The Shadows and Sorcery Collection
Page 55
Dajia stepped around her. The woman stared blankly at the sky, struggling to catch her breath. Her eyebrows had been singed off by the flame.
Eli slipped an arm around Dajia’s shoulders and leaned heavily against her, hissing with pain. She cast the spell to mask their scents and led him to the dome where Jove waited to pull them to safety.
Before he closed the door, the big guy turned to Dajia. “Do we go after the last one?”
Dajia didn’t have a chance to even open her mouth.
“No,” Eli said, a cough wracking his body. “She’s a traitor. Let the ravagers have her.”
The woman was strangely silent beneath her pile of monsters.
Epilogue
The bell rang, indicating the end of last period.
Dajia jumped, startled. She’d been so deep in her first period students’ midterm papers on medieval literature, she hadn’t realized the hour had passed her by.
“Time’s up, guys!” she called cheerfully. “Turn in your quizzes and pencils. Enjoy Solstice break, and I’ll see you in January.”
Dajia shared brief words with every student as they placed their quizzes on her desk. Lana Devoe gave her a potted flower she’d grown in her father’s greenhouse. Candace Flint gave her a baby booty ornament she’d crocheted herself. It looked a little smooshed, but Dajia loved it. The baby kicked his agreement in her abdomen.
Liam sidled up last and added his paper to the pile. He would get a hundred; he always did. The kid was a steel trap. He placed another ornament on her desk—a tiny replica of her father’s rose-quartz wand.
“Since the real thing is doing such an awesome job of protecting us, I thought maybe you’d like to have a memory of it to hang on your solstice tree.”
Dajia bit back tears. Of happiness, not sadness. Since the day the sector had nearly fallen, she’d seen nothing but happiness.
“How are your classes going at the academy?” Dajia asked him, surreptitiously wiping away the moisture in her eyes. She blamed the baby. He stole her ability to function properly without blubbering.
Liam’s boyish face lit up. “Awesome! What about you?”
In the same ceremony, a month after the final breach, Dajia, Liam, and the rest of their makeshift coven were formally Wanded and Recorded in a big, public party. The rest of the forgotten came out of the darkness in the weeks after, and Sector 14 had unified even stronger than before the purge.
Now, the prejudice had gone. Witches and humans had begun to mingle, buying houses in the same neighborhood, forming friendships across the magickal barrier.
Most of the destruction had healed: physically and emotionally.
“Awesome, too,” Dajia told Liam. “I learned a couple new things we’ll go over at—”
The door opened, interrupting her words, and Eli poked his head inside. “Hey, princess. You done?”
She smiled at her husband and shoved the rest of the midterm papers and quizzes into her bag before she snapped the buckle shut. “I was just finishing up,” she told him.
Liam waved. “Hey, Eli—I mean, hello, High Regent!”
“Hey, Liam. You coming to the game on Saturday? I need a good batter, and you’re it, kid.” Eli came all the way into the room. He wore black pants and a gray sweater that buttoned over his shoulder. His hair had grown longer; ebony strands brushed the collar of his sweater now. Dajia liked it. Not because it looked good on him, which it did, but because it gave him comfort. It helped him feel like he’d shed the last of his resemblance to his father.
Liam grinned. “Better believe it. We’re gonna beat the pants off the Satellites.”
“The Stars are the best team,” Dajia added with a fond smile for the boy. “I’ll see you Friday night at the Coven meeting?”
“Wouldn’t miss it. Not even for baseball.” Liam waved and slung his backpack over his shoulder as he left the classroom.
Eli hefted Dajia’s bag and kissed her, long and deep. “Have a good day?”
“The best.” She held up the baby booty.
His brow crinkled. “Is that a ball of tangled yarn?”
She punched his shoulder. “It will be adorable on our tree.”
She had pocketed the tiny rose quartz wand, and she didn’t feel a need to share it with Eli yet. Her fingers grazed the sleek ornament, the way she had once reached into her pocket for the comfort of her father’s wand. That part of Dajia existed in a different world, and that world was long gone.
But she had come to terms with that.
She opened her desk drawer and extracted her wand. A wand that contained a piece of her soul. The mouthpiece of her magick, which as she came to find out, was just as pure silver as her husband’s.
“Are you sure it’s okay I won’t be there for the game?” Dajia asked as they left the school.
Eli kissed her hairline and slipped an arm around her waist. His warmth helped against the chill of a northern December. “Charlie and Clark’s wedding is more important than a silly ballgame. Plus—” he tickled the growing bulb of her belly, “—our little guy doesn’t need to be out in the cold.”
They passed the Academy of Magickal Sciences. Dajia waved to some of her students, who grinned and shouted, “Mrs. Pierce! Come in! Come see us!”
She laughed and waved them off. She’d see them tomorrow when she went to teach literature at the Academy. The two schools were connected now. Dajia taught classes at each.
And the tall, iron fence that had once been closed to Dajia had been removed completely.
Eli helped Dajia over a patchy bit of ice on the sidewalk, and they strolled arm in arm across the Palace Green. Turner met them at the front door with his quirky grin and a joke. Dajia smiled at the regulator who closed the door behind them. When he smiled back, she could see it, because masks were no longer part of the uniform.
She and Eli had both lost so much. But Dajia didn’t dwell on that anymore, because they had each other, and that was enough to take the road ahead of them.
To live, and love, and make magick.
To raise their child in a place where he could be accepted for everything he was.
To continue the path of restoration for Sector 14 and rewrite history their way.
There are two more books in the Shadows & Sorcery collection! Don’t miss SORDID DEPTHS and IMPERFECT BLOOD, available now!
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Shadows & Sorcery
Do you love strong heroines and heroes? Do you live for dark paranormal storylines and LOTS of magic? What about dystopian worlds where every day is a struggle to survive?
Don’t miss the awesome books in the Shadows & Sorcery series!
Shadow Touched
Demon’s Envy
Forgotten
Sordid Depths
Imperfect Blood
Heather has a backlist of books more than forty titles long! For a full break-down of her works, visit heathermarieadkins.com/books
About the Author
HEATHER MARIE ADKINS writes too much but still too little. She also has too many cats, not enough tequila, and a torrid love affair with procrastination.
Heather resides in southern Indiana with a sarcastic husband who is entirely too dependent on puns. When she’s not plotting her next story or herding felines, she's researching the spookier aspects of history for her podcast, Historically Weird.
Find out more about her at heathermarieadkins.com.
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