Luck of the Draw: Magic and Mayhem Universe (Lucky Magic) Read online

  Table of Contents

  About Luck of the Draw

  Copyright

  Foreword

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  ANOTHER EPILOGUE

  AND YET ANOTHER EPILOGUE

  THE LAST EPILOGUE...FOR NOW

  EXCERPT: Lucky Magic

  ALSO BY CATE LAWLEY

  ABOUT CATE LAWLEY

  About Luck of the Draw

  Woken with a kiss.

  It wasn’t exactly a kiss that woke Don...more like a tourist copping a feel.

  And he wasn’t exactly asleep...more like turned to bronze by a vengeful demon.

  But un-bronzed with the squeeze of an ass cheek didn’t seem a fitting tale for a prince of hell.

  It wasn’t long before Don determined that his non-metallic state might only be a temporary reprieve. How did the frumpy little tourist from Idaho free him?

  If he could find the disappearing dowd, he might get some answers and maybe have a shot at a permanent solution.

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2018 by Catherine G. Cobb

  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 book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.

  This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.

  The Author of this Book has been granted permission by Robyn Peterman to use the copyrighted characters and/or worlds created by Robyn Peterman in this book. All copyright protection to the original characters and/or worlds of

  Foreword

  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!

  PROLOGUE

  He was Abaddon, Prince of Darkness and Destruction, master of a million minions. His magic was epic, his reputation fearsome. He controlled one-fifth of hell’s lands. He was the second most feared demon in the underworld.

  And he was tired of being shat upon by pigeons.

  When he’d (sort of) killed the demon with the second largest army in hell, he’d been ready to reap the rewards of his newfound financial security.

  Previously unimaginable goals were suddenly within his grasp: good healthcare, an end to the “evil and menacing” gigs which required him to beat up smaller demons, and decent food.

  He’d been really excited about the food. He liked organic vegetables and grass-fed beef, but that stuff was pricey.

  Small problem.

  He hadn’t actually killed Tobias, the demon with the second largest army in hell.

  Tobias had amassed enough wealth to fund his retirement in Florida but wasn’t interested in having half of hell’s demons—the lesser half, but they could still be troublesome—trailing him to the sweet pad he’d discovered for a song on dealsfordespots.com. He also didn’t want to deal with the hassle of protecting his hard-earned cash and his person from the petty maneuverings of jealous demons.

  Enter Don.

  Don had mastered evil and menacing when he was twelve, had developed the physique of a linebacker once he’d passed puberty, and had been relatively unknown in the underworld at the time.

  He’d also had a latte addiction he fed every morning around nine at an out-of-the-way, inexpensive café—which was where he met Tobias.

  Over lattes and cinnamon rolls—Tobias’s treat—the wily demon made Don an offer. Don would “kill” Tobias, a.k.a. the Beast, and assume control of his minions and all of his property in hell...so long as Don agreed to certain terms.

  First, he had to pay a percentage of his loot and pillage take each year to Tobias.

  No problem. Tobias asked for a reasonable amount with payments terminating after five years.

  Second, Don couldn’t tell anyone about the deal.

  Somewhat problematic, because Don was an honest kind of guy. They ironed out a few exceptions and moved on to the third term.

  And finally, Tobias made Don promise to “make it look good.” That had seemed just fine at the time.

  To sell the story, Don kept up a solid evil and menacing act (the hardcore, just-killed-a-hellaciously-vicious-demon kind of evil and menacing). Spread a few rumors, pay a few guys to say they’d been beaten up, and demonstrate irrational anger over a handful of minor slights. Bam, he had a rep. It really hadn’t been that difficult.

  To frost his new evil-incarnate cake, he buddied up with hell’s power players—namely Satan and his cronies—and subtly reinforced his general badassness. Always in the back of his mind, he was reminding himself that he was the kind of guy who could beat “the Beast” in armed combat. Supposedly had beaten the devilish dude who controlled a massive army.

  In short, Don did all the things: created a terror-inducing reputation built almost entirely upon innuendo and a few judiciously bribed gossips, developed his very own beastly persona (hence the Prince of Darkness and Destruction), and cozied up to the big man downstairs.

  It was that last one that had landed him in his current, solid-bronze, shat-upon state.

  No one had warned him that the big guy had a daughter he desperately wanted married off. Buddying up with Satan had landed him one extremely reluctant fiancée and one very motivated future father-in-law.

  Annabeth was pretty enough, and honestly, Don was more than ready to retire one part of his fake persona. Abaddon, Prince of Darkness and Destruction, a.k.a. Don, a.k.a. Don Juan, the lover of many women—at one time.

  Don groaned.

  He wasn’t that guy. He was so completely not that guy. So much so that he actually blushed—in his bronzed state—just thinking about the things that “Don Juan” had supposedly done. He wasn’t sure all of them were physically possible.

  And while he hadn’t dated a lot—his precarious faux-menacing persona limited options, and then he’d been engaged—he did know women well enough to know that one at any given time was more than enough for him.

  Women were complicated.

  And confusing.

  The Texas sun beat down upon his bronzed self, enhancing the unpleasant odor of bird poo. It wafted up and tickled his nose, which remin
ded him of another less-than-pleasant characteristic women could have: dirty, rotten meanness.

  As fate would have it, that was the exact moment that Baba Yaga, most feared witch in this realm and a few others, chose to visit her grand person upon him. In the blink of an eye and a lungful of purple smoke, Baba Yaga appeared on his proverbial doorstep.

  Since his doorstep was actually the square of a small Texas town, he wasn’t entirely certain she was here for him. She could have come for the barbecue. Really. The barbecue was amazing. At least, that was what his nose and the line of impatient customers that started queuing around midmorning led him to believe.

  Not that he’d know firsthand, because he was, uh, eating-challenged in his current bronzed state. His stomach grumbled its seven thousandth complaint.

  Again, women could be downright mean. If bronzing him within smelling distance of world-class barbecue (made with grass-fed beef, no less) wasn’t mean, he didn’t know what was.

  Baba Yaga waved a hand in front of her face, clearing away a wispy tendril of violet smoke, then arched an eyebrow and gave him a critical look.

  He sighed. In his head, since he didn’t have the ability to actually breathe—and also, he didn’t want to anger the witchiest of all witches. Clearly, she wasn’t here for the fantastic food.

  That was probably bad.

  The last time he’d seen her, she’d bamboozled him into escorting her to a function his ex-fiancée (then current fiancée) had also been attending. Then—and this was truly baffling part—she’d encouraged him to kidnap Annabeth.

  Not only had he recognized it as an epically bad idea at the time (Baba Yaga was scary and mind-spinningly persuasive), but that kidnap attempt had led to the dissolution of his engagement, as well as his current thoroughly bronzed situation.

  Good thing he couldn’t breathe, because he would definitely be sighing about now, and that might make her mad. No one wanted a bedeviled Baba Yaga, especially not a demon who was the opposite of fleet-footed at the moment.

  Their conversation replayed in his head, just like a train wreck waiting to happen.

  “Women love a commanding, assertive man,” she’d said.

  When he’d pointed out that Annabeth seemed to be having a good time, and he didn’t want to interrupt her fun, Baba Yaga had shaken her head. “No, she’s definitely waiting to be swept off her feet. And what better man for the job than her fiancé?”

  He recalled seeing the wisdom of her comment and nodding in agreement. That alone was evidence magic had been employed, because he wasn’t an idiot.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t blame his single-minded pursuit of his slippery fiancée through Central Texas on Baba Yaga. That catastrophe had been one hundred percent his own doing.

  He had two arguments in his defense.

  First, if you don’t want to be chased, don’t run. Demons loved a good chase. Really loved it, like a coon dog after a critter. That had been grade-A fun when he’d been a prepubescent demon spawn, and it was still pretty darn entertaining.

  But the bigger reason? He was tired. Exhausted, actually. Maintaining his “Don Juan” reputation required a great deal of effort. He suspected actually participating in an orgy or three would have been easier than manufacturing the appearance of having done so.

  Marriage offered what seemed to be the perfect solution. It wasn’t like he would cheat on his wife once they were married, not even in a completely fictional, manufactured gossip way. He had his limits.

  So he’d followed Baba Yaga’s advice, the “sweeping Annabeth off her feet” advice, and the “follow her; women like to be pursued” advice that had come next.

  Really followed it, as in across Central Texas followed it. The advice...and Annabeth.

  And here he was, bronzed, poop-splattered, and unsure if he’d ever have the pleasure of free movement again.

  The dissipating smoke tickled his nose, and he realized that he’d been a mannerless boob and failed to address his guest. Not okay, even if he was currently a bronze statue in the middle of a tiny Texas town. “Baba Yaga. It is a pleasure to see you.”

  It wasn’t, but he could only imagine the fun she might have with him in this state if he offended her.

  She arched an eyebrow. “Nice of you to acknowledge my presence, Abaddon. I would hate to think I might be interrupting something more important.”

  He deserved that. He just hoped he hadn’t inadvertently set a bad tone for the entirety of the meeting. Bonus: even if she zapped him, at least he’d gotten a break from the Eau de Excrement. The swirling smoke covered some of the stink.

  “How may I help you? Unfortunately, I am unable to offer refreshments, though I can recommend the barbecue across the square. Rumor has it the sliced brisket can’t be beat.”

  She placed her hands on her hips, which set the myriad dangling bracelets adorning both arms to jangling loudly. “I’m not here for a meal. I’m here to tell you your fiancée—”

  “Ex-fiancée.”

  She smiled a wicked smile, and too late he remembered that one did not interrupt Baba Yaga. “Yes, she is, isn’t she? You let that one slip right through your fingers.”

  Why did she care? Why had she offered up her terrible advice to begin with? What plots did the Machiavellian witch have brewing in that brain of hers? It made his head hurt trying to figure out a regular sort of woman. He wasn’t even going to try with Baba Yaga.

  She fluttered long lashes coated in blue mascara. “No excuses? No explanations? No recriminations?”

  He considered what response she might want from him and quickly abandoned that futile effort for the truth. “No.”

  “No?”

  He was tired of being a bronze pigeon poop receptacle, so he didn’t want to say something that might upset her. He hoped she was here to help him and, on the off chance she was, didn’t want to make her angry.

  But mostly he was tired of the lies. Tired of the fake persona. Tired of the whole Dread Pirate Roberts schtick. So tired that he was about to fess up to anyone who asked that it was all a big lie, and the Beast was living a life of blissful retirement in Florida.

  “No, I do not have any excuses, explanations, or recriminations regarding the matter of my broken engagement.”

  He waited for the sky to open up and a great bolt of lightning to zap him. A metallic statue in an open space, he’d definitely be the target for that bugger.

  But no lightning struck him.

  Nothing electrifying happened.

  Nothing at all happened, except...she smiled.

  If the hairs on the back of his neck hadn’t been firmly frozen, they’d have stood straight up. But even bronzed, he felt the chill crawl up his spine.

  She patted his bronzed pec...affectionately? Then stepped away from him. “Right. I have errands to run, minions to scold, warlocks to terrorize. You know how it is.” She turned to go.

  “Baba Yaga?”

  “Yes?” For the second time, she offered that creepily pleasant smile.

  The woman was giving him heartburn, even on an empty stomach. “Could you, perhaps—”

  “Oh, yes, of course!” She clapped her hands together, then disappeared.

  One moment of complete relief. A half a second. That was how long it took for him to realize that the feet he’d commanded to move...weren’t.

  He tried to lift his arm. Shake his head. Wiggle his fingers.

  Nothing.

  What in hell’s great pit of tortured minions had she done if not free him?

  He took stock of his person and surroundings. He found two things.

  First, a six-inch disco ball draped around his neck. The Texas sun’s rays of death made the thing sparkle and shine.

  The second item took longer for him to identify. Initially, he saw a sign a few feet away, but the blinding brilliance of the small ball of mirrors around his neck prevented him from reading it.

  He waited for a cloud.

  And waited.

  Yet another
bird shat upon him, a few passersby giggled, and an elderly woman with a cane stopped just long enough to molest his person.

  Finally, a passing cloud gave his eyes a brief reprieve, just long enough to read the sign.

  Good luck will follow a squeeze of this cheek.

  Pointed directly at his posterior.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Why does this statue have a bunch of flowers hanging around his neck?” I left out any descriptors, because calling a statue hot was just weird. And creepy. Definitely creepy.

  “Kayla!” my sister Cricket squealed. Any higher-pitched and she’d burst my eardrums. She gestured to a sign set to the side of the buff bronze man-god. “Check this out. This is hilarious.”

  Good luck will follow a squeeze of this cheek.

  The sign had an arrow pointed in the direction of two nicely rounded butt cheeks.

  I pushed my glasses up my nose and read it again. “These small-town Texas folks are kind of pervy, don’t you think, sis?”

  Cricket was too busy fingering the flowers around Mr. Bronze and Beautiful’s neck to answer. I took her silence as agreement.

  “Um, Kayla?” She pushed several of the fake flower necklaces to the side. “I think you hit the nail on the head. They definitely have sex on the brain. Check this out.” In fiddling with the hottie’s flower necklaces, she’d revealed a broad, well-muscled chest adorned with a miniature disco ball and a placard, both hung from a chain around the yummy statue’s neck.

  Lei me & I’ll bring you good luck.

  Her tone all innocence, Cricket said, “You could use a little luck. You should definitely lei this guy.” She patted the poor guy’s pec.

  He might be an inanimate man made of bronze, but it still seemed creepy and wrong to fondle him.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  “Admit it.” She flashed me a dimpled grin. “He’s cute.”

  “Cute?” Not really. Gorgeous, sexy, stomach-flutteringly hot—yes. “I don’t know if cute is what I’d call him.”

  “You really need to get out more.” She gave his chest one last affectionate pat and then shifted the leis back around to cover the ridiculous sign around his neck. “I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”