“Heya, Momma! Sorrrrrrry. I couldn’t decide what to wear,” I said as I got in the car.
I always felt bad being late, but it was difficult to wake up and get going in the mornings after those crazy nights. My body tried to get ready for the day while my mind was stuck in the night before. I hadn’t told anyone about them. Not that I didn’t think my mom would be totally understanding—I had a feeling she would. It was just kind of weird being consumed with someone I’d never met, and telling my mom I kind of wanted to hump my dream dude was unthinkable. As I buckled, she simply stared ahead, nodding at my apology. If she was upset, I couldn’t tell. My mother wasn’t a very talkative person. She wasn’t one of those moms who would butt in at every corner. If I had a problem, she listened and gave advice, but only if I went to her first. Otherwise, she observed from afar. While it was nice to a point, it also made me wonder if she actually cared sometimes.
In fact, I often wondered why my parents bothered with having children. My father wasn’t much different than my mother, never giving advice. When I was growing up, they had always been there for the important stuff. Like plays, award ceremonies, and games. As the years passed, it seemed like they became more and more secretive. My brother, Kyle, who was twenty-eight, lived in another state. We’d never been close due to the large age difference and the fact that he only visited on holidays. Why was he so distant? Was there something about my family I didn’t know? Did it play into why I felt them growing further from me? Were we in the witness protection program?
My mind drifted to my sexy dream man as some ‘70s song played on the radio and I watched the homes on the street pass by slowly. This guy was interfering with my thoughts. I wished I knew where he came from and why I was fantasizing about him. And why did it start on my birthday? The events had to be related. I tried to recall meeting him, but I felt only confusion. I would remember meeting him, wouldn’t I?
“Olivia, dear, are you listening? We’re almost to school,” my mother was saying as I snapped back to reality.
“Oh, sorry, Mom. Just thinking about a test I have today.” I lied yet again. It seemed to get easier the less they paid attention.
She nodded. “I hope you do well. How are you feeling today? Did you sleep well? Does anything hurt?”
Turning my head, I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine, Mom.” She showed barely any interest in anything besides my health, which she was a little intrusive about lately.
We were turning in to the school parking lot, thankfully, and she cut her interrogation off. My mystery dream man would have to wait to invade my thoughts until later.
SCOTT
I hated when she had to go to school. Or just wake up for that matter. Olivia Whitehead was the woman for me, my heart, my reason for breathing, for living, and she had absolutely no idea who I was. She made my heartbeat quicken at the mere thought of her beautiful face, but she didn’t know me…not really, anyway. All she knew was the mystery man she loved to kiss in her dreams. Clenching my hand, I looked out the window, aimlessly watching a bird make a nest on the limb of a wide oak tree. If only it was time for me to meet her in her waking hours. It just couldn’t occur yet. Too many bad things would happen if I found her before October 1st, exactly six months from yesterday, her seventeenth birthday.
I am a fifth generation sorcerer, which means I’m special to my family. Each firstborn in a generation is born with a different power they specialized in, but every five years, each family’s firstborn sorcerer accumulates all the powers from the previous five years. For instance, one of my great-grandfathers, Philip Tabors, from the first generation, had the power to dream walk. That’s how I went to see Olivia. When I relaxed my mind and body, my spirit would go to her. She thought she was simply dreaming, but our spirits were in fact visiting. All sorcerers can do magic, but the specialty powers are stronger and more complex for the firstborn sorcerers they belong to. My Grandma specialized in healing, meaning she could practically bring the dead back to life, and while my sister, Sadie, also had the ability, she wasn’t quite as powerful in it because it wasn’t her specialized power. She specialized in potions and charms, mixing and creating concoctions many others would be envious of. Every sorcerer specializes in specific areas of sorcery, but fifth generation sorcerers are the most powerful of them all.
When I was ten years old, all of my powers hit me. My awakening, the magical change, as the elders liked to call it. I remember it like it was yesterday. I woke up on my birthday, and as I stood, the power flowed through me, charging and bubbling my blood. My hand tingled as I lifted it in front of me and watched the glow of power as it consumed me. I was ten, so naturally, I attempted to blow stuff up and my father came flying in the room, chuckling when he saw the shattered dresser. “Your mother isn’t going to be happy about that,” he’d said, shaking his head as he waved his hand in front of it and pieced it all back together. It was the point I realized our whole family was special, and not just me.
We’d gone to my grandma’s then, him antsy and excited like a kid eating cake. My mom and grandma waited on the porch, both glowing with excitement while my younger siblings played in the front yard. I watched them running around, wondering why we hadn’t noticed any differences before. How could my family have been so magnificently different and I only now, thinking back, saw it? The mysterious way things appeared and disappeared, how Grandma always got to our house really quick, the way my parents always looked so much younger than my friend’s parents. Everything was clear, like finally getting glasses after years of not seeing anything but blurs.
My father rushed me out of the car, and we’d all hugged and excitedly spoke before they told me everything. We went inside, where they all sat around me at the old oak table in the kitchen, looking at me like I had won the lottery, and explained who I was, what we did, how it worked. It’d taken years to learn the basics, but I was a quick study and excelled at our talents.
Ten years later, I had complete control of my powers, and I’d found the woman I was destined to be with.
She just didn’t know this, and couldn’t until October.
There was a curse on anyone in my family who fell in love. Apparently my first generation grandpa really pissed off another sorcerer, and since then, we’ve all had to pay. As sorcerers, we can sense the person we are supposed to be with the rest of our lives the moment we see them. Our heart mates, as we call them. But because of this curse, we couldn’t let them fall in love with us “under any moon two quarters before their legal birthday.” The first time I heard this, I laughed hysterically before realizing my parents were serious. It hadn’t bothered me when I was a younger teen, cause really, who thinks about love then? I chased girls for the fun of it, but the moment I saw Livvie, everything changed. The complete and total feeling of consumption as my breath was taken from me was overwhelming, yet beautiful. I’d known nothing about her in those moments, but I did know I wanted no harm to ever come to her.
I found a loophole around the curse with one of my five specialized powers, dreamwalking. As a fifth generation, I had a lot of tricks up my sleeves, and I was more than willing to use any and all necessary. I could still see Olivia without breaking any rules. If the rule was broken, my love would die on her eighteenth birthday. So I had to be careful…very careful.
Table of Contents
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OLIVIA
SCOTT
Scornful Sadie (Dark Sorceress Trilogy Book 1) Page 19
