Magic Fire: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shifting Magic Book 1)

by Catherine Vale

  “Right, so you know our mother is fae,” he started, and I gave him my best no duh look. He shook his head. “Okay, okay, okay… So. Before you were born, me, our mother, and my father lived a pretty easy life. No problems. For the most part, we were happy… or so I thought.”

  My eye twitched. I hadn’t missed the fact that he’d said our for mom and my for dad.

  “Then we learn that Mom had an affair,” Zayne continued, tempering his tone with me like he was telling a kid that Santa Claus wasn’t real. I crossed my arms as a pulse of jumbled feeling tore through me at the news. I’d never met my mom, as she died giving birth to me, but I’d always hoped she was a good, kind person. But I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me to learn she’d been unfaithful; so many fae strayed during relationships.

  “Did you find out with who?” I asked in the silence that followed, then looked quickly between Zayne and Darius. Both stared back at me like I was missing something, so I cleared my throat and added, “Someone… you knew?”

  “Not really,” Zayne admitted. “I never met him, but I know Mom had fallen in love with him. The… The affair resulted in you. Kaye, we… We don’t share a father. We aren’t whole siblings. Technically, you’re my half-sister.”

  Darius reacted first when my knees finally did buckle, and I gripped his arm as he steadied me, finding solace in his warmth, in his hard figure propping me up. I should have had a thousand racing thoughts, yet my mind felt like it was steeped in a dense fog that I just couldn’t penetrate. Try as I might, I couldn’t collect my words to form any coherent questions—or thoughts, or feelings, or anything. Numb—that was the term for it. In shock. I’d seen it all the time with clients. I’d seldom ever felt it myself.

  “There’s more,” Zayne told me, voice wavering. “Kaye, this man that Mom had the affair with… He… Well, he…”

  It wasn’t like my brother to stammer. My narrowed eyes darted up to him, and in a voice stronger than I felt, even as Darius held me up with an arm around my waist, I demanded he just spit it out already.

  “Why freeze up now?” I snapped. “Just tell me, Zayne. It can’t be any worse than the fact that you and I aren’t technically brother and sister.”

  “Of course we are,” he insisted, swooping in on me and cradling my face in both of his hands. Darius’s hold on me tightened. The claustrophobia of being sandwiched between these two men was overwhelming, yet I had no desire to shove either of them away. While the doubt within me insisted that they’d deserve the cold shoulder, the other little voice, the one that always steered me right, rightly assured me that they did all of this out of love.

  Logically, I could accept that.

  From a snap-judgement, more emotional standpoint… I’d probably need some time.

  “Kaye, I’ve loved you from the day you were born to—”

  “You mean the day I killed your mother?” I whispered, eyes welling with tears again. His face screwed with pain, but he took a deep breath and schooled his features better than I would have had our places been reversed.

  “Our mother,” he murmured, easing away and giving me space to catch my breath. “She was our mother. She loved you. I’ve always loved you. Father…” He bit his lip and wouldn’t meet my eye. “He left because he couldn’t live with the child of his wife’s affair. We’ve fought about it many times, but that won’t change what he did.”

  It might not, but in that moment, I loved Zayne for going up to bat for me against the guy who abandoned his dead wife’s daughter. I threw my shoulders back before carefully extracting myself from Darius’s grasp. I had to stand on my own two feet for this.

  “So, is that it? Is that the truth?” I asked as I wiped under my eyes, collecting unfallen tears with a sniffle. “That I’m the child of an affair?”

  My brother studied me for a long moment as if trying to assess whether I was ready for the rest. I must have looked more capable of handling this than I felt because as I tried to ask again, he spoke the words that would shatter my reality into a million pieces.

  “Kaye. The man Mom had an affair with… He was a shifter.” He paused for a beat. “A dragon shifter.”

  There went the knees again. Both men tried to catch me, but Darius beat Zayne to the punch again. Everything just went blank—more shock, more high-pitched ringing in my ears. As Darius steadied me, I realized I couldn’t feel my hands, but pressing them to my thighs told me they were cold and clammy.

  I… I was part shifter?

  Kids had always joked that I wasn’t full fae, but I chalked it up to the fact that I got hips, boobs, and butt before any of them and they were jealous. Not because…

  Supernaturals could sense other supernaturals.

  And shifters.

  Had everyone known but me? Was my genetic signature plain for the world to see, and they all just politely ignored it?

  “I need to sit down,” I muttered, and Darius half-carried me—my legs were moving, but I couldn’t be sure if my feet even touched the ground—toward a bench near the mouth of the maze. He helped me settle, then crouched in front of me, as if ready to catch me should I faint and pitch forward, head-first, into the cobblestone below.

  “Kaye?” My dragon’s brows lifted slightly as he assessed me. While he didn’t ask it, I knew he was trying to gauge whether I was okay.

  And, of course, I wasn’t.

  “I need a second,” I managed.

  “Take all the time you need.” He held up his hands and rocked back on his heels, adding some space between us—space I didn’t really want, honestly. I did, however, want distance from Zayne, especially when he strolled over and took a seat on the bench next to me. I positively bristled at the feel of him beside me, and although it was petulant, I got up and moved down to the end of the bench, crossed my arms, and turned my back on him. Anger roiled within me, churning with the grief of rehashing my mom’s death and the now even more painful abandonment by my dad. And now… Now I wasn’t even fully part of a culture, a family, I’d grown up in? I had always identified with the fae community. They were my rock, my home, my backbone when things got tough.

  They had always accepted me, my sisters. Belladonna loved me like I was both a friend and a daughter. Now, there was this whole separate community that technically I was a part of, all because my mom had an affair. My true father had never come looking for me. Honestly, in that moment, it felt like I’d never actually had a father-figure in my life—period. After all, Dad bailed on me. Sperm-donor Dad never bothered to check on me.

  Maybe he didn’t know.

  And that made it worse. I tried to shut off that little voice, the one that sounded louder than the others. My eyes shot open wide. That little voice. It had always been there…

  Although I couldn’t confirm it, shifters were said to have internal dialogues with their other forms. Was that little voice… my inner dragon? Could I shift? I couldn’t even fly. What a pair we made, Darius and me.

  “Kaye…” Zayne’s voice interrupted what was bound to be a downward spiral, and I spared the barest of glances over my shoulder at him. He sighed, his arm stretched out along the back of the bench—but to his credit, he hadn’t inched toward me since I’d moved away.

  “What, Zayne?”

  “I was just a kid when all this happened,” he told me. “I heard Mom and Dad fighting about it after we found out she was pregnant. I didn’t…I didn’t know what to make of it then, and I struggle with it now.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I remarked dryly.

  “Mom found out I’d overheard everything,” my brother continued, “and she begged me not to tell you. You were only a half-shifter. There was no telling if you’d even have the genes necessary to fully shift. It could have been seventy-thirty fae to shifter. We didn’t know. We didn’t want to burden you with this unnecessarily.”

  “Burden,” I heard Darius scoff slightly, and I had to agree. It wasn’t a burden to be a shifter. Well, from a political and social standpoint, maybe
. Sighing, I faced Zayne and shook my head.

  “I had a right to know who I am,” I stated, “and what I am.”

  “I know.” He placed a hand on my knee. “You’re right. I’m so sorry it had to come out like this. I’m sorry for everything.”

  Unfortunately for my big brother, just saying the words wasn’t enough. I heard them, of course. I saw the pain in his face, the tense twitch in his cheek. The psychologist in me deduced that the apology was genuine, but I just couldn’t accept it. Not after all this time. All these years of lies. It wasn’t like Zayne had spent years not telling me I had a bad haircut. Hiding my heritage from me was something that couldn’t be swept under the rug and forgotten about with a simple apology.

  I’d need time and space to sort through my muddled feelings. Right now, however, I was about two seconds away from blowing a fuse and unleashing a verbal hell on anyone within a ten-foot radius, so it was best that I just excused myself.

  He called out for me as I pushed off the bench and jogged back toward the castle, but I only slowed when three figures rushed out the entryway I’d used earlier. They barreled by me, not breaking their stride, and shouted for Zayne. The alarm on their features made me stop, and as I whirled back, I discovered why.

  “Abramelin’s men have almost breached the portal!” one of the men shouted, a fairy with jet black hair and elven features. “We’ve been trying to hold them off—”

  Before he could finish, an explosion rocked through the underground sanctuary, rattling the beehive like a great earthquake. I cried out as the ground trembled and knocked me right on my ass. In my peripheral, I caught Darius racing straight for me, only to duck out of the way when chunks of magical ceiling, still glittering with a starry night sky, plummeted down and slammed into the castle’s courtyard. More screams thundered from the upper levels as an alarm started to blare; it made me think of those natural disaster sirens, the ones alerting people to stay inside, to get to safety, to run.

  All of which, I thought as I dove out of the way from more falling debris, was pretty damn good advice. Because seconds later, another explosion rocked the hive—only this time it radiated from somewhere within.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fireworks. It all looked like the most impressive firework display I had ever seen in my life. Blasts of red, blue, purple, green—they twirled and zoomed across the hive’s immense cavern. Whizzing, soaring, crackling. Majestic and beautiful. Vibrant and entertaining.

  Only real fireworks didn’t cause monumental damage when they slammed into something. Because these weren’t fireworks. As I did an awkward crab-walk back until I hit the wall of the castle, I noted that these were bursts of magic. Spellwork. There were probably a few hexed items lobbed across the hive. It was absolute chaos. The vortex of feeling, the hurricane inside my head, had been transplanted to the real world—and it wasn’t pretty.

  If I didn’t know better, I would have said that this was an invasion.

  And it was. It had to be: gargoyles poured into the hive from the doorways on the top level, singing their terrible song of death, swarming together like a band of locusts before plunging down toward the castle. I shrieked when another chunk of the overhead slammed into the cobblestone some ten feet from me, the ground rumbling in the aftershocks of that first quake. I gritted my teeth at the sound of growls pealing through the air – the monsters were out, and as usual, they wanted blood.

  “Darius!” I called for my dragon, but the crackling of magic combined with gargoyle roars and frightened screams drowned me out. Smoke had started to fill the courtyard—smoke that had a distinctly magical quality to it. Trying not to panic, I shook my head and stood in an effort to see over it, as I coughed. They were literally trying to smoke us out. Bastards. Squinting, I scanned the area for Darius and my brother, calling both their names and getting no response back. Dark shapes shot through the rising smoke, accompanied by the sounds of grunts and groans, a fight breaking out somewhere I couldn’t see.

  Abramelin’s men must have found another way into Zayne’s sanctuary. They couldn’t all be coming from the main door I’d been escorted through earlier today.

  My momentary search, a distraction more than anything else, left me vulnerable, and seconds later a force with the strength of a charging wildebeest knocked me off my feet. I cried out, pain radiating from the side where I’d been hit—like a direct shot to a kidney.

  “Fuck…” I groaned. Not only had something invisible slammed into me, but I’d landed hard on my shoulder too. The pain seeped in from both sides, and just as I tried to stand, a massive hand worked into my hair, and dragged me across the cobblestone. Flailing, I did my best to ignore the searing burn in my scalp as I twisted around to get a better look at my attacker. While the fog obscured him, I could tell he was humanoid in appearance, pale like death, and wore all black.

  Demon or vampire.

  No surprise there that they crept into the hive in the dead of night.

  Just as he started to lift me—by the root of my hair, no less—I snagged the curved knife off his belt, pleased that it had a jagged edge, and buried it deep in his meaty thigh. The creature emitted a high-pitched roar, his eyes glowing angrily, and dropped me. A burst of fae speed had me on my feet in a flash.

  Demon. The blood red eyes gave him away, along with the skeletal face, his alabaster skin stretched thin over the bones. His blood encrusted horns curved over his head, and I winced at the sight of him.

  “Son of a bitch,” I spat, my face twisted with disgust. With one hand, I called forth a near-blinding flash of pure white light, then finally shoved him back with a pulse of energy that sent him stumbling. Unfortunately, it didn’t knock him down quite like I wanted. As he twisted around to face me, first with his legs, then the top half of his body—like they weren’t connected, his red eyes gleamed out of the darkness, a hunger in their depths that both chilled me, and sent streaks of lightning through my blood.

  Then, while maintaining full eye contact, the demon ripped the knife from his thigh and ran his tongue along the blade.

  To my further disgust, he spat a mouthful of brownish demon blood at me. Most of it missed, but I felt the cold splatter on my legs—like the icy fingers of death.

  Fucking demons.

  He lunged for me, knife in hand, his burly arms reaching for me, but this time I was ready. No more cheap shots when I wasn’t looking.

  I sidestepped his advance, twisting out of the way with all the grace of a prima ballerina—for the first time in my life. Apparently, I could get this body moving, half-shifter or not, when it really mattered. The demon snarled and turned back, his upper body whipping around before the lower half caught up, and I grimaced. This was why I’d never entertained demons in my day-to-day life: gross. as. fuck.

  My gaze stayed steadfast to the blade, and I was soon able to pick up something of a pattern in my opponent’s fighting style. Stab, stab, swipe. Stab to my right, my left, then try to swipe across my body. When he tried to impale my left, right on schedule, I clamped down on his arm and dragged him forward, managing to throw him off balance just enough to hoist him up and flip him over my shoulder. He slammed onto the cobblestone with a grunt, but managed to dodge my slippered foot when I tried to slam it down on his face. The blade swiped at my ankle, but I leapt out of the way. A faint whoosh of air ghosted across my skin, signaling just how close I’d been to being sliced open somewhere with an abhorred demon knife.

  Rumor had it that just one cut, no bigger than a papercut, from a demon’s blade would induce immediate necrosis of the surrounding skin.

  No thanks. Not today, you disgusting evil bastard.

  Unfortunately, while I’d managed to dodge the demon’s blade, his free hand snaked out and slammed into the back of my knee, instantly buckling it. I cried out as I toppled down onto him, only just managing to roll over him rather than land on his mass of bones covered in ghostly white skin and black cloth rags. His knife came down, seemingly out of nowh
ere, and I rolled again and again and again, each time the blade landing hard on the ground rather than in my stomach. A burst of fae speed got me to my feet, but the demon was close behind. His red eyes narrowed as we assessed each other. I was faster, sure, but he seemed totally not fazed by the fact he was bleeding out from the wound I’d made on his thigh.

  Could demons die? I hadn’t the faintest idea, but I was ready to test my theory if it meant getting away from this creep.

  I crouched down and raised my hands in a defensive stance. While pain still pulsed from where he’d slammed into me earlier—along with my throbbing shoulder and skinned knees—I was ready for the next round.

  “Bring it,” I barked, hands warming as I called upon a ball of white magic to form in the palm of each. “You may not like what I have to say this time around…”

  His smile made me want to gag: slobbery yellow drool, like bile, oozed out between a set of jagged teeth. Ugh. The demon tossed the blade back and forth between his hands, then lifted it in the air and roared—the beginning of his charge. I tensed, my white magic orbs practically searing my skin.

  But the demon never made it to me.

  Instead, two steps later, a surge of blue flame engulfed him and fried him to a crisp. I withdrew my white magic and ducked down, shielding my face from the burn.

  A burn that, all things considered, should have been much worse.

  I closed my eyes tight. I was part dragon, after all. A regular fae probably couldn’t get this close to a dragon’s blaze and walk away unsinged. Darius’s roar, ten times that of the demon’s, made me look up sharply, and I found him some twenty feet away in all his exquisite dragon glory, a vampire under each front foot trying to wriggle free. The demon, meanwhile, was nothing more than a pile of ash. Scowling, I crawled forward, and with a summoning of a gentle breeze, dispersed the creature’s ashes on the wind until he was nothing but scattered dust particles.