clever little witch didn't count on was love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Virginia Nelson
• Release date: Jun 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393554813

Virginia Nelson

Virginia Nelson likes knights in rusted and dinged up armor, heroes that snarl instead of croon, and heroines who can't remember to say the right thing even with an author writing their dialogue. Her books are full of snark, sex, and random acts of ineptitude--not always in that order.

Book preview

Foreward

Blast Off with us into the Magic and Mayhem Universe!

I’m Robyn Peterman, the creator of the Magic and Mayhem Series and I’d like to invite you to my Magic and Mayhem Universe.

What is the Magic and Mayhem Universe, you may ask?

Well, let me explain...

It’s basically authorized fan fiction written by some amazing authors that I stalked and blackmailed! KIDDING! I was lucky and blessed to have some brilliant authors say yes! They have written brand new stories using my world and some of my characters. And let me tell you...the results are hilarious!

So here it is! Blast off with us into the hilarious Magic and Mayhem Universe. Side splitting books by fantabulous authors! Check out each and every one. You will laugh your way to a magical HEA!

For all the stories, go to

https://magicandmayhemuniverse.com

Grab your copy today!

Dedication

For DJ

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Work family for feeding me and tolerating my babbling about imaginary people while I wrote this one.

Thanks to Sara for editing. Love you more than cake.

Thanks to David for talking me through the plot points when I thought I’d written myself into a corner.

As always, thanks to my wonderful kids for being awesome

But most importantly, thanks so very much to Robyn Peterman. I had so much fun writing this and can’t begin to thank you enough for your friendship. You’re amazing!!!

So you’ve heard of cockblocking, right?

GANNON WILSON IS CURSED. Although he’s not sure how or why, everyone believes his curse killed his beloved wife, Gilmore, just after she gave birth to their beautiful little girl, Emmie. Even Gannon believes he might have caused her exceptionally untimely demise, if inadvertently. So, although he’s a single father—functioning on lack of sleep, exhaustion, and otherwise pretty frazzled most of the time—he’s not looking for a witch girlfriend to ease his troubles. Anything but, in fact. Gannon only dates humans... because he’s scared of what the curse might do if he dared love another witch.

Henrietta Fannyfartle is on a mission. She learned of the tragic tale of Gilmore and Gannon through the witchy grapevine, but she doesn’t think the Taradiddle curse is what ended Gilmore’s life. Since she’s working on her thesis—magical university is such a drag, amirite?—she needs evidence to support her suppositions, and there’s only one way to get it.

Henri needs to get close to Gannon and his daughter to verify her theory is correct, so she can write her paper, and then go on to be one of the leading witch professors among her contemporaries. One problem? Gannon is wary of witches, which is wise. What’s a witch to do but pretend to be a human in the middle of nowhere West Virginia so she can get the story of a lifetime.

Wait... one more problem. The one thing the clever little witch didn’t count on was love.

Chapter One

Rule #1 – Get your beauty rest.

A tired witch is unaware and likely to stumble into a hot mess without seeing it coming. When facing down a warlock, a girl has got to be on her game. Take time for naps, self-care, all that gobbeldy gook, because without it, you run the risk of letting other magic users get the upper hand.

Gannon

HE WOKE UP TO THE SMELL of smoke and hoped against hope that the living room wasn’t on fire.

Again.

Leaping to his feet, he tripped over a toy train and a headless doll before catching himself on the doorframe with one arm to avoid faceplanting in the hallway. Why was it so dark? Although he could smell smoke, he wasn’t choking on it, so...

Nighttime, his tired brain supplied with hitching slowness. It was dark because it was the middle of the night. He needed to get to Emmie, to get her out of the house if it was on fire. The last time...

He preferred not to think about the last time, or about the melted remains of his console gaming system. Sprinting the few feet down the hall, he shoved his daughter’s bedroom door open after a small struggle with the sleeping bag she’d apparently left on the floor. Flipping on the lights, he quickly surmised she was neither in or under her bed—she sometimes liked to crawl under it to sleep in hopes of taming her own pet monster—nor was she in the closet or in her toybox.

The smoke smell was dissipating instead of getting stronger, so his panic over the fire quickly gave way to panic about the location of his missing child. Emmie? he called softly, not wanting to scare her if she’d fallen asleep somewhere else in the house.

No response. He jogged to the living room—not on fire—before sliding into the kitchen breathlessly. There, sitting in the middle of the dining room table, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do at three o’clock in the morning, he found his daughter. Emmie’s forehead was streaked with flour, chocolate syrup dripped onto the floor in slimy rivulets, and the singed smell that woke Gannon appeared to have begun in the somewhat melted blue Tupperware bowl she stared into morosely.

Whatcha doin,’ my Emmie girl? Gannon asked with practiced patience. He’d learned quite some time ago not to yelp or seem distressed when his magical daughter got into shenanigans, no matter how much he might be tempted.

Making Mommy a birthday cake. Her bottom lip came out in a pout as she scrubbed her chocolate covered fingers across her fuzzy nightgown. It isn’t working very well.

Gannon scrubbed his own hand across his forehead before scooping her up. We’ll try again tomorrow, if you want. It isn’t her birthday, though, he reminded the child. It didn’t take long for him to strip her out of the dirty pajamas, pop her into the shower, scrub off the mess, get her dried dressed in a fresh, sweet smelling nightgown. The child’s jaw popped with huge yawns by the time he’d finished, yet she clung to his hair when he tried to put her in bed. Daddy, tell me the story of Mommy again? she begged.

He needed to clean up the mess in the kitchen. He needed to try to snag a few hours of sleep himself, before getting up to repeat his daily duties—feeding and preparing Emmie for her day, dropping her off at preschool, heading to work where he’d blink blearily at the computer screen and pray for lunchtime, get off work then get Emmie again...

But instead of worrying about tomorrow—which would come too soon for his liking, anyway—Gannon curled up in the bed next to his daughter. Your mother was the most beautiful woman in the entire world. The moment I saw her, I couldn’t help but love her...

RULE #2 – Silence is golden, duct tape is silver.

Sometimes you have to use the silver to get to the gold. Why isn’t this on a bumper sticker yet?

Henri

HENRIETTA FANNYFARTLE could smell graduation, it loomed so close on the horizon. The only thing standing between her and the tassel was one stupid paper she’d been working on for what felt like two lifetimes.

Well, fifteen years, give or take, but still... it had been a