by Laynie Bynum
Prison of Supernatural Magic
Laynie Bynum
M Dalto
J A Culican
Holly Hook
Margo Ryerkerk
Keisha Thomas
Majanka Verstraete
Contents
Prison of Supernatural Magic
Escaping the Grey by Laynie Bynum and M. Dalto
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
The Daughter of Time by Majanka Verstraete
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Coming soon
About the Author
Supernatural Prison in Nisiea by Keisha Thomas
1. Koyama Miho
2. Amitai Palachek
3. Koyama
4. Amitai
5. Koyama
6. Amitai
7. Koyama
8. Amitai
9. Koyama
10. Amitai
11. Koyama
Epilogue
Also by KIESHA THOMAS
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Disgraced Fae by By Margo Ryerkerk & Holly Hook
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
Reluctant Fae Blurb
Reluctant Fae
About Margo Ryerkerk
About Holly Hook
Fallen Suun by J.A. Culican
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
About the Author
Prison of Supernatural Magic
Welcome to the Prison of Supernatural Magic where the punishment never fits the crime.
Behind these bars lurk the most dangerous and despicable creatures, and that's just the guards.
Be sure to keep to the right side of the magical law because this jail is not somewhere you want to end up.
Join Mages, shifters, demons, witches and spies in this fantastical collection of magical prisoner books by USA Today and Amazon best selling authors.
Escaping the Grey by Laynie Bynum and M. Dalto
Chapter One
She wasn’t breathing when I found her.
Aside from the areas where crimson stained her skin, Winter was blue— the color’s prominence too unforgiving to give me hope that she would ever recover.
“Winnie,” I sobbed over her far too still form. “Winnie, come back to me.”
My sister, my friend, my mentor. She was the best white mage I’d ever known, and that belief was far beyond my gratuitous bias as her only sister. I’d seen the strength of her power with my own eyes. Thousands of people, and even more souls, remained on this earth because of my sister’s power and charitable heart.
But this…
If she hadn’t been able to heal herself, then whoever— or whatever— did this to her knew exactly what they were doing.
This hadn’t been a random mugging.
Suddenly, the cold back alley began to close in around me, its brick walls pressing in, becoming smaller and smaller until I could no longer breathe. Placing a hand upon my chest to attempt to catch my breath and still my pounding heart, it occurred to me.
It was entirely possible that the culprit was still somewhere among the throngs of people of Boston—both the magical and not-so-much, those that we referred to as earthbounds.
Letting out a slow breath, I returned my focus to my sister. I could tell she hadn’t been there long. Her body was still warm and her eyes still held the icy glint that made her name so fitting.
How long had it been since she left the house? I couldn’t remember exactly— maybe only an hour or two. It was supposed to be a simple errand. She was just portaling to Silver Sword Apothecary to get healing supplies for her in residence patients and to prepare for those who would stumble in throughout the week.
It was what she did every Sunday. Nothing was different. Nothing had changed...
Until Lucy came through the portal, straight into our living room, hysterical and screaming. I thought something had happened to her, never guessing it was my sister. We lived under the constant fear of the Guild raiding us at any moment, but that was normal. Those who came to us for help knew how to handle that. They knew the procedures should they find themselves in danger.
But, as evident by Lucy’s reaction, there were no procedures in place for seeing your caretaker brutally attacked in an alley behind Faneuil Hall.
Despite her hysteria, she’d been smart enough to layer a veil around Winter’s body before coming to get me. The earthbounds of downtown Boston would have had a field day with the sight, magical or otherwise. But a woman dressed in flowing white robes dying from unexplainable wounds that wouldn’t clot… that would have been on the front page of every newspaper, at the top of every 5 o’clock news update, trending on every social media outlet.
The thought jarred me from my mental spiral. “Lucy,” I said out loud, finding my voice. “Reinforce the veil.”
Her delicate hands moved with effort as she worked on strengthening the magic wall surrounding us. Her fingers twisted and bent; her wrists writhed like ballerinas performing a complicated dance.
But nothing happened.
I stood from where I knelt, though my heart remained with my sister and my body wanted to lay down beside her. But Winter’s death would be in vain if I gave up now— we’d come too far for that. We had too many people relying on us.
Even if she was gone, it didn’t mean I had an excuse to stop fighting.
If anything, it gave me a reason to fight harder.
Lucy looked as if someone had knocked the wind out of her. “I… I can’t do it.”
“Here.” I flicked my wrist, my innate magical abilities immediately strengthening the veil around us before I walked over to her. She cringed away from me as I tried to wrap my arm around her, and I looked down at where her stare bore holes through my chest.
Following her gaze, I realized I was covered in Winter’s blood. No wonder she didn’t want me to come any closer; the girl was traumatized enough already.
I thought I had grown cold to grief long ago. Thought that experiencing so much of it would numb to it.
When one loses their mother at nine and their father at twelve, that numbness that follows the repeated loss of people closest to you becomes an almost welcome respite. It gives you the protection you need to get beyond it, to s
urvive. I thought I would have finally become accustomed to it, taking into account the hundreds I had watched die in our home— on our couches or in our beds— after Winter opened up an illegal refuge for magical patients in need of care who couldn’t— or wouldn’t— go to the Guild for help.
Through the deaths of my parents and working seven days a week in the refuge under constant threat of The Guild’s ire, my mind was in constant survival mode, working in a robotic, disconnected state developed in order to deal with the terminally ill in our care. Nothing would penetrate my emotional wall built of scars.
Nothing… except maybe the sight of my only sister laying on the cold brick in front of me.
Even as disconnected as I was, I couldn’t continue looking at her. My heart physically hurt every time my gaze returned to the spot where her blood pooled around her.
If we were earthbounds, we would have called the police. If we were normal mages, we’d call upon the Guild. But as it were, we were neither earthbounds nor normal mages, but something in between. Something that wasn’t supposed to exist.
Mages who didn’t follow Guild law.
Mages who didn’t report for mandatory potion therapy.
Rogues.
When Winter and I attended public, earthbound school, we were taught about the people who once hid escaped slaves and helped them along their path to freedom. I had no delusion that we were anywhere near as brave or relevant as they were, but we did hide, help, and heal those that would otherwise be imprisoned for their lack of servitude to the Guild.
It felt important. It felt like the right thing to do.
That sense of significance was instilled in us before we could even walk. Our parents taught us to think freely and for ourselves, and that doing the right thing, though not always the easiest path to choose, was the best path.
At the end of the day, however, there was no way to be certain whether our father’s hate for The Guild was due to his belief that they were corrupt, or if it stemmed from the fact that he blamed them for our mother’s death. Nor could we determine whether or not his untimely demise was because the Guild disagreed with his teachings, or if it truly was caused by a sickness of unknown origin.
Either way, we had made him a promise— a promise to never take the potions. A promise to never follow blindly into their ranks. A promise to continue to live and think for ourselves and to treat our magic as a gift and not the curse the Guild would have us believe.
But now, it was the Guild I needed to rely on, and it went against every lesson, all of my father’s teachings, just to consider it.
It took me less than thirty minutes to bring myself to make the call that would send the world I knew into utter chaos.
Thirty minutes for the volunteers back at the house to move all of the patients to the basement and rid the house of any medical equipment that could have given us away.
Thirty minutes for Lucy and me to return from the back alley, looking as if nothing amiss had happened.
Thirty minutes for us to go home, change, and pretend as if it was merely another day.
And thirty minutes for the Guild representatives, decked in their golden robes, to show up at my doorstep.
I knew they were there before they knocked; I could feel their commanding energy through the two-inch-thick wooden door.
As I opened it to welcome them, four pairs of golden-hued eyes stared straight through me and into the house beyond. Their faces were blurred as if they were in my peripheral vision even as I looked at them head-on. Despite their protective cloaking magic, their vague features were enough to cause my chest to tighten and my breathing to become difficult.
This was their chance— I knew it, they knew it. They’d been waiting for a reason to enter the Quinn household for years, but we had always been careful. We never gave them an opportunity, and as corrupt and forceful as the Guild was known to be, they followed their own laws.
One of which was to never enter another mage’s domicile without their explicit permission.
The two-story, white colonial-style house was inconspicuous at best. And though mages drifted through as needed, they never used the front door. The ideal aspect of residing in Boston was that centuries ago, mages had developed an underground network of tunnels during the late 1600s to avoid the witch trials that crippled the New England magical community for years.
We remembered the existence of the once-forgotten tunnels only after our parents had passed and we had full-run of the house. The Guild, unfortunately, had not forgotten they existed either, and most of the entrances and exits had been sealed.
At least the ones they knew about.
“Autumn Quinn,” the tallest of the Golden Mages said by way of greeting. “A death has been reported within your household.”
I held my chin high, though his glare made me want to shrink down and disappear. “My sister. Winter.”
As if her name was a homing beacon, their mutual gaze locked on her motionless corpse lying on the couch in the living room behind me. Though I could have been mistaken due to the glamour that skewed my vision, it seemed as though their mouths simultaneously quirked up into an almost smile.
I could see their faces, but at the same time, I couldn’t. Their hoods were down, save the one who stood silent in the back, who watched the scene as though he was merely an observer. The other mages were strange, but this one was downright eerie. He seemed less inhuman and more covert despite being in plain sight.
As if he was a spy within a group of spies.
“Would you like to fill out a report or just have the body removed?” the tallest one asked as he continued to stare unblinkingly at her lifeless body.
The question was routine, but it felt so… cold.
“Report please,” I answered as levelly as possible.
Their attention snapped back to me with a strange synchronicity. “May we come in?”
I took a deep breath, reminding myself I trusted the volunteers to have done as I asked and there was nothing here that would get me in trouble. There was nothing these Guild members could possibly find to send me away. Nothing to fear. So, I opened the door wide enough for them to enter. “Please,” I said as I motioned toward the chairs surrounding the fireplace.
There weren’t enough chairs for everyone to have a seat, but I’d never known Guild officials to sit either way. They always just stood there, looking serious and daunting. Scanning. Watching. Waiting. Regardless of the purpose for their gathering. As if they were waiting for someone— anyone— to make one wrong move and immediately springing upon them to send them to the Grey.
The one with the lightest hair and closest to Winter’s body pulled out a tablet, magically modified to project the image of a control panel upward for accessibility. He pointed it towards Winter and a triangular beam of red light began to scan her.
I gritted my teeth. My instinct was to yell at them to leave her alone, to not hurt her, but my mind reminded my heart she couldn’t be hurt.
The mage’s attention remained on the tablet as he spoke. “Multiple small entry points strategically placed to penetrate large vascular junctions. Level Nine dark magic. Two have been repaired by someone casting a Level Eight healing spell. Most likely the victim during the attack. The ultimate cause of death is blood loss.”
It was a standard triage procedure— the words made sense and the explanations were familiar to my ears. We had read the vitals on others in a similar way almost daily for years, but never after someone was already dead. And never, ever on my sister.
The room began to feel warm and small and my breath caught in my throat. Needing a moment to myself, I excused myself from the room. The hooded one began to step forward to follow me, and I held up my hand to stop him before he got too far. I walked around the corner into the kitchen, my mind breaking down and analyzing their assessment piece by piece.
This was an assassination. Executed by someone with power so strong they’d been able to pass their Level Nine exams. T
here were only so many Level Nines in Boston— Winter knew all of them personally, white mages and black mages alike. Even Winter was only a Level Eight, and she was the strongest mage I’d ever seen. I’d never compare to her with my mere Level of Four. And I knew I’d never be able to qualify to take a Level Five exam, not even if I took the strengthening potions the Guild offered.
She was assassinated and she’d tried to heal herself. The image of her, frantically throwing out healing spells as more and more holes tore through her, flashed into my mind unbidden and I nearly fell to the floor by their weight.
I turned around to the sink and splashed cold water on my face. I needed to return to the living room but I couldn’t let them see me like this. It wasn’t a good idea to leave the Guild officials alone in this house for any longer than needed, though the thought of returning to them made my stomach churn.
