Oh god. I had forgotten to say a word. I was just looking, drooling really, over a tall, square-jawed stranger while my future and the future of my kind lingered in great peril.
“Well, thanks for the help,” I said and turned to go in full blush.
“Hold on a second,” the man said. A pleasant grin threatened to fully form on his sensual lips. “If you go, I might never see you again.”
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
He stepped toward me. “A big problem.”
“How so?” Those words escaped my lips in a whisper.
“I want to learn about magic,” he said.
My heart surged in my chest. What was happening? I knew it wasn’t magic, but I was completely under his spell.
“You think you’re charming?” I finally said, as if he wasn’t.
He opened his hands, feigning helplessness.
“It’s a small world,” I said. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”
My feet couldn’t carry me away fast enough.
As soon as I turned the corner, I took my phone out to collect myself. It was past time to call Grandma. If I was right and the Immortal had sealed the scene at the park, the orb would be clear, which meant I would be in the clear with the Order for now. That would give me needed time to figure out what the hell I was facing.
“Sweetheart, I’ve been waiting for your call.”
“You have?” I said, cautiously.
“Of course, I’m making waffles, you always call when I’m making waffles.” Grandma’s melodic voice warmed my insides instantly.
“With cinnamon sugar and spring yellow butter?”
“You bet.”
“Maybe I can be on the next flight.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Is everything okay, Sophie?”
“Gram, please, don’t use your spider sense.”
“Dear, I have no bond with spiders.”
“I know, Gram, never mind. Just tell me if the orb is clear today.”
There was a long pause, too long, or maybe my anxious energy was stretching time in my mind.
“Give me a moment.”
I heard something new in Gram’s voice that didn’t feel right. An urgency or a resignation—or maybe an urgent resignation, a pallor of doom or futility. My paranoia peaked as I waited for her return. I felt irrationally sure that the end of the world was nigh and there was nothing to be done.
I picked at my teeth with my fingernails.
“Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“It’s clear. The waves are undisturbed. Zero reverberations.”
I exhaled, quietly. “Good to know,” I said. “I love you, Gram.”
“Oh, sweet girl, I love you, too.”
“Well, I love you and I love you AND I love you.”
This always pleased her to hear. I could feel her grin through the phone.
“You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, Gram. Don’t worry. I will see you soon.”
The second I hung up, I regretted not asking Grandma about Faion and his grandmother. Maybe it was for the best. That would have been one oddity too many for a single call. Everything was happening too fast. I needed more information and I needed to collect it carefully.
The Book of Night Rituals might guide me towards that path. I’d read every word in it as many times as it took to unravel the hidden clues.
As I reached my building, magic rippled through me, warning me of an irregularity in the etheric charge around my home.
A light drizzle began to fall, tickling my face. I stood still, wondering whether to stay and fight or take off as fast as I could.
I glanced up. The door to my apartment opened.
“Welcome home,” the Immortal said, his massive presence filling up the door frame. His hair shimmered gold in the waning sunlight. A twitch above his left eyebrow made his gaze even more intense than usual.
The Hemsworths had nothing on this guy.
My heart slowed. The sweat forming on my hands, mixed with the humidity, made my palms suddenly clammy. The tip-tap of the fast-descending raindrops resounded off the spine of The Book of Night Rituals.
I realized I was not surprised to find him there. Without resistance, I climbed up the stairs and followed the Immortal inside.
CHAPTER 6
____________________________________
The Immortal paced about the cramped spaces of my apartment. His disdain was as clear as his intense gaze. Maybe it was the shabby, mismatched furniture that offended him or maybe the general lack of tidiness—shirts folded on tables, books splayed out on every surface—or maybe it was the tight confines: a single room that served as kitchen, bedroom and living room—it was the world after the walls had closed in.
I slipped out of my wet hoodie and plopped down on the loveseat. It was the first time I saw his features fully lit. I cleared my throat and tried to calm my breathing. Everything about him suggested power. His balanced stance was poised and ready. His hulking chest strained the fabric of his linen button-up shirt. His arms and legs were striped with strong, lean muscles.
His exquisite bone structure was flawless except for a few fine wrinkles across the forehead and at the corners of his eyes. His unblemished skin would have made you think he was in his early thirties. I knew better.
I had no doubt he was fully aware I was taking in his every detail, but he could not care less. A man like that had been savored every day of his life.
He spoke first. “You shouldn’t be surprised to see me. I think I made it clear we’d be continuing our conversation.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said.
“At least you didn’t run back to your grandmother,” he said, almost reflectively. “You saved me a trip to Oregon.”
I said nothing, waiting to see what exactly he wanted. My eyes wandered to the white moth orchid on the coffee table, the closest thing in the room to a replenishing source of elemental energy. If I was fast enough, if I touched the fragrant flower for a mere second—
“Resistance will be met with pain.” He, too, had spotted the white orchid. He casually opened his hand to create a luminescent current of energy that shielded me from access to the coffee table and the flower.
“Yeah, I remember,” I said, unimpressed. “You’re a dick.”
When a smile might form on his face, it quickly became a hard scowl.
“I’m whatever I need to be,” he said with a sigh.
“And you needed to send men to rape me?”
He shrugged. “Let’s call that a test.”
“A test? That’s sick,” I said. “Well, did I pass your sick test?”
My insults could not touch him, the arrogant bastard.
He twisted his hands to send a blinding flash of translucent energy to encircle me and force me to my knees. I tried to resist the invisible tethers but found it impossible to move. The Immortal had again cast an immobilizing spell that I could not see.
He resumed pacing, his contempt growing stronger with each step.
“Your test went as predicted. Failure to restrict reverberations while using magic – check. Failure to recognize immortal threat – check. Panic when faced with unbridled magic – check. Failure to activate energy shield – check. Ignoring protective steps as outlined in the Lunar manual when fighting more powerful Immortals – check.” He stopped to lick his lips. “You were unable to meet even my lowest expectations, Luna Mae.”
He was in possession of my full Lunar name, but I didn’t have the energy to make sense of that. His patronizing tone was starting to piss me off.
“Happy to disappoint.”
“Get up,” he said, freeing me from his spell. “It’s time for you to fight me.”
Was he serious? “I think I’ll pass,” I said with a fake yawn.
He barely gave me a second to finish my sentence. A blue blaze glowed bright in his right hand. He shook his arm and the hissing blaze leapt forward and str
uck my left forearm with an intense blast.
It all happened so fast I didn’t realize the heat had cut deep through skin and muscle. My flesh sizzled. It hurt like hell. I put pressure on the wound to stop the gushing blood, fighting off tears.
As soon as it began, the pain subsided and the wound vanished. I wiped away the blood as best as I could. Where there was raw, devoured flesh now there was nothing but healthy skin.
The shit was getting to be too much.
I locked my gaze on the Immortal’s as I climbed to my feet. “How do you do that?” I heard the words escape my mouth.
He rewarded my curiosity with a second, much harder blow. My flesh melted away like molten metal, exposing ravaged tendons and bone.
I cried out unable to hold back the tears. Why was he doing this? What was the end game to torturing a college girl?
Screw him and screw his end game. Those eyes that I once found mesmerizing were now the coldest daggers in all the realms.
Screw the Seventh Council and all they represented throughout all the centuries of history. Screw generation upon generation of Immortals.
Enough. I resisted the confrontation he was trying to force. With every fiber of my being I resisted. I wanted nothing to do with him or his plans.
“Your guardians have failed you, Luna Mae,” he said and then gently blew on the wound. His breath cooled my burning flesh, filling the open gash with a protective white mist. “You have no skill to wield weapons of any type, do you? Any stray being with a spec of magic in them and a good sword would pummel you.”
By now, my anger had swelled beyond control. I was seething mad and hungered vengeance. “A sword, old timer? I hate to break this to you, but the rest of us left the Middle Ages behind long ago.”
My injured hands tickled as damaged skin and tissue bonded, restoring my strength and concentration. The magic under my fingernails swelled, feeding off my fury and the smell of my own blood. My fingers flared a transparent pink aura as I hurled a quick bolt of ice, sharp as a dagger.
So I can’t fight with weapons, huh?
The Immortal raised his palm casually to meet my attack, crushing the ice bolt in midflight. The exploding ice dissolved into thin steam.
How could he anticipate my every move?
The rain pitter-pattered against the windows, and the sky loomed darkly with gathering storm clouds. Lightning flashed. The thunder that followed shocked my senses. The salty taste of rain teased my palate as a sudden downpour roared outside and echoed in my ears.
The Immortal stepped towards me. I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing. The rainwater was power. I remembered my training.
I opened my arms, absorbing vitality from the natural world into my own life force. I could feel the energy rising in every cell of my body.
The rain broke through the window glass, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
Razor-sharp shards lined up and hurled themselves at the Immortal. He threw up an energy shield fast but not fast enough. Not this time. Hundreds of my blurry-fast shards punctured his skin, cutting deep holes on his perfect face and neck and hands.
So Immortals do bleed.
He stared at his blood-drenched hands, fascinated. He felt his bloody face with his bloody fingers. Bits of glass stuck out from a hundred fleshy wounds. From his expression, I gathered he was stunned.
He had not seen that coming.
This was not a case of him letting me win.
No. I did that, all on my own.
Wow.
He leveled his gaze back at me, leaning forward a little. I took a step back, rattled. A sinking dread replaced my confidence. I remembered that this man was more than powerful, he was unpredictable, deranged.
“So, there is some life in you after all,” he said, almost pleased.
He wanted me to hurt him? I gave up trying to guess his motives.
“What do you want?” I said, deflated of all purpose. Drawing a little blood, or even maiming him, barely caught his attention. He was an ancient warrior who had mastered the dark arts. He could not be killed by any known method in the real or the magical worlds.
I doubted he even had a conception of pain.
“You are a lunar witch. Do you really need to ask?”
“Well, that’s just stupid,” I said, the words spilling out before they could be stopped. “You lived all those years and you still don’t have a mind of your own. You just hate an entire magical faction because some ancient law you learned a bazillion years ago says you should.”
His flesh began expelling the glass. His wounds faded by the time the shards hit the ground. He didn’t even flinch.
The Immortal brushed his hair back, staining a few blond strands with blood from his fingers. “I never learned those laws, Luna Mae. I wrote them.”
I shot him a menacing glare. “Stop calling me that.”
He raised an eyebrow. “But it’s your name.”
“You know that naming is essential to our craft. It’s intricate and precise. It affects our very etheric essence. It’s a high insult to misuse it.”
He chuckled. Who knew he was capable of mirth? “That’s the fun of it.”
My spine stiffened. I had been mocked enough for one day. “Why won’t you people leave us alone? You’ve already reduced our numbers to next to nothing. Last time I checked, there were less than—”
I caught myself. That was not information to reveal, especially to him.
“Less than six hundred lunar witches remain in the Deep Down, I know full well. Nothing is hidden from my eyes.”
Message received loud and clear. I was the mouse. He was the cat. He’d play with me for as long as it pleased him. “So, do you have a name as big as your ego?” I fired back, sick of his arrogance. “Because it seems like you’re trying too hard.”
He walked to the fridge and took out a bottle of water. “Here,” he said, tossing it to me. “You’re depleted of electrolytes.”
Yeah, that happened when I overplayed my influence on water. He knew the basic biology of magic as well. He was well versed. I’d give him that.
“Fattening me up for the slaughter,” I said. “Does that mean you’re not killing me today?”
“It’s still early,” he said with a sigh. “But seriously, as tempting as that sounds, I cannot kill you. I need you to do something for me.”
Okay, what? Me doing something for him? Dude was crazy. “What exactly in your whole approach would make me now want to lift a finger for you?”
He pounced, pinning me against the wall with one forearm to my throat, the other across my stomach, for the first time using plain physical superiority to overpower me. My magic simmered inside. I felt it hissing along my spinal cord and tingling inside every nerve in my body, willing me to fight back.
The Immortal sensed it, too. He pressed harder against my throat, cutting off my oxygen supply. My vision blurred, the violent spasms in my chest extinguishing the rising magic.
He put his mouth to my ear. “You’re going to help me, Luna Mae. You’re mine to command now. You’re going to help me in the deep down and the up above – together we will uphold Immortal Rule.”
Ha! Fat chance.
He reduced the pressure gradually. I coughed. I gasped for air. “I’m a measly witch, you said so yourself. Even if I wanted to, how could I even—”
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “You owe me your life. That’s something you should never forget.”
The Immortal let go and walked out the door.
My heart raced. I rubbed my throat and coughed up a bit of mucus into my hand. The asshole. My anger grew until my hands balled into fists.
I would make it my life’s mission to bring that bastard to his knees and when he least expected it, I’d cut out his heart and feed it to the piranhas, at least, you know, metaphorically.
Point being I was quite pissed.
CHAPTER 7
____________________________________
The bell ab
ove the door jingled cheerfully as a young couple strolled into the coffee shop holding hands, not a care in the world, flaunting their happiness.
I glanced at Maura, pleadingly.
She nodded. “I got this.”
Grateful, I glimpsed down at the acceptance letter in my hands, which I must have read forty times by now. Time was running out. I wondered if it’d be considered bad form to request the scholarship money right away.
The course wouldn’t start for another five months, but if I had any chance in hell to get out of the country in one piece, I’d have to leave soon. Without the scholarship money, the prospects of that happening looked grim.
My options were limited. I’d sit down to write my response at lunch and post the letter after work. Digital correspondence was out of the question. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that I’d been hacked.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
I knew that voice. Faion Trice. He smiled, content to have caught me by surprise.
“Ah, the diviner himself,” I said, sneeringly. “Or was it the chicken?”
I expected him to be thrown off, but instead he chuckled. “Yeah, that’s right, I ran. My momma never raised no fools. I don’t hang around when a woman gets pissed off, okay? I thought you needed some space.”
“Space? That’s what that was? You just tell a girl her life is about to take a nosedive and then you jet?”
“I’m not about to mess with no LW, not when she has that scary look.”
He had a point. I had done my best to intimidate him.
The lovely couple beamed as Maura handed them their coffee cups. They headed for the door, arms around each other. Their laughter echoed off the small wooden tables and pastel-painted walls.
Outside, the guy planted a kiss on the girl’s cheek. I envied the simplicity of their happy lives. It reminded me there was more than thieves, slayers and Immortal thugs in the world.
“Apology accepted,” I told Faion. If I was to get any help from him, I had to make him feel comfortable. “And so now you show up here, at a public place, where you’ll be safe… but why?”
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