“No one really knows much about the ancient Druids. They didn’t keep records. Most information comes from Julius Caesar’s writings. Perhaps when you develop the ability to recall your past life, you can explain everything to me.”
Great. The expert apparently wasn’t knowledgeable in the subject of Druids at all. And my past life… that I didn’t want to think about. I had enough trouble dealing with the current one as it was. Then there was the fact that I was still in the denial stage about being reincarnated. Thoughts refocused back to Trashae’s ten million uses of the word nature, and away from the fact of me being over two centuries old—and here I was worried about the thirtieth birthday I’d face in a couple more years. Nope, Brain would continue with not acknowledging that I ought to be nothing more than skeletal remains while the rest of me attempted to make sense of all the possible powers one could use when controlling Mother Earth.
Air. That qualified. Images sprang inside my mind, and I was once again suspended off the side of Tristan’s apartment building. Staring down at the dotted street lights in the city below. My body feeling the invisible, abstract gasses as they formed into a tangible cushion. Something I could touch… wield.
Mind drifted back to that morning’s research. How could I make the most use of the ability Trashae claimed I had and get what I wanted? I turned to her and asked, “What in nature creates photons?”
“What? Isn’t that physics?”
“Yes, and photons are particles, right? And particles are energy… No, wait.” I untangled my cell phone from the pits of my purse and pulled up an Internet browser. My thoughts trying to search out that one perfect thing allowing me to manipulate the electromagnetic field. Lightning? Could that work? No… not exactly. My eyes quickly scanned the first article I came across.
“Kiara, can you explain to me why you’re asking this? Perhaps I can answer you if I understand the question.”
I held up a hand to hush her, my mind not wanting any distractions. I was onto something… and finally, that something began to piece together like a jigsaw puzzle. Lightning didn’t produce photons—it ripped electrons away from the atoms. Absorbed the photons. After, when the ions collided, is when the photons were given up. Could that split second be a vulnerability? Photons gone and the reality altered while the new ones were created? I didn’t know enough about science to understand if my theory was totally insane or perfectly logical, but once I’d thought vampires being real was insane. That a woman with a specific power to alter existence at her will was insane. And with all the insanity, there had to be some type of logic involved, allowing it to play out. Perhaps I had stumbled onto the answer. One way to find out.
“Kiara, will you answer me?”
“Just a second…” What did I do? There weren’t instructions for how to summon lightning.
Focus. Tristan’s voice. In my head. Considering that was how my power of vision developed, I closed my eyes and tuned out my surroundings. I was getting pretty good at that part by now. Images of a turbulent storm formed inside my mind. Around me, the air heated and the electricity crackled.
“Did you hear thunder?” Trashae asked. “It wasn’t supposed to rain today.”
Ignoring the woman impatiently shifting in her seat beside me, I homed in my focus on the electrical currents I felt. Sound exploded. Light brightened behind my closed eyelids, and the heat of it moved closer until it surrounded me. Lightning. The image of it clearly formed inside my mind, and then it shattered. Fragmented pieces that aimlessly floated. Ones that I reached out and touched. Searched. Sifted through. Instinct guiding the way until I found the one piece that glowed brighter than the rest. Altered. Didn’t belong.
I grabbed it, and heat scorched my hand—both literally as I felt my palm burn, and in my mind’s sight. I tossed the unwanted fragment away from the others. Strong gusts of wind swirled, creating a vortex. Hard pressure of air pounded against me as the particles of light reformed into new positions. Once again a solid bolt. Powerful.
Then it was calm. The harsh brightness vanished, and I opened my eyes. Outside the restaurant, the cracking sound of a lightning strike blasted, and thunder rumbled.
When I refocused on my surroundings, Trashae was standing in front of the exterior doors, peering out into the dim light. She turned away from the entrance and faced me. “There’s a nasty storm outside. Did you do this?”
Ignoring her question, I pulled up text messaging on my phone. It was time to confirm if the last few moments had been pure insanity or if I honestly had the ability to manipulate reality, similar to Trashae’s powers. My nerves hummed as I typed out my message, hit send, and held my breath.
“Kiara, something has shifted.” Trashae walked back to me. “Something has changed… altered. I can feel it. What happened? What did you do?”
My phone dinged with a returning message. I glanced down, and my breath let out in a relieved sigh.
“Kiara,” Trashae said. “I’m not joking. Something is different. Did you do something? Answer me.”
I smiled back down at the text message displayed from Hadley on my phone.
Busy working on paper. Talk tonight?
That sounded like my Hadley, and I smiled. Trashae’s mouth opened, but the sound of footsteps stopped any demands the woman was about to make.
A thin silvered-haired man appeared in view. Trashae straightened while her scowling lips tugged upward.
“Mr. Tate. It’s nice to see you again.”
Frown lines marred the manager’s forehead as he studied Trashae’s features. “I’m sorry, have we met? Brian said there was someone here to speak with me. I apologize for the delay, but I was tied up in the back dealing with a shipment.”
Trashae’s smile wavered. “Trashae Johnson. We’ve spoken a few times on the phone, and I stopped by last Tuesday. We’re renting the restaurant next Friday evening for a private engagement dinner.”
“Next Friday evening?”
“Yes.”
“No, I don’t think so.” His head shook. “I would never close the restaurant on the weekend. Now, is there anything else I can help you with? We open in thirty minutes for lunch, and I still have much to do.”
“No,” Trashae said. “I believe that will be all.” The man turned on his heel, and one scowling woman spun back to face me. Despite the tense muscles, Trashae’s eyes were wide and fear lurked in their depths. “What did you do?”
“Changed reality,” I said. Although the full impact of my accomplishment still hadn’t penetrated my stunned self.
A sharp intake of breath was the only sound heard for a long moment before Trashae finally asked, “At what cost?”
Yeah… that part I didn’t have an answer. What I did know was that I had my best friend back, that it was only one week out until Natalie Bennett’s engagement party, and there was no longer a venue. To top it off, I would have to be the person to inform Maude of those less-than-stellar facts.
Well… crap.
Chapter 27
I walked to Fated Match in the rain. The skies had been clear, and the sun bright, when I’d arrived at 321 Lloyds Prime. Now it poured. Thanks to me. To say Trashae wasn’t happy with my discovery of new abilities was an understatement. For a woman who’d been so insistent that I embrace my Druidness, she was certainly picky with the results. At least I was rid of her for the time being. She’d scampered off while muttering something about confirming that the world hadn’t yet ended. Of course, it hadn’t. I wouldn’t be going to work if it had.
“You’re wet.” Miss Prim greeted as I walked into the office.
My eyes widened. I checked the clothing clinging against my body in ways it wasn’t designed to do, and then back up at the ghost. “Oh my gosh, you’re right! I’m wet.”
“Was that sarcasm?”
“Yes,” HG said from his reclined position in his chosen chair. “It was.”
Miss Prim’s scrunched face of confusion lit into a beam. “I understand sarcasm.”<
br />
Actually, the ghost had already gotten a knack for it thanks to her insistence on hanging around me, but at times doubts of her abilities to understand social situations got the best of her.
“Hellhound?” I sat down in my chair and pointed to the floor at my feet. “Lay.”
The beast pushed up from his reclining spot near HG and ambled over to me. With a plop that shook the room, he was sprawled out in my chosen spot and already back asleep before I could blink. His flames adjusted to high, and I scooted as close as I dared while praying my clothes wouldn’t take long to dry in the heat.
“What happened?” Miss Prim asked. “Why are you wet?”
I glanced at her and the curious emotions expressed across her face. Never should she play poker, that one. She was an open book. HG, on the other hand, was leaning against the back of his seat, eyelids closed. But there were tells that he listened. The slight tilt of his head so his ear was primed with hearing from my direction. The small shift in his chair as if he was impatient for my answer. The ghost acted as if he never had a worry in the world, except he never missed a thing. Sharp. Intelligent, and with an odd fascination of Hell. That described the spirit I had named Handsome Ghost. I’d yet to pry out his story… not that I’d tried. My eleven-year stance that ghosts were not my friends might have begun to crumble, but I still held strong from getting too personal with the ones who’d now forced their way into my life.
“I made it rain,” I said.
HG’s eyes popped open, and he straightened. “How?”
“Powers.”
“You have powers?” Miss Prim asked. “What kind?”
“That isn’t important.” I leaned back and crossed my arms. “What did we do this week? Did we go to a bank?”
“Did you hit your head?” Miss Prim appeared by my side, her ice cold hands prying at my forehead, searching for an injury. “My mother once fell and hit her head, and when she awoke, she said crazy things. We had to take her to the doctor. She had a concussion.”
Batting Miss Prim’s hands away, I moved out of her reach. “I don’t have a concussion. It’s just… when I made it rain, I also changed things, and now I want to know if we went to the bank.”
“How did you change things?”
“Well… uh, I made someone who wasn’t my friend become my friend again.”
“You’re a Reality Warper?” HG asked.
“Not exactly,” I said. “I can control nature, and I figured out a somewhat scientific way to manipulate things into what I want.”
“Nifty.”
“No, not nifty,” Miss Prim said to HG before turning back to me. “You can’t alter things, Kiara. It’s dangerous.”
“I understand, but what I did was important. Now I need to determine the consequences.”
“Yes, the results of your reckless behavior will be nothing but trouble. You’re very impulsive.”
The ghost had caught on to that? She was sharper than I’d thought.
“Lay off Kiara,” HG said to Miss Prim. “I trust her instincts. And to answer the question, yes, we have the map. Where have you put it?”
“It’s at home. I’ve been so focused on everything else going on, I haven’t yet taken the time to study it.”
I attempted to relax back into my chair, but nerves hadn’t untangled despite the ghosts’ reassuring responses that a major event had still occurred. If I screwed up when altering reality, the negative results would probably spring themselves on me unexpectedly, like with Hadley. Not a pleasant thought.
“That evil, evil Praedator,” Miss Prim said, sinking back down into her chair. Her gaze unfocused in memory. “Poor Jane. What happened to her?”
Damn. If anything had changed other than Hadley—and the restaurant situation, obviously—I would have preferred it being that Jane was no longer held captive. But since the bank incident had still occurred despite my manipulations, there was reason to believe Jane was also not a free woman. “Damon has her.”
Miss Prim’s gaze snapped up to meet mine. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m working on that.”
“You must get her away from them. They’re evil, and I mean… evil.”
“I understand. Detective Ross is aware of the situation and will handle it. He’s probably already contacted the coven he works with for help.”
And there popped my questions. How did Andrew know the witches… be in a position to call on them at will? How powerful were they in comparison to The Thirteen? It wasn’t the first time those thoughts had infiltrated my mind. But the analyzation had to be put on hold for later reasoning because Maude walked through the front door.
And she wasn’t a happy looking Maude.
“Why are you dressed like that while seated at my reception desk?” Her face was stretched so sternly, the color of her skin tone had faded.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Taggart. I was caught in the rain on my way here.”
“I pay you enough to afford an umbrella.”
“Again, I apologize. The weather had forecasted sun.”
“Explain to me why you’re late today. I had wanted a coffee, and you weren’t here earlier to fetch it.”
“I was at the restaurant for the Bennett dinner, meeting with Trashae.”
“Who?”
“Trashae Johnson. The wedding planner.”
“We don’t have a wedding planner. I told you to take care of everything. And where are we with Desiree’s date tonight with Brock Connelly? She has called demanding to know what she should wear.”
Shit. So far it seemed anything directly related to Trashae had changed as if the woman didn’t exist. My shoulders sagged in defeat. And now I had to address major problem number two. Number one being the no venue for the dinner next week.
Brock had shown up the previous day for his consultation with Maude… and his eyes had never left me. What should have made me feel flattered only induced panic. I wasn’t to be his focus. With the shortage of time for this pairing, Maude had a full vision during their session and named Desiree as his perfect match. Still, the man stared only at me upon leaving Maude’s office. Intent on getting my cell phone number, not Desiree’s. All attempts from me persuading him to meet with his soulmate fell on deaf ears. “I’m staring at her” the only response to the soulmate comment he had before leaving me sitting alone at my desk, wondering how the hell I would get out of this one.
Yesterday I had thought I’d still have time to convince the man I was a wrong choice, but I’d forgotten there was even a problem. Until now. When I only had six hours until the dinner hour started.
“I’m making reservations for seven at that place over on Fifth you like. I’ll make certain Mr. Connelly is there on time.”
“He’d better be.” Maude shifted on her feet, her stare turned hard. “Regarding the Bennett dinner next Friday night, why haven’t the invitations gone out? It’s a week away.”
“Save the Date cards went out a couple of weeks ago, so all guests are notified of the event. I’m having some trouble narrowing down a venue though.”
“Trouble is not allowed one week before.”
“I understand.”
“No, I do not think you do. Let me make myself clear. If anything goes wrong with this dinner, Kiara. You are fired.”
The slamming of her office door made the tense muscles lurch in my chair. I gulped back panic and refused to meet the eyes of two concerned ghosts.
Then I started a new list of every upscale restaurant and venue in town.
It was almost five o’clock, and I hadn’t been able to reach Brock Connelly. Panic… I’d never truly understood the meaning of the word until now. Neither he nor his receptionist had answered their phones all day.
I glanced to my side. Miss Prim sat rigid in her chair. Eyes darting toward the telephone every couple of minutes. Waiting, like me, to see if one of the twenty desperate messages I’d left Brock would be returned.
“I should have gone to his office.
Announce his evening plans in person,” I said to the anxious ghost. Never mind that I’d been busy all afternoon attempting to nab a location for the Bennett dinner.
“What if he has other plans tonight?” Miss Prim asked.
“Brock didn’t mention anything yesterday when I attempted to set up the date.” And he’d originally asked me out for tonight… Not that I was giving the wound-up spirit that tidbit of information. Wilcox was the only man I was allowed to mention to her in that context.
Maude’s office door opened. She appeared on its threshold. Stared. The door then shut once again, locking away the clenched-jaw, fire-breathing boss behind thick wood. Seriously, smoke was coming out of the woman’s nostrils, and I knew cigarettes weren’t involved. This routine had been ongoing for the past hour. I was so screwed.
“She only said I’m fired if the engagement dinner goes wrong, not if this date tonight doesn’t happen. Right?
Miss Prim silently shrugged and turned her wide-eyed stare back to the telephone. Concern over my employment status was one of the very few things to shut the ghost up. Worries were over a new receptionist not having the ability to hear her discussions, and Miss Prim loved talking.
The door to the suite opened, and Brock entered.
“Oh, thank God.” My heart pounded in relief, and I cast a glance at Maude’s closed door.
The man paused mid-step. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Nothing.” I stood to my feet. “I know this is last minute, Mr. Connelly, but I’ve made reservations at—”
“I’ve made reservations myself.” His lips widened into a grin.
“Oh?” I sat down and reached for the receiver to the phone. “If you’d let me know where, I’ll call Ms. Hurst with the change of plans.”
The sexy grin faltered. “Who?”
“Desiree Hurst. Your date.”
“You’re my date, Kiara.”
Ah… Yup, screwed I was. Maude with her impeccable timing chose that moment to exit her office.
Destined to Reap (Reaping Fate Book 3) Page 29
