Blaze of Secrets (Asylums for Magical Threats)

by Donovan, Jessie

  Thank you for reading!

  Dear Reader:

  I hope you enjoyed Kiarra and Jaxton’s story. While the next book will focus on Cam and Marco, keep an eye out for Kiarra and Jaxton. They’ll be back, along with a lot of the other characters in future books. I love it when authors show us how our favorite characters are doing later on, and I plan to do the same.

  This is my debut novel, and I’m grateful for all of the wonderful feedback and honest reviews I’ve received from readers like you. I’m always curious to hear what you think—both good and bad. You can email me at jessiedauthor@gmail.com or find me on Twitter @jessiedauthor. I really do read every email/tweet I receive, and I try to reply when I can! If you want to receive exclusive content (deleted scenes, short stories, etc.) and updates, you can sign up for my monthly newsletter. I also have an AMT Reader Group on Facebook.

  And finally, I need to ask you a favor. Reviews can be tough to come by these days. You, the reader, have the power to make or break a book, and I’m asking for your help. If you have the time, could you leave an honest review?

  Thank you for spending time with my characters. I hope you return to the world of the Feiru in Frozen Desires, and continue to follow the journey of Neena, DEFEND, and all of the rest. Make sure to turn the page for an excerpt.

  With Gratitude,

  Jessie Donovan

  The story continues with Cam and Marco…Excerpt from Frozen Desires (AMT#2)

  Chapter One

  “In 1953, the first-born children of Feiru (FEY-roo) mothers were deemed dangerous by the Feiru High Council. Because these first-born children have the ability to control fire, earth, water, or wind, the council passed a law requiring them to be imprisoned at the age of magical maturity. The council’s aim was to keep the Feiru secret of elemental magic from humans…One of DEFEND’s primary goals is to dismantle the Asylums for Magical Threats’ prison system and to integrate elemental magic users back into our society.”

  —Excerpt from DEFEND Rules and Regulations

  After what had happened four years ago, Camilla Melini had never expected to be back in Merida, Mexico.

  But DEFEND had sent her here to find one of the Four Talents—legendary elemental magic users who could both heal and destroy—and she wasn’t about to let memories of that day ruin her chances of success. As long as she kept her eyes open, and was careful, she should be able to get in and out of Merida before anyone from her old life could find her.

  And if they did, well, she had a few extra tricks up her sleeves these days that she could use to try to defeat them.

  Cam looked over at Zalika, one of two people that made up her team, and asked, “Are we finally on the right street?”

  Zalika offered Cam the map in her hands. “You try reading a map in Spanish and see how far you get.”

  “All I care about is reaching our contact’s shop. The sooner we get there, the sooner I can take off this stupid straw thing on my head.”

  Zalika smiled. “But since the real Cam would never be caught dead in that hat, it’s a good disguise.”

  “I’d rather take my chances if it means I can see properly.”

  Zalika laughed as they turned the corner. “Jacek is watching our backs, and he’ll let us know if he sees anything suspicious.”

  Jacek was the other half of Cam’s team. “He’s a good enough lookout, but that’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “You haven’t seen your asshole ex or any of the other psychos from your past, have you?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean they’re not here.”

  Zalika nodded to the right. “Well, there’s the stall. If everything goes to plan, then we should be out of Merida by this evening, and you’ll have one less thing to worry about.”

  She only hoped it would be that easy. “Let’s try to be out of here by this afternoon.”

  Doing the best she could with the brim of her hat hanging partially in front of her face, Cam did a sweep of the area. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary—just street vendors selling food, salespeople trying to entice tourists into their shops, and friends chatting on the street.

  Confident that no one was following them, she nodded the all clear to Zalika, and they approached the vendor stall filled with Mexican handicrafts.

  Cam glanced over the brightly colored tablecloths, place mats, and purses until she found the section of hand-painted ceramics. Most of the cups and plates featured some kind of flower, but she kept looking until she found a plate with DEFEND’s secret symbol subtly worked into the design.

  The middle-aged man running the stall matched the picture she’d been given in her assignment file, but to keep up appearances, she asked, “Do you speak English?”

  The man smiled. “Yes. Is there something I can help you with?”

  Time to use the secret pass-phrase. Cam held up the plate with DEFEND’s symbol on it. “My aunt has one just like this in her house, and since she loves it, I’d like to add another one to her collection. Do you have any plates with the same design, but painted in different colors?”

  The man replied, “Yes, but my wife tries to hide them away in the back of the store, hoping that I’ll forget about them so she can keep them. But if you have time, I can take you to the inside portion of my shop and find the others for you.”

  The man had used the correct response to the pass-phrase. But in the interest of looking authentic, she looked over to Zalika and said, “What do you think? Can we take a few minutes to look at the other designs?”

  Zalika shrugged. “Sure, you’ve waited for me enough times. Let’s check out the other plates.”

  The man put up a hand. “Give me a second.” He disappeared into the door behind him and soon reappeared with a teenage boy that Cam assumed was his son. The man said something in Spanish to the boy and then waved for them to follow him. “Come inside.”

  Cam took the lead, but right before she reached the door, her instinct told her that she was being watched. She glanced over her shoulder and listened intently with her supersensitive hearing—one of the many bonuses that came with her latent abilities—but came up with nothing. As much as she wanted to find the source of her unease, she and Zalika should be safe enough inside the shop. If someone tried to barge their way in, she had a gun and a knife strapped to her leg under her flowing skirt.

  She needed the information this man could provide to get the hell out of Merida and complete her assignment. If she left now, she’d have to linger in Merida long enough to arrange another meeting.

  She decided that the possible threat wasn’t grave enough to abort her mission. She ducked inside the door, and Zalika followed.

  Marco Alvarez watched Cam enter the shop and breathed a sigh of relief. When she’d turned around, he’d barely had time to hide in the crowd inside the eatery, the one he was using to stake out the vendor stall across the street.

  His orders were clear—he was to watch over Camilla Melini and make sure her mission succeeded. The longer he could do it from the shadows, the less of a chance someone would connect them, giving him the advantage of surprise if things turned sour.

  Since he’d seen her knock out a shadow-shifter back in the States, he knew firsthand that Cam could take care of herself. But Jaxton Ward—a high-ranking member of DEFEND and his old boss—was either being cautious or knew something that he didn’t. Cam was here to explore some Mayan ruins and hopefully find a clue left by a Talent, but he had a feeling that something else was going on. Maybe another group was also searching for the Four Talents.

  Whatever it was, watching over Cam and protecting her team was only half of the reason he was back in Mexico. He was also here to hunt down an anti-AMT fringe group that was targeting innocent Feiru—and killing them. He was still in the process of collecting evidence, but all Marco knew for certain was that this group had a reach far beyond Mexico.

  While waiting for Cam to arrive in Merida, he’d received news that had made his second assignment pers
onal—the same fringe group he was here to investigate had killed one of his cousins down in Colombia.

  He clenched his hands inside the pockets of his jeans and tried not to think about how his fourteen-year-old cousin would never grow into the woman she was meant to be. He was determined to prevent other children from dying through no fault of their own. More than enough children already suffered inside the Asylum for Magical Threats compounds simply because they were the eldest child.

  He’d started interviewing witnesses last night after the shops had closed, and would interview a few others later. During the day, however, he needed to focus on protecting Cam and Zalika. The owner of the handicraft stall was one of DEFEND’s local contacts, and while they didn’t think their contact’s identity had been compromised, it was always a possibility, especially with the constantly shifting landscape of Feiru politics.

  He finished the soda in his hand and moved toward the door of the open-air eatery. He needed to find a better place to stake out the stall, one with easier access in case a threat appeared while Cam was inside. But halfway to the exit, a man walked by and knocked him hard on the shoulder. Marco cursed, but the man paid no attention and simply kept on walking.

  Marco frowned. It seemed that Mexico, like every other country in the world, had its fair share of rude assholes.

  He moved down the street, keeping one eye out for Jacek and the other on the vendor stall. He was just about to browse one of the stalls on his side of the street to keep up appearances when he noticed the rude asshole stop at the same stall where Cam had been minutes earlier. He was about to dismiss it as a coincidence when the teenage boy in charge of the stall started gesticulating wildly.

  When the asshole pulled out a gun, Marco cursed, and started picking his way toward the stall as calmly yet efficiently as he could. If he drew too much attention, then the man would probably bolt. He didn’t want to chase an unknown enemy through the crowded mid-morning streets of Merida and blow his cover.

  But when the asshole started motioning more fervently with his gun, Marco began pushing people out of the way. Despite his apologies, one of the American tourists started yelling at him. The man with the gun noticed, and fled down the street.

  Fucking fantastic. Marco ran after him.

  They were heading toward the Plaza Grande, the main town square. Once the man reached the square, Marco wouldn’t be able to take down the man and question him. There were too many human witnesses, and a fight could attract the Feiru authorities.

  He wanted to use his elemental water magic to stop the bastard, but Marco wasn’t an idiot. The last thing he needed was to be tossed inside an AMT compound where they would drug him out of his mind, and do who knows what to him. He’d never be able to help Cam or his family then.

  The tourist crowds started to thin out, and with another turn, the streets were empty. The tops of the buildings surrounding the main plaza were closer, and he decided it was now or never. He lunged for the man.

  He managed to grab the man’s legs, and they tumbled to the ground. But the man rolled out of his reach, and Marco used his arms to lift his upper body and jump into a crouch.

  He now stood between the man and the plaza. There was no way he was letting the bastard through, and since they were now alone, with no humans in sight, Marco reached a hand to the west—the direction of elemental water—in case he needed to draw on the elemental water particles in the air to do his magic.

  But the man just stood there, not trying to get away or even bothering to attack. Marco knew that inaction could be a tactic, so he kept up his guard, and waited.

  Then the man did something Marco should have foreseen—but had overlooked—and crashed through the window of an abandoned house to the left.

  Marco grabbed the gun tucked into his waistband under his shirt and crawled through the broken window, careful not to cut himself on the glass. Once inside, he rolled to the side and hid behind an overturned couch that had seen better days. His finger near the trigger, he peeked around the edge, looking and listening for any sign of the man, or anyone else that might happen to be inside the abandoned house.

  The coast clear, he inched his way toward the open door in the back of the building. There were footprints in the dirt on the floor, leading toward the back door, but they simply stopped a few feet from the exit. The prints looked fresh, but no one could just disappear into thin air.

  But then he remembered. He’d seen it happen once before.

  The odds were long, but he could be dealing with a shadow-shifter.

  Even with the sun filtering in through the threadbare curtains, the room was half engulfed in darkness. Marco moved to stand in the light near the window and debated using his elemental magic. While streams of water or shards of ice might draw the shadow-shifter out from his hiding place, it would also reveal Marco’s abilities to his opponent.

  And the last thing he needed was to destroy the cover he’d built up over the last eleven years by using his magic in front of a stranger. Especially if the man somehow managed to escape.

  Another option would be to throw something heavy at the first sign of suspicious activity and force the shifter to return to his human-looking Feiru form. After what had happened in the States, Marco had learned that a shadow-shifter could only shift once every twenty-four hours. If he could scare the man into shifting back, it would give him a chance to catch and interrogate him.

  Deciding to try the latter approach first, he circled around by degrees and checked the shadows for movement, careful to keep his back exposed to the light. Then he saw it—a piece of peeled wallpaper near the ceiling that waved back and forth in the still air.

  Marco did a quarter turn away from his target, placed a hand on an old kitchen chair nearby, and swung it around, tossing it up at the spot on the wall where he’d seen the movement.

  Right before the chair smashed against the wall, the man emerged from the shadows and rolled to the ground, out of the way. Marco jumped after the man, but the shadow-shifter dashed out the back door and slammed it shut. He heard a screeching sound of something heavy moving across the ground.

  Marco pushed against the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

  The bastard had blocked him in.

  Left with no other choice, he made for the broken window he’d come through, and crawled outside.

  He made his way around to the back alley, and saw the rusty metal display case sitting in front of the door, but there was no sign of the shifter. After checking up and down the alley, looking into every possible hiding spot, Marco accepted that the man was long gone.

  In case the shifter came back with reinforcements, he made his way back toward the street of vendor stalls, careful to take a different route than the way he had come. He needed to find Cam and tell her what had happened.

  Thanks to the appearance of an unknown shadow-shifter, he was now going to have to spend more time with Camilla Melini than he’d counted on.

  =================

  Want to read the rest? Frozen Desires is available now on Amazon.

  Books by Jessie Donovan

  Asylums for Magical Threats

  Blaze of Secrets

  Frozen Desires

  Shadow of Temptation (June 2014)

  Cascade Shifters

  Convincing the Cougar (April 2014)

  Acknowledgments

  While writers spend most of their time alone, chained to a desk, the truth is that we wouldn’t be able to survive without our wonderful friends and family. I’d like to take this chance to thank them for all that they do.

  First and foremost, without Michelle Cuadros, this book may never have happened. She’s read my stories since we were teenagers, but when I became serious about writing in late 2008/early 2009, she listened patiently to my ramblings about a 19th century logger in the woods and his encounter with fairies from an underground world. She even read the first early (and clunky) versions of my Feiru society. Thanks to her support, those ideas slowly
evolved until I had the world you saw in this book. I will be forever grateful for her friendship.

  Another person I wish to thank with all my heart is the world’s best beta-reader, Wendy Lynn Clark. Her ten-plus pages of enthusiastic comments and questions not only helped fine-tune the overall story, but also helped make Chapter One better than I could’ve ever imagined. Thanks Wendy!

  I also wish to thank Regina Wamba of Mae I Design for the beautiful cover, as well as a shout out to James Archer for not only winning the gold medal for perseverance when it came to wanting a character named after him (he bugged me for six years!), but also for being a great friend who listened to my story ideas despite never having read a romance book in his life.

  And finally, I thank you, the reader. I hope you stay along for the ride, into the second book and beyond. The Feiru universe is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, but I hope to make the journey worth your while!

  About the Author

  Jessie Donovan wrote her first story at age five, and after discovering The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey in junior high, she realized people actually wanted to read stories like those floating around inside her head. From there on out, she was determined to tap into her over-active imagination and write a book someday.

  After living abroad for five years and earning degrees in Japanese, Anthropology, and Secondary Education, she buckled down and finally wrote her first full-length book. While that story will never see the light of day, it laid the world-building groundwork of what would become her debut paranormal romance, Blaze of Secrets.