by Linsey Hall
“I’m glad we came.” Mari sipped her Manhattan. Potions & Pastilles turned from coffee shop to bar at night, and Connor mixed a great drink.
“Same.” I sipped my martini, the clear liquid having a sharp bite. Exhaustion still pulled at me, but we’d both wanted to see our friends a bit since we’d all departed almost immediately after the battle.
I rubbed the silk of my shirt between my fingers, staring hard at it as I thought. Finally, I looked up at Mari. “Do you ever think we’re a bit too serious about our disguises? That we hide our true selves from our friends?”
Her dark eyes flashed to mine, the makeup around them perfectly applied. “What? No. Why would we tell?”
Mari’s face shifted slightly, taking on a haunted expression, as if she were remembering our time with our family. Then our time with the Order when they’d captured us and tried to use us for our power.
I shook my head. “No, you’re right. Don’t listen to me.”
She patted her ebony bouffant, clearly trying to settle herself. I sipped my drink, and a few minutes passed as I watched Connor and Claire bustle around behind the counter. The FireSouls should arrive soon.
Mari’s keen gaze met mine. “This is about Declan, isn’t it?”
I hadn’t seen him since last night, when he’d disappeared after the battle. Hadn’t heard from him either. “He might have figured us out. Given what he saw in the alley… It’s possible.”
She swallowed hard, nodding. “I know.”
“This is crazy, but I think we might be able to trust him.”
“We might not have a choice, if he’s figured it out,” Mari said. “You like him, don’t you?”
“I do. So maybe it’s wishful thinking, the idea that we can trust him.” But I’d felt it when he’d healed me.
“Either way, it’s time to stop being afraid. We’ve hidden from our family for years, but we’re badass bitches now. We can take them if we have to.” Her face hardened. “And if anyone comes for us to use us for our magic, we’ll take them too.”
Her voice trembled slightly, even though I thought she believed the words she was saying. I believed them, too. But still, it was easy to be afraid of the bogeyman from the past. We just needed to get over it.
I didn’t know what was going to happen with Declan, but I’d face it when the time came.
A few minutes later, our friends joined us. Mari and I didn’t say anything about our true natures—not yet—but I could feel that the time was probably coming. We’d never spent much social time with the FireSouls, but we should start. Having friends was nice.
After an hour, we headed home. Mari pulled her car into the side street, then we strode to the stairs leading up to our door.
When I spotted Declan sitting on the stoop, I stopped dead in my tracks. Mari grabbed my hand subtly and pulled me along.
“Hey,” she said.
I just stared at him, wondering what he was thinking.
“Hi, Mordaca,” he said.
She looked at me. “See you inside.”
I nodded. She climbed the stairs and entered the house, and I sat next to Declan, careful not to let my shoulder touch his. I didn’t know where we stood.
He turned to look at me. “You look beautiful.”
I looked down at the sleek silk pants and top. “Thanks.”
“But then, you always do.”
I smiled. “Trying to butter me up?”
“Just telling the truth.”
The weight of yesterday pressed upon me. I glanced at him, but there was nothing to be read in his expression. His dark eyes met mine.
“So, about yesterday…” I let the words trail off.
“You’re a Dragon Blood.”
Fear shivered over my skin—he knew—followed by a strange kind of relief. I hadn’t had to tell him. And there was no hiding it. Not with what he’d seen. “You figured it out.”
He nodded. “Yes. And I won’t tell anyone.”
Thank fates.
“After last night, it confirmed for me there is definitely something different about you. It’s not just my imagination. The magic that you kept creating was unusual. But the vision of you with your veins cut open, bleeding white blood. That’s what tipped me off.”
“It’s how I create permanent magic, and it was the only way to break through the demon’s defenses.”
“So, you don’t do that often? Create new magical talents, that is.”
“No. Just tiny bits of magic here and there. If I created too much, too many powers, I would draw attention to myself. My signature would change. It’d be impossible to hide how much magic I had. There’s no limit to what I can create.”
“If you wanted, you could become the most powerful Magica in the world.”
“Theoretically.”
Concern shadowed his voice. “You’d be hunted. The Order would never let someone with that power run free. Too dangerous.”
“Exactly. They caught us once, and tried to use us for our magic.” It sucked when your own government hunted you. “Which is why I’ve kept my secret so long.” I shivered. “But this time, the consequences of inaction were too great.”
“You had this plan all along.” There was something in his voice that I couldn’t interpret.
“I knew it was a possibility.”
“I’d have liked to have known the truth, but I understand.”
I looked at him. “I know. It’s dangerous when only one person knows the plan.”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry I killed the demon out from under you this time. Now that I know you take them for the High Court of the Angels, maybe I could have let you have him. But the potion that the Devyver gave us…” I shuddered at the memory. “It created a horrible connection between the demon and me. As long as he was alive, I’d feel it. I couldn’t live like that.”
“I understand.” A wry smile kicked up the corner of his mouth. “If I keep hanging around you, I might have to give up on ever getting my target.”
I looked at him, finally feeling like he was looking at me with something other than suspicion. In fact, it looked a lot like understanding. “So, you still want to hang around me?”
“I’ve never met an ice queen I liked more,” he said.
I chuckled. “But what does that mean for us? Like, dates?”
Did I have time for dates? I needed to figure out what the group in Grimrealm was up to. Why they were targeting Magic’s Bend.
“Sure. As long as I’m spending time with you, I don’t care what we call it.”
I smiled, my chest warming. “Well, I’m planning to figure out who the bastards in Grimrealm are. And stop them.”
“Sounds like a good first date.”
I smiled even more broadly. This was going better than I could have hoped. Maybe the icy side of my personality hadn’t driven off all hope of connection with anyone other than Mari.
“I’d like that.” I thought for a second. “And um, you can call me Aeri.”
“Aeri?”
“It’s my real name. Aerdeca is me, too, but it’s the public me. Aeri is the private me.”
“Aeri.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I like that.”
I looked at him and smiled. There was heat in his eyes, and it immediately ignited in my stomach.
At the same time, we leaned toward each other. His lips pressed firmly to mine, and my head swam. The heat exploded inside me as I kissed him, every inch of me lighting up with pleasure.
Declan’s lips slowed, and I pulled back.
His face was pale and tinged slightly green.
My stomach dropped. “Oh fates. Are you all right?”
“Fine.” His voice sounded rough, and he definitely looked like he was in pain.
“You’re not.” A chill of horror raced over my skin. Oh no. “The nullifying magic that I created. It’s affecting you.”
This is what Nara the PyroSeer had said back in Nottingham. When she’d bound me in f
lame and said that Declan and I would be torn apart, this had to have been what she was talking about.
“What?”
“It’s a side effect of the power I created to stop the demon. It represses the magic of anyone I touch, which makes them feel sick. Like their soul is leaving their body.”
Touching me made him feel like he was losing his soul.
Declan met my gaze, a dark understanding dawning on his face.
I drew backward. Shit.
I’d just found him, and I could never touch him again.
THANK YOU FOR READING!
I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Reviews are so helpful to authors. I really appreciate all reviews, both positive and negative. If you want to leave one, you can do so on Amazon or GoodReads.
If you’d like to learn a little more about the FireSouls (Cass, Nix, and Del), you can join my mailing list to get a free copy of Hidden Magic, a story of their early adventures. Turn the page for an excerpt.
The next book in Aeri’s series will be coming in about a month, so keep an eye out.
Excerpt Of Hidden Magic
Jungle, Southeast Asia
Five years before the events in Ancient Magic
“How much are we being paid for this job again?” I glanced at the dudes filling the bar. It was a motley crowd of supernaturals, many of whom looked shifty as hell.
“Not nearly enough for one as dangerous as this.” Del frowned at the man across the bar, who was giving her his best sexy face. There was a lot of eyebrow movement happening. “Is he having a seizure?”
“Looks like it.” Nix grinned. “Though I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this. We’re basically in a tree, for magic’s sake. In the middle of the jungle! Where are all these dudes coming from?”
“According to my info, there’s a mining operation near here. Though I’d say we’re more under a tree than in a tree.”
“I’m with Cass,” Del said. “Under, not in.”
“Fair enough,” Nix said.
We were deep in Southeast Asia, in a bar that had long ago been reclaimed by the jungle. A massive fig tree had grown over and around the ancient building, its huge roots strangling the stone walls. It was straight out of a fairy tale.
Monks had once lived here, but a few supernaturals of indeterminate species had gotten ahold of it and turned it into a watering hole for the local supernaturals. We were meeting our contact here, but he was late.
“Hey, pretty lady.” A smarmy voice sounded from my left. “What are you?”
I turned to face the guy who was giving me the up and down, his gaze roving from my tank top to my shorts. He wasn’t Clarence, our local contact. And if he meant “what kind of supernatural are you?” I sure as hell wouldn’t be answering. That could get me killed.
“Not interested is what I am,” I said.
“Aww, that’s no way to treat a guy.” He grabbed my hip, rubbed his thumb up and down.
I smacked his hand away, tempted to throat-punch him. It was my favorite move, but I didn’t want to start a fight before Clarence got here. Didn’t want to piss off our boss.
The man raised his hands. “Hey, hey. No need to get feisty. You three sisters?”
I glanced at Nix and Del, at their dark hair that was so different from my red. We were all about twenty, but we looked nothing alike. And while we might call ourselves sisters—deirfiúr in our native Irish—this idiot didn’t know that.
“Go away.” I had no patience for dirt bags who touched me without asking. “Run along and flirt with your hand, because that’s all the action you’ll be getting tonight.”
His face turned a mottled red, and he raised a fist. His magic welled, the scent of rotten fruit overwhelming.
He thought he was going to smack me? Or use his magic against me?
Ha.
I lashed out, punching him in the throat. His eyes bulged and he gagged. I kneed him in the crotch, grinning when he keeled over.
“Hey!” A burly man with a beard lunged for us, his buddy beside him following. “That’s no way—”
“To treat a guy?” I finished for him as I kicked out at him. My tall, heavy boots collided with his chest, sending him flying backward. I never used my magic—didn’t want to go to jail and didn’t want to blow things up—but I sure as hell could fight.
His friend raised his hand and sent a blast of wind at us. It threw me backward, sending me skidding across the floor.
By the time I’d scrambled to my feet, a brawl had broken out in the bar. Fists flew left and right, with a bit of magic thrown in. Nothing bad enough to ruin the bar, like jets of flame, because no one wanted to destroy the only watering hole for a hundred miles, but enough that it lit up the air with varying magical signatures.
Nix conjured a baseball bat and swung it at a burly guy who charged her, while Del teleported behind a horned demon and smashed a chair over his head. I’d always been jealous of Del’s ability to sneak up on people like that.
All in all, it was turning into a good evening. A fight between supernaturals was fun.
“Enough!” the bartender bellowed. “Or no more beer!”
The patrons quieted immediately. Fights might be fun, but they weren’t worth losing beer over.
I glared at the jerk who’d started it. There was no way I’d take the blame, even though I’d thrown the first punch. He should have known better.
The bartender gave me a look and I shrugged, hiking a thumb at the jerk who’d touched me. “He shoulda kept his hands to himself.”
“Fair enough,” the bartender said.
I nodded and turned to find Nix and Del. They’d grabbed our beers and were putting them on a table in the corner. I went to join them.
We were a team. Sisters by choice, ever since we’d woken in a field at fifteen with no memories other than those that said we were FireSouls on the run from someone who had hurt us. Who was hunting us.
Our biggest goal, even bigger than getting out from under our current boss’s thumb, was to save enough money to buy concealment charms that would hide us from the monster who hunted us. He was just a shadowy memory, but it was enough to keep us running.
“Where is Clarence, anyway?” I pulled my damp tank top away from my sweaty skin. The jungle was damned hot. We couldn’t break into the temple until Clarence gave us the information we needed to get past the guard at the front. And we didn’t need to spend too much longer in this bar.
Del glanced at her watch, her blue eyes flashing with annoyance. “He’s twenty minutes late. Old Man Bastard said he should be here at eight.”
Old Man Bastard—OMB for short—was our boss. His name said it all. Del, Nix, and I were FireSouls, the most despised species of supernatural because we could steal other magical being’s powers if we killed them. We’d never done that, of course, but OMB didn’t care. He’d figured out our secret when we were too young to hide it effectively and had been blackmailing us to work for him ever since.
It’d been four years of finding and stealing treasure on his behalf. Treasure hunting was our other talent, a gift from the dragon with whom legend said we shared a soul. No one had seen a dragon in centuries, so I wasn’t sure if the legend was even true, but dragons were covetous, so it made sense they had a knack for finding treasure.
“What are we after again?” Nix asked.
“A pair of obsidian daggers,” Del said. “Nice ones.”
“And how much is this job worth?” Nix repeated my earlier question. Money was always on our minds. It was our only chance at buying our freedom, but OMB didn’t pay us enough for it to be feasible anytime soon. We kept meticulous track of our earnings and saved like misers anyway.
“A thousand each.”
“Damn, that’s pathetic.” I slouched back in my chair and stared up at the ceiling, too bummed about our crappy pay to even be impressed by the stonework and vines above my head.
“Hey, pretty ladies.” The oily voice made my ski
n crawl. We just couldn’t get a break in here. I looked up to see Clarence, our contact.
Clarence was a tall man, slender as a vine, and had the slicked back hair and pencil-thin mustache of a 1940s movie star. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on him. Probably because his stare was like a lizard’s. He was more Gomez Addams than Clark Gable. I’d bet anything that he liked working for OMB.
“Hey, Clarence,” I said. “Pull up a seat and tell us how to get into the temple.”
Clarence slid into a chair, his movement eerily snakelike. I shivered and scooted my chair away, bumping into Del. The scent of her magic flared, a clean hit of fresh laundry, as she no doubt suppressed her instinct to transport away from Clarence. If I had her gift of teleportation, I’d have to repress it as well.
“How about a drink first?” Clarence said.
Del growled, but Nix interjected, her voice almost nice. She had the most self control out of the three of us. “No can do, Clarence. You know… Mr. Oribis”—her voice tripped on the name, probably because she wanted to call him OMB—“wants the daggers soon. Maybe next time, though.”
“Next time.” Clarence shook his head like he didn’t believe her. He might be a snake, but he was a clever one. His chest puffed up a bit. “You know I’m the only one who knows how to get into the temple. How to get into any of the places in this jungle.”
“And we’re so grateful you’re meeting with us. Mr. Oribis is so grateful.” Nix dug into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled envelope that contained Clarence’s pay. We’d counted it and found—unsurprisingly—that it was more than ours combined, even though all he had to do was chat with us for two minutes. I’d wanted to scream when I’d seen it.
Clarence’s gaze snapped to the money. “All right, all right.”
Apparently his need to be flattered went out the window when cash was in front of his face. Couldn’t blame him, though. I was the same way.
“So, what are we up against?” I asked.
