Lela, still in wolf form, had walked down beside me until we reached the car, making sure I didn’t fall. After we verified that we would all survive, I eased myself into the front passenger seat, then turned to acknowledge her. She licked my hand, the one attached to my unbroken arm. I gave her a pat on the head before she turned and disappeared into the darkness of the woods.
With everybody loaded into the car, it was time I got to the hospital to have my arm examined. I was also healing a lot more quickly than I should have been, and Jason was worried that my broken bone would re-knit itself before a doctor could set it. I was able to convince Allison that she should get checked out as well, she was after all, only human.
We drove back down, reeking of smoke. No one seemed to know what to say. What do you say after a kidnapping, a supernatural battle, and a murder or two?
“I smelled the gas, but how did you guys light Dan on fire?” Allison asked.
No one was answering. I sighed. “It was me.”
“You mean . . . ”
“Yeah, my demon powers strike again,” I said bitterly.
“You weren’t the one who killed him Xoe,” Max interrupted.
“I set him on fire and he burned to death. Yeah, I’d say I killed him.”
“I got him with the gasoline,” Max explained. “Don’t blame yourself.”
I didn’t answer. I appreciated Max’s valiant gesture, trying to take the blame, but I knew otherwise. It was my fire that had killed him, even if Max’s gasoline had helped. I didn’t really feel guilty; he totally had it coming. It was more the lack of guilt that was bugging me. I was already struggling with my loss of humanity in finding out about my heritage. Now I felt less human than ever.
We pulled into the hospital parking lot a little after 2:00 am. Our absolutely genius cover story was that Allison and I had fallen down the stairs in the house. Whatever . . . it would work. If anyone asked about our unpleasant odor, we’d play dumb. Smelling bad wasn't a crime. Allison and I got out of the car and headed into the hospital. Jason was going to get Lucy back home. If her kidnapping had woken her parents up we would have a lot of explaining to do. We’d just have to hope for the best.
Allison and I got signed in at the front desk of the emergency waiting room. They insisted on calling our parents since we were both minors. Our moms were on their way, though it would take my mom several hours, seeing as she had to come from Washington. The doctor called me in first, deeming my injury the more serious one. My arm was in fact broken, my ulna to be more exact. The wonderful, wonderful doctor gave me pain medication and went about setting my arm and cleaning the various scrapes on my arms and back.
I went back into the waiting room, fresh plaster cast on my arm, to find Allison and her mom waiting. Her mom peered at me with honey brown eyes disdainfully. My mom was still absent.
“What’s your prognosis?” I asked Allison, trying to ignore the less than happy look her mom was directing at me.
“Some pretty major bruises, got a few stitches, other than that I got off pretty easy. The Doctor gave me some pain meds.” Allison was acting like nothing was wrong, but the way she avoided direct eye contact with me gave her away.
With that Allison’s mom stood and whipped her blonde hair in a perfect imitation of Allison, or maybe Allison’s was an imitation of her mother, and they left me alone in the waiting room.
The hospital had decided that they weren’t going to release me until my mom came to pick me up. Gre-at. I sat down in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and prepared to wait.
Several hours later, my mom gently woke me up. A word of advice, never sleep in plastic chairs. I hurt everywhere, of course, that was probably mostly from the beating I had taken. She hustled me out to her car where I instantly fell back asleep. The next thing I knew I was in my bed. I didn’t remember getting home. A dark form was seated in a chair next to my bed. Noticing that I was awake, the form stood to hover over me. Jason’s face came into focus.
“Lucy?” I mumbled.
“We got her home safe. Her parents never even woke up, apparently our luck held.”
I tried to nod, but stopped because it hurt. “It’s over?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, sitting on the bed beside me. “I can leave town now, and let you get back to your life. Max will be here to help Lucy. But . . . if you want me to stay, I can,” he hesitated, “at least for the time being.”
I didn't take a moment to think about it. “Stay,” I mumbled before slipping back into darkness.
Chapter Twenty
SUNLIGHT STREAMING IN through my window woke me. Jason was still sitting in his chair. I felt miraculously better. Maybe being a half-demon wouldn’t be so bad. The extra healing power sure didn’t suck.
“Morning,” I said, turning my head towards Jason.
“Morning.”
I looked at the dirt on my visible skin. I scrunched my nose. “I’m gonna shower.”
Jason smiled. “I was going to recommend that.”
I gave Jason a dirty look, then went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. My mom had left a wad of plastic shopping bags and a roll of masking tape next to my sink for putting over my cast while I showered. I turned on the water to let it get hot while I bagged up my arm. When I was sealed up and ready to go, I slipped off last night’s clothes and stepped under the stream of steamy water.
The water that sped toward the drain was tinted with dirt. Ick. I would need to wash my sheets today. I started to one-handedly lather shampoo in my hair and could no longer avoid my thoughts. Lucy was a werewolf. There was a vampire waiting in my bedroom. I was part demon. I had killed someone.
I let the water stream over my face to wash away my silent tears. I didn’t know why I was crying. I felt numb. We were all safe now. We had all gotten out alive. That was what mattered. I clung to that thought in order to drown out everything else.
I finished cleaning all of the dirt off of me then turned off the water. I wrapped my fluffy purple towel around me and stepped out of the shower. I cleared a circle in the condensation on my mirror. I expected to look pale and fragile, like I had many mornings recently. Though I did have some serious circles under my eyes, I didn’t look fragile. I looked, and felt, strong. We had won.
As I finished my reverie in the mirror I turned to survey the bathroom, realizing that I had forgotten to grab a change of clothes. I re-wrapped my towel tightly around me and opened the door to my bedroom. Jason very carefully avoided looking at me while I shuffled through my closet looking for something to wear. I didn’t really care if he saw me in a towel, but I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.
I grabbed the deep red, long-sleeved shirt that Allison had picked out for me and one of the few pairs of non-holey jeans from my closet, went to my dresser to get underwear, then went back into my bathroom to change. I had some difficulty pulling my casted arm through my shirtsleeve, but finally managed. I left the sleeve scrunched up to my elbow above the cast. Jason was standing by the window looking outside when I came back out.
“I better go talk to my mom,” I said.
“Do you want me to leave?” He asked, without taking his gaze from the window.
“No, I’ll be back up in a sec.” I left my room and gently shut the door, then trudged downstairs to face the music.
I expected my mom to be mad at having to cut her trip short to bail me out of the hospital, but she was all sympathy. She had actually baked blueberry muffins while waiting for me to wake up. She ran up and hugged me as soon as I came down the stairs, then hustled me to the table. There was already a coffee mug waiting for me and she went into the kitchen to grab the muffins and the coffee pot. She set the pot beside my cup and set a blue ceramic plate with three gargantuan muffins on it in front of me.
“Umm, am I expected to eat all of those?” I asked sarcastically while filling up my mug with coffee.
Ignoring my question, my mom sat down across from me. “So, I’ve been think
ing, maybe I shouldn’t go out of town so often anymore?”
“Why?” I asked, mouth full of muffin.
“You broke your arm and I wasn’t here!” she shouted, then covered her mouth in surprise at her reaction.
“Wooaah,” I said, waving my good arm in a calming gesture. “It’s not that big a deal.” I held up my casted arm. “It’ll be good as new in no time.”
“And how did it happen that Jason was around at two in the morning to take you and Allison to the hospital?”
“Um, we called him? Duh.”
“Yeah, likely story,” my mom said, smiling. “If boys are gonna be hanging around, we need to lay down some rules.”
I groaned at the mention of rules.
“First,” she began, “I will be informed whenever you will be spending time outside of school with a boy. Second, when said boy is involved there will be a 9:00 curfew.”
This elicited another groan from me.
“And finally,” she went on, “know that you can always talk to me about anything pertaining to boys or otherwise. Now eat your muffins.”
Unable to help my smile I obliged, and took another enormous bite. Mmm, muffins. Nice, normal, non-portentous muffins.
I went back up to my room to talk to Jason. As I walked into my room I saw that Jason had returned to sitting in my desk chair. He looked up from my copy of On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. I walked over to my bed and plunked down. Jason looked at me expectantly.
“Sooo,” I began, “we haven’t heard anything from Lucy or Al since last night?”
“I have not,” he answered. “Perhaps you should try calling them?”
“No. I dunno, I guess I’m afraid they won’t answer.”
Jason’s face scrunched up in confusion.
I elaborated, “Allison wouldn’t meet my eyes the whole time we were at the hospital, and Lucy never even spoke to me after what happened with Dan. It felt like . . . like they were afraid of me.”
I could feel cursed tears welling up yet again. I kept my eyes very wide, trying to prevent them from falling. I didn’t want to cry anymore. You would think I would have run out of tears by now.
Jason sat on the bed and wrapped his arms around me. My last thread of restraint dissolved and tears fell in hot streams down my face. Jason held me while I spilled what were hopefully the last of my tears for the situation. We ended up laying on my bed, dirty sheets and all, facing each other. Jason’s greater height put his head a little above mine.
Eventually my tears ran dry. He gently stroked my still-damp hair while I regained my composure. He smelled clean. He had showered at some point, but I wasn’t sure when. I thought about all that Jason had done for my friends and me. He had risked his life for us. Somewhere along the road I had gotten over the fact that he was a vampire and had killed people in the past. After all, I was a killer now too.
So I decided vampire-schmampire. I looked into his dark blue eyes, leaned in, and kissed him for all I was worth. The kiss started out soft, he hesitated slightly. I wrapped the fingers of my good hand in his hair and pulled him closer, making him give in to the moment. He put his arms around my waist and pulled me against him and kissed me like he meant it. When he gently pulled away I was left flustered and without breath. He smiled a small smile and stroked the side of my face.
“You have visitors,” he said. He gently kissed my forehead, and then, just like that, he was up and out the window. A heartbeat later there was a knock at my bedroom door.
“Come in,” I called.
The door swung open and there stood Lucy and Allison.
Allison came hobbling into my room and gently climbed onto my bed beside me, obviously still in pain from last night. “Good morning sunshine,” she said to me smiling. “Glad to see you’re looking better. Non-human healing is so unfair.”
Lucy walked over to my bed with lowered eyes, and sat down beside me. When she finally met my gaze there were tears in her almond eyes. I waited for her judgment, waited to be called a murderer, a monster.
“Thank you,” She said.
I looked a question at her.
“You saved me Xoe, you all saved me, but you most of all. None of us would be here if it weren’t for you.”
I closed my gaping jaw and grabbed Lucy in a hug. I let her go reluctantly. Allison scooted closer to the wall and I scooted to the middle of the bed, giving Lucy room to lie on my other side. We all lay there looking at the ceiling.
“So,” Allison began, “now that you’re a full-fledged half-demon and all, are you finally going to get over your hang-up about Jason’s past?”
I turned my nose up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said with a haughty air. I knew I’d eventually have to tell them about Jason and me, but for now, I could do without them making girly noises and kissy-faces at the mention of his name.
“Oh come on Xoe, he is so in love with you.”
“You know what Al?” I replied, ignoring her statement. “I think maybe you’re the demon.”
With that we all burst into laughter, and for just a moment were able to forget that our lives as we knew them had been turned completely upside-down.
Chapter Twenty-One
JASON HAD TO leave town for a few days to report back to Dan’s pack and get whatever they were supposed to pay him, and to fill out some forms of all things. I didn’t ask how much he was getting; however much they gave him, it wasn’t enough. He has since returned to Shelby and he’s staying, at least for now. He got himself a nifty apartment and everything. I’m pretty ecstatic about it, though I’ll never admit it out loud. The whole dating thing is kinda new territory to me, but I seem to be doing okay. I finally had to tell Lucy and Allison. They would have found out eventually. The teasing has been ceaseless.
Brian’s still not talking to me. I’m afraid that he never will. I can’t really blame him for not wanting to get involved. I’m sad about Brian, but at least I still have Lucy and Al . . . and Jason. Max still hangs around. He follows Al around like a lost little puppy, no pun intended. She pretends not to notice.
I’m still learning to control my powers. I’ve accidentally lit a few things on fire, but luckily nothing living. Hopefully my luck continues, not just with my powers, but with everything else. Fingers crossed.
~*~
If you enjoyed this book, please consider reading the next book in the series, “Accidental Ashes”, which can be found here:
Accidental Ashes - Sara C. Roethle
I would also love to hear your opinions, or just hear from you in general. Reviews are always encouraged, and other contact can be made through my website: http://saracroethle.com
Magic Unbound
Book One in the Fae Unbound Series
Jill Nojack
Indieheart Press
KENT, OHIO
Copyright © 2013 by Jill Nojack.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Description
Not-quite-sixteen year old Lizbet Moore expects a boring last month of summer vacation -- and she gets what she’s expecting until a fifteen hundred year old Fae named Eamon shows up in her backyard disguised as a down-on-his-luck garden gnome. When Eamon slips an ancient amulet around her neck, the memories of Lizbet’s many past lives, including her first life as Morgan Le Fae, come slamming back to her to change her summer plans in a way she could never have expected.
Forced to go on the run when murderous monks show up at the back door, Lizbet hops a plane to Scotland accompanied by Eamon, the whispering voices of her past lives, and geekily cute James, the college boy from next door. Not only does she have to dodge the monks, but she’s racing against time and greedy
land developers to prevent the entire race of the Fae from being destroyed.
The only thing Lizbet knows for sure is that if she fails and can't produce a few live fairies at the end of her journey, she is going to be grounded for life...and probably for her next life, too.
Acknowledgements
Readers familiar with the Arthurian myths will generally suppose that Arthur and his court were Welsh or British. In this novel, the Arthurian characters originate in Scotland instead. I owe the inspiration for this book to the non-fiction source Finding Merlin by Adam Ardrey, in which he goes so far as to suggest that he has found the location of Merlin's grave. That idea got my creative juices going, and my fictional novel about the fae was initially inspired by his serious research into the historical reality of Arthur and Merlin. If you are someone who enjoys reading factual research into the Arthurian myths, I recommend the book.
CHAPTER ONE
Me And Your Garden Gnome
LIZBET LOOKED UP from her book with a case of the shivers. She’d been feeling those icy fingers at the base of her spine for days now. She squinted against the sun and looked down the long backyard where the lawn ended and the woods began. She didn’t see anything threatening down there unless she counted the creeps-worthy new addition to Mom's garden gnome collection. With its shabby brown coat and flat black cap, it definitely wasn't designed to cheer you up like its red and green-suited buddies. It was pathetic—like some junkie gnome had moved into the neighborhood when the downtown gnome shelter closed. Plus, it freaked her out. Those big, unblinking, golden eyes were way too real looking.
Riot Girls: Seven Books With Girls Who Don't Need A Hero Page 15