Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel Read Online Free

his back on me, flicked his tail in the air, and pranced out of the kitchen. “Whatever. Furry little ingrate.”
    I picked up my bowl of cold cereal and the saucer of cream and took them into the living room. I set Artie’s cream on the coffee table before I settled into my overstuffed armchair, pulled Grandmother’s afghan over my lap, and began to eat my breakfast. It had been about two weeks of skipping breakfast, so that was the most amazing bowl of processed sugar and milk I had ever tasted. But when I clicked on the morning news I nearly spit out my mouthful when I saw Jimmy’s face on the screen.
    “Casino security at Fairshore Resort and Casino arrested Jimmy Laighin last night after he attempted to rig a game of roulette with a computerized chip,” the newscaster said. The picture of Jimmy was very obviously a mug shot of him after he was arrested with the serial number and his name on a plaque under his chin. His usually fluffy tuff of orange-red hair was deflated with sweat and there was a bruise blossoming on his cheek. Around his neck was a silver collar, made special to control supernaturals. Years ago, to help with the assimilation into the human world, a coven of witches had developed these collars for human police that would negate any magical abilities of the prisoner. If you were a Were, you couldn’t shift or use your strength. If you were a vamp, you couldn’t use your powers of persuasion or strength, and if you were a witch, you couldn’t use your powers and magic.
    “Laighin can be seen here on casino security cameras, when he was apprehended.” The newscaster’s plastic face was replaced by high quality security footage and right there, in the middle of the melee, was Jimmy being converged upon by three security guards. What looked like the pit boss came into the frame as he reached for a black and white chip on the roulette table. The camera zoomed in on his hands as he removed the backing of the chip, exposing the digital guts hidden inside.
    “Oh, Jimmy,” I said, shaking my head, “you idiot. A casino? Really? Well, no one could accuse you of wasting any time.” He’d managed to find the token, the money, and get arrested all in twenty four hours.
    The newscaster was going on about how much money Jimmy had been winning before he was apprehended and that it had all happened in a matter of minutes. He had been placing increasingly larger bets with higher payouts, but I hardly heard anything he said. In the corner of the screen, slightly blurred, I could see the tall, lithe form of Rae of Dunhallow.
    My spoon rattled against the edge of my bowl and I quickly set it on the table before I was covered in soggy sugar flakes and milk. Somehow Jimmy had managed to catch, not just a fairy, but a fairy princess. I could hear Ronnie’s warning echoing in my head about this coming back to me. If it had been just any fairy, they probably would have been satisfied with their vengeance on Jimmy, seeing him arrested, but a fairy princess? A royal? Oh, no, they were going to want to know who had given Jimmy the means to his good luck.
    I ran to my door and threw the rest of the locks, thanking every deity that was listening that Frankie’s dad had put in iron hasp locks. Iron would hold up against a fairy; much good it would do me if they hired someone of a different race to come find me though. I turned my back to the door and slid down to the floor, clutching my knees to my chest.
    “Mrrrow?” Artemis padded up to me. After one long stretch and a moment to knead the rug, he tried to jump up onto my knees. I shifted so I could pull him into my lap. His purr rumbled through both of us as I buried my face in his fur and pulled his scent into me. I heard my phone ring in the kitchen. I knew it was probably Ronnie, but it still took a lot for me to push Artie out of my lap and get up to go get it.
    “Heya, Ronnie,” I said with a sigh.
    “So you saw it?” she asked, her voice clipped.
    “Yes,