Magic Unbound: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Touched By Magic: Dragon Book 1)

by Ashley Meira

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Magic Unbound

  Touched By Magic: Dragon Book 4

  Ashley Meira

  Copyright © 2016 by Ashley Meira

  All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously or are entirely fictional.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Inquiries may be addressed via email to meirabooks@gmail.com.

  Editing is an imperfect process; mistakes always find a way to slip through. If you notice any typos or mistakes, please send a message pointing them out to meirabooks@gmail.com!

  Cover design by Rebecca Frank (http://bookcovers.rebeccafrank.design)

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  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Story Summary

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Thank you!

  Author’s Note

  Also by Ashley Meira

  Story Summary

  Sophia Sinclair has hit rock bottom.

  Her biggest fear has been realized: she’s been thrown in the Black Citadel for being a Fireborn. Except she’s not a Fireborn — and for once, that’s a problem.

  With her powers gone, it’s only a matter of time until the Council of Magic set her free. But is she truly free without her powers? She may have despised the target her gift painted on her back, but it was still hers. Who was she without it?

  As if an identity crisis wasn’t bad enough, one of Sophia's friends goes missing, leaving behind a ruined, blood-stained house. Help comes to her in the form of an old enemy, one that causes problems between herself, Fiona, and Adam.

  Add to that an evil sea witch bent on destroying the world, and Sophia won’t have time to feel sorry for herself. The question is: how will she make it through this without her magic?

  Magic Unbound is the fourth book in the Touched By Magic: Dragon urban fantasy series.

  Chapter One

  Prison was both better and worse than I imagined.

  On one hand, I still had all my fingernails. On the other hand, they were jagged and filled with dirt. At least the prisoners in this cell block were quiet, so I could eat my food in peace.

  If one could call it food — even the meager scraps Fiona and I had scrounged up as teenagers, alone and utterly helpless, seemed more appetizing than the slop they served in the Black Citadel. I guess prisons — even magical ones — weren’t meant to have good food.

  Still, it could have been worse. I could have been put in with the general population instead of in Z Block, where Fireborn — or those suspected of being Fireborn — were kept. At least I think it was. It’d been a month and I had yet to see anyone other than the guards.

  I wasn’t a social person by nature, but I found myself growing anxious when the light green eyes of the guard who brought me food didn’t appear through the small hole in my door at the correct time.

  Then again, who knew what the correct time was? The guard might, but I certainly didn’t. He came, gave me my food, and left. An hour later, he’d come back and take my tray while an Inquisitor dragged me off for questioning.

  That had been terrifying. The first time I was thrown in the interrogation room, I threw up in my mouth. The experience wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting, but I had a dark and vivid imagination, so the Inquisitors would have been hard-pressed to top it. I’m glad they didn’t try.

  In fact, they hadn’t laid a hand on me during questioning. Maybe it was because of Mr. Pierce’s influence — or maybe the horror stories about what occurred within these walls were greatly exaggerated. I’d had that thought after my first interrogation — and the trip back to my cell had been filled with screams as I was guided past the other interrogation rooms.

  The first thing I was doing when I got out of here was sending Adam’s dad a fruit basket.

  I tried to stay positive about my chances of freedom, but after my first week, thoughts of “when” I’d get out of here turned into “if” I got out of here. After my second week, it became harder to correct myself. Now….

  According to the Inquisitor, yesterday had marked my thirty-second day in this pit, and even “if” felt like an optimistic turn of phrase.

  I rolled over on my hard cot and stretched without a sound. It was so quiet in Z Block that making any sort of sound felt wrong. It wasn’t like I had a cellmate to speak to, either. The only words I’d spoken all month were canned responses to the Inquisitors’ questions. I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if the only words I could speak after this were “I don’t know” and “I’m not Fireborn — I don’t even have magic.”

  The reminder shot through me like a bullet. You’d think I’d have gotten used to it by now, even accepted it. But every time I realized my magic was gone, I felt the loss all over again. It never got easier. Hollowness chewed at my gut whenever I dug deep inside myself trying to find the slightest spark of my Fire.

  I shivered, both at the lack of my Fire and the cold air of the cell. Without my Fireborn powers, I was a normal human subject to the same laws of nature as anyone else.

  Human.

  The word left an odd taste in my mouth. It hadn’t hit me until my first interrogation, when the Inquisitor wondered aloud how a normal human could’ve been part of magical society. Whether they could conjure storms or were barely able to conjure a spark was irrelevant — everyone in our world possessed magic in their veins.

  Except me.

  That day, I wondered what would happen when I was released. Would I be allowed to return to my home in Santa Fae? Would I even be able to approach it, or would the barriers placed around magical cities force me to turn around like they did every human?

  My body felt foreign on good days and dead on bad ones. I wasn’t sure which was worse. De
ad seemed like the obvious choice, but was I really living if I had no sense of who I was anymore?

  For someone who spent her life ignoring her magic, I was shocked to see how much it defined me. Perhaps it was those two short months I spent actually embracing my gift that made me feel this way. Though I didn’t care about the “why.” These days, I didn’t care much for anything.

  Boots stomped down the hall, but the usual sound of plastic tableware tapping against a food tray were absent. An Inquisitor two days in a row? Dread churned in my gut at the thought. What if they were here for something other than questioning? Had they decided my guilt? How? I had no magic. Logically, they couldn’t sentence me to anything, but I had spent too much time hiding from the system to have any faith in it. People in positions of power rarely played by the rules.

  Adam.

  The little voice in my head repeated his name like a mantra, reminding me of all the things he’d done, all the ways he’d proven himself to be a good man.

  Then why hasn’t he come to visit you?

  I threaded my fingers through my hair and tugged, hoping the sensation would distract me from my train of thought. It didn’t, but the guard opening my door did.

  “Sinclair,” he stated, looking down at me with pale green eyes. None of the guards I’d encountered spoke with emotion. I’d call them robots if it didn’t sound so eerily plausible. “Get up. Visitor.”

  I shot up from my bed. “Who?”

  The guard glared at me until I stood and approached him with my hands held out. He clamped handcuffs on me — magic or not, prisoners could still throw a punch — and pulled me out into hall. I stared at the dreary stone walls, trying not to focus on the golden band resting just below my shackles.

  Despite showing no magical talent, I’d been forced to keep wearing the inhibitor bangle they’d put on me when I’d been arrested. Since I had no magic, their supposedly painful effects were nullified, but they served as a constant reminder of my situation — and the magic I’d lost.

  We continued down the hall in silence. I looked at the dozen doors we passed on the way, trying to pick up on any noise that might tell me if someone was in there. There was nothing. Silent as the grave.

  For a while, I thought I was all alone here, locked in a room at the very end of the hall so no one would know I existed. But I’d heard the sound of shackles and footsteps, though there’d never been any voices. Still, I couldn’t be the only person in Z Block. After all, the Council had captured other Fireborns. They had to be held somewhere. My steps faltered as I considered the possibility this was all a ruse. There was no cell block for Fireborn prisoners because they didn’t keep Fireborn prisoners.

  “Hannah Smith,” the guard said with a forceful nudge. He must’ve thought I was refusing to move in protest. “Move.”

  I frowned but continued walking. Hannah Smith? It sounded like a fake name, but you had to pass a background check to get into the Black Citadel. It was possible this person fooled the system, but who were they? Fiona? Could Adam have greased some palms or pulled a few black hat tricks? The thought of Adam himself sneaking in here dressed as a woman lightened my spirits for a moment before I dismissed the thought. No way the heir to a Council seat was sneaking into a place like this.

  We approached the elevator I’d taken my first day here. Since the interrogation rooms were on the lowest level of the Black Citadel, right next to Z Block, I hadn’t seen it in a month. It looked as rickety and patched together as before. When I’d first stepped on it, I was worried it would collapse and cause us to plummet to our deaths. At least we were on the ground floor this time.

  The elevator doors shrieked like a banshee as they closed behind us, and when it finally began to move, the structure itself screamed as if trying to deafen us. The metal walls shook harder with each passing floor. Considering it held the magical world’s most dangerous criminals, you’d think this place would have better upkeep.

  As if on cue, the elevator let out a choked roar and froze. The guard and I both lurched forward. I was rewarded for my misstep with a blade to the neck. The guard gave me a once over with his impassive eyes before deciding I wasn’t trying to kill him. Not that killing someone by tripping over them wouldn’t be cool, but I’d still have to fight my way through the rest of the prison, through guards and magical traps. Forget it. I’d need a map at the very least.

  Not that I’d already considered breaking out or anything.

  “I know the elevator’s stuck,” the guard hissed into his earpiece. Guess he must’ve called for help while I was mentally murdering my way to freedom. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  I wanted to point out that he could just pry the doors open. According to the number up top, we’d stopped pretty much at the sixth floor. We could probably just leave. The scowl he shot the double doors told me the guard on the other line had suggested something similar.

  He took enough time that I asked if he wanted help. He turned his scowl on me before jerking his chin to the other door and telling me to pull.

  “Damn repair techs aren’t gonna be here for another hour,” he muttered. “Don’t care if we have to go through the Ritz. Not staying in here that long.”

  Part of me wanted to ask what he meant by “Ritz,” but she could wait until we were out of this metallic death trap. I’d pried opened elevator doors before. Not enough to make a living out of it, but enough that it wasn’t a huge deal.

  Or at least it wouldn’t have been to the old Sophia, the one who ate five times her body weight in burgers and spent her days chasing after delinquent vampires and enraged centaurs. This Sophia, however, the one who’d spent an entire month either lying or sitting down while eating scraps of food she wasn’t sure didn’t come from a tube. This Sophia had the upper body strength of a baby mole rat. A strangely tough baby mole rat, but not one strong enough to pry open these doors.

  It was a good thing the guard was here. Between the two of us, we managed to open the doors a bit. Fortunately, he was thin enough to slide through the gap without much fuss, and I was practically a skeleton of my former self. Dramatic, I know, but I’d lost a lot of weight since my incarceration. I wasn’t exactly surprised, but I’d hoped my lack of exercise would have balanced the weight loss out. I hadn’t accounted for the effects of stress and anxiety on my body, so all the missing exercise did was dampen my strength. Talk about the world’s worst consolation prize.

  The guard hauled me to my feet the moment I scrambled out. “We’ll take the stairs the rest of the way. Eyes straight ahead. Don’t talk to the prisoners.”

  I had half a mind to mouth off, but a month of solitude had dulled my tongue. Mostly, I was just tired. A dark curtain of lethargy and hopelessness had settled over me the moment I stepped into the Black Citadel, and I wondered if it was the effect of a charm the Council had placed over the compound. I wouldn’t have put it past them.

  Liam Pierce’s face came into my mind. Well, I might put it past him. Should I? He’d been kind to me, certainly, but what did I really know about the man? For all I knew, his politeness at the time of my arrest was all an act, and he was the reason I’d been kept here for so long.

  Thoughts of betrayal from everyone around me had become common during my imprisonment. If someone had given me a mirror, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a gnarled beast staring back, its dulled tongue hissing conspiracy at everything that passed.

  I’d only been here a month, and I was already turning into a mess. What would happen to me after a year? Two? A lifetime?

  A sharp nudge against my shoulder blade brought me back to reality, followed by the guard’s sharp admonition. What the hell had I done now? My temper reached its snapping point, and I whipped around to give him a piece of my mind. “Look—”

  The guard had taken a step back at my sudden action, his sword drawn at the ready. Any other time, I’d have taken advantage of the four different weak spots he’d presented in his panic, or maybe commented on how in
ept some of the guards in this place were — seriously, that was not the proper way to hold a sword — but at the moment I was distracted by the prison cell beside me.

  It wasn’t a cell, for one thing. Well, it was, but the interior was decorated like a fancy office. A large ornate desk sat in the corner, surrounded on both sides by bookcases that looked newer than the guard’s weapons. They were stuffed to the brim with pristine books, and a comfortable looking armchair rested beside them. The bed was twice the size of mine, made with a sturdy wooden frame instead of ramshackle metal. A thick green duvet covered it, allowing three fluffy pillows to peek their heads out.

  “What the fuck?” I muttered, prying my eyes away to look around the rest of the cell block. As it turned out, this was the only cell around the corner. There was a door to my left and all the cells I’d walked by earlier were to the right. The next closest cell was around the corner, and from what I could make out, it looked nicer than mine but still wasn’t a match for this one. “Who’s cell is this?”

  “Keep moving.” The guard advanced toward me, but the murderous glare I wore gave him pause. Good. If he poked at me again, he was going to have a new hole. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  “No shit,” I said dryly. My patience had died weeks ago. “Who did you guys arrest, the king?”

  “We don’t have a king,” he said without missing a beat. Apparently, they took out your sense of sarcasm before you started working here. “Keep moving.”

  I took a single step forward before crossing my arms and speaking again. “You called this place the Ritz.”