Ugly for a Spell

Chapter 1

She was dreaming of soaring on little paper planes, but the sound of a deep voice kept distracting her. She knew the voice somehow. She began to be aware of her body. And pain. The voice continued to drone. It was pleasant. And annoying. Only one person evoked those feelings.

"Oh, you." She woke up in her childhood haunt, with no recollection of how she got there, and next to her was one of the reasons she left. She let her head fall down.

"This sucks. You suck."

His eyes widened. "What did I do?"

"I don't know yet. But I am sure it's true."

Laughter boomed from somewhere behind her and she shivered involuntarily. There was the second reason she had left this place. Right on time for some answers. If her head would stop hurting long enough to understand what happened and how she ended up in this place. 

Milly stood up to confront, well, everything, when she caught a look of herself in the long mirrors that covered the wall behind the bar. Her breath caught. The face she saw was nothing like the one that had been hers for the past ten years. I had no time to take it in. He walked into the room.

She felt a tiny flip in my stomach. Just for old times sake. She was totally over him. She saw behind new wrinkles and a wider frame to the boy she knew. The boy who haunted my girlhood dreams. And he didn't recognize her.

Rather than explain her new face, something she didn't understand herself, she let it stand. Pretending not to know him. What was she going to say?

"Don't you remember the ugly step-cousin you pitied?"

Milly worried for a moment he would recognize her from scent alone. But either that had changed as well or she really wasn't that memorable besides her previously hideous face. She shoved that thought aside. She didn't know how long this new face would last or where it came from so it wouldn't due to get too attached. Soon, she would likely encounter the contempt she was used to both here with family and out in the world. The contempt she had dealt with since a cruel growing spurt in adolescence.

At the age of 12 years, it seemed almost overnight, her nose had grown larger, hair covered her brows and lip, and her bones became sharp, harsh, sinking her eyes into her face. She plucked every day, but it grew back immediately. She used make up try to soften her face and was mocked. She was too ugly for makeup.

Straight behind the man I used to love, his mate followed.

"Mildred!", she gasped. Well, that cat was out of the bag.

Heather Rush had been the most beautiful of them all when they were young, now she was not looking well. Too pale, dark circles under her eyes, and so thin you could see too many bones. Milly wondered briefly if she had been sick as she took in the appearance of the girl who had had everything she wanted when she was young. A touch of her bitterness bubbled up. She had wanted to leave it behind, but she felt a shadow of envy mixed with a smugness that admittedly did her no credit. Like when they were little kids, she noticed she was the prettier one again.

Milly bowed her head slightly to the Alpha pair. Though she had never manifested powers and wasn't technically part of the pack, she had grown up here and knew how to be polite.

"Could someone tell me how she got here and what the hell happened to her face?" Her old nemesis shrieked and Milly saw the same old bitterness reflected back at her. Well, this was unusual. In the past, she was only a shrew when they were in private.

The two men in the room did a simultaneous double take that would have been funny any other time.

"Milly? Is it really you who blew up that subway?"

"What on earth?" Milly took in a deep breath to keep from cursing. Of course, they would think the worse of her.

"No. I was there, but it wasn't my fault."

"She's a liar." Heather practically reeked of desperation, even Milly could tell without magic or a shifter's ability to nose out emotions, and Milly didn't have a clue as to why. "She's clearly involved in black magic to get rid of her ugly face. She is a terrorist, too. The subway was probably a sacrifice."

"Wow. I didn't think you could get crazier, Heather." Milly drawled. Perhaps she should be more concerned, but the accusations were ridiculous and this wasn't Salem.

"Calm down, Heather." The Alpha said.

Instead, Heather pointed a finger at Milly and spoke a short and strong curse that should have knocked her out. Out of instinct, Milly put her arm out to block, knowing it was futile. But a shimmer of light spread over her arm like a shield. The curse bounced back, hit Heather, and she went down.

Milly said the only thing that could process after doing magic for the first time in her life.

"Oops."