Spellbound Prequel Sample (This will not be finished)

Chapter 1 Part 1

Mira wasn't handcuffed. That was a good sign, right?

She fervently hoped it was. The last few hours were a blur. Everything was when you came down from a Bliss high. At the first hint of coming down you tried to grab hold of the intense feeling that everything was okay. No, not just okay.

Perfect.

That was the point of Bliss. Your world became a serene cloud on which you lived. The troubled world is still around you, but it didn't matter anymore.

That's why she started making Bliss in the first place. It started as stress release. Before a few tests, she started making Content which calmed her down and made her enter her exams feeling good about life in general. It was a common enough spell. Almost every witch had a version of it in their grimoire.

If she had stopped there it would have been okay but it was a hard truth to face. Bringing it to parties had been a mistake, but people liked it. Over the holidays she decided to experiment. Tweaking Content until it was unrecognizable, she had managed to establish Bliss.

Sharing it with others never should have happened. Giving it to humans...well, karma would make her pay for that one.

Two men walked into the little room. The older one was maybe in his forties, looking as though he had been in shape at some point in his life but let time and too many fast food trips leak into his life. The younger man was probably in his thirties and build stocky.

"Good morning," the older man said. "I'm Detective Reinold and this is Detective Oliver. Do you know why you're here?"

Lie. "Not really," Mira said. "I mean, I guess the party was loud but it was a fraternity." Even without remembering a lot of details, it was a safe bet that party got loud.

"And the fight?" Reinold asked.

She wracked her brain. Maybe her brain would be screwed back on straight if she had more Bliss.

No. She told herself firmly. No more Bliss. That's why you're here in the first place.

"I didn't really have anything to do with the fight," she hazarded.

"The officer's report states that a man named Conor Graves was beaten pretty badly by Harold Stokes and that you and Quinton Franks tried to intervene."

Conor. He had been on Bliss as well, of course. There weren't many people I'd help but Conor was one of them.

"Trying to stop the fight, yes," Mira said. "But not involved in the fight itself." As an after thought she added, "is Conor alright?"

Detective Oliver cleared his throat. "He's in the hospital but being discharged."

Mira only nodded. She wasn't sure how she felt about Conor. They had been very close but in the last month he'd been different.

"Tell me more about the party," Detective Reinold said.

Mira shrugged. "It was a party, pretty standard. Nothing special."

"Were there any drugs at the party?" he asked.

"Not that I know of. It wouldn't surprise me if someone was smoking dope somewhere in the house."

"And what about you. Did you take any drugs?"

"No," Mira said adamantly. "I had a little alcohol, but I don't take drugs."

"Tell me about this," he said, sliding a plastic bag across the table to her. "It was found on you before the officer brought you in."

Inside the plastic bag was a special mixture of herbs and caffeine. She wasn't concerned though. The spell hadn't been activated. Anyone that took it wouldn't actually be taking Bliss unless a witch activated the spell.

"It's tea," she said. "I make my own."

"Tea?"

"Yeah. You can probably smell the mint if you open the bag. There's lots of other herbs in there, though, along with green tea."

"So, if we examine the contents of this, it's going to come back as...tea?"

"Actually, it should come back as mint, a little chamomile, green tea leaves, let's see here, I think this one had lemon verbena." If it had been her mixture, she wouldn't have had to guess. She knew the mixture by heart and didn't even have to measure anymore. This was Conor's new and improved version. One taste and she had never gone back to her own. "There may be a few other things. If you want me to open it up I can probably pick it apart and find out what else."