The BlackBurne Legacy (The Bloodlines Legacy Series Book 1)

by Apryl Baker

  “Yes, well, I didn’t think trackers would knock on the door.”

  “But others would. Is no just trackers you have to worry about, schatzi.”

  “What does that mean?” I yawn and lie back down on the couch.

  “Is German. It mean treasure.”

  “You speak German now too?” Grumpy, I know, but I’m tired.

  “My family, we travel much and I learn words from everywhere. I like that word. You are treasure to me, one I will keep safe even if she no try to keep herself safe.”

  A slow smile blooms on my lips. He thinks of me as a treasure?

  “We have problem.” Those words freeze my smile. “Some of the other families are in town. Asking questions about you and your brother.”

  “What?” It feels like I’ve been slapped in the face with a bucket of ice water. The Ice Bucket Challenge has nothing on this.

  “There are three main families, yes, but there are many smaller ones loyal to those families. They are here, and it no mean good things. Come, we must hurry.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Sabrina’s.”

  Who? I don’t have time to ask as he hurries me into my shoes and out the door. I’m expecting to go to the parking lot, but instead, he hauls me around the corner and up the stairs to Saidie’s apartment. It clicks then. Sabrina is Bree. I’m so used to calling her Bree, I’d forgotten her full name. He bangs on the door, and Conner lets us in. Now I’m really confused. What is Conner doing here?

  “Hey.” He gives me a tired smile. “Glad you’re okay.”

  Before I can ask him about that strange statement, Bree comes in and Luka gives her a hug. And a kiss. On the cheek, mind you, but it’s still a kiss. Mine. The word vibrates in every fiber of my being. Luka is mine. Why is he kissing another girl? And my friend?

  Irrational anger and hurt bleed to rage. Blind fury explodes, and with it, something else. Something stirs, stretches under my skin. We become one being, one mind. We look at Bree with curiosity. Luka is ours. She dares to challenge us?

  “Uh, guys, I think something’s wrong.” Conner’s voice sounds distant. It has no meaning to us.

  “Bree.” Our voice is hollow, but full of rage.

  Bree turns around, but pauses when she sees us. Her eyes widen and she moves back, but lands right against Luka. The wrong place to be.

  Blue, no! I’m coming! Stay calm!

  We want to spring, to snap, to tear. We want to sink our teeth into her throat and shake her until her bones turn to dust. We want…

  Alexandria! Micah’s voice echoes in our head, panicked. Why is he upset? We are only defending what belongs to us.

  We take a step forward, our hand outstretched to snatch her away from our mate, and then our brother is there, standing between us and the interloper. His beast rolls behind his eyes.

  “Alex, you don’t want to do this.” His voice is calm and we cock our head, sizing him up. We do not want to hurt our brother, but we will if we have to.

  His eyes bore into ours. Jason may have six inches on us and a good hundred pounds, but in this, he is no match for us. Something shimmers around us. Warmth, like the heat of a summer’s day, flows off our skin and into him. He whimpers and bows his head. Foolish to think he is any match for us. We crow in triumph.

  That’s when it hits us. A cold sheet of ice crashes into us, dulling the heat. No, he can’t do this. He will not stop us from taking down our prey. We try to take a step forward, and the cold winter wind beats us back. His power pours into us with the rush of a gale force wind.

  My mind becomes my own again. The wolf whines in my head, unable to disobey. Luka speaks no words, but neither of us needs words. We both understand. No. He tells us no, and she shrinks back, leaving me alone, exposed to the hurt that fills me with his presence.

  “What is going on in here?” Saidie demands as my mind orients itself back into its human reality. What just happened? I blink and try to focus. Bree—she’d been kissing Luka. The fury roars back, but the icy wind cools the fire. Some of my better sense surfaces and I close my eyes. Good God, what had I just done? I almost attacked Bree. Oh, God.

  “Girlfriend, I have no designs on your man. I swear it.” Bree is holding up both hands, her eyes downcast in a submissive manner. It assuages some of the rage my wolf is still feeling. She is not challenging us.

  “Somebody needs to explain what the hell is going on in here.”

  Saidie is standing by the door, hands on her hips, confused, but determined.

  “Alex’s wolf just woke up.” Conner says it so matter-of-factly, Saidie and I both gape at him.

  “Thank God she didn’t shift.” Micah pushes his way in and shuts the door. Saidie is staring like we’ve all lost our minds. Maybe we have.

  “She almost did.” Luka comes over and wraps his arms around me. “I no let her.”

  “You can do that?” Bree’s eyes light up.

  “Yes, is part of my magic.”

  “Magic?” Saidie sounds like I’m feeling, but her face tells a different story. She’s upset for an entirely different reason.

  “Is confession time.” Luka sits down in the floor, dragging me with him. I settle on his lap and he looks down into my eyes. “Yes?”

  He means Compton. Why does he want me to fess up to that?

  Micah’s voice whispers to me. There should be no more secrets between us. If we are to help you, we all need to know the truth. It makes sense, but it makes me uncomfortable too. Do they really need to know that? Is there any point in keeping that secret, though? One thing I’ve learned is secrets have a way of coming out.

  “I do need to confess something. Before I came here, I was in Compton Academy. It was a mental facility for troubled teens. I had night terrors so bad, I started having them when I was awake and I couldn’t tell reality from my dreams, so I ended up there.”

  “A nuthouse?” Conner’s eyes light up. “Wicked cool. You owe me stories.”

  “You’re better now, though?” Saidie asks me, her eyes worried.

  “Yes. Turns out I wasn’t so crazy after all.”

  “At least you found her before my vision came true.” Conner flops down on the couch and stretches out.

  “Vision?” Jason’s head whips around, mouth hanging open just a bit. “You have visions?”

  Conner looks at me when he answers. “Yes. I have The Sight.”

  “The sight?”

  “No, man. The. Sight. It’s something I inherited from my grandmother, part of our Celtic heritage or something. I see things, mostly in dreams, but sometimes when I’m awake too. I knew Alex was in some kind of trouble, but I didn’t know what exactly. I tried to keep a close watch on her when I could. Then today, I had a vision of her dead in her apartment and called the big guns over here.” He nods to Bree.

  “Bree is a witch,” Micah explains. “Like you two. She can help you, Alex.”

  Bree is a witch? I remember Saidie complaining about all her nonsense, and she did have a witch’s journal that day I met her…wait. Bree Winters. As in, one of the main families? The ones who want to kill me?

  Luka keeps his arms wrapped tight around me. “Is no what you think, munya. She does no want to hurt you.”

  “Explain that.” Jason’s eyes have gone hard. He is watching me, and I guess my expression must have given something away.

  “My name is Sabrina Winters.” Bree steps forward, facing off against Jason. “My family is one of the main three magical families left in the world.”

  “The ones who want us dead?” The snarl in Jason’s voice is unmistakable.

  Bree’s spine stiffens and she turns to face my brother, her own anger flaring. “No, we don’t want you dead. I came here to protect you when we discovered your dad brought you back. Not all of us are out for blood. Luka confronted me the day after the movie marathon. He knew who I was and came to warn me off.”

  “But I discover her true intentions.” Luka leans down and nuzzles my neck
. “She mean no harm. I would kill her if she try to hurt you or your brother in any way. And she knows it.”

  “I just want to teach you how to control your magic. Luka said it woke up. I bet the buzzing is driving you crazy, right?”

  I nod, distracted by the feel of Luka’s lips. He is doing this on purpose to keep my anger and my wolf at bay. It’s working too, dammit.

  “There is only one way to make it go away, and that is to use your magic.” She goes over and picks up her journal. “This is where you need to start writing things down. As your uncle and I teach you, you need to keep a record of it. Potions especially. Trying to remember what goes in some of them can be a beast.”

  “They need all the protection they can get.” Conner leans forward, his eyes unfocused. “They know she’s in town, but not where.”

  “Easy enough to do a locater spell,” Bree mutters. “We need to get you two a charm to conceal and protect you.”

  “If you are a Seer, why did you no see the first attack?” Luka’s hands run up and down my arms, his touch calming and erotic at the same time.

  “Hey, I’m still new at all this,” he admits with a shrug. “I didn’t start having dreams or whatever until I met you guys.”

  “Or until you met Alex?” Luka asks.

  “Who knows? I met all you guys the same day.”

  Luka frowns at me thoughtfully. “Could her awakening energy flow have trigger his gift?”

  Connor shrugs. “But I do have a theory, sorta.”

  “Theory?” Luka frowns.

  “Yeah. I keep thinking about how weird it was that we all just sort of clicked that first day, ya know? Usually when you meet someone new, there’s awkward conversation and it takes time to get to know people, but not with you guys. It was natural, instinct, maybe. I don’t even hang out with half my old friends anymore. I think maybe it’s because of Alex.”

  “Me?” I ask, startled.

  “Yeah, what if your…magic pulled the people you needed to you? We all have some kind of weird connection, have since that first day. I think it’s you.”

  I remember that day at the bookstore asking for the things or people I needed in order to get through everything, to be normal. Could I have caused all this?

  “You could be right.” Luka nods thoughtfully. “You must be learning to control your visions since you force one earlier.”

  “Not really,” Connor disagrees. “I think you’re right about Alex being some kind of catalyst, though. The visions,” I see him wince at the word, “seem to get stronger when she’s around. It’s like I can focus better or something when she’s near.”

  All of this is overwhelming. I mean, they’re talking about visions and charms and who knows what else. Believing in all this, despite what I’ve seen and felt, is hard. How can they just talk so casually about it? Then my gaze catches sight of Saidie. She looks so small and quiet, sitting there in the corner—her face pensive, afraid. I know that look. It’s been on my face for a while now.

  “You okay, Saidie?”

  “No, she’s not.” Conner’s attention is focused on her now. “We’re not the only ones hiding secrets.”

  “I’m not hiding anything!” She sounds more angry than scared, but again—been there, done that.

  “I think it’s time we all come clean.” Micah sits down beside her and bumps her shoulder. “Just so you know, I’m a shifter. I turn into a wolf. Luka there is a Gypsy cursed to become some kind of monster. Conner is a Seer, and the girls are witches. Oh, and Alex and her brother are shifters too.”

  “That was a surprise,” Bree mutters.

  “You need to keep that information to yourself.” Micah’s voice is ice hard. “No one in the community knows that secret, and if it gets out, I know exactly who to come looking for.”

  “It’s cool. I’m not going to tell anyone.” Bree’s eyes flash with irritation.

  “So what are you?” Micah asks Saidie. “Nobody’s going to judge.”

  “I’m not anything.” Her swift denial lacks the conviction to pull that statement off.

  “It terrified me too.” I catch and hold her eyes. “I was so scared, and I feel like some kinda freak show, but I realized something. I’m not alone, and neither are you.”

  “I never believed any of it,” she whispers. “I thought it was all some crazy story my Nanna made up when I was little.”

  “Story?” Luka shifts, pulling me more closely into him. I nestle into his hold, remembering his promise from the other day before it all went to hell.

  “According to my Nanna, necromancy runs in our family, and I inherited the gene.”

  “What’s a necromancer?” Micah beats me to the question.

  Luka’s hold turns to stone and I can feel the change in his body. “A necromancer has dominion over all forms of the dead.” Luka’s accent is heavy and thick with rage. “My people kill them on sight, some even in their cradles. I have seen what they are capable of.”

  “Nobody’s killing anyone here.” I take Luka’s hands in mine and turn so I can look up at him. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some pretty scary stuff since my mom’s death. His eyes have bled to black, red fire blazing to life. His face is savage, no longer quite human. The beast that hides behind his cloak of humanity takes control. Hate-filled eyes lock onto Saidie.

  “You do no know what they do to my brother.” The pain in his voice is barely registered amidst all the fury, but I can feel it.

  “Your brother?” I ask softly. I remember him telling me about Aleric.

  “They give my brother to a necromancer. I could no save him from her. They are vile, evil creatures.”

  “But that’s not Saidie, Luka. You know Saidie. Does she look evil or hateful?”

  “Luka, none of us are dead,” Conner tells him reasonably. “You just said they only have dominion over the dead, so how can she hurt us?”

  “They are evil, more than me, even. Their magic is black, blacker than anything you imagine. She will no be able to help herself. As her power grow, the dark inside grow and twist her into something you no recognize.” His beast pulses out from his eyes. They glow with hatred and hunger.

  Saidie’s face blanches and my heart goes out to her. She’s not evil.

  “Evil lives inside all of us.” Jason comes over and sits down beside Saidie. “Evil is a choice. You can choose to embrace it or to fight it. Who we are is determined by the choices we make. Until she makes the choice to give in to the dark, she’s still Saidie, and she deserves our support.”

  I’d almost forgotten my brother was here. He’d been so quiet. He’s right, though. Who we are, who we become, it all comes down to the choices we make. It’s up to Saidie to choose which side of the spectrum to land on once her gift wakes up.

  “And she has it,” I say. Luka doesn’t say anything, but I know him well enough to know the rigid hold he has on me right now speaks volumes about his agreement.

  “Now that’s settled, let’s teach you and Jason how to make a protection charm.” Bree is off and moving to the small kitchen. Before I realize it, she’s covered the counter with bottles of herbs and other things. Jason is already over there watching, but I’m a little afraid to move. I can feel the anger pulsing through Luka. Will he try to hurt Saidie?

  “Alex, you need to watch this!” Bree sets the final things down on the counter and looks at me expectantly.

  “Promise you’ll behave?”

  Luka snorts. “Your little necromancer is safe for now.”

  “For now?”

  “I will no harm her, munya, until her powers awake and the evil inside grows. She no longer be your Saidie then.”

  I guess that’s the best I’m going to get out of him. Saidie’s own anger is starting to spark. I can see it in her eyes. “Saidie, come help us in the kitchen? You might need to learn this too.”

  Casting one last hateful glare at Luka, she pulls me up and we walk the ten steps to the kitchen. These student
apartments are super tiny. With the four of us in there, I’m not sure how Bree is going to work. Jason has himself flush against her, and my eyebrows raise. She’s blushing. Like, a lot.

  Saidie mouths at me, someone’s crushing. An impish grin invades and I turn it on my brother. He just stares back, daring me to say something.

  “Now, the first thing you need to know is what to use and why.” Bree’s voice is all business, but her flustered expression speaks a different story. She holds up two brown leather pouches about the size of those tiny black velvet bags from a jewelry store. “What I am making is one of the most powerful protections I was taught. First, we add in a bay leaf, peppermint, and angelica root. These ward off evil and protect you. Next we need to add something that can hurt the supernatural, iron.” She opens a mason jar full of black dust. “This is ground up iron. We add about a teaspoon to each bag. Now we need to bind the components together.”

  “You need fresh blood from the person it’s supposed to protect.”

  Bree looks up, surprised. “How do you know that, Alex?”

  “Mom did something similar once.” The night before she left, Mom collected blood from Jason and me. She’d given us the small bags before bed. Dad threw them in the trash a few days later. I hadn’t thought of that in years.

  “You remember that?” Jason watches Bree move about, his eyes hooded and dark. My brother is thinking things I so do not need to even think about him thinking. So gross.

  Bree pulls a silver knife out of her bag of tricks and grabs Jason’s hand with no warning, slicing the fatty part of his palm. He hisses, but doesn’t lose his temper like I’m afraid he will. She lets his blood drip into the bag, and I hear a sizzle. Smoke wafts out of the pouch and a foul odor permeates the air. The same happens when my blood is added to the other pouch.

  “Does it always smell that bad?” Saidie screws up her nose.

  Bree laughs, the sound echoing through the small apartment as she ties the bags. The smell dissipates as soon as the bags are closed.

  “Wow.” Conner wanders over. “How did the stink go away that fast?”

  “Only those who mean them harm will smell it,” Bree explains. “It’s part of the protection. To try and hurt them will make the offender physically ill, thanks to the iron in there.”