Long Gone Witch: A Rockstar Urban Fantasy Romance (ICRA Files: Berlin Book 3) Read online

  Long Gone Witch

  Gaja J. Kos

  Contents

  Kolovrat Universe

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Gaja J. Kos

  Copyright © 2021 by Gaja J. Kos

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Kolovrat Universe

  The ICRA Files: Berlin series is part of the “Future” portion of the Kolovrat universe.

  Each series/standalone title in the Kolovrat universe can be read individually, or as a whole for a more complex insight into the universe where myth and reality blend into one.

  KOLOVRAT UNIVERSE

  PRESENT

  BLACK WEREWOLVES SERIES

  Slavic Gods Urban Fantasy with Romance

  Novels:

  The Dark Ones

  The 24hourlies

  The Shift

  The Ascension

  Novellas:

  Never Forgotten

  Chased

  Black Werewolves: Books 1–4

  NIGHTWRAITH SERIES

  Enemies to Lovers Paranormal Romance

  Windstorm

  Blackstorm

  Nightstorm

  Nightwraith: The Complete Series

  SUCC

  Noir Standalone Urban Fantasy Romance with Open Relationship

  FUTURE

  PARADISE OF SHADOWS AND DEVOTION

  A Mermaid Standalone Paranormal Romance

  LOTTE FREUNDENBERGER SERIES

  Suspenseful Urban Fantasy with Romance

  Shadow Moon

  Darkening Moon

  Transient Moon

  Phantom Moon

  Burning Moon

  SHADE ASSASSIN

  Why Choose Urban Fantasy Romance

  Shadow World

  Shadow Lies

  Shadow Heart

  Shadow Reign

  ICRA FILES: BERLIN

  Rockstar Urban Fantasy Romance

  Rock This Wolf

  Down With Vamps

  Long Gone Witch

  FREE PREQUEL: Fang Deep in the Blues

  HEAT OF THE NIGHT

  A Dark Urban Fantasy Shifter Romance

  DAWN OF KOLOVRAT

  Urban fantasy standalone novellas

  Destiny Reclaimed - FREE

  To four of my absolute favorite songwriters—Sascha Vollmer, Lana Del Rey, Martin L. Gore, and Muddy Waters.

  Thank you for gifting the world with your fire.

  Chapter 1

  “Your energy is telling me things your mouth refuses to.”

  Finn’s drawling voice coiled straight into my ear in bold defiance of my attempts to focus on Hot Boogie Chillun’s “Tonight” and its rolling riffs while we cruised south toward Heinersdorf.

  Of course, it would have been a fuckload easier to tune my partner out if I could turn the music to blasting levels like I wanted to, but with two prisoners packed in the back of the van, that would have created some less than desirable circumstances. Sure, the van was fortified with a bunch of spells designed to ensure secure transport, and the prisoners were bound with magic as well as regular cuffs, but that didn’t mean we could throw caution out the window.

  Finn, though, didn’t seem to give a damn about distracting the wolf behind the wheel.

  His unwavering attention drilled holes into the side of my face when I kept pretending I hadn’t heard a thing, my gaze firmly set on the road ahead. He knew better, of course.

  Because if there was one aspect of myself I couldn’t control, it was the way my whole body reacted at the mere mention of Aric Sutter.

  Right on cue, The Meteors’ “Psycho for Your Love” rocked the van, and I had to swallow a grunt when the lyrics hit. Not helping matters. At all.

  “My point exactly,” Finn commented, sounding way too cocky for my liking.

  I narrowed my eyes, and a twinge of additional mirth slipped into Finn’s scent. I should have known this whole ordeal was a godsdamned trap. The crafty warlock was probably the one who volunteered us for prison transport duty in the first place just to get me in the van alone. Back at HQ, there was always something to disrupt Finn’s line of questioning oh-so conveniently.

  “We’re almost there,” I said as the fields claiming the land just south of Berlin spread open before us. Nothing but a fairly straight stretch of sunlit road lay ahead, the not-even-a-year-old prison an ever-growing blot standing sentry in the distance.

  Finn shifted in his seat—facing me fully now. I let out an inward groan. There wasn’t a chance in all the realms I was getting out of this conversation. I wasn’t even sure why I was evading harder than a hit of bleach to the nose.

  Maybe because Finn wasn’t buying the actual truth.

  “For the thousandth time, Finn, there’s nothing to share. Aric and I have been on two dates over these past two weeks. Which you already know all about.”

  I eased off the gas when we neared an intersection and shot him a pointed look, but Finn didn’t back off.

  This time, the groan did wrench free from my lips. “Why are you fishing for juicy details that aren’t there?”

  Noticing the light still hadn’t flicked to green, I focused back on the road. Just as I inched behind the idling car ahead of me, keeping the prescribed prison-transport distance and checking the mirrors for vehicles coming up from behind, my phone pinged. Finn snatched it off the console where I’d unceremoniously—or rather, somewhat ceremoniously—dumped it when I won our little rock-paper-scissors match for who got to drive us down to the prison.

  A snorting chuckle that could mean nothing good for my werewolf ass fluttered from Finn’s side. “Oh, really?”

  He turned the phone toward me. Aric’s fucking handsome face stared from the screen, a twinkle in his eyes, and his mouth pulled into that slight lips-half-parted smile that drove me wild. His guitars hung proudly off the studio wall in the background, and a tiny peek of one he must have been playing graced the edge of the photo.

  “Looking forward to seeing you tonight.” Finn read the bubble of text beneath.

  Though with
how hard my mind was screeching that Aric had sent me a fucking selfie, it was a miracle the words even came through. He’d sent me a selfie. A panty-dropping, hot as fuck selfie that shook and rocked my body in ways I hadn’t even believed possible.

  Get a grip, Gina, you’re seeing the man.

  Yeah, I was. And my mind was still blown by that. Getting a casual photo of his day dropped into my messages—I wasn’t even sure why, but it carried a charge even more profound than a date.

  “The light’s green,” Finn said with a chuckle as he clicked off the screen.

  I swore, then hit the gas. Judging by where the car that had been in front of me earlier was now, I’d spent an embarrassingly large amount of time staring at Aric’s face, totally oblivious to the world around me.

  Finn’s smugness saturated the cabin in a potent fresh wave despite the cracked window blowing in the late summer air. “No juicy details, huh?”

  “Like I said earlier”—I shifted gear, decidedly not looking at my partner—“we’re taking things slow.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I did not like the sound of that mm-hmm. Even more so when I had a hard time believing my own words, faced with the unbearable heat that had found residence in my stomach and cheeks.

  Finn waved the phone. “Because a man showing off his guitars is definitely not trying to remind you of what those fingers of his are capable of doing.”

  “Moving exceptionally well on the fretboard?” I chanced a side-eye to get my point across, though Finn, damn the warlock, had certainly slipped in a visual I had a hard time shaking off.

  Our silent power struggle went on for another stretch of road, and by the time it became clear I was most definitely losing the battle, the car ahead had peeled off, and we were left alone under the blue sky.

  “Okay, okay,” I grumbled. “There’s definitely tension. And”—I pushed out a breath—“you might be right about the fingers. Or at least right about where my mind goes. But Aric and I really are doing the whole dating the old-fashioned way thing. Why is that so hard for your mind to wrap around?”

  “Maybe because I walked in on you basically fucking backstage,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Heat flashed in my core, but it was gone just as fast, replaced by a wrenching sensation in my chest.

  Whether he was aware of it or not, Finn had just hit the nail on the head of my damn evasiveness. I downright hated keeping secrets from him, but why Aric and I had decided to take things slow… That particular reason wasn’t mine to tell. Not when I could still feel the heavy shift that swept through Aric whenever we got close—the shift in him when the memory of me nearly dying with his fangs in my neck opened up its maw to drag him into its putrid depths yet again.

  It gutted my fucking soul to see him hurting like that.

  Pressing my lips together, I focused on the road and tried to banish the ghostly imprint. On the upside, Finn picked up on the change in my mood, his scent morphing into something I could only label as understanding. He might be in the dark about the details, but at least he knew I wasn’t bullshitting him on the whole matter.

  After all, while he’d arrived too late to see me nearly dying, he had witnessed what the hex had done to Aric—how shaken he’d been in the parking lot behind that club with two nearly drained women lying on the ground. It didn’t take all that much to connect the dots.

  There was something different in Finn’s voice when he asked, “How are you with all of this?”

  His question rolled through me like a storm. My spine jerked straight as the buildup of tension broke apart under the natural force, and a husky, uncensored laugh punched free from my lips.

  I eased back in the seat, taking in the straight road leading up to the prison, then looked at Finn.

  “I’m dating Aric. Aric.” I beamed. “How do you think?”

  My inner shift spilled into the atmosphere, and my entire body melted farther into it. That oppressive need to hold everything back, hold it in…

  It was no longer there.

  And everything giddy and pure and just mind-fucking-blowing bubbled up to the surface.

  Contrary to what I must have feared on some buried, subconscious level I was only now starting to become aware of, the unleashing didn’t erase the heavier, darker aspect of my relationship with Aric. Didn’t lessen the magnitude of what we’d been through. The single thing it did was give free rein to the unbridled joy that existed alongside it—just as powerful, potent, and valid as the struggle.

  “Look, Finn, if it came across like I was avoiding you… I guess it was because my mind was still trying to catch up to reality. That this is reality.”

  Thinking back to the moments I’d spent in my apartment, music curving from the record player while I gazed through the window, my head totally spaced out…

  Not talking to Finn hadn’t been just about refusing to divulge Aric’s emotional state.

  “You don’t have to explain yourself. I get it now.” He glanced at me with those rich green eyes filled with far more than his words carried.

  My heart warmed.

  He’d been worried about me. That’s why he’d pushed. To be perfectly honest, if the roles had been reversed and it was Finn whose fantasy had taken form in the real world, I’d be worried about the absolute lack of blabbering communication too. My partner and I were different in many things, but being unable to hold back our excitement was not among them. Unless we were on the clock, poker faces weren’t something we ever desired to wear.

  “Half of the time I’m wondering if I should be embarrassed that I’m fangirling like crazy.” I arched a pointed eyebrow at the display on the dash writing out the song that had just kicked off—WJP’s “Rev the Desire.” “But then I remember Aric’s words, how the world doesn’t matter and it’s us who make the rules, who create the reality. And, of course, I fangirl harder.”

  “As you should.” Finn winked.

  I snort-chuckled, then peeled right onto the newer road running parallel to the main one, constructed specifically for prison access. A few crows fluttered from the smattering of shrubs and trees when the van passed them.

  “I keep thinking that I should be used to it by now. As you so elegantly pointed out”—I slid my gaze to Finn—“things happened after that last show. And Aric made it clear how he feels about me, several times now, so it’s not like I can keep telling myself that I’m just reading too much into his interactions.”

  A smile graced my lips at the memory of all the damn times my brain fought between stating that what I’d witnessed in Aric, in the way he acted toward me, was the truth, and convincing me I was just seeing shit I wanted to see.

  Wild, wild years.

  “That being said…” I pursed my lips, gaze trained on the jail’s boxy shape and imposing fence.

  We didn’t have a lot of time left before we had to deal with handing over the prisoners, but the words bubbling up within me—they demanded to be let out. Not on the way back. Not over a beer after work. Now.

  “I guess I’m not used to amazing things happening to me,” I admitted. “I always felt like the luck a lot of people seem to have somehow bypassed me, so I accepted that, sure, I can build a good life for myself, but reaching my dreams?”

  I shrugged and looked at Finn. “That could only ever happen in my imagination.”

  Finn opened his mouth, but instead of a reply tumbling out, my partner paled. My own instinct flashed in warning, only it was too little too late.

  I barely had time to grip the damn wheel better when magic rammed full force into the side of the van.

  Chapter 2

  The van tilted.

  Cursing, I shoved down any sign of panic and forced myself to gently turn the wheel in the same direction. The urge to overcorrect continued to lash at me as the unpleasant clash of lightness and weight persisted, then amped up even more when the van veered off the pavement entirely.

  Sweat beaded at my temples, but I rode it out. I rode it the
fuck out.

  The van bounced and shook as all four tires made contact with the uneven terrain. The prisoners in the back went berserk.

  I barely had time to suck in a breath when magic cannonballed into us again.

  This time, at least, I was moderately ready for the overspill of external force the wards on the van couldn’t absorb.

  “Keep driving,” Finn grunted.

  He could see and feel shit I didn’t, focused on gently steering us back on the road as I was. One thing, though, I was sure of.

  Whoever was attacking us was after the prisoners.

  When the bumpy terrain evened out between the tires, I floored it. Another bout of arcane power punched the van.

  “We’re under attack,” Finn said, and it took me a second to realize he wasn’t talking to me but had opened a line to the prison. “We’ll try to get to the gates. Get ready.”