by Simone Pond
Sacred Light
Armor of Magic Series
Book 1
by Simone Pond
Ktown Waters Publishing
Copyright © 2016 Simone Pond
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ktown Waters Publishing, Los Angeles, CA.
ISBN-13: 978-1534682603
ISBN-10: 1534682600
Cover Design: Rebecca Frank
Editing: Larks and Katydids
Editing: Peter Stier Jr.
Formatting: Polgarus Studio
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Table of Contents
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
thirty-five
thirty-six
thirty-seven
thirty-eight
Author’s Note
Books in this Series
Other Books by Simone Pond
one
I was doing my best to play it cool. Like the moment wasn’t huge—some incredibly hot guy dancing with me, Fiona Farrow. It was by far the best birthday present I could ask for. And anyone who knew me knew I’d been asking. For a long time. Not too many twenty-one-year-olds manage to keep their virginity intact, but somehow I had done just that. It wasn’t intentional, trust me. I chalked it up to bad timing. But that night felt right; I would finally step into my big girl pants. Or out of them. Either way, I was getting laid.
Jared smiled at me, his blue eyes shining under the flashing lights. I hadn’t heard a single word he’d said all night, but I knew two things for sure: he was pretty much walking perfection and he had good teeth. He had a smile plastered on his face the entire time we were dancing. He also wasn’t afraid to use his hips, so I deduced that he’d probably be good in bed. The perfect guy to help with the whole virginity issue. Perhaps it seemed shallow, wanting to have sex with a stranger on my twenty-first birthday, but I honestly felt like if I didn’t take drastic measures the rest of my adulthood would look a lot like my college years. Tons of hard work, sleepless nights, struggling to fit into the world like a “normal” person only to have zero reward. Something about my twenty-first birthday seemed more like a rite of passage into womanhood, rather than merely a legal drinking age.
“So…” he yelled over the pounding bass.
I smiled, feeling the buzz of excitement flitting around in my stomach. Things were about to change. Big time.
“So…” I yelled back, bumping my nose against the side of his head in a terribly ungraceful manner.
“I think you’re pretty dang hot, Fiona. And I’d like to cool you down.”
Okay, so he wasn’t the most eloquent guy in the room. But we were in a bar. We had been drinking. It was typical pick-up vernacular, right? A rush of heat rolled through my middle as I nodded, moving closer in. He wrapped his hands around the small of my back, and my heart started throbbing louder and stronger than the bass. He squeezed my ass, pressing me up against his muscular chest that was only covered by a thin layer of dark gray T-shirt. He mumbled something in my ear, but all I felt was the warmth of his breath, and that was enough encouragement for me.
I grabbed his hand and led him off the dance floor. “Let’s get out of here!” I pulled him through the swarm of people surrounding the bar, going full-steam ahead. I wasn’t even going to stop and say goodbye to my best friend, Charlotte, who was somewhere in the lounge area. No, I needed to get out of there immediately. Especially before….
“Fiona!”
Lilith appeared before me like she had just parted the Red Sea. Her long blond hair was bouncy and shiny, like a model in a Pantene commercial. And I hated her for it. I never spent that much time getting ready; that night, like most other nights, I had simply pulled my long brown hair back in a ponytail. Looking at Lilith, I immediately regretted my decision. I guess it didn’t really matter. I could’ve spent three hours getting ready, and the same thing that always happened would still happen. The look in Jared’s eyes—the burning desire to throw me over his shoulder and carry me to the closest bedroom—had shifted from me to Lilith.
And that was why I was still a virgin.
Lilith could’ve easily passed for an actress from the set of Gossip Girl. She was impeccably gorgeous and charismatic. And she had the worst timing ever. At least in my case. Every dude I might’ve gone home with would immediately forget my name the moment Lilith entered the picture and cast her proverbial spell. I guess it wasn’t so bad in college because I had a lot more time to study, work at the bookstore, and do my summer internship at the hottest news blog in San Francisco. So there was that.
“Happy birthday!” Lilith shouted with her perfectly plump lips, then handed me a shot of something clear.
“Who’s your friend?” Jared yelled.
“Lilith, Jared. Jared, Lilith.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” Lilith leaned in and planted a kiss on his chiseled jaw.
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said, taking her hand and leading her back to the dance floor.
Yep. She was the very definition of bad timing. I gulped back the shot and walked to the bathroom to save myself from doing something incredibly stupid, like running after Jared and telling him it was my birthday, not hers. I had to let it go. Just like always. With Lilith, there was no contest. I often joked that she was a succubus. I didn’t mean it in the literal sense; I would’ve known if someone I’d been living with for four years in college was a demonic being. It’s just that I had never heard my parents mention them. Warlocks and witches, yes. Demonic beings, check. But no discussions of succubi.
In the bathroom, I splashed cold water over my face, smearing my makeup. I didn’t care because the night was already a wash. Turning twenty-one was supposed to be special. After all, I had just inherited my grandmother’s Victorian home in San Francisco. I had dreamed about living in the city since I was a kid growing up in the East Bay and, as of that night, I was officially a resident of posh Pacific Heights. The plan was to bring home a guy to commemorate the occasion. But no such luck.
As I finished scrubbing off the rest of my eyeliner, the light over the sink started flickering, and a strange violet glow came from one of the stalls. I had seen some bizarre things in my house—growing up with partially supernatural parents like mine—but I was completely caught off guard. The glowing light exploded into a blast of sparkles, and I backed away toward the door, hoping to get out before whatever it was came out of the stall. But the lock was stuck. Naturally.
The stall door opened and a tall, muscular dude with a shaved head and mocha-brown skin appeared. He would’ve looked totally normal if his eyes weren’t iridescent violet and glimmering.
Definitely not human. Seeing something like that would’ve freaked out the average person, but I grew up around inexplicable, paranormal activities. As a kid, I had learned to block out this type of phenomenon. My parents warned that I couldn’t ignore my destiny forever, but I ignored them, too.
My parents were Protectors of Light. Their job was to protect one of the Seven Sacred Scrolls to keep the evil Shadow Order from gaining complete control over all the dimensions. The Scrolls held some kind of ancient powers that, if in the wrong hands, could cause big problems. At least for people who liked to avoid places like Hell. Unlike my parents—who took their jobs seriously—I had never wanted to be involved in supernatural, inter-dimensional bullshit, especially since our side had been slowly losing over the past few millennia. I liked living in the real world. I had just graduated college and had a career ahead of me, a new house to fix up, and my virginity to lose.
Besides, things hadn’t panned out so well for my mom or my dad being Protectors of Light. They had been missing ever since I went to live in the dorms down at USC to study journalism four years ago. As far as the outside world was concerned, they went missing while they were covering the war in Syria; Mom was the photojournalist for my dad’s award-winning essays. But I knew their disappearance had nothing to do with the war and everything to do with supernatural crap. Most likely some demon from the Shadow Order had them holed up in another dimension, or worse.
But I couldn’t think about that stuff without getting seriously choked up. I was crushed over their disappearance and thinking about it only made things worse. I’d figure out how to get them back one day, but until then, I’d stay out of trouble. Bottom line: I didn’t want to be a Protector of anything. I didn’t want to risk getting stuck in some other dimension like my parents. I had no idea how to fight off supernatural bad guys. And I had so much to accomplish in the current reality I was residing in. Reasonable, right? My philosophy was that if you didn’t mess with evil it wouldn’t mess with you.
But that night in the bathroom, it started to become clear I no longer had a choice in the matter. Destiny is destiny. The creature standing before me with those glimmering eyes was confirmation. I’d been dreading that moment for a long time, when the Monarchy would send one of their kind after me. I wanted to become a Protector of Light and guard a Sacred Scroll about as much as I yearned being caught on fire. I just wanted a normal life. And I really preferred to finish out my birthday without any supernatural interference.
I yanked the door until it finally opened, and escaped the bathroom before Glimmer Eyes could make a move.
two
I headed over to the lounge area where the rest of my friends were hanging out. Actually, they were Lilith’s friends—a pack of glossy, perfume-y sorority sisters who sipped their cocktails and flipped their hair. Each one of them was prettier than the next. Besides me, the only other girl who stuck out was Lilith’s fraternal twin sister, Charlotte—my best friend. She was the polar opposite of Lilith. She had brown hair cut into a shoulder-length bob, unlike her sister, who spent a fortune being a blonde. And like me, Charlotte dressed casual but stylish with a slightly hipster-dorky vibe. Charlotte and I made a good pair, mostly because we wanted to do something important in the world, make a difference and all that… She was studying to be a pediatrician, and I was going to be a world-class investigative journalist, like my father.
Charlotte sat by herself on the purple velvet couch, totally engrossed in her phone; the glow from the screen lit up her face. I plunked down next to her.
She glanced up. “Having fun, birthday girl?”
“Oh, tons. Best birthday ever.”
“What happened to the hottie you were dry humping on the dance floor?”
“Your sister.”
Charlotte rolled her big brown eyes and grinned, patting my shoulder. “You’re not really a one-night stand kind of gal anyway.”
“Yeah, but it’d be nice to celebrate my twenty-first birthday in style.”
“You mean with a bang?”
Despite my sour mood, I laughed. Ever since freshman year, Charlotte knew just what to say. We had shared a dorm with Lilith and some other runway model and bonded over lattes, pizza, and study. She knew every dirty little secret—if I got a B+ on an exam instead of an A, or if I was late to work, or if the guy I was talking to at a party went home with Lilith. There weren’t too many secrets in my closet. Well, except for the big one that even my bestie Charlotte didn’t know, though I trusted her with my life.
I had never mentioned the whole Protector of Light thing to her because it wasn’t exactly something you share with your best friend while studying for a chemistry exam or standing in line for a latte.
“Hey, did I ever mention that when I turn twenty-one I’ll become a Protector of Light? So yeah, I might be busy on evenings and weekends. You know, protecting innocent people from the evil Shadow Order that mortals don’t know about. Well, some do. But only the evil ones. Anyway, if the Shadow Order wins, we can kiss human decency goodbye. There’s a lot more but it’s a long story, and we should probably get back to studying elementary particles. I’d hate to fail that chemistry exam.”
Yeah, the timing never seemed right. Plus, I enjoyed having Charlotte for a best friend. She would’ve run for the hills had I told her the supernatural truth. I figured if I didn’t talk about my family’s ancient angelic bloodline, it’d eventually go away.
Charlotte patted my shoulder and gave me one of her puppy dog grins. “Look, you have the rest of your twenties to get laid.”
“If I keep hanging around your sister, it might take my entire twenties just to get a date.”
“Whatever, Fiona. You just landed the best job in San Francisco. I mean, working for Somer Barrett at Lifting the Fog. Do you have any clue how many fresh-out-of-college journalism majors would kill for that job? How many twenty-one-year-old investigative journalists do you know?”
“Probably as many as twenty-one-year-old virgins.” I smiled, standing up to leave.
“Leaving? It’s still early.”
“I’d rather spend the night alone in my brand-new house. Like a real adult.”
“Brand new is not the adjective I’d use to describe what you just inherited.”
“Well, it’s a house. And it’s all mine. So when you’re trekking back over to Berkeley tonight, think of me chilling in my stylish Victorian house on the hill.”
Charlotte laughed and gave me a rib-cracking hug. “Chilling is right. More like haunted house on the hill.”
“Funny, Char. Good one.” I pinched her arm and kissed her cheek.
Before I turned to leave, she grabbed my hand. “Wanna get lunch tomorrow? My treat to make up for my sister’s brazen cock-blocking.”
“Sure. There’s a coffee shop really close to my new house. I’m going there early to do some work, so text me whenever.”
“Working on a Sunday?”
“When have I not worked on a Sunday?”
“But your first day isn’t until Monday. Can’t you have one last day of freedom?”
“Work is freedom. Gives me the money to do the things I want.”
“And what is it you want, Fiona Farrow of San Francisco?”
I glanced out to the mob of people dancing, then to the couples nestling into each other on the nearby couches, then back to Charlotte. “I guess I’d like to meet a guy who isn’t into girls like Lilith.” I smiled.
She playfully shoved me. “Who doesn’t?”
I gave her a friendly flip off with an air kiss, then walked out into the icy San Francisco night. Summers in the city were colder than any winter I had experienced living in the East Bay where I grew up. Not that I was complaining. I had spent enough time outside San Francisco, and I was so completely ready for my big city adventure.
three
I stood on the corner waiting for my Uber to arrive. And that’s when I spotted Glimmer Eyes again, standing across the street in front of a pizza shop wh
ere streams of drunken people stumbled in and out. They didn’t notice him, but I couldn’t miss him staring intently with those glowing violet eyes. Of course, the only guy in the city who was interested in me was a supernatural stalker. He moved closer toward me, his eyes illuminating more intensely, and a rush of electricity charged through my bones.
I refused to give him my attention and turned my gaze toward the street lamp, ignoring him. Judging from his behavior, I assumed he wasn’t allowed to speak to me unless I invited him into a conversation, otherwise he would’ve done so by that point. I remembered my grandmother mentioning those type of angelic beings. I couldn’t remember what they were called, but either way, I decided to keep my big mouth shut as long as possible. Glimmer Eyes could lurk outside the pizza shop all night for all I cared. Did the Monarchy just expect me to drop my life to become a Protector of Light? No thanks.
But no matter how much I tried to ignore my pending fate, it was coming right at me. Glimmer Eyes started crossing the street, cars zipping right through his metaphysical body as he made his way to me. I kept my lips pressed tight, fearing even a single smart-ass remark would constitute an invitation into a conversation. He was getting closer; the light in his eyes drew me in, and I could feel words starting to bubble up in my throat like I was being compelled to invite him into a conversation. I was about to yell something like, back the fuck off, when a midnight blue Prius screeched up to the curb. I was saved by the Uber driver.
I jumped into the car and slammed the door behind me, triple checking the lock. Not that it mattered. That thing could’ve shimmered his way right through the car door. Fortunately, my driver was a speed demon—I mean, I don’t know if she was an actual demon, but she sure liked pressing down on that gas pedal. We bolted down Folsom toward Market, the alcohol sloshing around in my gut.
“Sorry I was late. You won’t report me, will you? I’ll get you home fast. Promise.”
