Here’s a little snippet from Chapter Two of Curse of the Coven. This is when the heroine finds out she’s gone from basic bitch to basic witch…

Chapter Two

I’m freaking the fuck out. Freaking the fuck—

An explosion of something split the air fifty feet to the north—lightning so close she felt the heat—slashing a neon blue light through the darkness just beyond the light she was emanating. Before she could even begin to worry what that was about, a neon flash of red light struck somewhere to her left, and the light went out almost as fast as it had come. The electricity from the strikes made her hair stand on end.

According to her mother’s Book of Shadows, the snaps of electric energy meant immortals were materializing in the vicinity. Flashes of blue light announced the presence of a demon. Red signified shapeshifters—that could mean werewolves, bigfoot—who the fuck knew and frankly who the fuck wanted to know!

Overhanging tree branches near the clearing began to shake, drawing her attention away from the light show. She could only imagine what was shaking them. Actually, she didn’t want to imagine, and she wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

Before she could tuck tail and bail, electricity snapped all around her head, sounding like miniature fireworks. She swatted wildly at the orange sparks, fearing they’d light her hair on fire. After several frantic swipes it became clear there were no electrical sparks coming at her. They were coming from her. There was no lighting her hair on fire. Her hair was the fire. Electricity was snapping out of the ends of her red hair.

But my hair is brown.

You’re glowing bitch.

She dropped her shit, pivoted and ran. Blindly at first. Didn’t matter where she was running since she was half running from her goddamn self. From what she was turning into. Could she outrun that shit? Probably not. Didn’t stop her from trying.

“Raven!”

She covered her ears and half ducked, half fell under a large, drooping pine tree. One of the branches snagged her jacket. She yanked herself out of the sleeves and left it hanging on the branch, frantic to keep moving. She scrambled desperately in the dirt until she hit the trunk of the tree with her shoulder. Her breathing was erratic and tears clouded her vision.

The roar of that name had shaken the very ground under her feet—literally. Pinecones and pebbles had danced on the ground as though an earthquake had taken place, while needles from the tree had fallen into her sparking hair. She quickly used her fingers to shake the pine needles out of her hair, not wanting to spark a dry needle right next to her scalp.

Raven? Okay. Calm down. Everything is fine. Your imagination is as good as your mother’s. Better, even. But what could have made that guttural roar?

She leaned forward, the palm of her hand resting on the sharp edges of the bark of the trunk.There were snaps of energy all around the park, in all different colors. The rainbow of terror lit up the midnight sky, the snaps of light making the natural glow of the Harvest Moon pale in comparison.

Jesus, it was so bright outside. Like the sun had made an appearance. She squinted, glancing up in confusion. The tree she was currently using for inadequate shelter from the immortal onslaught was glowing.

And then it hit her.

No. Not the tree. She was glowing and she’d just turned the old pine into a pre-lit fucking Christmas tree, a literal beacon for whoever—or whatever—was stalking her and calling out for a witch who only existed in her mother’s book.

Raven. Raven the Awakened.

Sick to her stomach, she looked down at her incandescent arms as she slowly put two-and-two together. They glowed like a light shone from within the cavity of her body. Like a preternatural Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, only the glowing wasn’t just her nose—it was her whole body. And shit… The glowing of her skin made her little cotton dress sheer as fuck.

She turned her hands until she was looking at her fingernails. Her black fingernails.

A spark shot from her red hair and landed on a dry branch a few short inches from her face. As she knelt under the pine she watched the spark smolder for a few seconds, and then, just as she thought it would fizzle out, the branch caught on fire.

Her mother’s words, written so beautifully and eloquently, flashed through her mind.

Raven the Awakened, born just before the turn of the millennia, glows preternaturally. Her beauty will be renowned, her hair the color of a siren’s, her nails as black as Lucifer’s soul. All immortals will know her name, and most will fear it. The most powerful of all the witches that have come before and after, she will release the fae from the imprisonment forced upon them centuries before by the Alliance. They will fight for her, and she will become their deliverer.

If this was all true…how had her mother known this? Was she a fortune teller? Had she been able to see the future?

Another flash of colorful light. This one less prominent than the others. So quick and dim she almost missed it. But this flash had been the closest to her, and unlike the others, she actually saw those who had caused it.

Two men, one female. The female was wearing leather pants and held a dagger in her hand. The men also wore leather, the muscles in their legs pulling at the thin material. One male was tall. Well over six feet. His eyes shone green, and she figured he was a demon.

A demon. A real demon.

The shorter male and the chick looked like they were fighting sickness. What the fuck…?

She couldn’t pretend this wasn’t happening anymore. She’d fucked up when she failed to renew the binding spell. Energy surrounded her, the static electricity causing the hair on her body to stand up. Immortals were popping up all over the park like goddamn evil Jack-in-the-Boxes. Her mother really had been documenting the immortals, and that was the reason she’d included instructions in her will for her daughter to perform the binding spell.

When the three immortals turned and looked at the tree Athena was perched under, Athena saw the woman’s teeth lengthen over her bottom lip when their gazes clashed.

No, not her teeth. Her fangs.

The fire on the branch next to her caught the wind, and the blaze jumped to engulf two more branches, licking the dryness of the needles with its orange, crackling glow. But that wasn’t the worst of her worries.

She locked eyes with the shorter male when he stepped toward her. When his gaze lit on her he snarled. Like a rabid animal. His fangs lengthened, his large body became even larger and…hairier. His boots dug into the ground when he launched himself toward her.

A shapeshifter. A werewolf. A man-dog was barreling in her direction to do God knew what—

Fuck this shit. Not that she needed more of an excuse to get the hell out from under a burning tree, but if she did, he’d be it.