Rogue Magic

by McKenzie Hunter

  ROGUE MAGIC

  (LEGACY SERIES BOOK 4)

  MCKENZIE HUNTER

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  McKenzie Hunter

  Rogue Magic

  © 2018, McKenzie Hunter

  mckenziehunter.author@gmail.com

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  Cover Artist: Orina Kafe Artworks

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  ISBN: 978-1-946457-87-5

  Contents

  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

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MESSAGE TO THE READER

  BOOKS BY MCKENZIE

  CHAPTER 1

  Several moments had passed, and I still couldn’t take my eyes off the broken door. Hints of Conner’s familiar magic permeated the air and brushed against my skin. Savannah was gone. I couldn’t believe she was gone. The events of the past twenty minutes kept replaying in my head, and I dissected every moment, trying to figure out the very minute things had gone wrong. I shouldn’t have left her. I should’ve checked the ward. I should’ve called Lucas to watch her. The list of “should haves” was growing with every passing moment. I was starting to spiral out of control, and the weight of my guilt was difficult to bear. My attention only moved from the door when I felt Gareth next to me. He was so close his body heat warmed my skin. It should have comforted me, but it didn’t.

  “Are you sure it was Conner?” I asked again. I knew he was getting sick of the same question—the answer wasn’t going to change. Remnants of Conner’s magic still lingered in the air. It was hard to grasp that he could be behind this. He couldn’t be. I’d witnessed Gareth mauling him. Who lived after something like that?

  No matter how many breaths I took, not one of them helped with my overwhelming emotions, which became harder to control as we walked through the space once occupied by the door to my apartment. Splinters of wood were scattered across the floor, but the rooms I shared with Savannah looked just as they had when I’d left. There weren’t any signs of a struggle. He’d just taken Savannah, and she wouldn’t have been able to fight back. I blinked several times, fighting back tears.

  Gareth was several feet away, talking on the phone, I assumed to the Supernatural Guild. Was this a Supernatural Guild problem? Savannah was an ignesco. I didn’t consider that a supernatural, because she couldn’t do anything but enhance magic. As a magical ability it was useless and simplistic, but when coupled with powerful magic it could be quite dangerous. I wondered if Conner had discovered Savannah’s ability when she’d joined it with my magic to heal the supernaturals infected by the virus. If it weren’t for Savannah, they would have died. A chill ran down my spine. What if Conner had been involved with the attack at the Solstice festival, and he wanted to ensure Savannah couldn’t help the affected during the next attack? Conner probably also wanted to torment me: I’d killed his acolytes—and stopped his plans to do the Cleanse, something he desperately wanted. This was my punishment for it.

  “I’ve notified the Supernatural Guild as well as the Shifter Council to start looking for her. We will find her.” Gareth sounded so confident, I wanted to believe him. But bleak thoughts of what Conner was capable of and how angry he was with me reasserted themselves in my head. Hurting Savannah would be the perfect revenge for Conner.

  Lucas had a rigid look of barely controlled anger when he walked in. I suspected that if he were human he’d actually be flushed. He usually had guards with him, but this time he was alone. When I’d told him about Savannah’s abduction, he hadn’t bothered to say good-bye before hanging up.

  He examined the broken door, then slowly looked around the room, frowning. “What happened?” he asked in a strained voice; anger tremored in it. Anger that seemed to be directed at me.

  I tried to take a cleansing breath, but Conner’s residual magic prickled my nose, a quick reminder of the situation. I told Lucas everything that had taken place. Gareth and I’d had a planned trip. As we’d driven down the street away from my home, he’d noticed something suspicious in the rearview mirror and promptly turned around. We arrived back at the apartment in time to see a white van pull away from the open door of my building. After we’d gone after the van, Gareth had been able to get a glimpse of the driver. Conner.

  Lucas’s brow furrowed. “I thought you killed Conner!” he snapped brusquely at Gareth.

  “I thought I had as well.” Gareth’s voice, tone, and demeanor started to mirror Lucas’s. This happened each time they were in a room together. It was underlying aggression, posturing, and testing the boundaries of each’s dominance. I didn’t have time for this behavior, nor did I want to have to de-escalate a situation.

  Lucas’s dark gaze slipped in my direction. The silver around his eyes danced to a spastic beat. Icy. Penetrating. He was having a hard time controlling his anger, and it was starting to uncoil and focus on me. “How could you let this happen?” he snarled.

  His accusation slammed into me, a summation of my own emotions. I felt anger, hopelessness, guilt, and sorrow. It was hard to decipher which one I should be feeling, and it was damn hard to tamp them down with Lucas’s narrowed eyes on me. It was a good thing I didn’t have access to a weapon, because I was positive that Lucas would be feeling the sharp end of anything I could have gotten ahold of.

  “How could I let this happen? Do you think for one minute I wanted this to happen to Savannah? Do you think I’m not feeling guilty and replaying that incident over and over in my mind to figure out where I went wrong? How dare you come in here and ask me how I let this happen!”

  It wasn’t until I felt Gareth’s hand wrapped around my waist and him pulling me back several feet before guiding me out of the room that I realized I had advanced so close to Lucas. My fists were balled at my sides and I wasn’t opposed to using them on him.

  “Levy, I need you to calm down,” Gareth whispered. His voice was soft and soothing but did nothing to temper my misdirected rage. Misdirected, but I didn’t care. Lucas’s words had lit the flames of my emotions. And I saw that Gareth was working diligently to control his own. I knew it was for my sake: He had to be enraged that someone had lived after he’d mauled them. But it was even more upsetting to imagine how Conner had survived. He had more tricks up his sleeves than I’d ever imagined. This was a reminder that he had much more untapped magic at his disposal. Which made him scarier and definitely changed the balance of things. Each time I dealt with him, I was faced w
ith the fact that my magic was limited.

  “Why are you telling me to calm down? He’s the one who came in here and accused me of allowing something to happen to Savannah. Why don’t you go grab him and pull him out of the room?” I shot back angrily.

  He made a face that was a combination of compassion and incredulity. I knew I was being unreasonable. If he’d made any move toward Lucas, the situation probably would have escalated to something violently confrontational.

  “We will find her,” he assured me. “With the Supernatural Guild and the Shapeshifter Council helping, we’ll find her.”

  I realized he was being optimistic for my sake, but I hated that he was lying to me. My BS detector was giving off a lot of alarms. How could he guarantee that? Shifters had an excellent sense of smell and could track down anyone in the city, but if Conner used magic, how could they find Savannah? The only thing that gave me some hope was that Conner’d had to drive away. He hadn’t teleported, which ordinarily he could have easily done. Was his magic now limited?

  “He drove,” I said. Gareth waited for me to continue, his brow furrowed with curiosity. “He drove instead of teleporting. I wonder if he’s not as strong as he was. If he has to conserve his energy.”

  Gareth slowly nodded, considering it. “Possibly,” he offered in a low voice. He was just about to say something else when a commotion in the other room caught his attention. Multiple voices. Authoritative voices. I assumed that someone from the SG or the Shapeshifter Council had arrived. We hurried to the living room to find that both were there. There were three men from the Shapeshifter Council. I assumed they were—there was no denying they were shapeshifters. One had to be a bear or some other large animal. His human shape was awfully broad and bulky. The other two I suspected were feline shifters. They moved with the predatory agility of cats, lithe and graceful, as they prowled around the room. They inhaled and made faces. Agents from the Supernatural Guild were a few feet away, dressed in their traditional casual attire: dark slacks and a polo or button-down shirt. They were shifters as well, and if it wasn’t for the badges clipped at their waists I wouldn’t have been able to tell which organization they were from.

  None of them bothered with the banalities of a greeting. “We need something of hers,” one of the feline shifters from the Council informed us. His midnight hair was cut military short, and his light brown eyes were so close to his khaki brown skin tone that the shifter ring around them seemed ornamental—something to break up the monotony of his appearance. Minus the fixed grimace on his face, his round, mild features would have made him look less menacing than most shifters. The other feline was shorter, thicker, and solidly built. His curly blond hair was tucked behind his ear, and he sported confidence and an air of menace like a badge. Of the two, he’d be my last choice to fight. He looked powerful, as if a single strike from him would knock one out cold. I was more than happy to have him looking for Savannah.

  The dark-haired shifter requested something of Savannah’s again. His voice was softer this time, and he’d shelved some of his intensity. When we didn’t move immediately he looked in my direction, and he seemed to be putting a great deal of effort into resisting a frown. I wasn’t sure if he was frowning because he knew I was a Legacy or if, like Lucas, he’d already attributed fault to me. He waited patiently for me to get one of Savannah’s belongings. I knew it should be something she’d worn, but it seemed so intrusive to go through her laundry that I pulled the case off of her pillow and brought it to him. He took a half step toward it and backed away.

  He jerked his head in Lucas’s direction. “His scent is overwhelming hers,” he pointed out, and I was treated to a disapproving look. I rushed back to her room and found it to be a more difficult task to find something of hers that wouldn’t have Lucas’s scent on it. Pajamas were probably out of the question, and if his scent was all over her pillowcase I was pretty sure it was all over her sheets as well. I couldn’t use a towel; her floral bodywash would likely overpower her scent as well. Gareth walked in, and sensing my frustration, he put his hand on my shoulder. His eyes went to the lounge chair in the corner, the blanket tossed over it, and the book on the small table next to it. He picked up the fluffy blanket.

  “Her scent is heavy on this,” he informed me. My brows inched together. How did he know that Lucas’s scent wouldn’t be on there? He hadn’t sniffed it. Reading my look of curiosity, he gave me a half-grin. “I’m sure if Lucas had the option to be with Savannah on a recliner or bed, he’d choose the bed.” Then he tossed another look back at the chair. “It seems like it’s her special little place, too.”

  It had only been hours, but it seemed like an eternity since I’d seen Savannah relaxing in her recliner reading a book or hanging out with me while I insulted whatever gluten-free or taste-depleted food she was trying to convince me to eat.

  Don’t you dare cry! I scolded myself as tears brimmed in my eyes. I didn’t have a problem crying; I didn’t see it as a sign of weakness. I just didn’t want to cry in front of supernatural authority figures, so I steeled myself as we left Savannah’s room. When Gareth handed over the blanket, the shifters moved in closer and took a whiff. Moments later they were headed out the door. After receiving instructions from Gareth, the three SG officers quickly followed behind.

  “I think you should put a ward up,” Gareth instructed me before he left.

  “For what? He can break that, too.” I didn’t like how dejected and defeated my voice sounded, but that was exactly how I felt. Conner was supposed to be dead—one less problem I had to deal with. My days should have been filled with trying to find other Legacy so we could come out in the open and for once live normal lives. Now I was wondering how many more Vertu were out there and if they were all as resilient and difficult to kill as Conner. What did it take to kill him? If a big-ass lion ripping at his chest wasn’t enough, I had no idea how to stop him.

  “Levy, let’s concentrate on finding Savannah. We’ll worry about Conner later.” Again, he was being overly positive for me. There was no way he couldn’t be concerned that Conner was alive.

  I simply nodded and gave him a forced smile. Hesitating, he gave me an assessing look and finally left. I was in the kitchen before the door had completely closed behind him, grabbing a kitchen knife. Slashing it across my hand and working my magic to find Conner, I squelched the fear that rose in me at the idea of having to go up against a guy who seemed indestructible. I closed my eyes and called forth the magic, allowing it to ensorcell me and wrap around me like a gentle cloak before twining around my arms and inching toward my fingertips. A map of the city appeared. Bright lines unfurled along the map. I studied it, waiting for that flash of light that would indicate where another Legacy or Vertu was. Nothing. I knew Conner was in town because he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to taunt me over this. He’d be watching the results of the chaos he’d inflicted. He was blocking my magic from finding him.

  My thoughts spiraled and became a blend of possibilities, speculations, and dire scenarios. Some were absolutely ridiculous, but I couldn’t help but consider them. In the past few weeks I’d seen a lot. Fae could glamour their appearances. Could someone have glamoured their body to look like Conner? I needed to see the spot where I’d thought he died.

  I followed the path into the woods. Conner had an odd thing about forests and always had his hideaways there. It made sense: He couldn’t put up a ward and hide a secret neighborhood in a major city. It would be too easy to detect, but in the woods, he had free rein. Slowly I walked through the area, anticipating the familiar strong buzzing or the stifling smell of his magic. Nothing. He’d destroyed the beautiful retreat that he’d created for his acolytes and me. Hints of magic lingered in the air—just a whisper. But it wasn’t as strong as the magic I’d felt at my apartment. Holding my sai, the twins, tighter, I waited to engage, anticipating him showing up. He did that often. Now you saw him; now you didn’t. Of the many things I hated about him, that ranked highest. Sheathing
one of the twins, I ran my hand over the empty space, hoping to detect the borders of a ward. Once again, I came up empty. I couldn’t ignore the light tinge of magic that lingered in the air. Someone was near. Someone with distinctive magic.

  A burst of color flashed in front of me. Words that moved slowly and were dark red, the color of blood. When the air scribbling stopped, I was presented with a message: YOU WILL PAY WITH YOUR LIFE. I didn’t have to guess the author, I knew. Conner. Guess he doesn’t want me to be his baby mama anymore. I’d thwarted his advances before and mocked his silliness for wanting me to be the woman who bore his children. The person he felt would give him the type of children he believed he deserved. My refusal had bothered him. His absurd sense of entitlement had made me the enemy because I’d dared to deny him. Now Savannah was paying for it. Breathing deeply, I attempted to rein in my emotions as they threatened to slip into guilt. I didn’t need that. The message remained visible for nearly ten minutes. Clearly, he wanted to make sure I saw it.

  “Message received,” I said to the empty space. The words disappeared at the same pace they’d appeared, showing a certain level of control and skill with magic. It was just another addition to Conner’s many threats. I continued to search the area, hoping to run into him, ready to engage.

  Grabbing my phone as soon as it rang, I heard Gareth’s voice, which was uncharacteristically bright, lively. “We found her. Come to the Isles. She’s being examined by the physician.” I wished they’d taken her to a regular hospital. The Isles was for the supernatural and those injured by supernaturals; she was human. She needed a human doctor.