Wicked Destiny: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy Series (Wicked Witches Book 1)

by L. C. Hibbett

  “Destiny.” Nick’s touch was feather light on my shoulder. I froze on the threshold and he tapped me again. “Destiny, I know you’re mad at me.” I snapped head around so fast I almost got whiplash. My glare was a laser beam of fury. Nick winced. “Okay, you’re more than mad. I deserve that and I take full responsibility. I screwed everything up. I never had a mission like this before and I thought I could handle it—I was wrong. I let my personal life and my work get all mixed up together. It was a huge mistake.”

  A mistake. His words were a hot blade searing through my soft flesh. I crushed my fist against my chest and pain twisted into contempt. My lip curled over my teeth. “Everything about my time at The Paper Heart was a mistake, Nickolai Sarkus, but the game is up. You don’t need to put on your little act anymore.” Nick shook his head and reached for my hand but I pushed him away. “All right, not an act, a mistake—whatever the fuck you want to call it, it’s over. We can both see it for what it was now. You’re an agent, I was your case. And now the case is over and we’re nothing to each other. I’m here to help find those kids—don’t come within a ten-foot radius of me while I’m working, and I’ll do the same for you.”

  I could hear Nick’s voice calling my name as I let the door slam behind me, but I didn’t care. I stamped across the café and followed the stream of parents past the counter and into the corridor of studios behind the coffee shop. Lan tried to catch my eye as I marched by her but I pretended not to see. I trailed the parents to the very rear of the building, praying for the door to Maya’s study to remain shut. Seeing her face would dissolve the dam holding back my tears. I released my breath slowly when I made it to the case room without having to speak to anyone. Patrick was already in there and I sank into the chair beside him. He rested his arm on the back of my chair, not quite touching my shoulders, but close enough to give me a feeling of security. I tried to distract myself from my burning eyes by examining the room.

  “They’ve been busy,” I said. My gaze traveled over the walls of the large studio. Every space was covered with photographs of missing children and copies of police files and interview transcripts. At the front of the room, there was a huge map of Ireland filled with a web of photographs and color-coded connecting lines—a different color for each race. I searched the walls again, staring at the photographs above each section. “It’s a timeline.” I pointed to the first photograph. “I remember when she went missing. She’s so young, barely older than Saoirse.” I clamped my fingers over my mouth. “Have you had any more visions?”

  Patrick’s shoulders tightened and he withdrew his arm from behind my shoulder. His face was even paler than it had been in the Silent Quarter. “No. Nothing. I can’t shake this damn headache.”

  I leaned forward and rested my elbow on his knees so I could see his face more clearly. “Did you hit your head yesterday? When we jumped from the parking lot? You could have a concussion. Maybe you should see a doctor—”

  “Destiny.” Patrick grazed my lips with one his fingers. “I’m fine. It’s a headache. Another cup of coffee and some sleep that isn’t disrupted by wailing cats is all I need. Okay?”

  My lips buzzed under his touch and I had an overwhelming urge to kiss his finger. I snapped my head back and clamped my arms over my chest. “Grand.”

  Izzy and Blackwood stood to address the room and I leaned back in my chair to listen. Izzy spoke first. “Welcome everyone. My name is Isabelle O’Neill and I’m the commanding officer here today.” My eyebrows peaked—Izzy and I shared a surname, even though her accent clearly spoke of an upbringing on the other side of the Atlantic. I loved my surname. I’d always gotten a sliver of satisfaction by using my mother’s family name, one of the most common names in Ireland, and not my father’s godly name, much to his anger—he could take my mother from me, but he couldn’t take my history. It was in my blood. Izzy straightened her shoulders. “I want to thank you all for coming here today. As you can see, we’ve been working with families all over the country during the investigation, but this is the first time we’ve had contact with some of you. We understand how private the Free Witch community is, and we are honored that you’ve decided to put your trust in us. The more information we have regarding the missing children, the better our chances are of finding them.”

  “Does the I.G.S. think our kids are still alive?” A heavyset man shouted from the rear of the room.

  Izzy opened her mouth to respond, but a frail woman with limp black hair called out before Izzy could speak. She pointed a shaky finger at the first photograph on the wall. “That selkie child has been missing for almost a year—how has the Guild not found any trace of her? Why is it taking so long? Anything could be happening to our kids.” The woman’s voice broke and a look of genuine distress passed over Izzy’s face.

  Blackwood squeezed Izzy’s hand and turned to the people who had spoken. “Ma’am, Sir, I’m afraid the Guild doesn’t have answers to those questions yet—I wish it did. All we can do right now is assure you that we understand the value of every single child on these walls. We know these are your children, your babies, and we will do everything in our power to complete this investigation quickly and successfully. Every piece of information you give us—every detail, every DNA sample—helps us to create a clearer picture and increases our chance of discovering the common thread linking each of the abductions. The team will be interviewing each of you in turn to gather information, and Dr. MacIntyre will be collecting any necessary samples.”

  The guy with the messy hair nodded and raised his hand to identify himself as the doctor. For a moment, I thought Blackwood was finished speaking, but just as the parents began to shuffle in their seats, he took a step forward. “There’s always hope.” The rooms stilled and all eyes focused on Blackwood again. He cleared his throat. “To lose a child—it’s an unthinkable cruelty. I can’t imagine the distress you must be feeling. But I want you to know we do have hope. Please work with us to keep that hope alive, for everyone here and for all the families across the country.” Blackwood tipped his head to those of us seated and turned to Izzy who started to assign families to different members of her team for interview.

  I raised my eyebrows at Patrick. “That was unexpected.”

  “Yeah.” Patrick rubbed his jaw. “Blackwood is a hard one to figure out.”

  “Even for the all-knowing, all-seeing Mr. Joyce.” I wiggled my fingers and affected my best mystical voice.

  Patrick narrowed his eyes at me. “I see the future, smart arse. It’s the past that tells you most about people, not the future.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I pulled my jacket closed tightly and wished I had my scarf to fiddle with. I looked around the room. “Should we offer to help with the interviews?”

  “Nah, these guys are experts. They’ll be looking for specific information, a tiny thread to connect all the children.” Patrick’s forehead creased. “There has to be something.” He stood up slowly and rolled his shoulders. “I need more coffee. You want to come?”

  I shook my head fiercely. “No, thanks. I don’t want to run into Nicolai Sarkus again for, oh, I don’t know, at least a millennia?”

  Patrick nodded and stepped past me, but he turned after a few paces. “Destiny?” I met his gaze. “Nothing is ever black and white with love. It’s ten million shades of color, but never black or white. Don’t punish yourself by punishing somebody else.”

  I glared at Patrick’s back as he slipped out the door. Love? What the hell? Just when I thought he was going to act normal. I huffed across the room and started to examine the files on the walls. Age, date of birth, date of abduction, supernatural abilities. I made my way from file to file, some of the children had been abducted on the same dates, but I could see no other apparent links. A variety of ages, genders, backgrounds, supernatural races, ability levels—it was like the kidnapper had closed their eyes and thrown a dart at a map.

  “Anything stand out to you?” Izzy was holding two mugs in her hand and she offe
red one to me. “Tea—lots of milk no sugar, right?” I took a grateful gulp and she smiled. “Nick said you’d need a tea about now.” I resisted the urge to spit my tea back into the mug. Izzy gave me a knowing glance but didn’t say anything more about Nick. She turned her focus back to the wall. “So, any insight?”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear. “This isn’t really my thing, I’ve never done anything like this before—investigations, solving mysteries. I couldn’t even find out what happened to my own mother, I’m in over my head with this.”

  “But you need to help find the children so the coven will offer you membership?” I stared at Izzy and she shrugged one shoulder. “I made Patrick give full disclosure on why you wanted to be involved in the investigation.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Well, that wasn’t his disclosure to make.”

  “I don’t judge you for it, Destiny. You’ve got a kid to protect, and a horrible shit of a father who’s desperate to get you back in his clan.” Izzy pressed her lips together and took a sip from her mug. She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry you didn’t have any luck searching for your mother—I heard she was on the list of the vanished. That’s terrible. People say she was a good woman.”

  “No, they don’t!” I was surprised by the bitterness in my own voice. “They say she was a stupid woman. Anybody who gets sucked in by my father deserves what they get. Balor and his vanished witches—take a stand against my father and he’ll spirit you off the face of the earth in a puff of smoke—what kind of woman would let themselves be loved by a beast like that? That’s what people say about my mother. They don’t care that she was only fifteen when he claimed her. They don’t understand what it takes to break free from him. And she would have, you know, she was just waiting for her chance. We were going to make it to the Free Witches together—Aoife, my mother, and me, but we were too late. People don’t care about that shit. People just want to hate and judge without trying to understand. So, no, people don’t say she was a good woman.”

  Izzy and I stared at the wall and the silence between us pulsed and writhed. I gripped the cup. “Izzy, I’m sorry—”

  “Destiny, I’m—” Our voices clashed and we both smiled. Izzy gestured with her hand. “Go ahead, sorry.”

  “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. You were just trying to be nice and I snapped your head off,” I said.

  Izzy shook her head. “I deserved it. I had no right to ask you about your mother; it’s too personal. Social skills aren’t my greatest strength.”

  As we finished our drinks in companionable silence, I examined the agent out of the corner of my eye. There was something familiar and comforting about her presence, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Izzy smiled and her mane of thick brown waves tumbled around her athletic shoulders as she reached for my empty cup to take back to the kitchen. I held onto it for a moment. “She was a wonderful mother, Agent O’Neill, and I miss her more every day, not less. And sometimes, when I really need her, I can’t help but get mad at her for not fighting harder to stay with me. Which makes me a shitty, disloyal daughter, because I know she loved me very much. She just didn’t realize love isn’t enough to keep a child safe. Not from a god like my father.”

  I let Izzy take the cup and stared down at my feet, embarrassed. Izzy rested her hand firmly on my shoulder as she passed. “You’re entitled to feel anger, Destiny, it doesn’t make you disloyal. But don’t let your anger cloud your judgment. Love is rarely black and white.”

  Izzy’s words sent a shiver down my spine as Patrick slipped past her and back into his seat. I stared down at him and he spread his fingers. “What?”

  “That’s incredibly creepy. It’s like eavesdropping on the future. I thought you were talking about something else entirely,” I said.

  “I know.” Patrick closed his eyes and let his head fall back as if it was weighed down by an anvil. “You thought I was talking about the beastly beauty and your complicated feelings for him. But now you know.”

  “Complicated feelings—you’re such a pain in the ass. People don’t say things like that out loud, Patrick, even if they notice them. Even if they know things from the future.” I chewed on my fingernail. “Do you know things?”

  Patrick opened one eye and looked at me. A smile hovered at the corner of his lips. “I know so many things, Destiny. So many interesting—” Patrick sat up with a jolt and stared around the room. His frantic glare landed on the blond man and he tore out of his seat. “Blackwood!” The tall man spun around and Patrick opened his mouth to speak but instead dropped to the ground, roaring in agony. Startled parents scattered in all directions as Blackwood, the doctor, and I ran to Patrick. His breathing was labored as he gritted his teeth and screwed his eyes shut.

  I leaned over and pressed my ears to his lips, desperately trying to make out his words. My heart froze in my chest and I stared at Blackwood as we both deciphered the message at once.

  “Nickolai’s daughter. She’s gone.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Blackwood and I stared at each other for a fraction of a second before the blond agent exploded into action. Izzy opened the door and slipped back into the room just as Blackwood sprang to his feet. Their eyes met and some silent communication passed between them, draining the color from Izzy’s face.

  Blackwood barked orders around the room. “Mac, help Trick. Belle, contact Snow and send me any of the parents who are level one reds, then contain the room—nobody else leaves.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Nobody.” I glared at him, but before I could argue, Patrick began to convulse and all thoughts of disagreement were wiped from my mind. Blackwood galloped toward the door, calling to the huge man with the beautiful dark skin, “Teddy, come with me.”

  The floppy-haired doctor raced across the floor and kneeled down, easing Patrick’s body onto its side. He opened a case of high-tech equipment and started to examine Patrick with it. I kneaded my fists together. “He had a headache. He couldn’t sleep last night, because of a fox wailing, or something like that. And then his head was sore. His foster mom used a healing rune, but it didn’t work. And he said his visions weren’t really working. We jumped from a building yesterday and I thought he should see a doctor—”

  “Destiny?” Izzy nudged me back a few paces with gentle but firm hands. “You need to let Mac look after Trick, okay?” I nodded, clenching my teeth together so tightly my jaw ached. She gave my shoulder a squeeze and then turned to address the parents who had begun to gather in knots around the room.

  Whispers and worried glances passed from group to group like wildfire and before Izzy had a chance to speak, one of the mothers raised her hand. “Has another child been taken?” Izzy lifted her palms but the woman pressed on, her voice rising in pitch with each question she asked. “My brother went to school with Patrick—I know he has the sight. What’s happening to him? What did he see?”

  My own pulse began to race as the parents fired panicked questions at Izzy. Had somebody taken Nick’s daughter? How could the Guild find the missing children when they couldn’t even protect their own? Did the kidnappers know the parents were here? Had they been in this building? Were they still here? The barrage of questions ricocheted around the case room and bored holes in my skull as I stared helplessly at Patrick’s limp body. I couldn’t process the notion that Maya could really have been taken—it was too terrible to be true. But Patrick had never lied to me. I moaned into clenched fists and grasped at the disappearing strands of my self-control.

  “Stop!” Izzy’s roar slashed through the hysterical babble and every face in the room turned toward the brunette. She lifted her jaw and glared at the most vocal of the parents. “That’s enough. Yes, we have a situation here. Yes, we have a report of a child missing from this building. No, it hasn’t been confirmed.” She crossed her toned arms. “Now, I know this is fucking scary shit—my heart is bouncing around in my chest like a goddamn natterjack toad, but the last thing we need to do is lose our head
s. What I need is folks who can help—can you do that?”

  Slowly, the parents dropped their offensive stares and nodded. Izzy pursed her lips. “Good. First, we got any gold witches here to help the doctor?” A slight man with dark brown hair pulled away from the group and went to Mac’s side. “Right, now, have we any level one reds to help with tracking if the alleged kidnapping is verified?” One woman and two more men separated themselves from the group. “Thank you. Everyone else, I want you to—” Izzy cut her request short as Blackwood bolted back into the room. The look on his face told me everything I needed to know, and I whimpered as I slid to the floor.

  Mac let the gold witch attend to Patrick and hurried to my side. His voice was so kind that I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears to shut it out—I couldn’t take another drop of emotional weight without disintegrating into a puddle. “Destiny, Patrick is going to be all right. He seems to have experienced some trauma to his medial temporal lobe—”

  “What?” I said.

  “It’s part of the brain.” Mac waved what looked like a pair of diving goggles in the air. “The Guild has been working on developing medical equipment that combines technology and magic—Izzy’s father is actually leading the project—and this portable scanner is one of the most successful pieces of equipment so far. It’s not perfect, but, luckily, this kind gentleman has the gold magic necessary to limit and heal the injury.”

  “And what about Maya?” My voice was a whisper but I didn’t take my eyes off the doctor’s face. I didn’t know much about shifters, but I knew they could sometimes communicate with their alpha telepathically, and there was no mistaking that Blackwood was the pack alpha.

  Mac ran his fingers through his unruly waves and stared at me for a moment, clearly deliberating my ability to handle the information in his possession. He dropped his hands to his sides. “She’s gone. Lan brought her some food and a drink.” I saw the snack in my eye’s mind—blue plate, four salted crackers, water in a blue bottle the exact same shade as the plate. It was the same snack Maya had every morning at ten-thirty. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood as Mac continued speaking. “Nick and Lan both saw her in the room when Lan brought the snack and they stood outside Maya’s door while Lan tried to remove a paint stain from Nick’s shirt—nobody passed. But when Nick opened the door to see did Maya want help with her work, the room was empty. The window is intact and locked from the inside.”