Your Magic or Mine?
Page 37
Gloriana made a growling sound, and Marcus grunted when a fist of nausea hit him in the stomach.
“Feel that?” Fergus asked. “Sort of a sickening wave? That’s one of the signs of an evil item, and it’s easy to spot. Walcott was smart enough not to wear the thing at the HeatherRidge. Too many Swords and Defenders are ultrasensitive. We’d have stopped him immediately.”
Hal came back with two emergency medical technicians from the ambulance, who took up position by Walcott. “These guys are from the medical facility in the HeatherRidge,” he said.
“What’s with the crew?” Marcus asked.
“Destruction of an evil item usually knocks out its user,” Hal answered. “Destroying the larger ones can kill whoever’s been under its control. Yes, in reality the item does control the practitioner, although it tricks the person to think he’s doing the controlling.”
“Walcott said something about ‘having powers,’“ Gloriana said.
“An item can contain certain powers and talents and can confer them on the user, even make the practitioner think he’s invincible. Looks like we’re good to go. We’re going to lay down a shielding pentagon to contain any problems. Still, don’t move from your spot.”
Hal walked over to a position between John and Fergus but about a step farther away from the case. He pointed at the ground. A glowing pentagon etched itself into the path around the men and sent shimmering walls up to the glass ceiling.
The Swords stood opposite each other about a blade’s length from the item in the bowl between them. The silver lightballs hovering above winked out. John drew his weapon, and its silver blade shone. Fergus had never ended his spell, and his sword, now a dark blue, changed color through violet into silver and then into a silver-laced gold. The light emanating from the weapons made the area as bright as day.
A hum, much deeper, fuller, and more resonant than the ones he and Gloriana had produced, vibrated through the air. The hair on the back of Marcus’s head stood up when he felt the potency of the magical energy swirling around all of them. He couldn’t help making a swift calculation. If each rise in level signaled an exponential rise in power, the amount displayed here staggered him. Furthermore, Hal was standing with a hand out to each Sword, and a faint glimmer of spell aura surrounded the three men and the object in the middle. Marcus could swear the Defender was sharing power with them like he and Glori had between themselves.
The Swords raised their weapons and brought them down to point directly at the blob of evil. “One, two, three,” Fergus said softly. On the “three,” laserflike beams shot out from their tips and converged on the object.
“One, two, three,” Fergus said again. John’s blade intensified with a whoosh into a silver-whipped gold while Fergus’s turned pure gold. The beams from the swords burned white where they met the crystal. Soon a white light surrounded the crystal and pressed in on it until the white was almost too bright to look at.
Walcott began to moan and struggle against the vines. The Swords held their positions for another five minutes.
Marcus didn’t know if it was an optical illusion, but the item seemed to be rocking, first in one direction, then another, trying to evade the sword beams. He was wondering if the crystal could escape, when, ZAP!
The deformed crystal disintegrated into a small heap of ashes.
Walcott howled, a long, mournful cry, and collapsed, only held vertical by the vines around his arms and torso.
The Swords sheathed their weapons, bringing darkness back to the jungle. Hal cast several lightballs to illuminate the scene, and the medics began to extricate Walcott from his vine prison.
“Hal,” John said, “if you’ll take care of the item’s remains, we’ll see Gloriana and Marcus back to the house.”
“Come on, you two,” Fergus said, making shooing motions. “There are some people who want to see you, and I want to hear how you caught the bastard with those vines.”
Once outside, Marcus and Gloriana were enveloped by their parents while the dogs danced attendance. Stefan drove them in Marcus’s car to Gloriana’s house to change into dry clothes and back to the big farmhouse, where Antonia and Alaric hustled to fix food to replenish their energy. Only when they had eaten would her mother allow them to tell what had happened.
After hearing the tale, Fergus spoke up. “I believe I’ve heard of another one or two couples like you, so different originally, but so very compatible at the end. I’ve never seen such a merged lightball before, however. As for merging and exchanging magical energy, Defender teams do it all the time. It’s still a rare talent.”
“From what you’ve told us,” John interjected, “I doubt you’re candidates for the Defenders. The merging talent usually manifests itself quite early, and it appears you can only utilize it when in physical contact. Defenders don’t need contact. But it won’t hurt to have you tested.”
“What will happen to Walcott?” Alaric asked.
“That depends on how or if he wakes up. When an item is destroyed, the person it was controlling usually lapses into unconsciousness and often a coma. What he’ll be like when he wakes up depends on how powerful the item was, how long it controlled him, and how far into evil he had gone. I think Walcott will be in one of our nursing homes for quite a while. Most of those who succumb to an evil item lose some brain and magic functions when it’s destroyed. Some have even lost the ability to cast spells altogether. We take good care of them, but they’re broken people and seldom live long. The evil simply wears them out.”
There was a moment of silence while everyone absorbed the information. Marcus was searching for some new subject to dispel the gloom created by it when his mother asked to see a drawn sword. She’d never seen one up close.
While the parents discussed Fergus’s weapon, Marcus glanced over at Gloriana. She looked ready to drop. “Let’s go to bed,” he said. “It’s after two.”
She yawned and nodded. They made their good-byes, collected the dogs, and went home, straight to bed.
CHAPTER
FORTY
Gloriana woke and opened her eyes to get her bearings, but didn’t move otherwise. She had no idea what the time was, except it was still dark. She wondered if she’d slept more than an hour. Not that it mattered. She was perfectly comfortable where she was. She luxuriated in the feel of Marcus’s arm around her, the rise and fall of his chest under her cheek, the thump-thump of his heartbeat matching hers.
She had to smile at the wonder of having a soul mate, and she turned her head to give him a little kiss.
His arm tightened around her, and his other hand came up to cover hers on his chest. A deep voice rumbled, “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“So are you. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I woke up several minutes ago and was lying here thinking.”
“About…?”
“You. Me. Us. How astonished I am to be here with you. How grateful I am that you didn’t give up on me, despite my pigheadedness.”
“Funniest thing. I was thinking along the same lines. The astonishment, not the other. In the beginning, we were so far apart.”
“Yes, in about everything except attraction for each other.” He ran his hand up and down her back again, and she wished she could purr.
“It’s a good thing we’re soul mates,” she said. “I don’t think we could have ever resolved our magic differences if mating hadn’t changed us. Leaving magic aside, we’re going to have enough trouble, adjusting to each other.”
“Trouble, what trouble? We love each other, our lovemaking shakes the earth, the dogs get along. Everything else is simple.”
She sighed. “Just like a man. If the sex is good, nothing else matters.”
“Of course.” He patted her on the bottom.
“Smug, that’s what you are,” she retorted. “Well, I guess if you can learn to live with my clutter, I can learn to live with your penchant for austerity.”
“And if you can lea
rn to live with my jazz, I can handle country-western. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“As for the magic, I expect we’ll have lots of fun working out our combinations and permutations, adding what works, subtracting what doesn’t, multiplying and dividing as necessary. You can help me figure out what the asterisks are.”
Math? The man was worried about math while they were lying there naked? She lifted her head to frown at him. “Asterisks? What asterisks?”
“Remember the formula? I didn’t use regular multiplication symbols because something else seemed to be happening between the elements of the equation to result in the finished spell.”
“Oh, those asterisks. That’s simple. Lulabelle explained the key thing about spell-casting to me long ago. When you get right down to it, nobody really knows how we focus energy and get results. We simply can. That’s the magic part.”
He groaned and pulled her around on top of him. As their centers aligned, the hum started. He found her lips in the dark and gave her a little kiss. “I guess there’s only one thing to do.”
“What?” she asked as she made herself comfortable and rubbed herself against him.
“We’ll take some of your magic”—he ran his hands down her back and kneaded her backside—”and some of my magic”—he rubbed his erection along her rapidly dampening folds—”and merge.” He slid into her all the way.
“I have a new equation for you, Dr. Forscher,” she said as desire grew within her. “My magic asterisk your magic, equals our magic.”
Daria Morgan is a magic practitioner, one of a group of people who uses magic and spells to do their everyday jobs. Her job: A management consultant.
John “Bent” Benthausen is a CEO who, despite every improvement in product and production, can’t get his bottom line out of the Red Sea. He needs a management consultant.
With her special gifts, Daria gets right to the heart of her employer’s problem—crooked employees. Crooked, vicious, employees who are now out to get Daria. Those are just Problems One and Two.
Problem Three: There is an ancient force, an irresistible compulsion, called the soul-mate imperative. It’s known throughout the practitioner ranks for bringing together magic-users and their mates in a lifelong bond. And it won’t be happy until the participants surrender to the inevitable … the Oldest Kind of Magic …
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According to lore, an ancient force called the soulmate imperative brings together magic practitioners and their mates. They always nearly fall into each other’s arms at first sight. Always … or so the story goes.
But what happens if they don’t? What happens when one mate rejects the other—in fact won’t have anything to do with him? Who doesn’t even believe in magic to begin with?
Computer wizard Clay Morgan is in just such a position. Francie Stevens has been badly hurt by a charming and good looking man and has decided to avoid any further involvements. Although the hacker plaguing her company’s system forces her into an investigation led by the handsome practitioner, she vows to keep her distance from Clay.
The imperative has other ideas, however, and so does Clay. He must convince Francie that magic exists and he can wield it. It’s a prickly problem. Especially when Francie uses the imperative itself against him in ways neither it, nor Clay, ever anticipated.
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Lord Lachlan de Douglas, a noble warrior lord, is heir to a Clan of Ancient Earth. Bold, rebellious, possessing strength and passion, he defends his clan from annihilation against a wretched war of masked vengeance and treacherous shadows. Until one day, a sudden horror alters his being, condemning him to a world of private anguish and torment.
Kimberly Kinsale, a diplomat’s daughter, is a rare beauty motivated by honesty and integrity. Serving as a lieutenant in an elite combat fighter group aboard a war ship, she governs her life by the intrigue and lies of her commanding officer. A moment of lunacy and folly, a secret revealed, and Kimberly stumbles upon an unspeakable deception.
Now she must decide. Maintain her loyalty, or betray her Clan and ship for a Douglas enemy lord who can prove the truth—never knowing the battle for justice will take her through Lachlan’s nightmare, a rage so deep, a suffering grounded in shame and pride, even when peace shines in sight.
For theirs is an unexpected passion, born in the fires of a shared need and desperate struggle. Kimberly must fight the sinister legacy of the matrix robots and trust the handsome enemy lord with her life, her heart, and her very soul. But as time slowly runs out, even an exquisite love may not be enough for salvation.
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Veiled by the mists of the highlands are tales of beautiful, magical, and sometimes dangerous worlds. One such realm, Paroseea, dwells hidden within the stone walls of a medieval fortress, Castle MacCoinneach. Yet danger has escaped paradise and stalks the halls of Castle MacCoinneach seeking vengeance, patiently waiting for the return of the fallen laird.
You must return.
Those words, uttered by the ghost of Padruig MacCoinneach’s beloved sister, send him back to the highlands and a life he forswore. To save his remaining sister and aid his clan, Padruig will do anything. He never expected that he would have to marry his ally’s daughter, whom he deems both a reckless child and a potent temptation.
You are the price.
With these callous words, Padruig destroys a fantasy Aimili de Grantham has long nurtured, created from her memories of Padruig himself. A cool, dismissive stranger has replaced the golden man of her dreams, a stranger she must wed. Worse, the fey part of her senses that evil lurks in the shadows of Castle MacCoinneach, and she has nowhere to turn.
One true laird and one of fey blood.
Strangers they may be, but Padruig and Aimili are destined to join together to defeat a force beyond their imaginings. It will take trust, faith, and most of all, love to save themselves, their clan, and discover … A Lost Touch of Magic.
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Denver psychologist Kismet Knight, Ph.D., doesn’t believe in the paranormal. She especially doesn’t believe in vampires. That is, until a new client introduces Kismet to the vampire underworld and a drop dead gorgeous, 800-year-old vampire named Devereux. Kismet isn’t buying the vampire story, but can’t explain why she has such odd reactions and feelings whenever Devereux is near. Kismet is soon forced to open her mind to other possibilities, however, when she is visited by two angry bloodsuckers who would like nothing better than to challenge Devereux by hurting Kismet.
To make life just a bit more complicated, one of Kismet’s clients shows up in her office almost completely drained of blood, and Kismet finds herself immersed in an ongoing murder investigation. Enter handsome FBI profiler Alan Stevens who warns her that vampires are very real. And one is a murderer. A murderer who is after her.
In the midst of it all, Kismet realizes she has feelings for both the vampire and the profiler. But though she cares for each of the men, facing the reality that vampires exist is enough of a challenge… for now.
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Dora de Angelo was never supposed to be an angel. Her soul was placed with the angels instead of the mortals and, as a result, she has never fit in and has an undying wish to be a mortal. Maybe that’s why she is one of the most inept angels Heaven has ever had the misfortu
ne to employ in the Celestial Maintenance Department.
Finally, Dora is sent to Earth. For the three weeks prior to Christmas she must help a mortal family, and return to Heaven on Christmas Eve. During that time, she must help a man find his faith in family again and his ability to trust in love. Dora must also help a little girl become a child again and get past the guilt she feels for the death of her parents. Doing so, Dora finds more than just a challenge to her questionable angel skills.
Dora loses her wings. But she gains something she has always wanted with all her heart. She also finds her family…and discovers love. And hope for a future she’s only dreamed of…
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Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTERONE
CHAPTERTWO
CHAPTERTHREE
CHAPTERFOUR
CHAPTERFIVE
CHAPTERSIX
CHAPTERSEVEN
CHAPTEREIGHT
CHAPTERNINE
CHAPTERTEN
CHAPTERELEVEN
CHAPTERTWELVE
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
CHAPTERNINETEEN
CHAPTERTWENTY
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
CHAPTERTHIRTY
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX
CHAPTERTHIRTY-SEVEN