Spectrum of Magic Complete Series - Spell Breaker - Fate Shifter - Cursed Stone - Magic Unborn - Libra

by D. N. Leo

“Well, you are not going to get me. Aside from me shooting you, what can I do to get you out of my home?”

  In the blink of an eye, the man shifted back into leopard form and leapt at Keeva.

  Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 37

  The sound of the bullet terrified the wild animals in the woods as much as the shapeshifters around the house. The shapeshifters closed in, howling, barking, and roaring to intimidate.

  From behind the shapeshifter lines, Orla, Maeve, and Bradan rushed in. Orla threw fireballs at them, nonstop, one after another. As the ones in the back howled in pain and burned like torches, the front line turned around. They ran in circles to surround Orla, Maeve, and Bradan.

  From this end of the woods, the moon was full, bright yellow and clear, shedding enough light for Orla to see that they were outnumbered by the were-creatures. She kept hurling her fireballs, but she wasn’t sure how long they could hold on. They stood, their backs toward one another, while the animals ran circles around them. The animals closed the circles, tighter by the minute. They were so close she could hear them breathe.

  “Behind me,” Orla said. Bradan and Maeve could fight with magic, but when the animals commenced a physical attack, there was nothing much they could do except engaging in hand-to-hand combat. Orla threw more fireballs to the front of her. At the back, Maeve and Bradan fought some shapeshifters off when they got close.

  Orla turned to throw a couple of fireballs and heard a growl at her back. A puma’s paw slapped at her shoulder, throwing her a few feet away. She scrambled to her feet and tossed more balls of fire in the directions of her attackers. Maeve and Bradan stood back to back. They wouldn’t be able to hang on for long.

  The door of the house opened, and Keeva yelled, “In here!” Orla, Maeve, and Bradan raced inside. Before Keeva could close the door, a smaller puma leapt toward it. It was too fast for Keeva to use her rifle. Orla was running in and didn’t see it.

  They saw a small fireball the size of a tennis ball hit the puma right between the eyes. He howled and ran away. Keeva slammed the door closed and saw Noah behind her, hands still curled into fists. “The fire was small, but it did the job,” Noah said when Keeva glared at him.

  Keeva pointed to the broken window. “The others are secured with thick wooden doors. That’s the only window broken.” They guarded the one window, hitting any shapeshifters that attempted to enter with a fireball or a bullet. The animals seemed to understand the risks. Eventually, none tried to invade through that window.

  Orla saw the leopard, now a man, tied to a chair. “He thought I wouldn’t shoot him, so I got him in the leg,” Keeva said.

  “You’re a hell of a shot, Keeva. Ask Lorcan to shoot at an elephant at two feet, he’ll still miss, I guarantee,” Orla said.

  Keeva laughed. “I’m glad there’s something I can do better than him. Now that he’s turning supernatural and all that, he’ll be unbearable.”

  “No one can compete with you in being his sister, Keeva. You and your mother are the two most important women in Lorcan’s world. Trust me.”

  “What about you?”

  Orla merely smiled and said nothing. Lorcan and she were soulmates. There was no need for reassurance.

  “Your shoulder is soaked in blood, Orla,” Maeve said. Orla looked at her injury, realizing she couldn’t heal as fast as Lorcan did. “I’m okay. Where’s Jane?” Orla asked Keeva.

  “She released the wolf. Keeva got mad and locked her in her room,” Noah said.

  “Thank you, Noah! I guess I’m not able to speak for myself,” Keeva said and pinched Noah’s nose lightly.

  Orla peeked through the window and looked outside. The shapeshifters were lurking around, waiting for an opportunity to attack. “Bradan and Maeve, could you watch the window?”

  “Sure,” Bradan said.

  “I need to talk to Jane. Can you keep an eye on Noah?” Orla asked Keeva. Keeva nodded. “Mother is in the room at the end of the corridor on the left.”

  Orla went to Jane’s room. She knocked and removed the chair Keeva had used to jam the door from the outside. Orla entered and found Jane sitting at the side of her bed. It wasn’t just a room, it was a grand master suite. The room was elegantly decorated and there wasn’t a single wrinkle on the bed linens. Not a single thing out of place.

  From years working as a high-end antique thief, Orla knew exactly how women in upper class families behaved, reacted, and dealt with life. She knew how they handled pain, loss, happiness, family, lifestyle and—in rare instances—maintained their sanity. The room in front of her was an example of how much pain this woman had suffered and how much control she had.

  Jane was a role model for controlling emotions.

  Jane stood when she saw Orla. Her movements were gracious, but Orla knew there was a storm of turmoil inside her. Not exactly the ideal situation to be introduced to a mother-in-law. She cleared her throat and spoke, “I’m Orla . . .”

  Jane smiled. “I know. I’ve seen your pictures.”

  Orla nodded. “I shouldn’t be so naive as to think that you didn’t keep tabs on Lorcan’s life.”

  “Not as much as I would have liked to.”

  “The shapeshifters are surrounding us. I think we should get everyone out of here. If they decide to attack us all at once, we’ll be trapped inside the house. If we are outside, at least, we can run.”

  Jane looked Orla squarely in the eyes. She was much smaller than Orla, but her inner strength made Orla squirm a bit. “Why did you come here?” Jane asked with a voice as cool as water.

  “I saw the shapeshifters moving in this direction. I didn’t have time to get to Lorcan, so I came straight here. This is Lorcan’s home, and I’ll help him protect it as much as I can.”

  “But he left this home for you.”

  Orla looked straight into Jane’s eyes. “We are soulmates, Jane. Without each other, our lives have no meaning. I left my family because they forbade me to love him. When you kept him from loving me, it was like asking him to refuse his life. What did you expect him to do?”

  “I’m sure Lorcan has told you by now that the reason we have him is because of Bricius. When Lorcan was six, he killed one of Bricius’s shapeshifters in the woods to protect me. The day he came home and told me he kissed you for the first time, he was covered in Bricius’s aura . . .”

  “He taught my magic class. I practiced some of his magic, and of course, it carried his aura. I have no blood ties with him.”

  “At that time, Keeva was a toddler. Bricius was our biggest fear. We worried that he’d come for her at any time. How do you expect I’d react when Lorcan came home with our worst nightmare?”

  “You asked him not to see me again without even giving him a reason.”

  Jane nodded. “That was exactly what I did.”

  “Lorcan killed Bricius in our last mission.”

  “I knew that. I felt the deep wound in my soul suddenly stop bleeding. I don’t know how, but I just knew that the nightmare had stopped, and Lorcan was coming home. I didn’t know that Bricius would get his last strike that killed my husband.”

  “Yet you released the wolf so he could save Alana, a descendant of Bricius’s clan?”

  Jane smiled. “I will never forgive Bricius, but this is no fault of his descendants. Now he’s dead. And so is Ferris. I now consider that chapter of our lives closed. Keeva and Lorcan have to move on . . . And you have to move on.”

  They heard a bang on the back door. “Come with me.” Orla took Jane’s hand and ran toward the living room. “They’ve start attacking already. Are the rooms upstairs secured?” Orla asked.

  “Yes,” Keeva said.

  “Noah, can you go upstairs with Jane? Go into a room and secure all the doors. Don’t open for anyone except us. Take the cat and use the fireballs if you have to. Can you do that for me?”

  Noah nodded. Aris jumped onto his shoulders.

  “Give me your knife,” Jane said.


  “Mother!” Keeva exclaimed.

  “Take mine.” Orla gave Jane hers.

  Jane nodded and took the knife. “I’ll take care of Noah.” Then she rushed upstairs.

  Chapter 38

  “You have a hell of a mother, Keeva.” Orla mumbled. There was more banging on the back door. Orla grabbed the captured shapeshifter and used him as a shield. She opened the front door and walked outside. All the pumas and leopards in the front hunched down, growling, preparing for an attack.

  “Withdraw, or I’ll set him on fire.” Orla said and threw a fireball at a tree in the front yard. The tree burst into flames. “Now, withdraw!” Orla yelled at the animals. They kept growling, unsure of what to do. There were rows and rows of them. A sea of shapeshifters walked stealthily around them.

  Then she heard a haunting howl, the coolest howl Orla had ever heard. “Mori!” Orla exclaimed under her breath and grinned. Beneath the moonlight, Mori appeared—a magnificent warrior with an army of space foxes. “This is the end of you!” Orla threw the shapeshifter she was holding hostage to his frontline and ran back to inside the house.

  Mori and her foxes attacked the shapeshifters from behind.

  From another direction, more howling came. Roy and his space wolves charged toward them. The banging from the back of the house had stopped, replaced by the groaning of wounded dogs. Lorcan and Riley stormed in from the back door.

  “Your mother and Noah are upstairs!” Orla told them. They heard a thumping sound from above. Lorcan and Riley raced up the stairs. Orla turned and threw fireballs at some pumas that had gotten past Mori’s foxes. Another leopard jumped for the broken window, but Keeva gunned it down instantly. Maeve and Bradan rushed toward the back door to guard it.

  Lorcan arrived at the landing upstairs and was in awe. His mother had her knife held at the throat of a puma, and Noah had thrown a leopard off balance with a fireball. The animal rolled off the roof and landed outside. By the sound of it, the shapeshifter was finished off by Maeve and Bradan in the backyard.

  The puma wriggled and got free from Jane’s knife, and it jumped at Noah. Riley darted at the animal, aiming his rifle upward, and shot. The dead puma landed on top of Riley, sending him rolling and sliding down the stairs.

  Then everything went quiet.

  “We’ve got the outside covered at the front,” Mori yelled.

  “I’ve got the back,” Roy added.

  “The upstairs is fine,” Lorcan said and darted down the stairs.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Riley lay beneath the dead puma. Lorcan dragged the puma off his friend. Riley was lying upside down. Lorcan was worried he’d broken his neck in the fall. When he approached, Keeva pushed in front of him and gently put her hand behind Riley’s neck and back. “No blood. Doesn’t seem to be broken. He might have a concussion, though,” she muttered more to herself than to the others in the room. Riley opened his eyes groggily.

  “There you are. Give me a smile so I know you understand me,” Keeva said.

  Riley winced.

  “That doesn’t qualify as a smile, but it should do for now. I’m going to try to move you, okay? Tell me where it hurts.”

  “Left shoulder,” Riley said.

  “Welcome back, doctor.” Keeva smiled.

  Later, Lorcan and Orla saw Mori and Roy back to the portal. Bradan and Maeve helped to clean up the mess in the house. From the sofa in the living room, Lorcan heard Keeva’s voice, “Don’t be a puss. Stay still. I’ll fix it.”

  “Have you done this before?” asked Riley.

  “I fixed a pig’s tail. He was alive and healthy.”

  “What about his tail?”

  In another corner, Noah was sitting on a bench with Aris on his lap, enjoying the scene of Keeva playing doctor with his father.

  Lorcan fixed the bandage on Orla’s shoulder and kissed it. “How does it feel?” he asked.

  “Better.” She smiled at him. “Sorry I missed the show at the ceremony.”

  Lorcan chuckled. “It wasn’t much of a show. Ciaran did a spectacular job with the special effects, though. The moon really looked as if it was on fire. And I don’t know how the hell Riley pulled off the fake wolf fur stunt. It looked so real that Alana couldn’t tell.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t easy. I’m sorry I left you alone to do all that.”

  He kissed her cheek. “That’s okay. You were busy saving my family.” He kissed her, but she stopped the kiss.

  “Should we go and talk to your mother?”

  He cringed, and Orla laughed.

  Chapter 39

  The riverbank was cold as usual. Lorcan wasn’t sure that walking along this riverbank before going back to Eudaiz was a good idea. It was associated with too many painful memories. But Orla had insisted. Perhaps she valued the good memories over the daunting experiences. She wanted to remember the good times they had spent here during their childhoods and the moment they had become childhood sweethearts.

  They approached the large rock where Lorcan had always hopped up first and reached his hand out to bring her up with him. He always felt good doing that. It made him feel like a prince. Recalling the experience, he chuckled.

  “What?” Orla asked.

  He looked at the way her long hair blew in the wind and the way she squinted her eyes when the hair tangled in her face. He did what she always expected—he untangled the hair on her face and kissed her squinting eyes, then her exquisite nose, working his way to her lips.

  They heard children giggle in the distance and saw a group of families gather for a picnic. It wasn’t exactly a summer picnic under the glorious sunlight. But considering this riverbank always seemed to be the territory of creatures and black magic, the scene of families gathering was quite a treasure.

  Orla smiled.

  “What are you smiling at?” Lorcan asked.

  She looked up at him, twirled her finger in a strand of his hair, and gazed into his eyes. He loved the way she looked into his eyes, so intense, as if she was examining them, memorizing them, and savoring the moment. He knew he wanted to do the same to her, but hell, he wouldn’t be able to do it as well as she did.

  “I’m just happy, that’s all,” Orla said.

  “Would you be happier seeing that?”

  “What?”

  Lorcan realized that with her human senses, she probably couldn’t see and hear what he could. Across the river, deep in the woods, Bradan and Maeve were walking, hand in hand. He described what he saw to Orla.

  “About last night, you weren’t disappointed, were you?”

  Orla shook her head. “No. Your mother was tired. She’d had a hell of a day.”

  Lorcan looked down at the sand. “Still, I’d love to see you two talk before we leave.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You squirmed when I suggested it.”

  “I did not!” Lorcan laughed as Orla punched him lightly in the chest. Then the smiled faded on Orla’s face. Lorcan turned to see his mother approaching.

  Jane smiled. “So you two are leaving now?”

  Lorcan nodded. “We’ll be back to visit you in no time.”

  Jane looked at Orla. “I thought it was too soon for me to come to terms with everything. Too hard to forgive and forget in such a short time. But I thought about it all night, and you were right. Life is short and precious. I have to treasure every moment of it.”

  Lorcan put his hand on Orla’s back and rubbed it lightly. She had his support in whatever was coming.

  Jane pulled out a necklace. “This belongs to my mother. I had kept it for Keeva, but now I’m giving it to you.” She put it around Orla’s neck. “Keeva will always have me. But you don’t have anyone. You two can take care of each other. But when you are out there, I want you to know that you always have my love and my blessing.”

  Orla embraced Jane. Lorcan raised his hand to wipe a tear rolling down Orla’s face. But the tear and the scene Orla and his mother holding each other was too beautiful for him to disturb.
>
  He was glad they had come back to Ireland and thankful that they had worked things out. The riverbank was now at peace. He was grateful she had given him the little rock as a promise of their childhood love. He thanked the person who had created him as a supernatural creature, just so he could prove that it wasn’t his creation that made him who he was; it was his mother’s nurturing that had guided his emotions and made him the human he was today.

  WHAT’S NEXT

  THIS IS THE END OF SPECTRUM OF MAGIC

  D.N. Leo’s website

  http://dnleo.com

  To find out how Roy and Mori live in the Multiverse, continue to

  Libra - Spectrum of Magic - Prequel.

  Sample chapters are on the next pages.

  To find out what Lorcan does before Spectrum of Magic - read Pisces - Merworld Trilogy - Prequel.

  Link is here

  SPECTRUM OF MAGIC RELATED BOOKS

  LIBRA - SPECTRUM OF MAGIC - EPILOGUE

  Imagine if Asia, Australia, Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean vanish with the wrong turn of a key!

  As a silver blood soldier, it is Roy’s mission to stop that from happening. As the alpha of a werefox clan, Mori uses all of her skills to help her husband prevent the catastrophe to both Earth and the paranormal worlds.

  Together, they tread the dangerous water, fighting the most notorious supernatural forces from the multiverse and the magical land.

  Chapter 1

  The cold breeze seeped up from the ground, whirled into a small funnel, clawing at her pale skin. She didn’t remember this bleak weather at all. Yorin was supposed to be peaceful and safe. Mori shrugged and snorted at her conflicting thoughts. If Yorin was at peace, she shouldn’t have to come back here. This was too quiet for her liking.

  She tied back her flaming red hair, which had grown too long since she took residence in Eudaiz, a world that was far away from Yorin.