Blood Spelled

by Gayle Parness

  “Of course it is. You just haven’t explored this side of yourself yet,” Isaiah said.

  “I would be willing to sacrifice some flesh and blood if it would alleviate a bit of your pain.” Sash held his arms out to the side as if baring his body for my attack, humor glittering in his eyes.

  I groaned and strode back toward the fence. “I’m going for a swim.”

  “What? This is the Pacific. Did you bring your wetsuit? It’s forty degrees in the water.” Sash was doing his best to hold in his laughter, but he wasn’t completely successful. I kept walking, my eyes pointed at the ground, my hands fisted by my sides.

  Isaiah caught up with me. “You can’t leave the property.”

  “You’ll let me out of this prison or you’ll regret it.”

  He laughed. “Oooh, I love this dangerously determined side, but I can tell you in all certainty that you are not leaving the property.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I reached the sloping path that led down to the beach. Generally, the only people we saw on the beach were joggers or dog walkers, but tonight it was deserted. Half a mile up the coast the waves were more suited to surfing and fishermen had discovered that fish tended to avoid this stretch of the bay. Eleanor’s darkness had poisoned the health of her property. Maybe it had even stretched out into the sea.

  I ran straight into an invisible wall, the vibration of Isaiah’s powerful magic sending chills up and down my back. Instead of turning around and leaving, I took two steps back, stretched out my hands and rested the palms flat against the unseen barrier. I’d worked with Isaiah and his magic for eighteen years, his magical pulse was almost as familiar as my own. Every spell had a key and Isaiah’s key was…what? I tightened my jaw with determination. I’d find it.

  They were gathered around me now, silently watching, these males who wanted to control me, who wanted me to behave like a good little shifter, when that wasn’t who I was any more. She took it away, but I would not spend this moment dwelling on my loss. I’d push thoughts of her to the back of my mind and spend my energy in a more productive way.

  I’d swim to accomplish what Isaiah said was necessary. I used to be able to work through my troubles when I ran, but running wasn’t what my demon craved, maybe because it was an activity so tied to my cheetah. But I needed to push myself physically and swimming might cool the flare of my anger, exhaust my jittery muscles and soothe the ache of my homesickness. I’d always turned to physical exercise when my feelings had threatened to overwhelm me, so why not now?

  The ache of my loss of self was a spear through my heart, sharper than the dagger Naberia had used. The magic that had made me into the person I’d grown to be, a person I could respect, was gone. She’d created a half-empty vessel, using her dark magic to fill me up, turning me into a monster. Yes, I’d conquered my warrior form—at least, we’d found a way to manage it. But during an angry flare up I was much more dangerous in human form because the demon side of me wasn’t burdened by something as mundane as consequences or guilt.

  In this form I had access to all of my intellect and a powerful supply of magic that fed off of the emotions of others. If I didn’t find a way to release it before it boiled over, I would never gain control or be able to accept who and what I’d become.

  Embrace it, she’d said. Well, I would, but probably not in the way she meant. Not where I put myself under her control or hurt the people I loved. I wasn’t about to embrace my warrior form or my bratty attitude. Instead I’d embrace the newly improved version of my demon magic and use it the way my former self would have used it. I was a different me, but not a monster. I was still Jackie.

  And when I met Naberia on the field of battle, she would realize her mistake too late.

  Garrett and Isaiah had commanded me not to fight, so I would swim to purge myself of my past life and do what I could to reach that state Isaiah had described. I would lose my old identity and create a new one. I would lose my old reality and fly headfirst into the one I would build for myself.

  “Jackie.” Garrett touched my shoulder.

  I gazed at him in desperation. “Please. I’m not crazy. Trust me.”

  He smiled. “Always.” He kissed my cheek. “I won’t be far. Call to me if you need me.”

  I glared at Isaiah, but he only shook his head. He might have meant I had no chance to break his spell, or perhaps he was telling me he wouldn’t interfere. I hoped it was the latter; because I would swim today, even all the way home if I wished. I was a stronger demon now, damn it. Naberia’s blood cells thrived in my veins and I wouldn’t let this opportunity go to waste. I would learn to use her magic against her, but first I needed to rid myself of all distractions.

  My icy heart was pulling me home and my instincts screamed that I should head in that direction, even if swimming all the way was the only way I could arrive and not be a danger to the people I loved.

  I closed my eyes and melded my magic with Isaiah’s. Such an intricate web—a masterpiece of function and design. The guru moved closer, watching my face and motioning to Garrett and Sasha to stay still. He wanted this. He’d waited for me to test the boundaries and not simply accept them. The corners of my mouth twitched.

  “Will I surprise you when I find the key Uncle, or do you expect it?”

  “You’re set to surprise the world, niece. But then I have always imagined the best from you.”

  I met his proud gaze. “I won’t disappoint you.”

  “You never have before.”

  The chain of magic he’d created wove into a pattern that seemed so familiar I could almost picture the form. As I looked at the shape, the sweeping curves near the top, the narrowing at the bottom, the two…the two eyes, so like my own. Adele. He’d created a web of power around the image of my mother—his great love, perhaps his lover, although he’d never admitted that to me.

  “Is this how you see her?” He nodded. “She’s very beautiful drawn in your shining magic.”

  “You are alike in many ways, but your courage outshines hers.”

  I traced the outline of her jaw with a single finger. “Let me go, Isaiah. Let me work out how to deal with my demon on my own. My warrior form has been brought to heel and now I belong at home. How can I learn to cope on a day to day basis if I’m here?”

  “You’ll swim?”

  “It’s a long way.” I couldn’t suppress my sigh. It was over five hundred miles to Crescent City.

  He surprised me with a wink. “There’s a friend of mine waiting straight out from that darker boulder. You’ll get on well, I think.”

  “A great white?”

  “Tempting, but no.” He chuckled.

  “Garrett…”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll explain about the dramatic exit.” I nodded, unwilling to remove my hand from the wall and lose the lovely vision of my mother. “Now unweave my spell and do what you must. I’ll meet you at your home in a few days.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Go, child.”

  It took me another ten minutes to follow the lines of this marvelous wonder and dart between them with my own magic, loosening and tugging until it fell apart in a sparkling tumble. I breathed a long sigh and slowly straightened my body.

  “I’ll see you at home,” I said to Garrett, sending out a summons as I lifted my hand. My dagger appeared in it a moment later.

  “Wait!” Garrett shouted.

  But before he could follow or stop me, I’d bent my knees, bunching my muscles and pushing off from the cliff, extending my arms in a swan dive that had me laughing happily all the way down to where I speared the icy waves. My nerves shrieked at first, each muscle shocked into motion, as I stroked my way to the surface where I waved to the guys and headed out to just beyond the darker boulder. Fighting the determined motion of the waves, I made my way to the spot Isaiah had mentioned, energized and excited by my newest adventure.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I was treading water, looking here and there wit
h no luck when suddenly a human head popped up very close to my right side. “Hello, Jacqueline.”

  “Hi!” The moon was out, thank goodness, because she was so very dark, her skin wet ebony, her dark hair pulled back and tied out of her face, her eyes as black as the night. She was absolutely beautiful. We smiled at each other and an instant connection formed.

  “I am Freejan, the half-sister of Rylen, our new king. Isaiah told me you might need a companion on your journey. I can swim beside you or carry you on my back. I will bring you food and make sure you rest. It is an honor for me to assist you in any way I can.”

  “Thank you Freejan. To be honest, it’s a very long way. I’d like to swim for part of the distance, maybe where the ocean currents are calmest, but I will need you to carry me at times, as I’ll need to rest.”

  “This is quite acceptable.”

  I pulled in demon magic from the lines to enhance my strength and heat my body in the icy water. When my muscles had warmed, I set off using the freestyle stroke, finding a rhythm that suited me and doing my best to stick to it. Once in a while I’d see Garrett on the shore watching my progress, but he never tried to swim out and save me from my own folly. He left me alone to do what I needed to do and I loved him more than I thought possible because of his show of trust. If he were honest, I’m sure he would rather I’d continued to train at the villa or at least returned home with him. But I was in dire need of some time on my own, time to reflect and plan and remember.

  I’d always had a problem with other people managing my life, even out of love, and now that I was gaining in demon magic I was finding things that used to just annoy me were making me full-out furious. This might be the first thing that was going to have to change, because if I’d learned anything in this life it was that there were a lot of annoying people in the world, and the people you loved were the ones who managed to annoy you the most.

  After two hours, Freejan indicated a dingy that just happened to be moored to a buoy and floating nearby. Yeah, right. “You have great strength, Jacqueline, but you need to replenish your body with food and water as well as magic ever two or three hours.”

  “But I’ve barely gone five miles.”

  “Please. I’ve prepared a simple meal.”

  Not wanting to seem ungrateful, I crawled into the dingy, coughing out some seawater and rubbing my tired muscles. I dried myself with my magic and laughed when I saw she’d put out a platter of sushi and sashimi, along with a large bowl of miso soup and a pot of green tea. I was in heaven.

  She joined me for the meal and the food and tea disappeared very quickly. We chatted as we ate. “Have the kelpies been training, or do you know by instinct how to fight?”

  “It is difficult for us to train, because we will not be facing other kelpies in the war, yet we only have each other with which to spar. In a true battle we will be fighting against strange unseelie creatures and demons, sometimes in their warrior form.”

  My mind began to spin various scenarios of how we might help them, but I stopped myself before I got carried away. This was not why I was on this journey. I had to be selfish and focus on my own problems. Then maybe Isaiah and I could take a little side trip to Catalina to show them how to take down a demon in warrior form.

  “Do you have doubts, my lady?”

  “I’m a little lost, I think.” I smiled at her reassuringly. “But I’m sure I’ll find my way with your help.”

  “Sometimes I’ve found answers there.” Freejan pointed at the stars, then dove into the water, her head popping up a moment later. “I will return shortly,” she promised.

  I glanced at the ominous black ocean to the north before I stretched out in the boat, imagining the miles and miles of rough water ahead of me. The idea had seemed a sound one at first: a long and strenuous trip to release my negative energy, sort through my thoughts and emotions, and come up with a way to keep my feelings in check, or at least not act on them in a dangerous way. But now the idea of getting back in the water and swimming hundreds of miles seemed ridiculously extreme.

  Then again, I wasn’t in that antsy state that had driven me to break free of the villa’s protections in the first place. Forcing myself to tamp down my restlessness seemed to make it worse. Maybe I should let my demon magic go full throttle while I swam. I’d been embarrassed by the joy I felt when I fought and killed in warrior form, but wouldn’t it serve me better in this instance to fire it up? I played with the lines, drawing golden pictures in the dark water: shapes and symbols that disappeared as soon as they’d completed. Right now I was at peace and maybe that was a blessing and a problem.

  Orion’s constellation was high in the sky tonight, his belt and sword twinkling with promise. He was said by the Ancient Greeks to have been a great hunter, who was born of the sea god, Poseidon and Euryale, a Gorgon—one of those unfriendly female creatures like Medusa. He was killed by a scorpion and then brought back to life by a magical potion and now stands proudly in the winter sky. Maybe it was fate he was watching over me as I swam in his father’s domain and tried to bring myself back from what Naberia had done to me. I’d been viewing it as a kind of death, mourning my other half, but maybe I should be celebrating.

  Embrace it. My anger flared at her words and I dove from the small craft and into the water.

  Freejan found me easily and we swam together for minutes, hours, days—eating and resting when we could. Sometimes a pod of dolphins would join us, breaching the waves playfully and showing off the way dolphins sometimes do. Occasionally they’d let me catch a ride for several miles or so, the sea spray stinging my eyes as the water rushed by. Other times they’d whistle at me to hurry up and swim faster, which I’d do to please them. When one pod left us for better feeding grounds, another would likely show up in a day or so, taking over the job of entertainment directors and rooting sections.

  Sometimes it was a friendly sea otter or a flock of gulls, but always Freejan was by my side.

  On stormy days, Freejan would take me below the waves, protecting me with a bubble of temperate air that never seemed to stale. She’d change to her underwater kelpie form and allow me to rest on her back as she swam past schools of striped bass, halibut and salmon. She regaled me mind-to-mind with entertaining stories of her life as a kelpie in the Kelpie Court. She promised me that one day soon she would bring me to court, as every one of her friends was so anxious to meet the mother of Charles.

  The mother of Charles. I smiled inwardly. I was proud of that title, and when coupled with the lifemate of Garrett it had been enough for a time. But it wasn’t anymore, and that idea terrified me. They would always be as essential to me as the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins, but if I continued to live for them and not myself, I would grow more and more frustrated and angry. And anger without an outlet was not a good thing.

  That’s why the project with the female fae had sounded so perfect. As well as helping them, I could brush up on my own warrior skills and ready myself to sit beside my son on a kelpie steed as we faced off against Naberia and her slaves. Because her followers were indeed slaves. They had no choice but to follow her into war and kill whomever she told them to kill. Some of them enjoyed this role, I was sure, but even my warrior desired the garden over the field. Like Fionna, Naberia needed to die so that both Faerie and the Demon Realm could heal. I had accepted my role in this affair from the day she took my sister and changed her into my enemy, perhaps even from the day she’d killed my mother, although I couldn’t remember the fire.

  After many days filled with speculation and dreams, tired muscles and too little sleep, friendship and loneliness, I found the key that would unravel my pain. I wished on Orion’s sword and swore an oath that no one else would ever hear. I would hone my magic and my skills until I was worthy to sit at my son’s right hand when we faced Naberia. No one would argue, because there’d be no doubt in anyone’s mind. And one day I would see what Naberia did to me as a gift and not a curse.

  Surprisingly,
Freejan asked if we could come ashore on Solo Island before we headed to Crescent City. I agreed. Now that I was so close to home, it would be good to gather my thoughts before I faced the others.

  My chin dropped when Freejan kneeled before me. “King Rylen has offered to be your son’s steed in the war, and in turn, I would ask for the honor of carrying you into battle, Jacqueline Cuvier. In steed form, I am almost as powerful as Rylen and have been said by many to be a warrior of worth. Isaiah has told our king of your need to be beside your son when the war comes, and I would wish more than anything to be your partner in defeating Naberia.”

  Freejan nodded then met my gaze, her eyes glittering with excitement under the shining full moon. She waited for my response.

  I knew little about kelpie court protocol but I spoke to her with what I hoped was the proper amount of respect, “Freejan, I thank you for your offer and could not think of another I would rather have as a partner against Naberia.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I rode out of the water on Freejan’s back, her body now in steed form and powerful in every way. She was still dark in this horse-like form, her incredible body a brown so rich it was almost black, her tail and mane the color of chestnuts. Un ange sombre, I laughed to myself—a dark angel like Garrett. Perhaps my lighter aspect was drawn to the dark.

  The beach was deserted, as I knew it would be at three a.m., except for one lone figure sitting on a large boulder. King Finvarra. Oh joy.

  He jumped down and moved toward us, his eyes only on Freejan. “I am honored to meet you, young kelpie. What is her name?” he asked me.

  “Freejan. She’s King Rylen’s half sister.”

  He stroked her neck and she whinnied, or at least the sound was similar. “You are magnificent, princess. It has been a very long time since I had the pleasure of riding a kelpie steed. Is there perhaps one who would agree to carry me in the war? I will station myself to Charles left on the front lines and will have need of a steed of the highest caliber.”