Seacursed: The Mage Circle Trilogy: 1

by L. A. McGinnis

  Which would have been awesome, except she was the Mages’ slave until the day she died.

  Refocusing, Victoria concentrated on her prey. The scarred brother she needed to drag back to London. Except there were four other people in the room who were going to make this seriously difficult. The weepy brunette who’d plastered herself to the unconscious barbarian, the nurse, flitting around doing medical shit, a glowering, bearded hulk leaning against the stainless-steel counter, and the sharp-eyed doctor whose gaze seemed to follow her around the room, even though she was clearly invisible.

  Victoria concentrated her efforts on her quarry. Although, judging from the crowd in the room, now was not the opportune time. Skirting the brunette and the hulk, Victoria wedged herself into a corner and waited. Sooner or later, scarface would have to leave the room, she’d get her opportunity and…

  Victoria checked her watch.

  She’d be back in London with at least nineteen hours to spare. Easy-peasy.

  To pass the time, and out of habit, she surveilled the room. High-end medical equipment with all the bells and whistles. Top-of-the-line weapons. Both meant they spared no expense. Plus, the place was a veritable fortress. Some sort of magical military setup, by the looks of it, and a well-organized one. These people were warriors, though, since everyone in the room was in tiptop physical form. Hard to say what the Mages wanted the guy with the scar for, but she sure didn’t envy him.

  Victoria picked up her feet as the doctor rolled over and reached out for the drawer she was perched on top of. He pulled out some sort of medical apparatus she was happy wouldn’t be used on her and slammed the drawer shut. For a while, she just watched, the brother with the scar in obvious distress as his twin lay there, pale and unresponsive. The doctor struggling to revive him. The brunette extra-weepy and emotionally distraught. The hulk not giving a shit about the whole business but still fascinated, all the same.

  Victoria’s gift played like a cool breeze, circulating, touching them all, reading them effortlessly. Their emotions, their feelings, their thoughts. Everyone’s except the one who was asleep under her spell. But he hardly mattered, although she kicked herself again for being stupid enough to mix the two of them up.

  Except they did look remarkably alike.

  Dark-haired with aristocratic faces, they were both broadly built for fighting. Solid muscle, from the looks of it, and for a moment, she was glad she had her little bag of magical tricks. The only difference was the color of their eyes. Her target’s eyes were a pale grey, while the one she’d accidently captured had glared up at her with eyes the color of good whiskey.

  She was just reaching downward into the scarred twin to dig a bit deeper, probing, trying to find a weakness to exploit, when a giant, meaty hand closed around her arm like a vise. And Victoria found herself staring up into the unforgiving face of the hulk.

  “Clever trick, following them here. Camouflaging yourself with magic. Took me a few minutes to figure it out,” the dark-eyed doctor told her, rolling closer in his chair as the hand holding her tightened painfully, cutting off her circulation. “Funny thing about the brain.”

  The guy on the gurney sat up and shot her look of complete hatred.

  “So many things can be faked, if you know how to do it. And so many things can be fixed, if you know what you’re looking for.” He offered gurney guy a faint smile and a nod. “Thanks, Lucas. I wasn’t sure you’d have the patience to stay still for that long.”

  The dark-haired brute—Lucas—swung his legs over and yanked off the leads going to his head and chest with a single tug. “No problem, Doc. I wanted to see how far she’d go.” He narrowed his eyes at her, and now, there was no mistaking the hatred that glowed brightly in them. “But I draw the line at allowing you to poke around in my brother’s head, bitch.”

  Victoria’s insides caved. She’d never been caught. Ever. Not in all her life.

  She calmed herself with the knowledge that this was just a glitch, and she had an emergency exit strategy. Somehow, after she escaped them, she’d use the nearest gate and make it back to London. Perhaps the Mages wouldn’t kill her. Not outright, anyway. Surely they’ll need me for another job, she thought frantically, her brain a scramble of panic and frenzied panic.

  She gritted her teeth and pushed her magic. Willing herself to disappear.

  Nothing happened.

  The bearded hulk holding on to her must have sensed her disbelief, because he leaned in and growled, “That’s right, little fairy, your magic doesn’t work in here.”

  Victoria swung her eyes over to the scarred brother, because oddly enough, he was the only one in the room whose face showed any sign of sympathy.

  The one called Lucas stood. Towered, was more like it. Without her magical arsenal, Vic felt like the smallest person in the room. And from the maelstrom of fury whirling around her, she figured she’d better come up with an explanation pretty damn fast.

  She opened her mouth. Lucas tilted his head and bared his teeth.

  She shut her mouth pretty damn fast.

  “Smart girl,” Lucas growled. “Here’s what’s going to happen. It’s your lucky day. Or not. See, it’s not up to any of us what happens to you. Not even me, although I have a few ideas. You have five minutes to get your explanation straight, because that’s how long it’ll take us to get you upstairs. Once you’re in front of Rhiannon, well…” His eyes glowed with an unholy light. “Who knows what might happen? She’s been in a mood lately. Just ask anyone.” The glowering hulk nodded in agreement.

  Rhiannon? Victoria thought. The actual Rhiannon is here in New York?

  Before she had time to fully digest that development, she was jerked off the counter, barely landing on her feet. It didn’t escape Victoria’s notice that the only person who looked as if he’d be any kind of an ally was scarface, although if she did come clean about why she was here, that sentiment would vanish quickly.

  Lucas hadn’t lied about the five minutes. He was right to the second—she counted to three hundred as her feet crossed the threshold. They dragged her into a sumptuous chamber, filled to overflowing with paisley, overstuffed furniture and flattering lighting. In the center of the patterned chaos lounged the Fae goddess. Feline and cunning, there wasn’t a sympathetic, compassionate bone in the immortal being’s body. And as soon as she met those cunning emerald eyes, Victoria quailed. There was no backup plan, no cavalry charging into save her. Nope. It was just her. A disposable tool. With less than a day to live.

  Because if Victoria didn’t make it back to London, if she didn’t cross the threshold of Obsidian Hall and appear in front of the council before her allotted time was up? The death spell they’d put on her would kick in and she’d be toast.

  Rhiannon smiled, her canines sharp and white, framed by luscious red lips. Her green eyes promised death; her smile promised it would be slow.

  Victoria smiled back.

  Because, all of a sudden, none of it mattered.

  Whether this goddess killed her, or the Mages, or Lucas, or the bearded hulk holding her arm in his death grip, none of it mattered anymore. The thin bands around her wrists felt especially heavy as she drew herself up.

  She was fucking sick and tired of being a tool. And a disposable tool at that.

  Victoria was right in the middle of deciding which way she was going out—either by tearing her arm free and making a break for it, or diving straight for the red-haired goddess’s throat—when a measured, calm voice behind her stopped her cold.

  “I think you should give the girl a chance to explain, Rhiannon. She is, after all, your niece.”

  7

  With those words, Victoria’s feet became glued to the floor.

  Her mouth still worked just fine, though. “What? Niece? What are you talking about?” Even the hand on her arm loosened enough for her to turn and look at the scarred twin. “You can’t possibly know that. You have no idea who I am, where I’m from…”

  “Perhaps not, but I
can sense your ancestry, and you are directly descended from the Tuatha De Danann.” He nodded in the goddess’s direction. “As is she. Which means the two of you are related.”

  Seriously?

  Rhiannon snapped her mouth shut. “I’ll have you know, Kieran, I killed most of those assholes back in the day. And I won’t hesitate to kill this one, either. Sneaking in here, intent on gods knows what. Besides, she leashed your precious twin with magic and knocked him out cold. I’d think that would piss you off.”

  Although Kieran didn’t respond, Lucas’s deep growl echoed from behind Victoria. She didn’t turn around, keeping her gaze focused on the immortal in front of her. Rhiannon was a slim column of white flesh topped by a crown of hair so red it glowed. Ears that screamed Fae, and with those canines…

  “You truly are?” God help her, Victoria couldn’t keep the awe from her voice. “You’re one of the Danann?”

  Rhiannon ignored the question while she gave the air a delicate sniff. “Three questions. Lie to me and I’ll end you.” Her gaze turned predatory. “Who sent you after us?”

  Vitoria was no fool. She knew how this worked. She’d give up everything and then they’d kill her anyway. “We won’t,” Kieran whispered in her ear. “We won’t kill you. Not unless you lie. Or we deem you a threat. Your best option right now is to answer her true. Unless you do really want to die?”

  The admission grated out of her like sandpaper: “The Mages.”

  Victoria hadn’t expected any reaction at all. For all of humanity—and most of the magical world—the Mage Circle simply didn’t exist. They were like a double-double secret fraternity that hid in the shadows. Truth was, you never wanted to know they existed. Because if you did, it meant you somehow ran afoul of them and your days were numbered, or worse.

  No one was as surprised as Victoria when everyone in the room froze at her admission.

  “You have got be freaking kidding me. We should kill her right now.” The brunette shoved up beside her, looking furious. “What are you?” There was a pause, and then her face paled. “You aren’t a…Tracker, are you?” When Victoria’s face didn’t change, the woman said, “Shit, she’s a goddamned Tracker.”

  “Who were you pursuing?” Rhiannon prowled forward. Behind her, Victoria felt the others closing in, the back of her neck exposed. Ah, so this was how it ended. Hopefully, they’d make it quick.

  “The one with the scar on his face. The one you call Kieran.”

  In the blink of an eye, Rhiannon appeared right in front of her. “Why do the Mages want him?”

  Victoria looked steadily into Rhiannon’s unforgiving face. “I have no earthly idea.” She wasn’t lying. It wasn’t like the assholes had told her their plans. She was a slave, for fuck’s sake. Not privy to the inner workings of the Mage Circle. Just an unwilling tool to hunt down quarry. Her one and only job was to bring prisoners in. Once she delivered them to Obsidian Hall and the Circle, her part in their charade was done.

  Closing her eyes, Victoria waited for the final blow, praying it would be decisive.

  “What do you mean…slave?” Lucas asked, circling until he drew up beside Rhiannon. He put a staying hand on the Fae goddess’s arm. The brutish, bearded barbarian she’d captured, who shouldn’t be able to penetrate her carefully guarded thoughts, had totally gotten inside her head. “And if you can get in and out of the Obsidian Hall, does that mean you could get one of us inside?” She practically heard the machinations of his scheming.

  Keeping her face as expressionless as possible, Victoria turned to him, searching his dark eyes for a clue as to how he’d gotten past her defenses so easily. “Stay out of my head. And no, I cannot get you past the Mages’ wards. You’d have to be completely bound by magic to breach the walls of Obsidian Hall. As well as my prisoner, which would be suicide. And you don’t look stupid to me.”

  “Looks are deceiving,” Rhiannon retorted, setting her hands on her hips as she internally debated…something. Then a big, evil smile spread across her face before she clapped her hands together. “Are you all thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Pretty sure we are,” Lucas said, grabbing Victoria’s arm. She tried to shake him off, tired of being dragged around, but the bastard was tenacious. “You’re coming with me, and I’ll fill you in on what you are going to do for us.”

  She was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen, but allowed herself to be dragged down the hallway, if it let her dodge death for another few moments. She felt the weight of Rhiannon’s stare every step of the way. Whoever these people were, whatever this job was, the Mages had lied to her. Or, at the very least, withheld enough information to turn it into a suicide mission.

  Kieran trailed behind them, Victoria stumbling to keep up with Lucas’s much longer strides. Through a labyrinth of tight hallways, down echoing stairwells, through myriad empty chambers, and then she was shoved unceremoniously into a room with no windows, the only door the one currently blocked by one very large, pissed-off man. Kieran took up position along one wall, a look of vague curiosity on his face. She fleetingly wondered about the scar, then turned her full attention on…

  “Lucas, right?” Sizing him up, Victoria took her time on this pass, since she wasn’t ghosting him through time and space. Or holding a noose of magic strangling him half to death. A good bit north of six three, he was built like a linebacker: wide, strong shoulders, his muscular torso narrowing down to a small waist. He was a handsome creature, but damn, it was those blazing eyes she kept coming back to, as if he had a banked fire simmering inside him. “Look, I can’t get you in,” she told him. “Even if I could, once you’re inside, you’re as good as dead. That’s my job, bringing in bounties for the Mages. They tag them; I bag them.”

  Still, the guy just stared her down, eyes glowing. Victoria cast a look over at his brother.

  “You seem like the reasonable one. Tell him. This is a stupid idea.”

  “It’s a stupid idea, Luc.” A smile quirked the corner of Kieran’s mouth, the scar pulling a little bit with the movement. “Almost funny, isn’t it, how she has us both pegged at first sight?”

  8

  A goddamned Tracker.

  A goddamned Tracker was here in New York, and she was after Kieran, for fuck’s sake.

  If he loved his brother, and he did, Lucas should kill her and kill her now. If only to protect him. Except they’d only send someone else. Someone…

  Not quite so beautiful.

  Alluring. Lucas narrowed his eyes on the goddamned bitch they’d sent to bring his brother back to them. Dressed simply in dark leathers, she had some sort of metal bangles around each wrist, a diving watch she kept incessantly checking, but no visible weapons. But weapons were not something she needed. Every inch of her was a weapon. Every inch of her meant to trick, to trap, to seduce. A slight wisp of a thing, all blonde and willowy, barely a hint of color to her except for those big, expressive blue-green eyes.

  And the fucking Mage Circle. The bastards had been running things in the magical world their way—the wrong way—for eons. They were unethical. Tainted. Evil. Once, Kieran had tried to put an end to their corruption by taking out the wizard behind the organization. Luc’s attention drifted back over to his brother’s mangled face. That attempt to expose their crimes had ended badly, to say the least.

  Yet somehow, Luc had the feeling this went far beyond that little dustup a century ago.

  “Timeline?”

  His question seemed to shake the blonde out of her reverie. “I had forty-eight hours. Now I’m down to about eighteen. Give or take.” Her accent was British, lilting, a delicate, formal play of syllables and tone. Not what he was used to here, in New York, where most came from the boroughs, or the Midwest. Even he and Kieran had lost their accents long go.

  Lucas calculated the risks as Kieran’s steady grey eyes met his. They’d been searching for a way back inside that black fortress for years. A way to pay the bastards back for what they’d taken from them. From K
ieran, especially.

  “Don’t do this, Luc. She’s right. It’s suicide,” Kieran warned him. “Let the past be the past.”

  Except Luc couldn’t. He couldn’t, not when it stared him in the face every single day, that long, wavering scar on his brother’s face. This was Luc’s way in. And once he was inside, the bastards were going to pay.

  “You can get me inside? That’s all I need you for.”

  It took her a moment, but she nodded slowly. “I can. But your face needs to be different if you hope to get inside those walls.” Her gaze swung to Kieran, then back to him. “The Mages know what he looks like. His file…”

  They had files on Kieran? Of course they did.

  “I’ll take care of it.” Lucas kept his voice emotionless. Unbidden, his eyes slid over his brother’s face again, his gut clenching, even while Kieran’s face remained expressionless, his gaze fixed on the Tracker.

  “There’s more.” She tilted her head, took Luc in with an expression he couldn’t place. Was it pity? Or was there more to it? Something that might be understanding danced in her eyes, beneath the darkness, beneath the emptiness. “When I bring you before them, you must be leashed. That means you’ll be helpless, at my mercy. And at theirs. There is no way around this. The wards on the building ensure every living thing that goes in and out is controlled by their magic. No exceptions.”

  “What about you?” Kieran’s voice, with its usual, reasonable, calm tone, seemed to resonate. “Are Trackers under their control as well?”

  She hesitated for only a second before answering, after the barest glance down at her watch. “The Mages have other means of controlling Trackers. They don’t need to leash me with magic.”