Dark Secrets

by Hall, Linsey

  It called to me, singing a siren song that I couldn’t resist. Desperate, I hurried to a window on the first floor and scrambled through it, cutting my hands on the glass shards. I barely registered the pain.

  “Wait up!” Mac’s voice sounded from behind me.

  But I was already inside. Grey followed. We stood in a large, empty room that looked like it had housed only rats for the last four hundred years. Dust and barren stone walls echoed with Rasla’s evil curse.

  Mac climbed in behind me, then Seraphia, Quinn, and Eve.

  “I feel drawn here,” Quinn said.

  “Me, too.” Eve stepped deeper into the tower.

  “I feel better.” Mac’s voice had brightened. “The curse. I don’t feel it as much.”

  “Neither do I,” Eve said.

  “We had to come in here,” Mac said.

  “It’s still polluted, though,” I murmured. I could feel it like I could feel the pull of gravity. “His stain is still on this place.”

  I walked forward, searching for the source of whatever called to me. An enormous fireplace beckoned from the far side of the room. A black gem was set into the stone mantle, gleaming dully with evil. My magic surged to the surface, and my palms itched to touch it.

  “Your eyes are going wild again, mate,” Mac said. “Neon green.”

  The black stone beckoned. When I pressed my palms against it,

  I could feel the darkness inside the stone, inside the walls. But goodness, too. I pushed my magic into the gem, willing it to drive the curse away. Warmth flowed through my muscles and bones, along with a sense of rightness.

  “It’s working!” Mac said

  I studied the stone in front of me, watching in awe as the gem began to turn dark red again. Slowly, the curse leeched from the walls, until the entire building felt…normal.

  Exhausted, I pulled my hands away.

  “Are you all right?” Grey gripped my shoulders, supporting me.

  I leaned into him. “Yeah. Tired, but fine.”

  “Your eyes look normal again.”

  “I feel a lot more normal.” Finally, I was able to look at Grey properly for the first time.

  He looked like hell. Pale and covered in deep gashes, blood covering most of his clothing and skin. His eyes were dull from pain or blood loss. Or both.

  Fear shot through me, and I spun. “Where is Michael? We need a healing potion for Grey.”

  “It’s—”

  “Not fine.” I cut him off, knowing what he would say.

  Michael shoved his huge body through the window and climbed inside. He took a potion from the cuff at his wrist and handed it to Grey, then disappeared again with some muttered words about seeing to the rest of the wounded.

  Grey took the vial and drank it. The wounds knit themselves back together, and the color returned to his skin.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “I’m all right. Don’t worry about me.”

  How could I not, considering what I knew about us? About our fate?

  I turned to Mac and Seraphia. “How do you feel?”

  “One hundred percent.” Mac frowned. “That was so strange. Maybe I wasn’t really cursed at all, like the Curse Diviner said. Maybe I just needed to come here.”

  “This place called to me,” Seraphia said. “It was trying to bring us here. We felt the effects of Rasla’s curse because this place was cursed. Not us.”

  I spun in a circle, looking around at the dusty old room. It looked like a castle. A freaking dragon should appear any minute.

  “So, what does this mean?” I asked.

  “I think you have a guild.” Mac grinned widely. “And so do we.”

  18

  Carrow

  The next day, I stood outside of Black Church with Mac, Seraphia, Quinn, Eve, and Grey. Cordelia sat at our feet, sunbathing on the stones. The morning was clear and bright. If I tried hard enough, I could pretend that yesterday had been a dream.

  Only, it hadn’t been.

  We really did have a guild. And fortunately, no one on our side had died in the battle.

  Now, we were waiting for our meeting with the Council.

  And this time, I’d been the one to call the meeting. I looked at Mac.

  “Ready to go tell them who’s boss?” she said.

  I nodded.

  It’s you. Cordelia grinned up at me.

  “Shhh. We can’t be so cocky about it,” I said. “I’m still the new girl in town.”

  “Powerful new girl,” Eve said. “You’ve only been here a couple weeks, and you’re already a guild leader.”

  After the battle yesterday, they’d all voted. The Shadow Guild tower had made it clear that the five of us were meant to be members. We still had no idea how the practicalities were going to work out, but the Council would require a representative.

  My friends had chosen me.

  I didn’t want the responsibility, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. I’d driven the curse from the tower. In their eyes, that made me qualified.

  I looked at Grey, and he gave me a nod. “It’ll be fine.”

  The thing with the Shadow Guild—yes. I’d see to it.

  The thing with him?

  I had no idea.

  “Let’s go,” Mac said. “It’s time.”

  The six of us strode into the church. Though Grey wasn’t a member of our little guild, he was there as backup. I had no complaints.

  In the main meeting room, the entire Council was waiting. When they caught sight of our group, they frowned. Only Cartimandua smiled. The leader of the Witches’ Guild looked more intrigued than confused, and it reaffirmed my decision that she was my favorite.

  “Carrow Burton, I thought you were here to reapply for a guild?” asked Mateo, the leader of the vampires. Leader of all except Grey, of course. He didn't join anything—not even my guild. “Why do you have these people with you?”

  Something flickered in Ubhan’s eyes. We hadn’t spoken to him since we’d broken into his office, but he knew things had changed. The entire Council knew about the tower on the far side of town—it was hard to miss, now that it had appeared—but Grey’s contacts said they were still uncertain about it.

  I was here to enlighten them.

  “As it happens, I have a guild.” I gestured to my friends. “The Shadow Guild. The tower that has reappeared after a long absence is ours.”

  Murmurs rose, and several guild members stood. Ubhan stayed seated, his jaw set.

  Cartimandua leaned forward. “You’ll have to start from the beginning.”

  So I did, omitting the part about Orion’s Heart. We still weren’t entirely sure what role that power played, and it didn’t matter right now. I even confessed to breaking into Ubhan’s office, since I didn't want that hanging over my head.

  I finished, and Nyla, the leader of the Mages’ Guild, turned to Ubhan. “Is this true?”

  He nodded. “What they found in my office, yes. Their interpretation? I have no idea.”

  “It’s sounds true to me,” Cartimandua said. “It makes sense that there would be a guild for those with unique powers. After all, we have members of our guilds who don’t quite fit.”

  “This Rasla…” Nyla said. “He was a zealot?”

  “As far as I could tell, yes,” I said.

  “He was,” Grey said. “I knew him then, and I can confirm it. He’d likely have destroyed the tower altogether if it wouldn’t have weakened the city’s defenses to have an enormous hole in the wall.”

  “Yet, you defeated him,” Cartimandua said. “And defended Guild City once again.” She turned to look at her colleagues. “I vote to accept Carrow as a member of the Council and to fully reinstate the Shadow Guild.”

  There were some grumbles, primarily from Ubhan, but the vote went in our favor. When it was over, Cartimandua looked at me. “Congratulations. Now you get to come to meetings.”

  Damn.

  Meetings were better than being evicted, though
.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  We turned to leave, and I caught Ubhan’s eye. He glowered at me.

  That was going to be a sticky relationship.

  But as we walked out into the sun, it was impossible not to believe in fate. After all, it’d landed me here, amongst this crew of amazing, lovely supernaturals who were as strange and different as I was.

  And now, we had a guild.

  My friends were chattering away about plans for a party, but I only had eyes for Grey. He stood off to the side, his gaze on me.

  He was thinking of our curse. It was written all over his face. And though the idea of it scared the hell out of me, the insanity of the last few days had proved that anything was possible.

  Fate might have something terrible planned for us, but I wasn’t going to let it come to pass. I’d saved the Shadow Guild. I’d save Grey, too.

  I had to.

  ~~~

  Thank you for reading! The adventure isn’t over yet. Book four, Devilish Game, will be here in late July or early August 2020 :-D Click here to check it out.

  Thank You!

  THANK YOU FOR READING!

  I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Reviews are so helpful to authors. I really appreciate all reviews, both positive and negative. If you want to leave one, you can do so at Amazon or GoodReads.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, Ben, for everything. There would be no books without you.

  Thank you to Jena O’Connor, Lexi George, and Ash Fitzsimmons for your excellent editing. The book is immensely better because of you! Thank you to Aisha and Richard for your keen eye for typos.

  Thank you to Orina Kafe for the beautiful cover art.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you so much for reading Dark Secrets! As always, there were a few historical tidbits that I wanted to share more about. The first is the Elizabethan gardens in front of the Mages’ Coffeehouse. They are based off of the (much smaller) ones that are still preserved in Plymouth, England which were originally built in the 16th century.

  The Mages’ Coffeehouse was inspired by the coffeehouses that became popular in England for the first time in the 17th century. The beverage had been brought back to England by international travelers to Asia and was initially drunk for medicinal purposes. By the 17th century, it was popular in the same way it is today. The coffeehouses were places where people (men, primarily) met to discuss the news. Because no alcohol was served, they were generally thought to be places where more intellectual conversation could take place.

  The first coffeehouse, established by a Jewish entrepreneur, was established in 1652 the town of Oxford (same as the famous university). Oxford was a particularly important town for the Establishment of coffeehouses. Though the first (called The Angel) is now gone, you can still visit Queen’s Lane Coffee House, which was established in 1654 and is still running. It is considered to be the oldest continually operating coffeehouse in Europe.

  Coffeehouses bore the nickname “penny universities”. The name derives from the cost of admission (a penny) and the fact that they were hotbeds of intellectual discussion frequented by scholars and people from all walks of life. In a society with strictly divided social classes, coffeehouses were unique in the fact that all sorts of people mingled together. If you had the penny admission, you were welcomed in.

  One of my favorite parts of Dark Secrets is the visit to Magic Side Chicago, where Carrow and Grey enlisted the help of Nevaeh Cross. For one, Magic Side is extremely cool. It’s located offshore from South Side Chicago in the middle of Lake Michigan. Like Guild City, Magic Side is hidden from the larger human population. It’s full of crazy cool magic set amongst skyscrapers and old warehouses inspired by Chicago’s rich architectural heritage, ranging from elaborate Art Deco facades to monumental Neo-Classical edifices. Future stories will return to Magic Side, providing an exciting chance to explore the magic and mystery inherent in many of Chicago’s institutions, such as the Oriental Institute Museum, the Field Museum, and the Museum of Science and Industry - a relic from the 1893 World’s Fair.

  But most exciting of all…is that this isn’t the last you’ll see of Neveah Cross. She is the heroine of a new series I’m extremely excited about. I’ve co-written it with two of my best friends in the whole world—probably the only people I would trust to write in the Dragon’s Gift World. They are both archaeologists like myself, so you can count on tons of fun adventures in the future. I’ll keep you updated about the release date, but it’s likely to be sometime in the early Autumn of 2020.

  About Linsey

  Before becoming a writer, Linsey Hall was a nautical archaeologist who studied shipwrecks from Hawaii and the Yukon to the UK and the Mediterranean. She credits fantasy and historical romances with her love of history and her career as an archaeologist. After a decade of tromping around the globe in search of old bits of stuff that people left lying about, she settled down and started penning her own romance novels. Her Dragon’s Gift series draws upon her love of history and the paranormal elements that she can't help but include.

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All reference to events, persons, and locale are used fictitiously, except where documented in historical record. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright 2020 by Linsey Hall

  Published by Bonnie Doon Press LLC

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form, except in instances of quotation used in critical articles or book review. Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.

  ISBN 978-1-648820-00-7

  Linsey@LinseyHall.com

  www.LinseyHall.com

  https://www.facebook.com/LinseyHallAuthor