Fated Souls (The Fated Saga Book 1)

by Sariah Skye

  I nodded. "Of course. How damaged is it?"

  "Not too bad, but the front window shattered—and there’s leaves and mud all over the floor. After the insurance guy leaves I can start to clean and board up. Remember that pine out on the corner of the lot?"

  I nodded.

  "Well that came down too—thankfully it fell into the highway so the town had it hauled away already, but I still have to get rid of the branches and stuff. Plus, there’s some debris from the apartment complex down the road in the parking lot."

  "Wow, I had no idea the shop got hit that hard," I said.

  She shrugged. "Yeah well….it happens. We haven’t had any big storms for a while so, I guess we were due. But it could have been worse."

  "Well I’ll definitely be there."

  "Great. I’ll call you," she said. She gave me a limp, one armed hug and started for the door, pausing to give Sona a quick scratch between the ears before leaving. Sona let out a meow and continued her nap.

  "Thanks—for everything," I said to her earnestly.

  She nodded. "Of course, of course. That’s what friends are for right? You’ve bailed me out of a busy day or a jam many times at the shop so it’s the least I could do."

  I smiled. "Get some rest."

  "I will. It’s been crazy." With a little wave she smiled and left.

  Chapter 8

  I had fallen asleep on the couch watching—of all things—the movie Twister on one of the cable channels but it was still dark when I heard a banging on the door.

  I practically leaped from my spot, causing Sona who had apparently fallen asleep on my stomach to jump in terror and let out a startled meow.

  "Leorah? Are you there?" asked a muffled voice from outside. "It’s Gabriel!"

  "Coming!" I started for the door, kicking aside my backpack, some pop cans I had tossed on the floor and a plaid shirt. I had been too tired and lazy to pick up last night's mess. I stopped short, glancing at all my sloppiness on the ground. "Oh shit!" I muttered to myself, quickly grabbing at the garbage and tossing it into the can in the kitchen; all except the plaid shirt which got flung onto the sofa.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the decorative mirror I had in the entryway and grimaced with an audible "Ew!"

  "What?" said Gabriel from the other side.

  "Never mind!" I shouted, pulling my hair out of its messy ponytail and redoing it into a messy bun quickly. My eyes were puffy and rimmed with purple and the neckline of my tank top was dotted with cola spills from me lazily sipping Coke while laying down, mindlessly shuffling through the channels on TV. "Um…" I opened the door and ducked behind it. "Close your eyes, and come in."

  "Huh?" he asked, confused.

  "Just do it!" I insisted.

  He heaved a sigh loud enough to hear from the opposite side of the door and chuckled. "Okay. They’re closed."

  "Okay. You can come in." Smiling he took a few steps forward and stopped while I shut the door behind me. I snuck behind him down the little hallway to my bedroom. "Make yourself at home! I’ll be right there!"

  "What are you doing?" he called after me.

  "Changing. Just…hang on." I shut my bedroom door and rummaged through my closet. I found a pair of black yoga pants and a gray hooded sweatshirt. It matched my disorderly appearance and I didn’t feel like wearing jeans. Even after a couple hours of sleep and all that sugar, I was still feeling groggy. I took them into the bathroom and splashed my face with water and rubbed my sleepy eyes with a towel. Glancing at my reflection in the mirror the bags and circles were still there but my face was slightly flushed. I cringed, noticing my hair was still rather messy—and not the good, on-purpose messy but was kinky and greasy. I exhaled with a groan, wetting a brush from the counter and running it through my hair a few times taming the kinks a bit and hopefully washing out the greasies. I put it into another more purposeful ponytail and with a frown decided that was about the best I was going to get without a full shower, a twelve-hour nap and a Hollywood makeover.

  "Sorry," I said, emerging from my bedroom. Gabriel was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch with Sona purring in his lap.

  "Are you okay? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for a while now," he asked, lifting my cat from his lap and carefully placing her on the ground. He rose and reached out his hand, stroking my cheek lightly. "What happened?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "It looks like…a scar. I didn’t notice that before."

  "What?" I didn’t see any scar when I had looked in the mirror. I dashed back to the mirror in the entry to get a second look. Under the bandage Ben had put on me it had long healed over by the time I had arrived home; I had taken it off in the car to avoid getting drilled by Kit about the tornado. She didn’t even know I had been caught in it. "There’s nothing there!"

  "It’s faint but I can see it…right…there," he pointed to the spot on my upper cheek and traced the exact path I had been cut by the glass from the tornado.

  "But—there’s nothing— "

  "You can’t see it, but I can," he said. "If the injury was caused by magic, it leaves an imprint behind. Those who wield magic can see it. Your skin may have healed, but the magic that caused it is still there."

  "You can really see that?" I gingerly touched the spot as if it were burning acid.

  He nodded. "What happened? Did something get crazy back home?"

  "No…this was after I got home. I was like a quarter of the way home and it started raining really hard. So I pulled off at a truck stop and the sirens started going off," I explained.

  Gabriel’s eyes widened in surprise. "Was it outside of Tillsdale?"

  I nodded. "Yeah, I think."

  Gabriel produced his phone out of his front jeans pocket. It beeped and clicked as he touched it and he produced a picture. "Pineville receives close call—tornado almost takes out truck stop," read the caption below a photo of the truckstop I had been at, with Ben Needles and a couple other people I didn’t recognize trying to board up the front of the window that had been blown out.

  "That’s Ben! That’s the guy who helped me out when the window broke and cut my cheek!"

  "Well I’m glad you weren’t alone, at least. Leo, these storms were not natural," he said. "That’s why that glass that cut you left a magic imprint: because it was caused by magic."

  "But—how? Can you conjure a tornado?" I knew he could make a breeze but this I guessed was out of his realm of expertise.

  "No, I can’t. Maybe one about two feet high; that's it. And I’m not sure who can either, but…whoever it was, they were looking for you, I think."

  I snorted. "Me? Why do you say that?"

  "Because, Leo—all of these tornadoes happened in places you frequented. But since you weren’t here, they didn’t end up being very strong—just small ones. The big one happened when you were here! Did you see what they rated that storm? An EF-3! That’s a pretty big tornado! All the rest were barely even substantial enough to qualify as a tornado, the largest one besides that was an EF-1 that just touched down briefly just outside your apartment."

  "But—why me?"

  He shrugged. "I don’t know. Perhaps it wasn’t you particularly but any magical being. You’re probably the most magical being in this state—quite possibly even the country right now. Maybe it just honed in on you." He didn’t sound entirely convinced, though.

  "Oh god…" I groaned. He patted me on the shoulder and I pushed past him for my refrigerator and grabbed a pop. "I need sugar…." I flung myself on the couch and took a long drink, resisting the urge to let out a huge belch.

  "So…" he began hesitantly, sitting on the recliner next to the couch and rocking slowly. "Did you figure out what you wanted to figure out? I assume you went home, right?"

  I nodded. "Yeah…it was time to see Grandfather. Apparently he knew one of your ancestors, although I can’t recall the name right now…. Neal or Niles or something…."

  "Niall?" he offered.

&nb
sp; "Yes!" I said, snapping my fingers. "That was it."

  "Your grandfather must be very old. That was like…my great-great-great-great grandfather."

  "Oh yes. He’s an Elder. You have to be at least 1,700 to achieve Elder status."

  "An Elder? Wow…" Gabriel said in awe.

  "Do you know a lot about dragon society?" I questioned him, finishing off the pop and setting the can down on the cluttered table in front of me with a metal clink.

  Gabriel folded himself into the couch opposite side of me, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, a little but not really. Just what was handed down for years and years and who’s to know how much of that is accurate? I know the basic structure but things have changed so much I’m sure."

  I nodded in agreement. "I’m sure." My stomach took that precise moment to start rumbling audibly, and my cheeks reddened in embarrassment.

  Gabriel chuckled. "A little hungry, huh?"

  "I guess so," I said with a laugh. "Last thing I ate really was…whatever I had at that truck stop like, twelve hours ago."

  "Twelve? Try like, twenty," he said.

  "Huh?" I asked in alarm, reaching for my cell phone in all the clutter on my coffee table. "8:15! What?" I shook my head in confusion.

  Gabriel took it upon himself to draw the curtains to show the twilight outside.

  "It’s nighttime?" I asked rhetorically in shock. "Oh shit, I was supposed to help Kit today with the shop!" I started flipping through my phone looking for all the frantic messages today from Kit that I must have missed.

  "I wouldn’t worry about it; I drove by there looking for you earlier when you wouldn’t answer your phone. It was closed, hadn’t been opened up all day," he explained.

  "It hasn’t?" I clicked through all my messages, seeing the ones from Gabriel and one on Facebook from my grandfather (which caused me to chuckle as he was asking for help on how to get to a capital city on his World of Warcraft character) but none from Kit.

  "No, it still looks just like it did yesterday with all the damage, and there was a piece of paper taped to the door," he said.

  "That’s not good, that was probably from the inspector. That’s not like Kit," I said, frantically hitting Kit’s number on my speed dial. I was pacing now, as the phone rang and went straight to voicemail. "Kit—it’s Leo. I’m sorry I missed you today. Give me a call. Now. Heard the shop has been shut down all day. Call me!" I pushed the end icon and started texting her. "Dammit!" I cursed. "How could I have been asleep all day!?!?!"

  "Maybe the tornado caused some kind of magic drain on you," Gabriel speculated. "You still do look kind of tired."

  I groaned, tossing my phone on the couch and falling back into the couch with a pout. "I know; I still feel like crap." Besides being hungry I just felt weak and spacey.

  "That is odd. That must be a strong draining spell that was there, most magic users are only out of it for a couple of hours before they feel better, unless they were actually using magic—then it could take days to recover."

  I bit my lip sheepishly and looked down at my hands in my lap.

  Gabriel gave me an expectant look. "You couldn’t have done magic, could you? I mean how could you have known it was not naturally occurring? I didn’t talk to you at all."

  "Your text message? I checked them while I was at the truckstop waiting out the rain, before it worsened," I said. "It was so weird, Gabriel. There was this huge tornado and there was like no damage around it, just directly in front and in back. There were people hiding in the bathrooms and I remembered your wind spell…I figured, it couldn’t be that hard, right? If I can make it stronger, I can make it stop, right?" I avoided his glare.

  "You didn’t?"

  I nodded. "I did. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing or if it would work…. I just stood there watching it come towards me. I knew it wouldn’t kill me but all those people…I couldn’t just let them die if I could do something about it. I had to at least try. I just closed my eyes and imagined it getting smaller and smaller and I exhaled. My sparkles went everywhere and after a couple of minutes I opened my eyes and it was going away. I didn’t even notice my cheek was cut until Ben came out with all the people. He fixed it up and tried to take me to the hospital but I refused. I was pretty groggy and he gave me all this sugar and stuff to eat and I felt better enough after a while to drive…then I came home, and Kit was here with Sona and we talked for a bit and she said she was tired and went home. I sat down on the couch and I guess I fell asleep until now."

  Gabriel’s mouth was open wide in awe. "You’ve never done magic before and yet, you diffused a huge tornado? Just like that?" He let out a low whistle. "Wow, I wish I could have seen that. I wish I had been there. I should have been there." He started cursing under his breath. "Some knight I am, you needed me and I failed. If I had been there, you wouldn’t have been drained at all…we could have stopped it before it came anywhere near that shop. Shit!"

  "How could you have known?" I shrugged. "This is…this is new to both of us. I wasn’t even sure if you were telling me the truth until I talked to my grandfather. I couldn’t have brought you to the Anarach even if I wanted to…you would have been eaten alive. Literally," I said with a laugh.

  Gabriel gave a small smile. "Yeah I suppose. Still I—"

  "No." I said, reaching over and giving him a playful shove. "It was worth it. I saved those people. I ended the magic. I will be okay. I just need more of these." I said, grabbing for the empty pop can on the table. My stomach rumbled again, on cue. "And some dinner, I guess. Although, breakfast sounds much better."

  Gabriel grinned. "Well…we can do breakfast then." He was up and rummaging through my cabinets for food. "What do you have?"

  "Umm…not much," he said, as he looked through my refrigerator full of pop and a mostly-empty gallon of milk.

  "Don’t you eat?" he asked incredulously, producing an expired box of pancake batter from the pantry and shaking it at me.

  "Yes, yes I do. That’s why there’s nothing there," I said. "I didn’t do any shopping before I left, I just kind of took off…"

  He rolled his eyes.

  "Okay. Give me fifteen minutes, I’ll get provisions." I started to stand and he pointed to the couch.

  "No. I will go. You need your rest. I am not the greatest cook but I picked up a few things from my brother. I think I can manage some pancakes or waffles or…something. Okay? You need some real food not just pop. This isn’t a raid or anything." I chuckled at the WoW reference. "You need sustenance, not crap."

  "Fine," I said with a laugh, relenting. He produced his keys from his pocket.

  "I’ll be back. Are you going to let me in?" he kidded, with a hint of hesitance in his voice.

  "Maybe," I kidded back.

  He wiggled his fingers at me. "Doesn’t matter. I know a spell for that." He winked at me before closing the door behind him.

  I chuckled after him and leaned back into the couch, closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. I wrinkled my nose. "Yuck! I really need to bathe!" Despite my promise to rest I dragged my feet to the bathroom and doused myself off in the shower. After soaping up and shampooing off I just stood there for a few minutes, letting the hot water relax my tired shoulders. I stayed in a bit longer than I wanted to; at least thirty minutes had gone by since Gabriel left.

  I dried off and wrapped the towel around myself and examined my appearance in the mirror. It was fogged over so I wiped it with my palm, with the humidity in the room it just re-fogged.

  "Hmmm," I mused thoughtfully. Feeling sheepish, I inhaled and blew out slowly on the mirror. The sparkly mist stuck to the glass and warmed it, thereby dispersing the fog on the mirror. "Neat," I said, but my amusement was short-lived.

  "Ugggh!" I said at my appearance in the mirror. Purple still pooled under my eyes and my face just looked dull and…tired. I rummaged through my drawer frantically looking for something to make my face just look a little better.

  "Foundation…no…concealer…maybe," I took it out
and set it on the counter. "Ah-ha!" I produced a bottle of tinted moisturizer and started slathering it over my face, quickly. My shower had taken at least twenty minutes; Gabriel would be back anytime now. I felt guilty because I said I would be resting, not showering although it was necessary. I dabbed at some red areas with concealer and rubbed it in, concentrating on the area under my eyes. They were still purple but now they looked like they obviously were trying to be covered up. I swore under my breath and tried to rub it off with a makeup remover wipe. It just made the area appear more irritated.

  I sighed heavily, dabbing more moisturizer on them and calling it good. I applied a tinted lip balm and ran some black mascara over my lashes. I wouldn’t say I looked better but, at least I didn’t want to hurl looking at my appearance. Maybe just dry-heave.

  I unwrapped the towel from my hair and the long strawberry strands fell in tangles around my shoulders. I shook my head with a frown and ran a brush through it, starting at the ends and working my way up. I didn’t have hours to spare to blow-dry it so my secret would be out of the bag. I shrugged. "Oh well."

  I left the bathroom then and rummaged through my dresser for a clean pair of sweats, a t-shirt that held up the "Live Long and Prosper" hand gesture on it with the saying underneath, my favorite ratty gray sweatshirt that said "Minnesota" emblazoned across the front in red and tossed them on the bed. I dropped the towel and switched into a clean pair of ‘granny’ briefs—no thongs for this dragon—and a black cotton bra. I was pulling my sweatshirt over my head when I smelled something.

  I sniffed the air. "Bacon?" I left the bedroom and followed the smell into the kitchen, where Gabriel was already at work in the kitchen. Dragons—like people—cannot resist bacon. It’s a weakness. A chewy, salty weakness…

  "But…" I began, confused, trying not to drool. I wasn’t a werewolf, dragons didn’t drool. Unless there was a bacon.

  "You didn’t lock it behind you. Shame, shame," Gabriel chided kiddingly, clicking his tongue at me.