by Sadie Moss
Consort of Rebels
Magic Awakened #3
Sadie Moss
Copyright © 2018 by Sadie Moss
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or had, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Message to the Reader
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
Three small slivers of light cut across the dark floor.
They disappeared momentarily as I blinked my eyes shut, my heavy lids unwilling to rise again.
I dragged them open, forced my eyes back into focus.
Stared at the three narrow lines of yellow light.
Ten days. That’s how long I’d been stuck in this fucking dungeon cell.
Or maybe it was seven… or fourteen… or twenty. I had no natural light to judge by and couldn’t tell when the sun rose or set. I’d been trying to keep count of the meals Kate brought me, but her visits didn’t seem to come at regular intervals, and I was pretty sure if she found me sleeping, sometimes she just left without delivering any food or water. That would explain why I felt so weak.
Then again, several things could explain that.
I was underfed, hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time in days, and had festering injuries from the fight with Christine and her Touched backup at the warehouse in the Outskirts.
My magic was also still suppressed. But even without being able to feel the flicker of power deep in my belly, I could tell somehow that it was agitated, searching for the four men it was bonded to. If it wasn’t repressed, it probably would’ve exploded all over this little cell by now. That seemed to be its usual reaction to stress.
The three sharp lines of light on the floor flickered again. But this time it wasn’t because of my drooping eyelids.
A figure had passed in front of the door.
My head cleared a little, becoming more alert as I strained my ears. The effort of focusing caused a headache to flare like a starburst in my brain, but I ignored the throbbing pain and lifted my eyes to the tiny window in the solid wood door of my cell. Two thick metal bars spanned the small window vertically, and the light peeking around them cast the three long lines on the floor.
“How is she?”
It was Rain. I’d recognize that fucker’s raspy voice in my sleep by now. In fact, I heard it in my sleep almost every time I managed to doze off. He’d supplanted my father in my dreams, starring in pretty much all my nightmares now.
Just another reason I wanted to kill the asshole.
“Weak, but alive,” another voice answered. Softer. Female. Kate.
“Good. Keep her that way. I’m almost ready to perform the magic pull on her, and she’s no use to me dead.”
“Yes, sir.”
I scoffed under my breath. No use to him dead. Not until he’d stolen my magic anyway. Then I had a feeling my usefulness, dead or alive, would plummet to less than zero.
That had to be why he hadn’t bothered healing my wounds or even bandaging them. Why he hadn’t given me clothes or a blanket to ward off the cold that permeated the stone walls of my cell. Once he was done with me, he’d either kill me or let me die.
I thought back to Gerald’s slack face and half-focused eyes the day I ran into him on the palace steps, and a shiver ran down my spine. If that was what I had to look forward to after Rain pulled the magic from my body, maybe I’d prefer death after all.
No. Don’t think like that, Lana. Remember your promise.
The day Rain captured me, before he’d knocked me out and moved me from the large room with the metal cage into this dungeon, I’d made a vow to myself. I’d promised I would make it back to my four alive.
I could picture each of them as clearly as if they were here in this room with me, and the thought of them simultaneously soothed my soul and sent a piercing pain through my heart. My abduction would be driving them out of their minds with worry. What were they doing now? Were they trying to find me? But how could they? They had no idea Rain was behind any of this.
All they knew was that Christine, the Resistance’s ex-leader, had turned traitor. The trap we’d set to prove her guilt had worked—maybe a little too well. She’d both proven and expanded upon her betrayal, using a transport spell to drag me away to Rain’s secret hideout. The last memories I had of Jae, Akio, Fenris, and Corin were the looks of stark terror on their faces as they watched the swirling purple smoke of the transport spell envelop me.
The thought turned my stomach, and I shoved it out of my head.
You’ll find a way to get back to them. Don’t give up.
The weak inner voice of my flickering optimism was interrupted when a face came into view outside the door.
“It won’t be long now, Miss Lockwood. The spell takes a week to recharge between uses, but it’s nearly ready. I apologize for the delay, but there was another mage who arrived before you, and his health was declining, so….”
Rain trailed off, his shoulder lifting in a shrug. He was silhouetted against the light, so I could barely make out his features. I wasn’t sure he could see me at all where I sat huddled against the wall in the corner, but I sent a scathing glare his way just in case he could.
Ugh. The fucking Gifted. Why did they have to be so godsdamned polite about everything? As if apologizing for the delay made what he planned to do any less sinister. As if wearing the veneer of civility made him anything but a monster.
“Go fuck yourself, Rain.”
My voice was rough and weak from days of disuse, but at least my words were honest.
He sighed dramatically. “You have such a strong spirit. It’s truly a shame you won’t even consider joining me. You could keep your magic. And I could use someone like you by my side.” He turned his head slightly, and the yellow light behind him picked up the streaks of silvery gray in his hair, giving him the world’s most ironic halo. “But then again, I’d never really be able to trust you, would I?”
“You can trust I’m going to kill you.”
That was the other promise I’d made the day he captured me.
And I intended to keep it.
Rain sighed again, like a father sick of hearing the same far-fetched story from a child with an overactive imagination. He turned away from the door to address Kate. “Prepare the machine. When I get back from the palace tonight, we’ll get started.”
“Yes, sir.”
Her voice was soft and d
eferential when she addressed him. The few times she’d spoken to me, it’d been sharp and cruel. I wasn’t sure exactly how she got involved in all of this, but she seemed to regard Rain as some kind of savior or prophet. He’d probably brainwashed her with talk of his insane vision for the future, a world in which only a few “worthy” souls possessed magic and ruled like gods over those who didn’t.
And that was assuming the Gifted and Touched actually survived his second attempt at a large-scale magic pull. They hadn’t the first time.
Rain shot me one last glance before turning and walking away.
The three slivers of light spread across the floor in front of me again. I stared at them as Kate’s footsteps retreated in the opposite direction.
Was she headed off to prepare the “machine?” What did that even mean? I assumed it was part of the process of extracting magic from a living being, something that shouldn’t even be possible. It brought to mind images of medieval torture racks with huge gears that squealed and grated as they turned.
My stomach twisted then grumbled. Experiencing nausea and biting hunger at the same time was confusing and unpleasant, each sensation only exacerbating the other.
But maybe Kate was a little more worried than she’d let on about fulfilling Rain’s directive to keep me alive, because she returned to my cell a few moments later.
The door cracked open several inches, and a thin, olive-skinned hand reached in to deposit a bowl on the floor. Steam rose from it in lazy spirals, carrying with it the aroma of chicken and rice. At the scent, my hunger won out, and I crawled forward as soon as the door thudded shut.
I could feel her eyes on me, peering down to watch me as I stuffed handfuls of food into my mouth, but I ignored her. With a slightly fuller belly, I crawled back toward the opposite corner. As I crossed the room, she cracked the door again, slipping her hand in to retrieve the empty dish.
The first few days I’d been here, she’d made a point to only open the door when I was as far away from it as possible. But she didn’t seem to care as much about that now—probably due to the fact that I looked like absolute shit. Hell, I wouldn’t have been intimidated by myself right now either.
In addition to the bite wound on my shoulder, which had turned an ugly purple color and continued to seep blood, I had several other scrapes and bruises. All of it could’ve been healed with a potion or spell, but Rain didn’t seem interested in wasting magic on me. He’d also refused to give me anything to cover up with after my forced shift from wolf to human had left me in only pants, my empty dagger sheaths, one boot, and a bra.
If he was trying to play some kind of mind game with me, to make me feel weak and exposed without half my clothes, then the joke was on him. I didn’t give a fuck about decency—at least, not over the more pressing concern of staying alive.
Still, I would’ve killed for a godsdamned shirt. The stone walls of this dungeon cell were always cold and a little bit damp, and after days of goose bumps constantly covering my body, my skin was painful to touch.
“It will be over soon,” Kate muttered quietly.
I wasn’t sure if she was trying to reassure me or threaten me. Or maybe she was talking to herself.
Not for the first time, I wondered what Rain had promised her in exchange for her help. Couldn’t she see that whatever carrot he’d dangled in front of her was a lie?
Hell, Kate had been the one to kill Christine once the Resistance leader was no longer useful to Rain. Why didn’t she understand that to him, people were either tools to be used or impediments to be gotten rid of? Did she truly expect him to keep his word about whatever reward he’d promised her?
I curled up into a ball on the rough, dirty floor, trying to generate a small bubble of body heat. After a few moments, Kate’s footsteps padded away again. This time, she didn’t return.
Weariness tugged at me, the weights on my eyelids pulling them closed even as the cold seeping into me tensed all my muscles. I wished desperately for the little flame of magic inside me to burst back to life, to warm my body and heal my injuries.
But it didn’t.
I allowed myself to lie there for a few moments, breathing steadily, letting the food settle in my stomach and give me strength.
Just like I had that day on the mountain with Fen, I imagined myself as a wolf, told myself that was my true form, not this human one. I envisioned my heavy paws thudding against the earth. My teeth snapping, piercing flesh and bone. My hackles rising as a growl rumbled in my throat.
The shift to wolf form didn’t happen, of course. The magic wouldn’t work inside this cell. But the images bolstered me anyway, reminding me that even if I couldn’t access that part of myself right now, it was still in there. There was more to me than met the eye.
I was wolf.
I was mage.
I was demon.
I was human.
And despite the old family name Rain had addressed me by earlier, I was Lana fucking Crow.
It was time to show him and his lackey bitch exactly what that meant.
Forcing my eyelids open, I sat back up, a wave of dizziness passing over me as I did. I gritted my teeth, pressing against the wall for support and leverage as I rose slowly to my feet. Me knees tried to buckle, but I locked them until the spots stopped dancing before my eyes.
My plan of escape was a long shot at best, a hopeless fantasy at worst. But I was out of time to come up with a better option.
If I was still here when Rain got back tonight, I’d be worse than dead.
Chapter 2
When my legs felt steady enough, I let go of the wall and reached for the sheaths strapped to my thighs. The one upside of Rain not offering me a change of clothes was that he also hadn’t bothered to take these.
They were empty. I’d tried to stab him in the heart with one of my daggers and thrown the other at his head when he first captured me. The blades were enchanted to materialize back in their sheaths so I’d never lose them, but of course that spell wouldn’t work in this fucking magic suppressing cell.
But it should still work outside this room.
Carefully, I undid the buckles and removed the sheaths from my legs. Wrapping the straps tight around one hand, I crept toward the door and peered through the little window. Other cells lined the large, empty stone room, similar to mine. Wall sconces holding glowing yellow orbs of magical light were spaced along the walls in between the wooden cell doors.
There was no sign of Kate.
She and Rain were the only two people I’d seen or heard since I arrived, but I wasn’t sure whether that meant they were the only ones here. Maybe he had other guards outside this room. I had no idea what the layout of this place was, other than the tiny area I could see from inside my cell.
I couldn’t worry about that now though. First things first.
Grimacing in anticipation, I slid my hand between the bars on my cell door. The window was at an awkward height, the bottom of it just reaching my chin, so I had to lean up against the door to get my arm through. As soon as I touched the rough wood of the door and the smooth metal of the bars, agony burned through me.
They were enchanted with the same pain spell that had been on the metal cage he dropped on me—a simple but effective deterrent to keep prisoners from attacking the doors of their cells.
Effective for anybody less stupid and determined than me, anyway.
Sucking in ragged breaths through clenched teeth, I pressed closer to the door, forcing my elbow and bicep through the tight space between the bars. The pain was most intense anywhere I made contact with the door, but it quickly spread through my entire body like air filling up a balloon.
Come on, you stupid things. Work. Work!
When my arm was as far through the opening as I could push it, I held up the empty sheaths like an offering to the gods, praying desperately as my hand shook like a leaf.
I’d tried this once before, right after I arrived here. It hadn’t worked. After a few minute
s, the pain had grown so intense I’d been afraid I would drop the sheaths, and I’d pulled my arm back, shivering and sweating.
My theory was that, because of the strength of the magic suppressing spell on this little room, I’d need to get the sheaths as far away from the cell as possible for as long as possible to give the enchantment on the daggers a chance of working.
Or maybe the enchantment had been broken entirely when the sheaths were brought into a magic repressing cell.
Maybe I was sticking these fucking things out the window for no reason, weakening myself further on the basis of a stupid, empty hope.
Not. Helping! I scolded myself, baring my teeth against the cry that wanted to burst from my throat. I couldn’t let it. I couldn’t do anything that might draw Kate back here.
My hand shook with the effort of holding the sheaths out, and my legs went weak, causing more of my body to press against the door. Agony tore through me as if my muscles were separating, pulling apart from my bones and trying to escape the confines of my skin.
Coherent thought became difficult as the pain overtook me, seeping into my mind like poison. Twice, instinct took over and attempted to pull me away from the door, but I fought it down, pressing my body harder to the rough wood instead. My skin was slick with sweat, fat drops of it trickling down my bare arms, neck, and back, mixing with the blood seeping from my shoulder wound.
Blackness edged my vision, and my hand outside the cell started to droop, the effort of keeping it raised becoming too great. It felt like I was holding a lead weight instead of empty leather sheaths.