“I assume you didn’t hear that?” he whispered.
I shook my head, afraid to speak.
“Footsteps,” he mouthed. Touching my arm, he gave me a signal to halt. I didn’t hear anything. He inhaled and frowned. Waiting made me even more anxious. Several minutes passed before he finally waved me forward. Moving single file, we followed a path between the crowd of palm trees, which led us to something unexpected. A city. It was a city—rows of brightly colored restaurants, buildings, and homes.
“Maybe the people who came here weren’t injured but decided to stay,” I suggested, looking over the city. Were the stories embellishments to keep others away in order to maintain the purity of their island without outsiders asserting rules over them? Magic pulsed through the air, and I wondered if this was an illusory glamour like those that Conner did. Who had the ability to do that? A fae could present something this deceptively beautiful.
We stood at the edge of the precipice trying to decide whether or not to proceed. There was a lot of magic. So much that I couldn’t attribute it to a particular supernatural.
Slowly moving out of the cover of the trees, we approached the city. There was a flash of movement, and a body whizzed past us, moving at a speed that made deciphering its appearance difficult.
“What the hell was that?” Gareth asked.
I shook my head and stilled, pulling out my sai and preparing to defend myself. Vampires didn’t move that fast. Shifters moved quickly, but not as fast as a vampire. It zipped by again, Gareth groaned, and I quickly found out why when claws sliced into my arm. The scratches weren’t deep, it wasn’t to injure—more like a warning. The claws were sharp enough that if it had wanted to do real damage, it could have. With my back to Gareth, I erected a diaphanous wall around us. It was shattered immediately. Another whip of movement from another direction. Magic thickened in the air, and I was struck again. Deeper and in the other arm.
Reaching for the ingredients for the carcer spell, I waited for the thing to buzz by us again. It didn’t take long. Another flash of movement, claws skated across my skin, and blood leaked from the cut. Before it could move again, I evoked the spell. It flitted away and slammed into the lucent enclosure around it. There was a lot I needed to learn about magic, and with the help of Blu and Elijah, I planned on learning all of it. The creature bounced back and forth around the enclosure; it was like watching a trapped fly. Eventually it wore itself out and sat resting against the magical prison wall, and I could tell it wasn’t an “it” but a “he.” With precise movements, his claws moved lightly over the front of his face, removing the shaggy mass of ash-blond hair that had fallen over his pale brown eyes that had such deep yellow undertones, they gave his eyes a daffodil tint. The shifter ring glowed around his eyes.
I expected to see anger or at the very least menace, but instead, he flashed us a miscreant grin.
Inching close to the barrier, I assessed the assailant. “How old are you, twelve?” He wasn’t twelve, but I wasn’t off by many years. Being generous with my assessment, I’d put him in his early twenties. Very early twenties.
Unfolding from his bent position on the ground, he stood and stretched, elongating his tall, lanky frame.
“I’m twenty,” he growled with an unusual pride about the number of years he’d been in existence. In a wisp of movement, he’d bounded across the magical prison, until it was the only thing keeping us from being face-to-face.
He slid his claws against the barrier; vibrant colors sparked, but it held. He made a show of retracting his claws. Then he bashed his fist into the prison wall. When it didn’t falter, he hissed, “Let me out. I was just playing with you.”
I rotated my arm and gave him a full view of the slashes he’d inflicted. “This is ‘playing’ to you?” As he made a show of retracting his claws, I made one of healing the cuts in front of him.
A derisive snort emanated from his narrow nose. His delicate, angular features hardened, and he narrowed his eyes on me. Magic swept through the air.
“Are you doing that?” I asked suspiciously.
“Why?”
Because shifters can’t perform magic. At least, in our world, but here things could be different. An assailant with magical ability made me think of all the possible scenarios that could result from supernaturals crossbreeding. Shifters were immune to all magic with the exception of mine and that of Vertu. Would a shifter/Legacy offspring produce a shapeshifter magic wielder?
The magic wasn’t coming from him. Gareth scanned the area, looking for the source. He closed his eyes for a few seconds to focus on the sounds. Except for the waves of the distant ocean and the bustling activity coming from the city, I couldn’t detect any more.
“I’ll let you go if you tell me where I can find Culded,” I offered, infusing my voice with enough steel to let him know I wasn’t about to negotiate.
He grinned, backed away with the grace of a shifter, and sat. “Of course.” His smile widened, exposing canines that looked awfully close to vampire fangs. “When the sun goes down, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
I had no idea what the hell happened on that little island of misfit supernaturals at night but I had no plans of finding out. He rested against the wall of his magical prison as if he had no place to be.
“Angel, have you gotten yourself into trouble, again?” asked a honey-sweet voice a few feet away. Gareth looked as shocked as I was by the presence of the visitor. His shock eventually faltered into a scowl. It was apparent he didn’t like being in a place that made him feel human—his senses unable to give him the upper hand.
My miscreant captive was all smiles as the newcomer with the gentle voice approached him.
Angel? I really hoped that was a term of endearment and not his actual name. Either way it seemed like a misnomer since there wasn’t anything angelic about him.
Tilting her head, she studied him. “It would be to your advantage to let him go.” Maintaining the same enchanting lilt, she’d effortlessly managed to convey a hint of warning.
“He attacked us,” Gareth informed her, unsuccessfully keeping the threat out of his voice.
She tossed a glance over her shoulder to get a look at Gareth and smiled before repeating her suggestion to let “Angel” go.
I took just a few seconds to debate it. It was too early to start making enemies. As soon as the walls fell around him, Angel zipped away, leaving an endearing smile on the woman’s face. She looked too young to be his mother but there was something similar in their delicate and honed angular features.
Giving us her full attention, she moved closer. Too close. Uncomfortably close. Gareth garnered a great deal of attention from the dark-haired woman. Apparently, clothing was optional on the island, or maybe the rule was they had to make sure their naughty bits were hidden. Hers were barely concealed behind a beige shirt that consisted of a fragile string around her neck and an even thinner one that held what could very well have been a handkerchief around her breasts. It was straining to perform the job with efficiency. It left her warm sienna skin exposed. The matching fabric that covered her lower half was connected by beads but didn’t completely circle her waist, offering two very long slits on either side of it. It allowed her to move freely and gave an adequate view of her body to anyone who cared to look.
“You seem lost, may I help you?”
I wasn’t sure what it was about her, but I erected my mental guards and quickly went on high alert.
Not getting a response fast enough, she smiled, exposing fangs. When she repeated her question, her eyes danced over me and then fell on Gareth, who respectfully averted his eyes. Smiling at his efforts, she moved closer to him.
“May I help you?” Her velvet voice made it quite clear she didn’t want to assist but to help herself to our necks. With sweeping, agile movements she moved between us. Her magic slithered around me, warm and comforting, and she mentally pulled me to her. Just a gentle nudge into complicity, coaxing me out of my hig
h alert. I felt it but couldn’t reject it. My shields dropped and I was rewarded with another fanged smile. I knew I should shield myself from her, but desire kept me from doing it.
I moved toward the outstretched hand. Her lips parted. I ignored Gareth calling me and focused on her. Chocolate eyes were a river that I was swimming in, and soon I was adrift, the easy waves carrying me away—to her. Gareth yanked me to him, pulling me out of her thrall. He positioned himself between us, a wide roadblock that I definitely needed. I understood why it was illegal for vampires to compel people. I felt violated and sullied, my will having been hijacked. Inclining her head and shifting, she tried to make eye contact with me again. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling hints of fruit and berries and an overwhelming amount of magic that wafted through the air.
“You don’t want to look at me?” she asked softly. “Have I offended you in some way?”
“Not at all. I tend to get on edge when people strip me of my will. I’m peculiar that way.”
A smile edged at her lips. “You didn’t seem to mind”—her sharp gaze landed on Gareth—“but he did.” She wasn’t very happy with his intrusion and made it known with her icy stare.
Her irritation seemed to bring Gareth an absurd deal of satisfaction.
“I’m Gareth,” he said with a polite smile. Keeping his position between the vampire and me, he offered her his hand in introduction. Her lips pressed into a stringent line, and reluctantly she took it. “Shifter,” she purred, her gaze roving over him slowly. “You’ll see that the shifters here prefer their various forms.”
Various forms? I hadn’t realized there were more forms than animal and not an animal. It hadn’t been an hour and I was ready to get off the island of Dr. Moreau where shifters were able to take on more than one form. Was it a genetic disorder or actually evolution? The useless residual magic that came from the magic she’d used to compel me repelled off of him like rain off an umbrella.
Annoyed, she moved her gaze from us to the vast stretch of the city.
“I’m Vanessa,” she finally offered. “I assume you aren’t here for pleasure. How can we serve you?”
Gareth’s lips pinched together as he scrutinized the intent behind her words in the same manner that I had. There was something about the wording that unnerved me and made me wary. The aggressive way her magic pushed against my mental shields wasn’t helping. Feeling my resistance, she smiled.
“You didn’t come here to visit or play. Why are you here?”
“We need Culded; can you direct us to where it can be found?”
“I’d love to be of service to you.” Bystepping Gareth, she moved toward me. “Please, allow me to be of service to you.”
I stared at her extended hand as if it were a viper ready to strike. “Why do I feel like I’m dealing with a troll at a bridge?”
Her light, airy laugh drifted throughout the immediate area, and if it weren’t for the ominous undertones, it would have been a beautiful, melodious sound.
“Troll at a bridge.” She laughed again. “I like you.”
“I gathered that from your magical seduction and your attempt to make me your next meal. It’s all fun and games until someone loses some blood, right?”
Maintaining the gentleness she’d had before appeared to take more effort.
“Why are you wording it that way? Allow me to be of service—what’s with that?” I asked.
“It’s polite,” she responded tersely. Again, she treated me to a congenial smile that was laced with so much venom I felt like I needed antivenin.
“You pay for services here. And for a vampire/mage hybrid, believe me, the debt would be steep and heavily enforced,” offered a baritone voice that had the same musical notes as Vanessa’s. Expecting to see another vampire, I was surprised when we were joined by a half man, half horse. I assumed he was a shifter in half form, but he could’ve been a centaur. I had no idea what to expect on this island.
It was comforting that I’d almost been bested by a magical hybrid and not allured by just a vampire. It didn’t make it any easier to deal with, but at least it didn’t make me feel like a magical failure. If she was a high mage, I was dealing with a worthy magical adversary. I wondered if we had such hybrids in the States. If we did, I’m sure they kept their genealogy carefully guarded for fear it would incur more restrictive laws and regulations.
Shifting my focus from Vanessa, I gave my attention to the shifter.
If he was a shifter, it didn’t seem like being in a state of half shift bothered him: He seemed to enjoy that I was gawking at him. I couldn’t help it. His top half was a medium build, toned human male, with ash-colored hair long enough that he needed to tuck it behind his ears. Hewed features lacked the definition for me to consider him handsome, but he wasn’t unattractive and definitely didn’t look like a horse. Shifters usually seemed to take on some of the characteristics of their animal. The silky sand-colored coat of his lower half shimmered as the light hit it and was several shades lighter than his skin. He was a Akhal-Teke horse. Horse-shifter’s amusement with my interest crept into his words as he spoke. “Do you need help?” he asked. “No payment necessary.”
While Vanessa seemed to have enjoyed bantering with us until becoming increasingly irritated by my questioning, Mr. Horse-shifter appeared rushed, as if he couldn’t help us fast enough to get us off the island.
“Vanessa, I’ll help them. Enjoy your day.”
She pouted in a manner that was only adorable when done by a child. Apparently Mr. Horse-shifter found it appealing. “Did I ruin your day, Vanessa?”
“You gather so much fun in spoiling my day. We get so few visitors, let me enjoy it.” She moved fluidly toward him until they stood close as if they were going to kiss. Several beats later, they were. Their lips brushed briefly before Vanessa slipped away.
“Why are you here?” he asked coarsely as soon as Vanessa had left. His cordial smile disappeared and he glanced at Gareth, then his eyes narrowed to slits as he studied me with interest. “You’re not a witch or mage, are you?”
I shook my head.
“What are you?” He inhaled, his nose flaring briefly. I quickly recanted my prior assessment: He was very horsey at the moment. “Ancient magic,” he whispered. His eyes widened with disbelief. “Legacy?”
It took several moments before I answered; as a shifter he would have known if I’d lied. I nodded.
Gareth stood taller, returning the hard look that the horse-shifter had directed at me. Even the denizens of an island that didn’t have much to do with the outside world seemed to know about our role in the Cleanse. It was likely some of them were killed by it before it was stopped.
“We need to find Culded,” Gareth informed him, breaking off the silence.
“What do you need it for?”
“A spell?” I offered and was treated to another cold look as if he expected me to do something nefarious with it.
The truth might have been the best option, but I had a feeling telling him I needed to undo a spell by a Vertu wasn’t going to improve his opinion of me and my kind. So I went with a variation of it. “My friend had a spell cast on her. I’m not skilled enough to remove it and I need to undo it.”
Nodding slowly, he started to walk away. Gareth and I looked at each other before following the man of few words. Once we’d caught up, he said, “I suggest you don’t accept service from anyone on this island. I find the trickery distasteful but I’m not in a position to stop it.” He continued to walk and talk, as if he were taking us on a sightseeing excursion, going through the island and down the stone-paved streets, where we received the same looks any stranger would get in a strange land. People were familiar with and greeted Dorian, our guide, who apparently had decided that providing a name wasn’t necessary.
Navigating through rows of homes and shops, he increased his speed, which caused Gareth and me to trot behind him as the blazing sun beat down on us. The buildings dwindled and then gradua
lly melted into more stretches of sandy land. Dorian covered his eyes to block out the sun and pointed to another, smaller, island. He slowed as he traipsed to the shore.
“The garden where the flower can be found is there.” I looked around for a boat but then realized I’d have to swim. I worried I wouldn’t be able to keep the bloom dry and wondered if it would be of any use wet. Sensing my concerns Dorian said, “Anything you acquire off this island will serve its purpose. The magic is strong and untainted. Water will do nothing to hinder it.”
He started to trot away as we inched toward the water. His voice was light and whimsical, too affable for his words: “If the sun sets while you are on the island, it will be where you stay and eventually die. Your body will become part of the beautiful boundary that makes up this island.”
“Isn’t that something you should have told us earlier?”
“Would it have stopped you? I sensed your desperation. Whether I told you then or now, this is where you would have ended up.”
“Is there a guide who will show us where the Culded is?”
“You won’t need one, it will be easily found.” Without another word, he was gone, trotting away, taking on full form. His beautiful, metallic coat quickly disappeared from sight.
CHAPTER 13
The water was clear azure, making it hard to believe it might be anything other than water. What spell or curse could have caused such a thing? Colorful fish swam there, their fins whipping about as they moved throughout the water. We wouldn’t become water, we’d become part of the ocean life. How many of them were humans? I edged closer to study the fish.
“You can stay here,” I offered to Gareth. “I’ll go and—”
“Don’t you even finish that sentence. We go together and we return together.” He continued walking toward the water until he was submerged before he swam toward the smaller island. I debated whether or not to leave the sai sheathed to my back behind and decided I wanted them with me. Knives were fine, but the sai were my weapons of choice and in an odd way, my security blanket—or security blades.
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