Table of Contents
Title Page
Subscribe
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
A note to the reader
Imbalance
About the Author
Esperance (Heart Lines #3)
By Heather Hildenbrand
©2017 Heather Hildenbrand
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written consent of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the authors’ imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter One
Alex
In the darkness of my bedroom, I stared hard at my lit phone screen, studying the familiar faces of the man and woman I’d spent the first decade of my life with. My mother’s smile, kind and bright, was open and inviting; her brown eyes shining with enough knowledge to span lifetimes and cultures.
She’d seen so much. Done things most hunters wouldn’t even believe. And for much of it, I’d been standing right there next to her. My father brooded, as he always had, but underneath the hard lines of his stoic expression and glinting gaze, there was caring and kindness. Less and less as time went on but it had been there. I could still remember if I dug deep.
The day this photo had been taken, we’d had a party for my mother’s birthday. Just the three of us but it was a happy celebration. And my father had laughed until he cried when my mother had used her magic to turn water into wine for a toast that night. He’d hooted and remarked it would save a lot of money that would otherwise have gone to the county liquor store. After they sent me to bed, I snuck back to spy on them, drawn to the magic. I’d watched as my mother had kept the refills coming, their private party lasting well into the night.
I hadn’t looked at the photo in probably ten years. Seeing them happy was always too difficult. After that night, things hadn’t been so easy again.
But I needed a test.
And I couldn’t think of anything else.
I stared at the photo another moment longer and then finally I tossed my phone aside and fell onto the mattress on my back. I let out a whoosh of air that was probably more like a growl and stared up at the faded paint on the ceiling of the house RJ rented while he was assigned here.
My rental truck was still parked in the drive. I wondered how my truck was doing, buried underneath five feet of snow where I’d left it parked at Breck’s house when I’d flown back to Half Moon Bay. At some point, I’d need to retrieve it. But I didn’t give a shit about that right now.
Not after everything that had happened at Indra’s tonight.
We’d been home long enough for me to shower, and now, RJ was making a ton of noise downstairs. He hadn’t asked me about my strange behavior—but he also hadn’t asked whether I felt physically better either. A sure sign I’d been a royal ass back there. I still hadn’t mentioned how numb I felt. It seemed like admitting failure somehow. Maybe because I’d been the one to agree to receiving Indra’s sketchy magic.
RJ was pissed at me, though. That much I knew from the way he hadn’t said a word in the truck and how he was banging shit around downstairs. Cooking. He hadn’t offered to make me anything. Nor did I deserve it.
But I couldn’t blame the noise in the kitchen for my lack of response when I’d looked at the photo of my parents just now. Looking at that picture should have broken me down. Even when I managed to hold back any outward emotional display, the pain in my chest never failed to double me over at the sight of those two faces smiling in just that way.
But not this time.
Tonight, not a single fucking pang in my gut. Instead, I was met with absolute numbness. Just like when I looked at RJ. Or Sam. When I thought about her hands on my body. When I touched her or held her against me. No matter what I did, I felt nothing.
I sighed again, and this time, one emotion did surface. The only thing I’d been able to latch onto since the moment the venom had gone.
Anger.
I was perfectly capable of being pissed. In fact, it bordered on overwhelming and I suspected that was because there was nothing good to balance it out.
Now that I was finally alone, I gave in and let it have me.
Rising to my feet, I stepped away from the bed and dropped down into a plank position. I bent my elbows and lowered my body down then up again. Then down. Over and over, I moved and breathed in tandem. Working it off was usually the easiest answer when I let something fester in me this way.
But even after fifty push-ups, with my muscles screaming at me and my arms shaking, I was still ready to snap. If I was being honest, I wanted to kill something. And it wasn’t rational or safe or sane. Despite the fact that I’d used hunting as an outlet in the past, I didn’t trust it.
Something about it felt wrong.
I rose quickly and went to my backpack where I’d tossed it aside earlier. I fished out a pair of running shorts and changed quickly. RJ was still banging around, and I wanted to get out of here before he finished up and came looking for me. I might not be able to summon guilt or any sort of comradery, but I wasn’t especially interested in being rude if I could help it.
Mostly, I didn’t want the nosy questions that were sure to follow.
I dressed and laced my shoes up quickly, creeping down the stairs in full stealth mode. I was careful to avoid the third step from the top—the one that creaked like a mother. At the bottom, I paused and held my breath, waiting. RJ stood at the stove, his back to me, his folksy acoustical music loud enough to cover my movements. He swayed to the song and stirred something I couldn’t see. I crept around the corner into the living room and slipped out the front door before my cover was blown.
The front door was loud but it was too late. I was already free.
I bounded down the steps and blinked hard against the lack of moonlight, breaking into a jog as I headed for the wooded path we all used for our workouts.
Hopefully, it was late enough that I wouldn’t run into anyone out here, but just in case, I took the path that led into the deep forest rather than along th
e edge of the neighborhoods winding toward town.
All I could think about was what had happened at Indra’s earlier tonight. The magic filling me, pushing everything else out. The strange surge of superhuman energy and then decided lack of anything resembling emotion as I woke. Healthy apparently.
Sam’s expression when I’d opened my eyes should have gutted me. Or caused some sort of reaction. But even when I’d held her, I’d felt nothing. Just a strong need to move my body. To exert my sudden health and dispel the restlessness twitching in my muscles from having sat infected for so long.
Sam’s face as I’d walked out… Even without an emotion attached to it, her face still haunted me.
I needed another test.
I kept my pace steady and continued down the wooded path, but I let my imagination run: Sam standing in the park and a werewolf creeping up behind her. Glowing yellow eyes, Sam unaware until it was too late. Gleaming teeth aimed right for her throat…
I yanked myself out of the image with a shake.
What had I become? Imagining Sam dying? After everything I’d done to protect her from harm? And still… Even with that horrific image, I felt… not a damned thing.
Fuck.
If I could have felt fear, now would have been prime time. The fact that I wasn’t scared at this new revelation made me even more positive Indra had done something nefarious during her little “healing” session.
I reached up and smacked a low-hanging branch in frustration as I ran by. It cracked loudly as it splintered easily and fell to the ground with a soft thud behind me. But it wasn’t enough. I had all this anger and nothing to do with it. I increased to a sprint, trees flying by me as I drove myself harder and faster through the winding forest. My foot shot out and I kicked a small sapling as I flew by. It snapped in two and fell with a swish. I kept going. Up ahead, a sign had been posted: Titan Trail. 5 Miles.
I veered around it and knocked it over with my fist as I went by. It fell into the dead leaves coating the forest in my wake. I hadn’t even broken a sweat. The pull on my muscles and the sensation of contact from hitting the sign were all muted. It was pure adrenaline and dopamine flowing through me now. It was heady and I loved every second of it.
I didn’t give a single fuck about anyone. Not any of my friends. Not even Sam. All I cared about was this rush. The running, the banging on things. Sprinting toward danger and whatever else I felt like. Breaking down whatever was in my way.
The venom was gone.
Physically, I was at the top of my game. Mentally, emotionally… I was dead. If I could have felt anything, I suspected it would have been guilt. I’d forced Sam to give up on healing me herself. It was a betrayal of sorts letting Indra have me instead. And I’d known it even in the moment. But now, I couldn’t care. Except to note that she would. Sam would care very, very much. I couldn’t bring myself to even imagine telling her the truth: I wasn’t dying but I also wasn’t really alive. And I had no idea how to fix it.
Chapter Two
Sam
My glass of wine was mocking me. It sat untouched in my cupped hands and every time I looked at it, I wondered why I’d thought telling the truth sober was a good idea. But I couldn’t talk and get drunk—and I had a promise to keep. Even after the hellish night I’d had—no, maybe because of it, I needed to tell someone something.
Or everything.
Too many secrets weighed on me. I needed to purge. And I owed it to Brittany. She’d done a lot for me already with almost no explanation. And I’d promised to make that right tonight. So here we were. Even though I was exhausted and confused and a little raw from everything that had happened tonight, I was emptying myself of the things I’d been carrying alone.
It took me the better part of an hour, but Brittany listened without interrupting—a fact that surprised me. But I was grateful because it made it easier to explain the things I wanted to share—and hold back the things I wasn’t ready to dissect just yet. So much had happened tonight. I still had a lot of things to work through on my own.
Like Alex. I had no idea what to think about him. And I didn’t really want to talk about that just yet. Also, werewolves. I was saving that for last. Or maybe tomorrow. Or next year. Because how did one explain that Teen Wolf might be based on a true story?
But the part about my magic came easily. From the strange prediction Mirabelle had made about me being the one to “right the balance” to Kiwi’s research on my family history that included a link to a goddess, and finally, the trip into the forest I’d made yesterday morning to ask for help with actually using the magic I’d been gifted by the moon goddess herself, I told Brittany everything. Well, everything except for the little detail about the existence of werewolves.
One unbelievable revelation at a time.
“And the scar on your forehead?” she asked when I paused to sip at my wine finally.
I ran a fingertip over the new scar I now sported thanks to Taotaomona, the island god I’d encountered during my time in Guam. “It’s from the day I healed my aunt Kiwi. I was nine at the time.”
“But you didn’t have it before you left for Christmas break,” she said.
“No, it was a sort of belated side effect,” I said and then I told her about my meeting with Taotaomona on Mount Lamlam.
“Holy crap. You actually saw a goddess? And spoke to her?”
“Yep. And received her gift of a price of pain for the healing I’d done. Oh, and don’t forget I was chased by her pet wolf,” I said.
She rolled her eyes and waved a hand dismissively. “Well that doesn’t scare me,” she said so flippantly that it made me pause.
Brittany’s blue eyes were knowing—and guilty—as she blinked back at me. Her cheeks flushed and I was positive she knew more than she was letting on. But how much exactly?
Awkward silence fell between us until Brittany cleared her throat and said, “So, you healed your aunt from a head injury when you were just a kid … and she would have died otherwise?”
I nodded and then let out a deep breath.
Telling Brittany about my healing magic sounded insane, and yet as Brittany sat beside me in contemplative silence, I had nothing to blame this on. No alcohol or drug or anything else as my wine sat mostly untouched in my hand. Just the unbelievable truth that I’d just word-vomited out into the space between us.
“So, you can heal any injury—on anyone?” Brittany asked.
“Sure.” I shrugged and she smiled, a mischievous glint in her bright blue eyes.
“Like, if I was stabbed in the heart right now, you could bring me back from that?”
I shrugged again, my eyes narrowing warily. “Theoretically, yes.”
“Or if I pushed someone in front of a bus, you could fix them? Back to normal like that?” She snapped her fingers.
I shook my head. “We are not pushing anyone in front of a bus,” I said.
“Well, not right now,” she said as if the idea were ludicrous. “We’d have to wait for daylight and the city transit line to come this way and—”
“Britt!”
She stopped short, her smile melting into a teasing smirk. “Kidding, of course … Unless there’s someone specific who deserves it.
“No one deserves—”
“No, I just meant if you needed someone to be your test dummy.” She glanced toward the kitchen and I followed her gaze to the butcher block.
“Britt, we are not stabbing you in the heart.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
I waited while she sipped her wine, my feet tucked tightly underneath me in my corner of the couch. When she didn’t say anything else, I leaned forward, my brows rising. “Well?” I prompted. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say about the fact that I can heal people’s mortal wounds with magic that lives literally at my fingertips?”
Brittany swallowed half her glass of red, boxed wine and tossed her blond hair lightly over her shoulder. “I mean, I’ve heard stranger things
if that’s what you’re asking. What do you want me to say? You’re the most honest person I know. Secretive but honest. If you say you can do these things, I believe you. I’m just sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell me sooner.”
“Just like that? You believe me?” I shook my head.
She shrugged. “Of course. Why not?”
“Because… it sounds crazy, that’s why not,” I said, my voice rising. I had no idea why I was angry. I should have been overjoyed. Relieved. Brittany had taken me at my word on a pretty crazy revelation. I hadn’t been so easily convinced just a few months back—and I’d SEEN the magic firsthand.
“It’s a little crazy,” she admitted, “But then so is global warming and Brad and Angeline getting a divorce.”
“This is not the same level of crazy as a celebrity divorce!”
Brittany frowned and leaned away, the rim of her glass hovering near her lips. “Why are you yelling at me?”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I don’t know. I just… I was a lot harder to convince.”
“You didn’t believe you could heal?”
“I didn’t believe in magic—period,” I admitted.
“Not even when you were a kid?” she asked. “Didn’t you watch Disney movies?”
“Of course. And my mom explained the science behind every possibly magical thing that happened.”
She snorted. “That’s absurd. Next, you’re going to tell me you’ve never been to Disneyland.” I blinked and said nothing. Her jaw dropped. “What is this blasphemy?”
My lips twitched, but Brittany cut me off before I could answer her. “And Alex? Does he know what you can do? What you are?” she asked.
I shook my head, staring into my wine. “I don’t really want to talk about him.”
“Because he ditched you earlier?” she asked and I knew what she referred to. I’d called her hours and hours ago—had that all been just today?—to come pick me up in the city. I’d run away from Alex and tried going rogue to get answers from a powerful witch that I’d hoped would help me understand my magic.
Esperance: (New Adult Paranormal Romance) (Heart Lines Series Book 3) Page 1
