by S. A. Beck
She smiled and closed her eyes again.
After a minute she heard someone calling out, “Sunscreen! Beach blankets! Frisbees! Sunscreen! Beach blankets! Frisbees!”
It was one of the many local teens who worked on the beach selling things to tourists. A Frisbee would be nice. She got up on one elbow, spotted the teen not far off, and waved to him.
He looked about seventeen, a lanky kid in Bermuda shorts and a faded t-shirt. He was dark-skinned like most locals, but as he approached she noticed that he had wide Asian features and sparkling blue eyes.
She also noticed that he was very, very cute.
“I’d like a Frisbee,” she called out.
He came up to her and smiled.
“You have blue eyes like me,” he said.
“What’s your name?”
“Noah.”
“Look around you, Noah.”
He did, his jaw dropping as several pairs of blue eyes looked back at him from wide, dark faces.
“Whoa.”
“Where’s your family, Noah?” Jaxon asked.
His face fell. “I grew up in an orphanage. I don’t have a family.”
Jaxon patted the towel. “Yes you do, and it’s right here. How about you sit down and we’ll talk.”
Noah inclined his head. “With a pretty girl like you, I’d be happy to sit all day.”
The teen sat down, and Jaxon began to tell him things that would change his life forever.
Read an action-packed trilogy from S.A. Beck:
Demons, rogue angels, and corrupt agents from the Ministry of Occult Affairs... Can a teenage girl save the world?
When Ines Salgado woke up for school, she never dreamed she’d have to kill a demon in her own kitchen. Her family is gone, and a handsome angel named Rumiel has fallen down to earth outside her door…
Read an excerpt of Blood Magic, Book 1 of The Mage’s Daughter, at the end of this book!
About the Author
S.A. Beck lives in sunny California. When she’s not surfing, knitting or daydreaming in a hammock, she’s writing novels.
Drop her a note about what you think of her books at [email protected]
www.sabeckbooks.com
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All Books by S.A. Beck
The Atlantis Saga (7-book series)
Book 1: The Atlantis Girl
Book 2: The Atlantis Allegiance
Book 3: The Atlantis Gene
Book 4: The Atlantis Secret
Book 5: The Atlantis Origins
Book 6: The Atlantis Guard
Book 7: The Atlantis Ascent
* * *
The Mage’s Daughter Trilogy
Book 1: Blood Magic
Book 2: Angel Magic
Book 3: Demon Magic
Excerpt from “Blood Magic”
The front door banged against the wall as Ines ran into the street, knife still in hand. She had no idea what to expect, but when she’d woken up that morning, she hadn’t expected to have to kill a demon in her kitchen. She was determined to be ready for whatever dark horrors faced her.
What she saw could hardly have been lighter or less horrific.
A young man was lying on the pavement at the end of Ines’s drive.
He was dressed from head to toe in white: white sneakers, white cargo pants, white sleeveless T-shirt that showed off the well-defined muscles of his arms. His short blond hair seemed to glow like a golden cloud in the morning sunshine. But it wasn’t this bright display that stopped her in her tracks. It was his face, the most beautiful face she had ever seen outside of a magazine. It was a movie-star face, the sort of face of which fortunes were made. Glass-cut cheekbones, perfect skin, kissable lips…
So striking was his appearance that it took Ines a minute to realize that he was lying in a dent in the pavement. The hollow was shallow but large, six feet long and half as wide. The dent perfectly cradled the unconscious young man, as if his fall had dented the street. It seemed a ridiculous idea, but then Ines looked down at the black sludge dripping from her, and she wondered if the idea was any more ridiculous than the demon she had just killed.
Kneeling down, she looked into that beautiful face. He could have been another sixteen-year-old at Ines’s school, a boy in her class or someone she passed in the corridor. Though not, she thought, one who would have talked with her. Dazzlingly handsome boys in hip-hop outfits didn’t talk with loners who lurked in shadows and played card games on their lunch breaks. This boy’s girlfriend would be a singer, a dancer, a model, not the sheltered daughter of secretive mages, someone who could fight for her life but not put makeup on properly for the life of her.
He groaned, and his eyelids fluttered but remained closed. By his expression, he seemed to be in pain, though there wasn’t a scratch or a bruise on him.
“Oh, hello, Ines.” Old Mrs. Talbot stood in the middle of the street, a look of concern on her face. There was little traffic in Scholars Close, even at the start of the day, and the middle of the road was Mrs. Talbot’s habitual gossiping ground. “Are you all right, love?”
Slipping the knife out of view, Ines looked at her neighbor. It was hardly surprising that the woman was concerned—Ines must look in a complete state.
“I knocked an oil can off a shelf in the garage.” It was the best excuse she could muster for the black ooze. She pointed at the young man. “I’m more worried about him.”
“Him who?” Mrs. Talbot asked without even glancing down.
“Him.” Ines gestured more emphatically at the young man.
A frown crossed Mrs. Talbot’s face as she looked down.
“Well, look at that.” The focus of her gaze seemed wrong, as if she were looking through the man rather than at him. “More subsidence. I told the council after we had all them potholes last winter, but would they listen to me? Of course not.” She shook her gray head. “I shall have to email them, get them out to repair it before someone trips and hurts themselves.”
Shaking her head again, she walked back toward her house.
The young man’s eyelids fluttered again, and this time they opened. A deep breath made his chest rise and fall.
After staring into his deep-blue eyes, Ines pulled herself together and spoke.
“Why can’t Mrs. Talbot see you?” Ines had some idea of the answer, and that idea was magic. But she wanted to hear his version first. “And why can I?”
That point mattered more and more the longer she thought about it. She wasn’t a mage and didn’t even have a gift for magic like Toby. So how come she had seen the demon, and how come she was seeing whomever this was?
“I will happily provide the answers your heart seeks.” The young man eased himself up on one elbow. “But first, might I beg shelter, away from a fallen world in which the Morning Star walks?”
Maybe he had hurt himself in the fall. Ines had never met anyone who talked like that, never mind someone her age. But he didn’t seem dangerous, and if he was connected with magic, then maybe he knew where her family was.
Although, she admitted to herself, she would have taken him in just for those looks.
She slid an arm around his shoulder, helped him up, and led him into the house.
“My name is Rumiel of the Golden Flight.” The man sat in Ines’s father’s armchair. A mug of tea sat steaming and ignored on the table beside him. Ines had heard that hot, sweet tea was supposed to be good for someone who had received a shock. It was certainly soothing her, if only thanks to the familiar feeling of the warm, round mug in her hands.
“That’s an unusual name.” She smiled at him across the steam from her mug.
“Not where I come from.” He peered past her toward the kitchen door. “Is something dead in there?”
Ines considered her options. Rumiel might be able to tell her more about the demon. On the other hand, if he was linked to it, then he might turn on her when he saw the
corpse. She needed to know more about what was going on.
“I spilt something,” she said. “So where do you come from?”
“Am I not glorious to look upon?” Rumiel smiled.
So he was handsome, and he knew it. Yet Ines couldn’t disagree. His smile, especially, was beautiful. It made those bright-blue eyes sparkle. “Does that not tell you all that you need to know?”
“Oh yes, you are.” Ines blushed deep red as she heard the words come out of her mouth. “But, um, no, I’m afraid it doesn’t.”
“Strange.” Rumiel still smiled though with a little bemusement. “I had thought that you must be of—”
They both leaped to their feet as sounds of movement came from the kitchen. First a door opening then footsteps across the tiles. Ines snatched up the knife from where it lay staining the sofa.
“Ines, it’s me,” a familiar voice called out, full of concern. “Why weren’t you at the bus stop?” The footsteps stopped. “And why is there a dead chemosh demon on your floor?”
Rumiel took a step forward, placing himself between Ines and the source of the voice.
“It’s alright, he’s a friend.” Ines laid a hand on Rumiel’s arm. Then she raised her voice. “Damon, I’m in here.”
Damon appeared in the doorway, dressed in his usual combination of black clothes and sardonic smile. He stepped in as if he owned the place, a cocky expression on his face, his eyes brooding and dark.
He dressed far smarter than most people their age, with his shirts, his polished shoes, and the gleaming watch chain hanging from his pocket.
On the first day they’d met, someone had asked if he was going to a funeral, and he had asked if they were planning on dying anytime soon. He was too strange for the cool kids, too smartly dressed for the goths. He was, Ines realized when she took the time to think about it, someone entirely unique, another outcast in a world of clubs and cliques.
There was a moment of silence, punctuated only by the ticking of an old clock on the mantelpiece, as Damon cast his gaze up and down the black-stained Ines. On any other day, she would have relished such a look from those dark-brown eyes. But while it held a certain thrill, other thoughts were more prominent in her mind.
“That explains the dead part, at least.” He nodded to her. “Well done.”
Turning, Damon caught Rumiel’s eye. Both young men stiffened, and they stood looking at each other. Damon’s eyes narrowed, while Rumiel stared as if he might wear Damon down to nothing with his gaze.
“Who are you, stranger, that you so darken this lady’s door?” Rumiel placed his hands on his hips and thrust out his chest.
“I’m the cleaner.” Damon jerked a thumb back toward the demon-stained tiles. “Looks like I’ll be having a busy day. Who are you?”
“I am Rumiel of the Golden Flight, messenger of the divine and swift arm of his blazing vengeance.”
“An angel.” Damon raised an eyebrow. “My, but we are having an exciting day.”
Ines frowned. She had known Damon since they were thrown together in classes at the start of the school year. By now he was her closest friend, and there were times when she hoped they could become something more. But it occurred to her now that, aside from his interests in old literature, his collectable card games, and his impeccable essay-writing skills, she knew surprisingly little about Damon’s life.
“How do you know about demons and angels?” she asked.
“Too much Milton and Crowley,” Damon replied, pulling his well-used e-reader from his bag and waving it as evidence of his literary tastes. “Not that you can ever have too much Milton.”
“And how come you can see them?” Ines kept staring at him.
“Can’t everyone?” Damon shrugged. “I always knew that I must be special. Though apparently not special enough to be offered a cup of tea.” He turned back toward the kitchen. “I’ll make one for myself, and then perhaps you can tell me what’s going on.”
In the face of Damon’s familiar banter and the prospect of more soothing tea, the nervous tension that had held Ines up finally dispersed. She flopped back onto the sofa and sank into the cushions, knife abandoned by her side.
“If you want,” she shouted to him over the noise of the kettle being filled. “And then perhaps you can tell me what to do next, because I have no idea.” She looked over at Rumiel, who was glancing with concern between her and the friend making himself at home in her kitchen. “Perhaps one of you can, at least.”
Blood Magic, Book 1 of The Mage’s Daughter Trilogy, is on sale everywhere