Myths & Magic: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection

by Kerry Adrienne

  Awash in tingling electricity, I emerged from my trance. The energy dissipated and floated away in a spray of rainbow fireworks. The ritual was instinctive, something I’d never have thought up in a gazillion years before we’d opened the Rift. I grinned and spun in a circle. “Fin?” No response.

  I dug out the flashlight and shined it around. “Where are you?” Dread nudged out a slice of my exhilaration. I heard a slight fluttering behind me, the swish of birds’ wings, and flashed the light at the ground.

  “Did you ever wonder why I lifted my leg to pee?” a bitty exasperated voice said near my left ear. The tiny buzz saw of wings whooshed close to my head.

  “Fin?” I backed up a step and saw…her…naked body fluttering in a flare of light. Gold spots sprinkled the bitty fairy’s gossamer wings of iridescent lavender and pink. She was Barbie-sized and imitated one too. Long, golden hair framed a stunning oval-shaped face, flowing down her perfectly proportioned body. I unwound my scarf and spread it open. She flew into the folds, stood on my open palm, and I gently twined the scarf loosely about her tiny body.

  Fin was a shifter-fairy? Infinity…

  “Thank the Goddess. I thought you were going to freeze me to death now that I’ve finally shifted out of that Goddess-awful canine body.” Her voice held a beautiful, lilting Irish accent. “My name is not Fin. Or Finny. Goddess, do you know what identity issues I’ve suffered from? It was bad enough I shifted into a bloody puppy, having to lift my leg to keep myself clean. I’ll never live it down.”

  Foolishly, I grinned at her, my excitement banging my heart against my chest. “What…what’s your name?”

  She straightened to her full height and replied with all the stature her ten-inch frame could muster, “Lorelei Wildwood, Queen of the Wildwood Clan, at your command.”

  At my command? I held out my index finger and she pumped it up and down. “Nice to…er…meet you.”

  “I’m very glad to meet you, Aria Elle Walker, Goddess of the Forbidden. I’ve been waiting for this day since I was a wee child.”

  For little ole me? I gulped and tilted my head. “How old are you?”

  “What year is it?” She laughed a tiny, tinkling sound. “I was twenty-nine when the Rift closed. I believe I’ll be twenty-nine forever.” She looked all of eighteen.

  Carefully, I sat on the warm ground in the middle of Mini-Stonehenge and positioned her on my knee. “What happened back then?”

  Lorelei plonked down, dangling her legs off my knee. “All the fae and sorcerers were summoned and locked into the Void, as you well know. The Rift wasn’t here, though.” She glanced around and sniffed with no small amount of disdain. “Ireland is far more beautiful than this dreary stink-hole.”

  “Ireland.” Despite the warmth of the circle, I shivered. “How’d you end up here? Of all the crap-ass places, why’d they put a Rift in Seattle? I mean, the sun never shines here.”

  Her wings vibrated through the scarf, and a glow shimmered, then winked out as she took a moment to recall. “They didn’t put a Rift here. These magical stones have been here since before humans inhabited the earth. Once the scared witless humans and your early ancestral sorcerers began culling the Forbidden toward extinction, some fairy clans tried to hide, knowing the end was coming. Most migrated to this part of the world to live in peace. Mountains were plentiful with uninhabited woodlands. Humans would not suspect fairies to journey to a place so foreign and far away from our origins.”

  “They knew fairies were here if they were summoned to the Void, right?”

  A red glow suffused Lorelei. “Possibly.” She gripped my knuckle. “You must understand that other magical beings were in this area. The summoning magic the sorcerers used extended to all beings with magic. Fairies just outlived them all and were the last to go.”

  I swallowed hard. “What other races?”

  She released her grip on my finger. “I don’t know specifically, since I was not among those fairy clans that migrated here. They’re all gone now. Very little of their magic remained in the Void. Few fae were left even though our magic was dominant.”

  “Plus the doppelgängers?” Cool air replaced the warmth in the circle.

  “Yes, them too.” Lorelei shuddered. “Half-fairy, half-sorcerer. The residual magic from the dead is drifting out of the Rift. Eventually, it will dissipate or be absorbed by humans or the Thirteen and their doppelgängers.” Her hands fluttered up and down.

  Whoa, Nelly. I shrugged the matter to the back of my mind. My brain was going to send me a bounced check charge soon. “Why is Adam so human looking without wings, and you’re so tiny—”

  “Goodness, I see I have my work cut out for me.” She rolled her neck, and I think her hands went to her hips beneath the scarf. “The fae come in many varieties. As for Adam…” she sniffed as if I’d stepped in a smelly, brown pile, “…he’s a doppelgänger, born of leftover sorcery. Besides, his blood is too watered with humans and sorcerers.” Her shoulders lifted and I adjusted the scarf.

  “So how did you and Fin shift? How is that possible?”

  “Not much to tell there.” Her sweet lilt perked up. “When the original Thirteen were closing the final Rift after sending the doppelgängers into the Void, I shape-shifted for the first time ever into a puppy.” Embarrassment suffused her face in a cotton candy glow. “I was a little late to the summoning,” she said in a whisper that I strained to hear. “I got locked in the fuzzball’s body in stasis, where I’ve been ever since. I think the sorcerers did it on purpose. Those ancestors of yours weren’t exactly the nicest beings on the planet.”

  “So I guessed. I’m sorry for everything they did to you. I plan to make it right. The Forbidden Thirteen will be a better, moral race of sorcerers than ever before.”

  “There may be more of my kind hiding in the world. I want to find them.” The anguished look on her face stopped my pending inquisition. In due time, we’d hunt down her kind, if any remained or had escaped the Void.

  “Can you shift back to Fin?” I asked instead. Nothing escaped the realm of reality anymore.

  She placed her hands on her hips and rolled her tiny luminescent eyes. “Goddess, I suppose. Couldn’t those damn sorcerers create their shifters from tigers instead?” She smoothed her hands over her arms, tightening her wings around her miniature body. “I’d rather not test the theory at the moment. I very much like my old self and would rather remain a fairy for another eternity.”

  I laughed agreeably. “No kidding. But I’ll miss Fin.”

  “Posh.” She fluttered her hand at me. “You’ll like me better.” She gave me a beauty contestant smile, eerily similar to my own. Hmmm…I seriously doubt this world was ready for two of us. And I’d have to sound a world alert if I had a doppelgänger hanging around the stargate. She slapped my hand, her teeny palm stinging like a snapped rubber band. “You’re not a dog fan, are you?”

  Heat rose up my face and I picked at a dormant bedding plant. “Well, I am a cat person.”

  A papery scraping of leaves in the trees by the babbling brook reminded me of the time. “We have to go before the doppel-wardens send the Starfleet posse after me.” I gently lifted her in my hand and rose off the warm ground.

  “Put me on your shoulder,” she suggested. The perfect idea freed my hands.

  Another nearby crinkling and snapping alerted me to a looming presence. A tingle inside my core and the surrounding energy identified the intruder. More relief than I cared to admit to gushed through me.

  “Ronan?” I whipped out my flashlight and illuminated him at the outer edge of the stones. “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Adam.” He held his left arm in a sling against his chest.

  Lorelei tugged on my ear teasingly. “The fairy and the barbarian. What’s a girl to do?” She giggled and pinched my lobe. I tapped her knee and gave her a sideways evil eye.

  “How much did you see?” I asked.

  He smiled at Lorelei. “Enough to know Fin’s still
around.” He laughed so carefree and happy, and I fell in love with his laugh…and him all over again. “I’ll drive you back. I sent Jon away.” He extended his good hand.

  Without a thought, I took it, his fingers sliding over mine, entwining and electric. Something inside me melted, and that single gesture vanquished the tension between us. The rich scent of his amber spice cologne mingling with the earthy scents of the Rift area curled through the air, aroused my senses, booted out the last of the dust on my hormones. Everything felt right in the world. My head and heart had quit warring with one another. The convoluted impact of the doppelgänger bond waned with every day as I fell more in love with Ronan.

  The cuff on his wrist brushed against me. I lifted our hands and inspected the deadener. “Why the deadener? Aren’t you done with your father’s legacy BS?”

  “For Adam.” He stopped walking and peered down into my face. His unfathomable stare drilled down to my southern hemisphere in spikes of heated blood. “When I use magic, it kills a little something inside Adam.” I sucked in my stomach. “When he pulls from me, it drains me. We thought it best not to use any magic until we figure it out.”

  “Oh. I read about that…in the book.” I fingered my trembling bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “Everything comes with a price. Magic’s going to cost us big time. At least we have the Illuminaria now. It’s bound to hold answers.”

  We began a careful trek to the grove. Needless to say, unlucky thirteen still loved me. I tripped in a hole on my thirteenth step and slapped—almost squashed—poor Lorelei against my shoulder to keep her from kissing the ground with me. Maybe wrapping her in the scarf wasn’t such a grand idea. Ronan circled his arm around my waist, snuggled me against his side.

  After assuring Lorelei was okay and listening to her high-pitched voice ream me a new one, I turned into him. “Is your telekinesis back?”

  “And more.” His voice was a velvet murmur. “More magic than I’ve ever felt. You don’t negate my magic any longer. How about you?”

  “Same. More magic than ever.” Electricity arced around us and my thoughts fragmented. I jumped with a rush of electricity and tried fighting the dance of magic, the spiral of desire. Despite the deadener, our auras still partied together. Thank the Rift. I think I would die if that part of Ronan and Adam didn’t dance with such a vital part of me. “How’s your arm?”

  “Sore. It’s not gonna kill me.”

  He sported a bandage on the right side of his neck in the exact opposite spot where he’d cut out the tracking device on the left. My mind flinched in anxiety. “What happened to your neck?” I rubbed the spot where my dead tracker was buried.

  “I had the second tracking device cut out. That’s how my—Richard—kept tabs on us.”

  “Oh.” Another piece of the puzzle slipped into place. “Alex…my dad said Richard had been hunting us all over Seattle, everywhere really.”

  “He’s a good guy, Aria. He did what he thought best to protect you and your mom. He even tried to help my mom escape Richard. They had all known each other in college.”

  I leaned my head on his arm. “I know. We’ll get past all this. I want to know him.”

  Silence fell like a growing slant of sunlight warming a wintry day. Air sighed around me as real as if it touched my face with warm fingers of life and hope.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friend?” His deep voice broke into the coziness of our companionship.

  “How much did you really see?”

  “Everything.” He angled his head, appraising me slowly. “How did you know to do that?”

  I tapped my index finger against my temple. “I’m psychic, remember?” He scowled then grinned, and I about swooned for real, holding onto his arm to keep my knees from buckling. That trickle of desire tormenting me expanded into a rushing river. “Actually, it came to me in a dream last night.”

  “Hey! Don’t mind me. Studmuffin and I go way back.” Lorelei laughed, the scarf tickling my neck as she twittered and bounced.

  “I guess we do.” Ronan snorted. “You peed on my shoe once or twice.”

  Lorelei glowed pink in embarrassment. “You probably deserved it.”

  As he’d learned to ignore my barbs, he smiled at Lorelei and let her dig slide. I formally introduced the fairy-shifter to the fairy-sorcerer.

  “So why did you come here?” Hope shifted my heart into park.

  His arm tightened around my waist. “I had to play the part…with my father, and I didn’t get a chance to discuss it with you after we were captured. You were drugged. I was drugged—”

  I squeezed his waist. “I know.” I touched the piece of the genie bottle in my pants pocket, that little part of him in the gift from his beloved mother. “No need to explain.” Relief glided down his side. “I’m sorry I mistrusted you.”

  “I needed him alive to find the Illuminaria. You saw how lethal it is.”

  “I’m glad we have it safe and sound. My dad wants to take us to his compound. It’s actually near Adam’s house in the hills.” I didn’t even want to contemplate how our life would play out next. Goodbye to the lonely days of humdrum. How would the new magic affect my luck?

  The welcome to purgatory bells continued to ring for me. We had a whole new set of problems to contend with: legal, moral, and magical. Hunting down the other sorcerers and their doppelgängers. Discovering what magic may have seeped into the world since the ley line explosion and since we’d opened the Rift. Do we blab to the world? Do I hide my head in dreams of Ronan? Alas, the world couldn’t banish the Forbidden or the magic any longer. Just let them try.

  Ronan stopped and looked down at me, flicking curious eyes at Lorelei. She’d fallen asleep curled against my neck, snoring softly. He cupped my face. “I got what I wanted.” His voice faded, losing its steely edge.

  His warmth pushed against mine and I snuggled into him. “Which is?”

  The yearning for my place in this life slipped away and I leaned into him. He brushed his lips over mine once, eased closer for a deeper kiss. His kiss possessed me, owned me, and my lips quivered in unspoken passion. I’d died and slipped into hunky kisser’s paradise. I pressed against him, and sudden white-hot desire spiked my dormant girlie parts. Magic slipped out of me and showered us in sparks. I basked in the sensation of my power flowing into him and reversing course, my gaze riveted onto his storm-tossed eyes. He jerked against me in surprise or shock. As long as he didn’t stop kissing and touching me, jerk away. Our kiss was fierce, passionate, and hotter than hell. I wanted every piece of him, body and soul, tainted power and pure, right there on the spot. With that one hot-as-molten-lava kiss, he possessed me. And I let him. Desire and satisfaction smothered my lingering doubts.

  He groaned deep in his throat, his good arm pulling me to where air didn’t exist between us. My heart gave my head a high-five. Breathless, we drew away, a tiny line of confusion marring his forehead.

  I smoothed the line out with my finger and said the words he needed to hear. The words in my heart. “I know who I am and I have this amazing magic inside me. But it’s nothing without your magic within me. Nothing without you.”

  “What about Adam?” His right hand slid into my hair, cupped my neck.

  “He’ll always be a part of me as long as you are. I’m so lucky to have the both of you in my life. But he’ll always only be my friend.” I kissed him to seal the deal.

  I’d found my purpose and my heart.

  “Hey!” Lorelei began sliding down my upper arm. I wrenched away from Ronan and caught her on my palm before she tumbled to the ground, twisted in the scarf. She plunked down in an indignant heap, the scarf tying her wings to her sides. The tiny fairy glanced from me to Ronan, her eyes glimmering brighter. “Got any of those chocolate peanuts? No skimping on the chocolate either.”

  “In the car.” A disconcerted twitch of Ronan’s lips revealed a flash of white teeth.

  She rolled on her side, propped
her head on her hand, and tweaked the cuff buckle on my jacket. “Did I tell you I have thirteen good luck gold spots on my wings?”

  Well, thirteen was my number.

  * * *

  The End

  While you wait for the Forbidden Legacy Series Book 2, you might enjoy Erin Richards’ Psychic Justice Series, starting with CHASING SHADOWS.

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  About the Author

  Erin Richards lives in sunny Northern California. She writes young adult fiction and adult romance, where you’ll typically find her characters in peril, whether based in reality or a contemporary fantasy setting. Magic, murder and mayhem are all in a days’ work! In her spare time, she enjoys reading, photography, and re-landscaping her backyard, even though she hates digging holes…unless she’s burying fictional bodies! Erin also confesses to a fascination with American muscle cars…and reality TV shows.

  Read More from Erin Richards at: Erin Richards Website

  Mortality Bites

  R.E. Vance

  Mortality Bites © copyright year R. E. Vance

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.