Lacey rubbed her eyes and nodded. “I’ll do what you ask, but you’re right—I’m not sorry. Cailleach served Cernunnos, but he’s no worse than the rest of them. There are no good sides, only a chance to gain enough power to be free of them all.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do. Don’t get in my way, Lacey.” I waved my hand and the flames vanished. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.” As I felt my way in the dark for the exit, Binnorie began to sing.
Lacey was true to her word—a transfer to a private school in one of the southern states was the excuse. December passed quickly. Peter had already convinced the Larsens to let him spend Christmas with Miko in Las Vegas. He hadn’t told them he and Miko had broken up. I wasn’t even sure they actually had.
What’s the protocol for breaking up with someone who only cheats on you to become a fairy/vampire hybrid?
And then there was the greatest surprise of all.
The night before our flight, the Larsens celebrated Christmas early and we feasted on turkey, chestnut stuffing, and cranberry-apple pie. I watched with excitement as the Larsens opened my gift—a white porcelain statue of a horse I found in a little shop downtown. I’d also paid the taxes on the property for the next year, but they wouldn’t find out about that until after I was gone. Hopefully it would keep Windfield safe from developers a little while longer.
By midnight, we were sipping eggnog by the fire and Mr. Larsen was asleep on the couch snoring loudly. When Peter’s mom motioned for us to put down our mugs and follow her, we grinned at each other. It was one of our traditions. Mrs. Larsen usually kept back a special treat just for us—Mr. Larsen was diabetic and she hated to tempt him too much. I hoped that this year it was her almond crescents—a family recipe handed down from her German ancestors for generations—but when we entered the kitchen, she was just standing there with tears rolling down her cheeks.
Peter rushed over and put his arm around her. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just going to miss you so much.”
“It’s only a couple of weeks. I’ll be back in no time.”
Mrs. Larsen tried to smile, but her lips trembled. “That’s what they all say when they go to Taliesin. That’s what my sister said, but she never did come back.”
All the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room.
“The Protector curse comes from my side of the family,” she explained quietly.
“Mom . . . ,” Peter began, but she shushed him.
“I was eleven when my sister left and thirteen when my parents received the letter from Taliesin telling us she’d been lost. I knew exactly what you were the moment you were born. I knew you were Rhi’s Protector the first time I saw you together. It didn’t take too many late night football practices before I realized you weren’t telling me the truth and that Taliesin had come for you both at last.”
I could feel Peter’s shock through our bond. Of all the changes in his world, this one was the worst and he could barely process it.
“Did you know what Viviane was?” I asked softly.
Mrs. Larsen shook her head emphatically. “No. And I don’t want to know now. I was afraid of what it might do to Peter if I turned you away. That’s the honest reason why I took you both in, but I let you stay because I grew to love you.”
She put out her arms and the three of us huddled together in a teary embrace. I was taller than her now and it made me sad.
Pushing us away and wiping her eyes, Mrs. Larsen retrieved a photograph from the counter behind her. “This is Marie when she was seventeen. She was gone a few months later.” The photo showed an attractive girl with blonde hair posing in front of a Christmas tree.
Peter took the photo from her. “Dad always said Aunt Marie died in a car crash.”
“Your father never knew her. We told everyone she’d gone away to school. Taliesin had just relocated from Wales to Nevada—something about the opportunity of the ‘New World’ being a powerful attraction for monsters. When Marie disappeared, we made up the story of the accident to explain it.”
“Disappeared?” I asked.
“We never found out what happened. Taliesin said there was no body.” When Peter tried to give the photo back, she shook her head. “Take it with you. I always hoped Marie had changed her mind and run away when she got the chance. You never know, maybe you’ll find her someday.”
The photo was now the placeholder in the book Peter was pretending to read. He was running his thumbnail up and down the groove between his bottom teeth as he stared at it. I wondered if knowing about his aunt made him doubt his decision to join Taliesin, but I didn’t intrude on his thoughts through our bond. I knew what I thought about it all. The bard had either deliberately concealed his knowledge of her, or worse, completely forgotten about the girl who had disappeared while fighting for him. Almost defiantly, Peter had promised his mother that he would be back, no matter what.
I didn’t promise anything.
Resting my head against the window, I stared into the darkness beyond the plane. There wasn’t anything left for me back home, only Seolan buried under the trees. I’d planted a holly bush over the spot to protect him in death the way I couldn’t in life.
The seatbelt light went on and the pilot indicated over the loudspeaker that we were about to make our descent. As the plane approached the lights of Las Vegas, the emerald mystery of the city made me feel like Dorothy entering Oz. Candy apple red winked at me from out of the midst of the brilliant green, reminding me of Thomas Redcap, and I couldn’t help smiling.
As I touched my fingers to the cold window, I thought of the day Viviane died and the feel of her skin and how I couldn’t bear it. That moment began a journey that ended here. I pressed my hand flat against the glass. Las Vegas would be the beginning of a new one. Maybe Daley was out there right now, reaching for the sky, answered by thunder. My heart beat faster and I could feel the slight echo of Tynan’s after it.
“There’s no place like home,” I whispered as lightning flashed on the horizon.
EPILOGUE
Fear is white and thickly veined with sea-blue.
The specialist was talking, but I wasn’t listening. Unlike the on-call doctor and his bright yellow concern, this one had no personal interest in me at all.
He was interested in my cancer though. He lit up all rosy pink whenever he was talking about the tumor in my brain.
He glanced down at the chart to make sure he had the name right. “Miss Lynne, do you understand what I’m telling you?” He probably thought my silence was a refusal to accept bad news, but I’d seen the corruption first hand and he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.
I nodded.
“Good. Then I’d like to have you admitted for surgery immediately. We’re lucky the tumor isn’t affecting any vital processes at the moment, but the scans show that its growth is steady and fast. The sooner we get in there and remove it . . .”
“I can’t,” I interrupted him. The doctor’s eyes narrowed and I hurried to explain. “I leave tonight to visit family in Las Vegas.”
“Your family will understand.”
“But it’s my grandma. She’s really old and this might be the last time I get to see her. I want to be with family this Christmas and she’s the only family I’ve got since Mom died.”
Careful Rhi, don’t lay it on too thick.
The doctor tapped his finger against my file and I decided to tip the scale in my favor. Closing my eyes briefly, I teased out a breath of indigo. I still found magic easier if I let it take physical shape and the doctor would have been able to see a faint misting of color if he’d bothered to look up from my file. Before he could, I bound him ever so gently to the persistent idea that I needed to go. I couldn’t force him, but I could make him feel like he wanted to help me out.
“That sounds fine then.” He put the file down on the desk. “Go visit your grandmother for the holidays and I’ll tell Admissions to expect you on January t
hird.”
I didn’t bother hiding the relief in my voice. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Family is important.” Pulling a pen out of his lab coat pocket, the doctor scribbled something on a pad of paper. “Take this to the pharmacy downstairs. If the headaches get too severe, one of these will help.” He handed me the prescription and then paused and frowned. Picking up the file again, he tapped it against the desk.
“Just make sure to check yourself in as soon as you get back. This is serious, Miss Lynne. Your tumor is aggressive. Left untreated, it will begin to press on your brain and you will experience seizures, blackouts, and a loss of motor and bodily functions. Eventually it will kill you.” I promised I would return. For a moment I thought he was going to insist I stay, but then he said goodbye and left briskly.
A few minutes later, I was outside and tossing the prescription in a garbage can. I had my own way of dealing with the pain and no time for curious doctors—my time was running out. I needed to find my mother and a way to keep Merlin out of my head before Arthur made his move. I figured if Guinevere was powerful enough for Merlin to need her, then she might be able to help me stop her husband. Convincing Taliesin to take me to Viviane’s sister Morgause, the Seer of New York, was the first step in that plan.
Settling myself into my beloved Celica—I would miss it when I abandoned it at the airport—I pulled out my passport and tickets to make sure they were in order. Goodfellow owed me big time for his part in the mess with Morgan and Tynan and a new name and fake passport were only the beginning of how hard I was going to squeeze him. I wasn’t ready to trust him to put me on a Path again yet, so I’d had him arrange flights for us.
I flipped open the passport. I hadn’t given Goodfellow any instructions and I was curious as to what he’d chosen. Lynne was a name Viviane had used to echo her title as the Lady of the Lake. I was on my way to find a new mother, so I needed a new name.
Rhiannon Caerleon.
It tugged at my memory until I recalled that Caerleon was the city Arthur and Guinevere had ruled together before he spurned her and made his home in Camelot. Whispering the name, trying it out, I decided I was satisfied with Goodfellow’s choice. I was ready.
Las Vegas is as good a place as any to die.
I noticed the sky as I put the car in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. The sun was just beginning to set and streaks of red underscored the clouds, echoing the colors that surged through me.
Fear is white and thickly veined with sea-blue, until it evaporates in crimson flame.
The next book in the SWORD OF ELEMENTS SERIES is CAUGHT IN CRIMSON
An important note about the order of books in this special boxed set:
The events in TO MAKE A WITCH—a companion novel featuring Lacey McInnis, New Orleans, and Voodoo—take place before those of CAUGHT IN CRIMSON. You may read these two books in any order, and CAUGHT IN CRIMSON follows next in this box set, but characters introduced in TO MAKE A WITCH do make an appearance in CRIMSON.
If you enjoyed BOUND IN BLUE, please leave a review at: http://tinyurl.com/ozyauvx
Or join the mailing list to receive exclusive offers and be notified when other books are published: http://eepurl.com/-JnVb.
CAUGHT
IN
CRIMSON
Book Two of the Sword of Elements
Heather Hamilton-Senter
Two Paths Publishing
Ontario, Canada
What if you were the monster of your own story?
Armed with Excalibur, Rhi must learn to control both her ability to see magic as color, and her hunger to possess it, but an ancient artifact of the earth magic keeps calling to her with a fire she may not be able to resist, even if it changes her into something she doesn't recognize, even if it destroys her. Only Guinevere or Merlin can help her, and Rhi must decide whether her loyalties lie with humanity, or with the beings of the Grey Lands, her true home.
The choices bound in magic are never black and white.
Copyright © 2015 by Heather Hamilton-Senter
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Two Paths Publishing
www.twopathspublishing.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout © 2014 BookDesignTemplates.com
Cover Design © 2015 BookCoverArtistry.com
Caught In Crimson/ Heather Hamilton-Senter. -- 1st ed.
ISBN 978-0-9938225-5-1
I have happily taken liberty with La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Keats, This Endris Night, The Lorica of Saint Patrick, and Preiddeu Annwn by the historical Taliesin.
I have also quoted Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant as it is quoted on the tomb of John E. Hubbard in the Green Mount Cemetery of Montpelier, Vermont.
CONTENTS
RED
RUBY
SCARLET
GARNET
CARDINAL
ROSE
COQUELICOT
VERMILION
CARNELIAN
ALIZARIN
CERISE
BERRY
BURGUNDY
POPPY
ROUGE
AMARANTH
CARMINE
CLARET
FLAME
CINNABAR
CRIMSON
CRIMSON
CRIMSON
CRIMSON
ASH
ASH AND FLAME
PROLOGUE
RED
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
― ROBERT FROST
The sand was cold under my bare feet and my palm was numb where it rested against the metal of the flashlight. In the Mojave Desert, before the sun was up, December was pretty chilly. Not the kind of cold I was used to back home, but enough to make my toes curl and send stiff rays of almost-pain up my back. I shivered in my swimsuit, although the scraps of black fabric could only just barely be called that.
I’d learned the hard way that clothing and fire don’t mix.
Except for the long sweater tied around my waist, the rest of my things were stashed in the SUV I’d liberated from Taliesin’s collection. A fifteen minute drive had brought me to Henderson, Nevada, and a quiet road where suburbia ended and the desert began.
I did a quick check to make sure no one else was nearby, but the only color I could sense was the faint glow of the coming dawn on the horizon. I’d scoped out the location the day before, looking for somewhere private to explore this new expression of power. Ever since Peter and I had arrived in Las Vegas, I’d been filled with red. Red was anger and rage, passion and excitement. It was life. It was fire.
Hence the bikini.
I’d lost control of it with Taliesin on the very first day. He’d called me into his office for a private talk, but interrogation was more accurate, and I’d given in and confessed exactly what happened when I quickened Excalibur. Taliesin, warrior-bard and one-time companion to King Arthur, was one of the good guys, but he could also make me absolutely furious. He didn’t approve of the risk I’d taken using blood magic and we got into a terrible argument.
That was the first time I burst into flames.
At first, I enjoyed the stunned look on his face, but then my jeans and t-shirt began to smoke and the edges flared with bright sparks. Running to my room, I only barely made it to privacy in time. As heat flickered over me, I realized that even though it could hurt and destroy, it wasn’t normal fire.
It was magic.
I decided I was
far enough away from the road. Dropping the flashlight on the sand, I untied my sweater and threw it a safe distance away; I would need it unsinged if I didn’t want to scare all the early morning commuters by walking out of the desert naked.
In the darkness, out of sight of mankind and godkind, I let emotion fill me—rage at the mother who’d abandoned me, the foster mother who’d denied me the truth of my existence, the father who only wanted me as his puppet—it erupted from every pore. Back arched and gasping, I was a column of fire reaching for the sky.
I was a question framed in flame.
And I was answered. Red magic surged into me from unknown beings, some as close as the neighborhood behind, others as far as the edges of the state. I wanted to keep it all, but it passed through me leaving tantalizing glimpses of the wondrous, terrible things it could make me capable of. Then the magic was gone and only my hot anger remained. Sick with hunger for that ecstasy of power, I didn’t care if it meant stealing it from other beings somewhere out there in the dark. In that moment, I would have killed to have it back.
Agony sliced through my temples. Falling to my knees, I called on Viviane’s binding spell to block the pain. For one terrifying moment I didn’t think it would work, but then cool, blue relief replaced the red of rage. I huddled in the sand, naked and cold, guessing that I’d probably done new damage to myself. I didn’t care.
Sword of Elements Series Boxed Set 2: Bound In Blue, Caught In Crimson & To Make A Witch Page 27