Long Lost Magic

by T. M. Cromer

  “What’s the saying? ‘Revenge is best served cold’? Or something like that. Regardless, you need to keep a cool head, Al. Don’t let her provoke you into doing something out of character or stupid.”

  He glared at Ryker.

  His friend winced and pointed at him. “That right there is what I’m talking about. You start tossing around those angry looks, and a wave of magic surfs the air, crashing into the poor, unsuspecting sucker you’ve targeted.” He frowned his ire. “It’s not a comfortable experience, Alastair. Keep it under wraps, huh?”

  Ryker did a quick check of the area and stepped from beneath the umbrella of Alastair’s invisibility spell. He stormed the opposite way of Nash.

  Alastair would’ve called his apology, but cloaked as he was, his friend wouldn’t have heard him that far away. Slowly, he meandered after Ryker, taking his time and mulling over all he’d learned. Now that he was certain his cousin was responsible for his brother’s death, he needed to caution those closest to him. Delphine had seen him interact with everyone and was sly enough to target them should she need to.

  He still had the burning question of why that begged to be answered. He’d always believed she was a Thorne through-and-through. She’d been the one to say blood was thicker than water. He wouldn’t be able to scry for answers, not this time. Delphine’s black magic arts combined with her Thorne magic would block anything he could drum up alone.

  Should he ask the family for help? Other than to raise Aurora from stasis, he’d never thought to include another person other than Ryker, and he only asked his friend because Ryker seemed to enjoy the game. Plus, he was handy to have in a fight.

  Alastair supposed he could turn to dark magic, himself. It wasn’t like he hadn’t resorted to it in the past. He didn’t care for the toll it exacted on his soul, but he’d do it to counter Delphine’s power if he must.

  He stared at the entrance to the hall. He sucked in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Goddess, he was tired. This year had been one trial after another. He’d believed by reviving Aurora, he could spend the rest of his years enjoying their time together. It seemed instead of peace and quiet, he was compiling enemies faster than he could blink. It was time to bring back the Alastair they all knew and feared.

  Only the immediate family saw Preston laid to rest within the Thorne crypt. A farewell ceremony was performed, and each person offered up a gift for Preston to take into the Otherworld as well as another small gift for the Goddess.

  As the patriarch, Alastair accepted the gifts from each of Preston’s daughters, Summer, and GiGi. Holly had elected to stay outside the building with Aurora, Nash, Quentin, and the Carlyle clan. One by one, Alastair placed the offerings on a shelf below his brother’s final resting place, blessing the woman who had handed it to him. When it was finished, he closed the ceremony.

  “Will you give me and GiGi a few minutes, ladies?”

  Summer hugged him before following her sisters outside.

  Alastair took GiGi’s hand within his, index fingers resting together, one atop the other. As one, they pushed their magic to the tips of their finger and inscribed Preston’s name, date of birth, and date of death on the stone. In silent accord, they added the words Beloved Brother of Alastair and GiGi underneath the dates. The lettering glowed for three seconds after they’d finished, but their tears continued to flow for much longer. They held each other as GiGi sobbed her grief.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him,” she cried. “He’s always been a part of my life. Good or bad.”

  “I know. He was the best of us. Always kind, honest, and true.” Alastair’s voice broke, and her arms tightened around him.

  “I hope we find whoever did this,” she said fiercely as she pulled away to wipe away her face.

  He stared at her, wondering how much he should say right now.

  She noticed his silence and stared back. “Out with it, brother. What do you know?”

  “I don’t want to desecrate this sacred spot with anger and hate. When we return to Thorne Manor, I’ll explain all. I promise to leave nothing out.”

  “Thank you.”

  26

  They all knew about the Otherworld. Knew that when a loved one died, that person would go to a better place where eventually all their souls would meet once again after death. It never made death any easier. No, if those left behind were fortunate to live out their lives in relative health, many years would pass before they saw a deceased loved one again.

  For Alastair, he’d been granted a boon from Isis to visit Aurora after she’d been shot, allowed to see for himself she was at peace and to talk to her one last time. But now, this inability to speak to his brother was shredding his soul. He became angrier by the minute, and controlling his temper was difficult at best.

  What he wanted to do was teleport to New Orleans and torch Delphine’s shop, with her and Henri inside. It didn’t speak well of him that he didn’t care if her daughter and grandson were present. In a sick way, he could justify their demise if it came to pass that they should die with Delphine. The reason? He didn’t need another enemy rising from the ashes.

  It was ironic he now sat trying to stop GiGi from teleporting to do the very thing he wished to.

  “That horrid bitch!”

  A quick glance toward the window showed storm clouds gathering. The blackness rolled in followed by lightning strikes and booming thunder. Strong and loud enough to make the windows shudder in their frames.

  Alastair met Ryker’s wary gaze. His friend’s mouth had tightened in his fear that GiGi would do something unpredictable, as was her nature.

  “You are likely to create a tornado, Aunt G.” Summer leapt to her feet and hugged GiGi. “Please calm down. Delphine won’t get away with what she’s done. Not as long as one of us in the room is left standing.”

  The gathering thunderstorm dissipated, but a drizzling rain remained.

  “Thank you, child.”

  Ryker walked to his wife and gathered her close. It was the first time GiGi had allowed him to comfort her in the last fifteen years that Alastair knew about.

  “We’ll get her, sweetheart. Count on it,” Ryker told her.

  “I want to be present. I want to pull the trigger or, barring that, look that two-faced bitch in the eye when she gets hers.”

  “You will.”

  GiGi wrapped her arms around Ryker’s neck and clung for a long moment. “Thank you, Ryker.”

  Ryker fisted his hands behind her back, squeezed her once more, and finally released her to leave the room. Hurt flashed upon his sister’s face, and Alastair suspected she felt rejected by her husband’s departure.

  “It’s as hard for him not to take action as it is for you and me.” He pushed off the arm of the chair he was resting against and moved to her side. He placed a hand on her small waist and gave her a one-armed hug. “He’s a good man, GiGi.”

  Without waiting for her response, Alastair followed Ryker from the room. The rain was still coming down as he stepped onto the porch, but it didn’t bother him. He leaned out over the railing and reveled in the feel of the water as it slapped his palm.

  Footsteps approached. “We’ll need a foolproof plan. She can’t see us coming.”

  Alastair straightened, wiped his palms together, and faced Ryker.

  “She already knows I will be. What she won’t expect is the rest of you. The question is, do we go after Beecham now, or wait to collect more evidence against him.”

  “You know my answer to that. If we take him out without proving to the Council it was justified, then we put targets on all the Thornes.”

  “Agreed. How long do you think you, Drake, and Jace will need?”

  Ryker rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, right off. It depends what we can get out of Delphine before GiGi rips her apart.” A wry smile twisted his lips. “You really should stand back and allow her to do her worst.”

  “I’m terrified of my sister’s worst, as you
should be.”

  “Pfft. Why do you think I disappear when she’s gearing up to fight?”

  “I always knew you were intelligent.” Alastair straightened his tie and cufflinks. “Back to Beecham.”

  “Months, most likely. It’s not something we are going to resolve this week, Al.”

  “So we deal with Delphine first.”

  “Know that if we do, Harold is likely to become overly cautious. He’ll have no one to turn to.”

  “I suspected as much.” Going after Harold Beecham was going to be the long game. Together, he, Ryker, and a few trusted individuals would ferret out the truth, but in the meantime, Delphine couldn’t be left alive to cause trouble for his family. “Tomorrow we head for New Orleans. I’ll task Knox with watching over the women in addition to the Carlyles. You, GiGi, Quentin, and I will go down.”

  “And me. I intend to go, too, darling.”

  He hadn’t heard Aurora step out on the porch.

  “I’d prefer you stay behind, my love. You haven’t regained all of your strength.”

  “No, and I may never gain it all back. But that doesn’t mean I’m helpless. What I have noticed, is with every infusion you provide, I feel stronger. We could do another tonight.”

  “I’ll leave you two to talk,” Ryker said softly. He nodded to Aurora as he passed, but she maintained eye contact with Alastair.

  “I can’t lose another person in my life, Rorie. I just can’t. If that person is you, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You don’t get it!” he shouted his frustration. The windows rattled in their frames, and the weather around them turned violent. He hadn’t realized his temper was on a hair trigger, but he could no more control it now that it had made itself known than he could control Fate’s damned design.

  She glided forward and cupped his face. “I do get it. You spent almost a quarter of your life looking for a way to revive me. It took me a little while to differentiate what I thought was your obsession from what you deem to be love.” She stretched up and kissed him. Softly. Lingeringly. When she pulled back, her eyes were misty and love shone brightly. “What you and I have, it’s rare, Alastair. You’ve sacrificed for me just as I’ve sacrificed for you. As I imagine that we will sacrifice again in the future. But our story doesn’t end in New Orleans, and certainly not at Delphine’s hand.”

  “I don’t want you in harm’s way,” he insisted stubbornly. Fear rose up like a rabid animal. Snarling. Snapping. It made him ready to bite at anyone and everyone.

  “Why? Because you fear how I’ll react when the beast in you comes out? You think I don’t know what you are capable of?”

  “Yes!”

  “But I do know. I know, and I don’t care. I want retribution for Preston, too. I loved him.”

  He pushed her hands away and turned his back. “Don’t tell me this right now, Aurora.”

  “I did love him. You know I did. Just as you loved him. Just as GiGi loved him. He was my husband and the father of three of my girls. In the end, he was my friend.”

  When she placed her palm against his back, he flinched.

  “I feel guilty that I could never love him as he deserved. Not the way I will always love you, darling.”

  He dropped his head back and swallowed convulsively.

  “I’m going, whether you want me to or not.”

  “Fine.” Because he was feeling savage, he stalked away. Escaping his own inner turmoil wasn’t as easy, but he headed to the pond where he and Preston used to spend their mornings fishing. Not caring that he ruined his Armani suit and hand-crafted, Italian leather shoes, he waded into the center of the pond. Throwing back his head, he roared his pain to the heavens. The ground rumbled in time with the thunder above, and the water hurled toward the shoreline as if it wished to escape his presence.

  Then… silence.

  The wind had stopped. The water had frozen as it crested the shore. The rain had paused mid-downpour. The absence of sound was eerie as hell. Slowly, he spun around. His eyes caught on the figure sitting on a boulder beneath the hundred-year-old oak.

  “That is some temper tantrum, brother.”

  “Preston,” he breathed.

  “I’d hug you, but…” Mischief sparkled in his amber eyes, and he looked as alive and healthy as Alastair had ever seen his brother look.

  “What are you doing here? Isis told me—”

  Preston waved a hand and cut him off. “Isis decided to make an exception. She feared you’d devastate the planet.”

  “Are you back?”

  “No, brother, not the way you wish. Only for a short chat.”

  He tried to focus on Preston, but he couldn’t seem to see for the grief clouding his vision.

  “What happened that day?”

  “When Rorie opened the handkerchief with the herbs from Delphine, the smell hit me. It was one I recognized as a poison from my brief time in India.”

  “She intended to murder Rorie?” He’d suspected as much when GiGi mentioned the herbs, but until now, there was no real proof.

  “She did.”

  “For the love of the Goddess, why?”

  “She said Beecham kidnapped and threatened to kill her daughter. If I had to guess, he wanted tit for tat. You took Trina away, he decided to take Rorie away. He probably had no way of getting to her before she woke. You had her hidden. Also, the idea of you resurrecting her was only a rumor until it came to pass.”

  “But why didn’t she come to us? We’d have helped her.”

  “I asked the same thing. In our pain over Aurora’s shooting, you and I became unavailable. It appears some of our distant Thorne relatives didn’t care to be left to their own devices.”

  “She shot you?”

  “Henri LeRoux did.” Preston shook his head and rubbed the heel of his hand over the area of his heart. “The air was heavy with her magic. I never picked up on his presence when I sent out the magical feeler. Hell, I never sensed hers either. I confronted her. She basically confessed to being Beecham’s accomplice to cover Trina’s death, and then she smiled as Henri’s bullet pierced my heart through my back.”

  Alastair went cold. He waded to the base of the boulder and accepted his brother’s outstretched hand. They sat together for a long minute.

  “I have to go now, Al.”

  “I know.” He turned his head to study his brother, hoping to memorize the ruggedly handsome features. “I felt it. Your death,” he choked out. “For a second, I thought I was having a heart attack. The pain in my chest was so great, and I couldn’t breathe.”

  “I’m sorry for all the years we lost to anger and hurt.”

  “Me, too. More than you know, Pres.”

  “You’ll watch out for my girls?”

  “You know I will.”

  The men embraced. Alastair was afraid to let him go. Afraid that if he released his grip, he’d never see his brother again. It was foolish because one day he would join him in the Otherworld, but still, he was loath to open his arms.

  “I love you, big brother.”

  “I love you, little brother.”

  Preston patted him on the back and drew away. With a laughing glance at the frozen elements, he said, “You’re going to need to undo that mess, you know.”

  27

  “The closed sign is in the window.”

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Alastair muttered from his place beside Ryker.

  His friend’s dark head whipped around, and his mouth dropped open.

  “Close your mouth, Ryker dear. You’re liable to catch flies.” GiGi tapped a manicured fingernail on the underside of her husband’s jaw. “My brother likes to pretend he only reads the classics while sitting in that isolated, sterile home of his, but Alfred’s assured me Alastair has watched television on occasion.”

  Alastair let the lacy, white curtain drop back into place and moved away from the window. “I can only imagine that Delphine has spies ev
erywhere. This is her city. She most likely knew the instant we checked into this hotel.”

  “Do you think she left town?” Aurora daintily picked apart the powdered beignet on her plate.

  He chuckled when she closed her eyes and moaned her delight. Since she’d awakened, she had been shoving in the junk food as fast as humanly possible. “How had I forgotten about your sweet tooth?”

  She grinned around another bite, and he shook his head.

  “Anyway, it’s doubtful Delphine left. She has enough of our arrogant Thorne blood coursing through her veins to believe she is invincible.”

  “Yes, well, bearing that in mind, she has to be waiting for us like a spider in its web.”

  He reached across and stole a piece of her fried dough. After the first bite, he almost moaned his own delight. Damn, he was going to miss New Orleans. The food and music spoke to one’s soul. Yet it was doubtful he’d come back anytime soon, not with Preston’s death as an ugly reminder wherever he looked.

  “She’ll slip up,” GiGi said as she took a turn checking the street below. “When she does, she’ll pay.”

  Ryker grinned behind her back. “That’s my bloodthirsty darling.”

  She ignored him and sat beside Aurora at their table. Placing an empty teacup in front of her, GiGi swirled her hand and filled her cup. Next, she conjured a sugar cube and dropped it into the steaming liquid.

  “Why didn’t you pour tea from the pot?” Alastair asked her.

  “If Delphine does indeed have spies, don’t you think she would use them to try to poison us?”

  Both Alastair and Aurora immediately dropped their teacups to the saucers. Lifting the porcelain cup to her lips, GiGi took a sip to hide her smirk. She gave a delicate shrug and finally said, “No need to worry. I magically checked when it was first brought up by room service. I just wanted to teach you both a lesson in trust.”

  “Al is the least trusting person I know,” Ryker retorted, plopping in the last empty seat at the table and pouring himself tea from the pot. From his interior jacket pocket, he withdrew a flask and added a dash of brandy into his cup. He held it up in offer to his wife. “Counteracts poison and nagging women.”