by E. M. Moore
Troian.
No, really. Troian.
He struggled to breathe. His eyes were hazy as he shook me. “Cas?”
I gasped, and Troian passed out onto the grass next to me.
I wasn’t dead. I sat up fast only to be rewarded by a few stars and a spinning head. The grass was moist in my hands as I grabbed it as an anchor. The feeling passed and I looked around. We were at Gallows Hill. I was alive and at Gallows Hill. Troian saved me.
“Troian,” I said, shaking him like he did me. He didn’t respond. I put my hand over his chest. Relieved to feel his chest move up and down, I touched the back of my hand to his forehead. It was clammy. I stood on shaky legs and assessed the situation. We were alone and I needed to get him to a magical doctor. There wasn’t much else to do but to try and carry him down the path to Gallows Hill Park.
I bent at my knees and tried to scoop him up. He didn’t budge. Finally, I grabbed him under the arms and yanked. His feet dragged a path through the grass as we went, but at least we were making progress.
We were halfway through the trail when I heard Jake call my name.
I sucked in a breath, and choked on a sob. “Here,” I yelled back.
Heavy footsteps pounded the dirt trail. I pulled Troian’s unmoving body with more vigor. His feet bounced over tree roots and rocks in the path until there was a hand on my back. Then, Sanders came around and threw Troian over his shoulder.
“You’re alive,” I said.
Sanders nodded once.
I turned toward Jake. “You are, too.” I tried to smile, but it quivered on my face. “What was that?”
“The magical equivalent of the atom bomb. Stonehenge is gone, Cas.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
My first thought when I woke up in a sterile, dark hospital-like room was, Shit, I fainted.
I didn’t think I’d ever be the type of girl who fainted. I didn’t like that look on me.
My next thought was of Troian. I sat up in bed and searched the room. I could only guess we were in Command since I was surrounded by steel and dim lighting. Jake was asleep in a chair next to me. I shook him awake. “Where is everyone?” I asked before he’d even had a chance to fully open his eyes.
He sat up, stretching, and then yawned. He looked like he’d been there for a while. “Sanders is in a Command meeting. Troian’s in the room next door.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder. I looked at the dark wall separating us. “He’s okay. The partner travel took a lot out of him, and plus, we think you guys got out of there just in the nick of time. He felt some of the blast.”
“He’s awake?”
Jake nodded. I pulled the covers away from me, but Jake stayed my hand before I could jump out of bed. “Before you go. Tomas didn’t make it.”
His gaze was glued to the floor as he told me. It took a few seconds for it to sink in. “He didn’t get through…he couldn’t get through. Like me.”
“The portal was only open to Elites because they were the only ones supposed to be there.”
“That’s why Troian had to come back and get me.”
I cringed when I thought of Frankie. He was going to hate me. I’d talked his friend into going over there to save the magical world and he didn’t make it.
“I can see where your mind just went, Cas. It’s not your fault. Things like this happen.”
“Frankie…”
His face was grim. “He’s been notified.”
My heart ached as I thought of the sweet, old Necromancer, Tomas. I felt sorry for ever calling him slow. He was a bajillion years old. He should be allowed to be slow. “Did Tomas have any family?”
Jake shook his head.
I pulled my shoulders back and breathed in deeply. “I’ll make sure to talk to Frankie as soon as I get out of here. Hopefully he knows that we did everything we could. Right?” When Jake didn’t answer, I asked the question a different way. “We did do everything we could, right Jake?”
“You barely made it out of there.” His lips formed a thin line. He looked away momentarily and then his gaze collided with mine. “There was nothing we could have done.”
I didn’t know why but I needed to hear him say that. With Command, it still felt like they were working against us rather than for us. Why not open the portals to everyone just in case there was someone else around? Was it really that difficult to make a temp portal for everyone? At that moment, they were still only worried about Elites.
I shook my head and scooted off the bed. My bare feet hit a cold, tiled floor. I winced at the shockwave it sent through my body. Jake came up behind me and put a robe around my shoulders. I pulled my arm through the sleeves and then tied the belt around my waist. He hovered nearby as I walked toward the door.
The door flew open before I had a chance to get to it. Sanders stare fell on me. “Damen.”
My heart freefell into my stomach.
“W-where?”
“We received a message from the motherfuckers who set off the bomb. It’s Damen relaying the message.”
Oh. My. God. The bad guys had Damen.
Sanders took off down the corridor. Jake and I sprinted after him. We burst into a room filled with flashing lights like I’d seen the first time here. Damen’s face filled every single screen in the room. There must have been dozens of Damens in the room. His hair was a mess. There were terrible dark circles under his eyes, but other than that, he looked okay. There were no visual signs of physicality. No bruises, no cuts. He just looked exhausted.
The screen flickered to life. “Cas,” he said.
I fell to my knees. My vision blurred with unshed tears. I wiped at my eyes and blinked, trying to clear my view of him.
“I know you’re there, Cas. I knew you wouldn’t have done what I asked you to do. I don’t know why I wasted that favor on you.” He smiled. His lips chapped and cracked. “They’re pretty pissed off here. That’s why I’m allowed to send you this message.” He looked off-camera and swallowed. “They’re going to turn all the ley lines on, Cas. They have more bombs like the one that took out Stonehenge and they’re going to use them. They’re done being hidden. They want to come out into the light. They want to show themselves to the world. They want to be the ones to make the decisions. It’s always all about power, Cas. Always.”
The monitor flickered and Damen was gone. Faded to black.
Jake squeezed my shoulder. I looked up into his eyes. There. What I felt was reflected back to me in his gaze.
They were messing with the wrong fucking people.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you so much for continuing to read Cas’s journey! I’ve had so much fun writing it, and hope you’ve had just as much fun reading it! If you enjoyed the story, or even if you didn’t, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Any review, whether good or bad, helps the author out.
There is a lot more of Cas’s journey to come. I hope you’ll keep following along with her as she kicks some power-hungry, magical creature ass! If you “Follow” me on my Amazon author page, you’ll get an e-mail when I release a new book. You can also sign up for my author newsletter here and be the first to know! Until then, Happy Reading!
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Excerpt from POWER, Book 3 in the CHRONICLES OF CAS!
Prologue
I wish my grandfather were here. Surely, he’d have a helpful nugget of wisdom to hit me with at this time. Ha. This time. It sounded as if I were about to go on a Sunday drive or talk about some abstract moment in an infinite number of moments. “This time” symbolized that my brother Damen was captured by the bad guys of which I knew nothing about—who they are, what they want, or why they were doing this.
Some Guardian I turned out to be.
I paused the TV and stre
tched my arms out to the side. My muscles ached, not from being used but from being under-used. I wanted to punch something…and hard. Mostly when Douchewaddle McDoucherson a.k.a. General Etau was around. I couldn’t wait to find Damen and get the hell out of Command. If I’d ever fantasized about being an Elite before and I was sure I had, I was out of my stupid, young girl mind. No way could I put up with him anymore than I already had.
It must have been different back in my grandfather’s days. Sure, there was still a Command—a general headquarters for everything, but from what Damen told me, Grandpa used to revere the Elite and especially someone who held the Head of Command title, numero uno Elite Guardian. That guy, whoever he was back in the day, was probably awesome. This guy was a dumbass. If Grandpa were here, I highly doubted he’d be able to stand being in Etau’s presence for even a moment either.
I closed my eyes and rubbed the back of my neck. Watching this video repeatedly wasn’t getting me anywhere, yet I kept finding myself in this little back office with the TV monitor playing and replaying what they sent us. A message--to me--Damen had said. If it was my message, couldn’t he have given me a clue? Something that said, oh I don’t know, who had him? Who set the mother of all bombs off? He couldn’t have hinted at anything important? I knew we should’ve come up with a secret code when we were younger. All of this would be resolved by now. He could’ve said, “The dove flies past the clock tower at midnight.”, and I’d know the damn faeries were behind it. Or the Wiccans. Or whom-fucking-ever instead of sitting on my ass with no more information than I had a week ago.
The worst part of it all was something Damen said did resonate with me. It was the reason I kept coming back up here to watch the stupid forty-five second clip. It was like something was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t quite put it into words yet. A thought waiting in the back of my head to come to fruition but I hadn’t put the two perfect puzzle pieces together. And I wanted to put those freaking puzzle pieces together. More than anything I wanted my brother back. The more time we wasted not doing anything, the worse off Damen could be. He said they were pissed off. Whoever they were.
“Ugh. I hate this.”
I sat back in the chair and pressed play. Damen’s face moved again. His ashen skin and dark circles under his eyes haunted me. “They’re going to turn all the ley lines on, Cas. They have more bombs like the one that took out Stonehenge and they’re going to use them. They’re done being hidden. They want to come out into the light. They want to show themselves to the world. They want to be the ones to make the decisions. It’s always all about power, Cas. Always.”
Other books by E. M. Moore
The Adams’ Witch Series
On a quest to unearth more about her long dead father, eighteen-year old Sarah Perkins ends up in quiet Adams, Virginia chasing a lead. She didn't know her presence there would trigger the Adams' Witch curse.
Things are in motion that can't be stopped. For centuries, the immortal Mother Shipton has claimed one innocent life after another. Now, Sarah finds herself on a race against time and magic to unravel the mysteries of the past before time runs out.
Can Sarah escape the curse before it takes her life? Or will the Adams' witch claim another victim?
Bound In Blood, the first installment of The Adams’ Witch Series, is a fantastic YA Urban Fantasy filled with magic and mystery. If you like the work of Alyson Noel, Kami Garcia or P.C. Cast then you won't want to miss this! Join E. M Moore in her newest series The Adams' Witch!