Natural Dual-Mage

by K. F. Breene

  Natural Dual-Mage

  Magical Mayhem, book 3

  K.F. Breene

  DDVN World

  Copyright © 2018 by K.F. Breene

  All rights reserved. The people, places and situations contained in this ebook are figments of the author’s insane imagination and in no way reflect real or true events.

  Natural Dual-Mage

  The seat-gripping conclusion to the #1 bestselling Magical Mayhem trilogy!

  One thing has become perfectly clear: The Mages’ Guild won’t stop coming for me until I am either under their control, or dead.

  So rather than wait to be cornered…I’m going to take the fight to them.

  Except, Emery and I can’t do it alone.

  We have to assemble enough power in the magical world to rip the Guild off of their high horse. And to do that, we’ll need the shifters as well as the vampires.

  Except, shifters and vampires would rather kill each other than work together. And after a surprise run-in with a strangely powerful goblin, my world is slapped sideways.

  If I can’t learn the strange new power I totally-didn’t-steal-because-it-wasn’t-my-fault, and can’t get arch-nemeses to work together for a common good, the Guild will finally have their prize. Me.

  This epic adventure will leave you breathless!

  Want to stay in the loop?

  Sign up to be the FIRST to learn about new releases. Plus get newsletter only bonus content for FREE. Click here to sign up.

  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

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Read Born in Fire

  Try: Chosen

  Try: Into the Darkness

  Also by K.F. Breene

  About the Author

  1

  “Why do I keep getting myself into these messes?” I ducked under a reaching branch and jumped over a fallen log. My feet pounded on the moist leaves as I sprinted down a wide pathway, zipping past the little painted doors and carefully written signs attached to the tree trunks. Soft afternoon light filtered through the heavy cloud cover overhead, lighting the deserted walking area.

  Breathing heavily, I rounded a smooth trunk and paused, my hands out.

  Somewhere on the other side of the narrow stream to my right, heavy boots crashed through the brush.

  Reagan.

  Somehow, she always got to patrol the safe areas, and I always ended up with a vicious creature chasing me through unfamiliar terrain. At least she wasn’t laughing or calling me a coward for running away this time. That was something.

  “Did you see it?” she called out.

  “Shhh!” I batted my hand through the air, not caring if she could see the gesture or not. My heart rattled against my ribcage.

  Yeah, I had seen it. Sitting up on a branch and looking down at me. At first it had looked like a grumpy old man with a serious case of the uglies, but it had transformed into something vile—a goblin with red eyes, protruding teeth, and a clumpy rust-red hat. I’d felt its magic weave through the beautiful natural elements around me as it raised its eagle-like talons and prepared to jump down and rip me apart.

  I’d seen it and done the logical thing: run like hell.

  Sure, I had experience now. In the two months since Reagan, Emery, and I had defeated the Guild and their hired goons, I’d trained like a madwoman, taking almost everything Reagan and Emery could throw at me. I’d also let Reagan talk me into five bounty hunter gigs that Darius deemed safe enough.

  Safe enough if your partner wasn’t a homicidal maniac.

  Each time, she somehow managed to shove me into the line of fire. Then she’d take off, leaving me to essentially catch or kill the creature on my own. And each case had been harder than the last, with creatures the local Magical Law Enforcement (MLE) office either didn’t want to handle, or couldn’t.

  I should’ve known better than to take this gig. Especially after the last one, where Reagan had led me into a dead-end alleyway, sprinted up a ladder, and proceeded to pull the ladder up and leave me for dead.

  She’d thought it would build character. And while it had forced me to come up with pretty amazing spells so I wouldn’t die, it had also dropped her onto my people I should immediately cast out of my life list.

  There was exactly one person on that list.

  So why was I in the middle of Ireland, in the freezing cold, being chased through a children’s fairy village by a nasty goblin that killed people and then dipped its hat into their blood?

  Because Ireland, that was why. Because I’d gotten a free trip to Ireland. Darius had even arranged a meeting of powerful potential allies around it, opting to meet in Northern Ireland rather than back in the States.

  I was no longer sure any of it was worth it.

  Palming my chest didn’t slow my rampaging heart.

  “I quit!” I yelled, chancing a glance around the tree again.

  “It can’t understand English,” Reagan called out, moving around to look through the brush lining the stream.

  “Yeah, right. And brownies make good house helpers. Sure.”

  “How was I supposed to know you’d piss off that brownie? I’d heard nothing but good things from the vampires.”

  “Consider the source.” I looked up just in case the goblin had somehow hopped from branch to branch and now dangled above me, ready to pounce, rip a hole in my chest, and renew the crimson gloss on its disgusting hat. “I thought you said these things hang out near rocks.”

  “They usually do. They like ruins and castles best, especially the ones with a history of mass bloodshed. They feed on the negative energy.”

  “Then what’s it doing in a toy fairy village?” Seeing nothing above me but a lovely pink fairy door—about six inches tall, wooden, and decorated with little wooden flowers and beads—nailed into the tree’s trunk, I looked back again. A petite play well (I couldn’t think of any other term for it) partially blocked my view. Instead of water, fake gold poured from the bucket suspended from the roof by wire, and the mini-slanting roof, head height, was covered in fake grass they were pretending was moss.

  It was very cute. In fact, the whole place was adorable. Colorful little fake fairy doors were clustered on the trunks or at the bases of stumps. Tiny little wooden mushrooms and clotheslines decorated stoops or fake patches of grass near the doors, trying to convince children that the fabled creatures lived there. They didn’t, of course. According to Reagan, real fairies were a few feet taller, lived in burrows like varmints, and liked to cause havoc.

  I rubbed my hands together and blew. The hot air from my mouth cooled by the time it got through my half-numb fingers.

  That was something I hadn’t counted on—doing magic with numb fingers. It wasn’t easy. Easier than trying it with gloves, though, so I had no choice but to risk frostbite
.

  “I have no idea,” Reagan said, looking around. “I mean, besides the obvious. Killing tourists and such.”

  “I knew what you meant,” I murmured. The pictures of people with parts of their bodies torn out, faces ripped off, and limbs shredded flashed through my mind, turning my stomach. I’d gotten a little better about not upchucking when I saw (or created) carnage, but the truly gory stuff would always be hard to handle.

  Freaking Ireland and its majesty. I blamed it for seducing me into coming and taking this God-awful job.

  “It’s too still,” Reagan said in a low hum, shifting again. The rustle from her feet reached me from a hundred feet away.

  Which meant the Redcap goblin wasn’t moving. Or else…

  “These things don’t fly, right?” I whispered, looking upward again.

  “What?” she shouted way too loudly.

  “Shhhh!” I spun around, just in case it was sneaking up on me. A large stump bolstered a house made out of a tree limb, surrounded by little mushrooms, fountains, and seats, behind a sign that said “Queen Erica’s Weekend Retreat” in sparkly purple letters. Beyond, a string draped between two trees, the festive papers attached to it flapping in the light, though horribly cold breeze.

  “How in Fairy Godmother’s underpants am I supposed to focus when there is so much cute going on around me?” I asked through clenched teeth, feeling a putrid sort of magic snake through the air.

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Why do you think I took this side?” Reagan said, her hearing annoyingly great. I was pretty sure that was a side effect of bonding her elder vampire boyfriend.

  “Cute, as in, I want to go around looking at all of it. Not try to battle a bloodsucking monster intent on killing me.” I brushed my hand against the trunk, collecting natural elements in an organized mass above me, ready to form them into a spell.

  “These things don’t suck blood, they just coat their hat with it and walk around looking stupid.” The volume of her voice suggested that the goblin could understand English, and also that she was taunting it.

  I blew out a breath, trying for calm, and thought about changing locations. It could hear me. It knew where I was. If it could somehow move without making a sound, it must be zeroing in on my location, choosing the weaker of the two magical workers in the area.

  I was a powerful natural mage, a rarity in the magical world, and yet I was still more mundane than the other magical worker trying to look through the bushes like a goof. If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

  “You gotta go find it, or it’ll stalk you and take you out from behind,” Reagan yelled over.

  “I know, I know.” I took a deep breath, steeled my courage for the shock of a nasty goblin jumping out at me, which would happen in some shape or form (it always did), and carefully stepped away from the shelter of the tree. The thing’s vile magic twisted around me, cringing from the elements gathered above my head.

  With extreme effort, I boosted the wholesomeness and positivity of my mood, the effect drifting into the flowing, swirling energy in my magical bubble. Immediately, the goblin’s magic pulled back even more, its corrosive effects diminished.

  “You’re a nasty little creature, aren’t you?” I asked as I carefully placed my next step, slowly drifting into the clearing. I eyed the nearest tree trunk, carpeted with moss, sprigs jutting out of it like a twisted porcupine. Dead leaves caught in those tiny branches nearly obscured a little hole at the bottom.

  Breathing heavily, I stalked closer, scanning the area before narrowing my focus back to that hole. Prickles of warning rolled over my skin. Something had its focus on me—I could feel it. If it wasn’t the goblin; it was something else just as dangerous.

  “Does it change size?” I called out as quietly as I could, bracing for something to run out at me. I chanced a glance up, just in case. It had been in the tree a few moments ago, after all. After seeing me, it had transformed to its goblin form and scampered down so fast that I’d nearly peed myself.

  “I’ve heard the really powerful ones can, to a certain degree.”

  “I saw it change shape from an old man to a hunched…goblin-like creature.”

  “Wow, you nailed that description. You should be a report writer for the MLE office.”

  I ignored her teasing. “It doesn’t shift into anything else, does it?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Why an old man?” I asked myself softly, scanning the area. Reagan shifted, and brush crackled under her heavy boots. “Would you find a way over here? It’s here, not there. A little help would be nice.”

  “Nah. It’s more fun when the mark chases you around.”

  My positive and upbeat mood withered. “How you have any friends, I do not know.”

  “Me neither. It’s a mystery.”

  The vile magic continued to pulse in the air around me, filling my mind with images of ancient ruins, battles waged and lost, and dusty, wind-swept plains.

  The last didn’t make sense to me unless it was in a world other than this one, of which there were apparently two. The Realm, for magical folk, and the Underworld, for demons and the like. I hadn’t been to either.

  A slow exhale, and I was inching closer to that hole, pulling elements out of the mass above me and winding them into a loose weave. It was an attack spell starter weave—ready to be hurled at the enemy after I stuffed in another component or two. I’d devised this approach when training with Reagan so I could get closer to matching Emery’s speed in creating rapid-fire spells.

  “Don’t jump out at me,” I whispered, drawing closer to the hole as a furious tingling overcame my body. My legs started to tremble, and my Temperamental Third Eye insisted I brandish a sword and go on a killing rampage.

  My Temperamental Third Eye, something much like intuition but a lot more persistent, had saved my life more than once. Even so, it had always been wonky, and after our huge battle with the Guild’s hired thugs, it was downright screwy. The thing wanted me to be like Reagan, unhinged and ready to charge into a battle at any moment.

  I now actively ignored it, lest I lose my grip on reality.

  “Are you hiding in there?” I whispered, feeling the expectation around me rise. Feeling danger draw closer.

  I dashed forward and kicked into the hole to clear the way before blasting magic in it.

  Rustling sounded behind me.

  I spun and threw another spell, green flying through the empty air. A single branch waved. Neither an old man nor a goblin was perched on it.

  Dancing backward, I bent to look at the hole at the base of the tree. It gaped emptily up at me.

  “Why’d you pick such a small hole to accost?” Reagan called over in a voice suggesting she badly wanted a seat and some popcorn with which to watch the show.

  “Because things always seem to jump out at me, and to do that around here, it would have to be in that hole. I figured I’d beat it to the punch.”

  “Umhm.” This would be when she put a few more popcorn kernels into her mouth.

  I pushed her from my mind and crouched, turning in a circle. The branch above me waved to a slow stop. The wind worried the leaves on the ground, creating a tiny amount of movement. Everything else was still.

  “That thing might not be silent, but it is very, very quiet.” Forcing myself to remember to breathe, I scanned the mossy trunks until my eyes landed on the messy branches reaching overhead. If that thing dropped down on me, I’d lose it. I would absolutely lose it. The only thing worse than the unknown jumping out at you like a bloody jack-in-the-box was it thunking down onto your head like bird poop.

  “How many groups have tried to catch this thing, did you say?” I asked, getting another starter spell ready, knowing it could see me from its hidden location. I felt its eyes digging into my back. Its magic festering within mine.

  Kill. Soak. Ruin.

  Soak. It wanted to dip its hat in my blood.

  “Your attachment to
messed-up fashion is freaking cracked, did you know that, you miserable, buck-toothed donkey?”

  Much to Reagan’s dismay, I hadn’t gotten any better at swearing. I couldn’t, not with my mother around. She’d stayed in New Orleans after that last battle. Every time I thought of swearing, there she was, ready to lecture me. It wasn’t worth the hassle for an f-bomb. It really wasn’t.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to follow its magic back to the source. But it hung in the air around me, floating like fog, listless and lazy. I couldn’t get a reading.

  “Two groups,” Reagan answered. “The first group was just assessing the situation. One of them lost an arm and bled out.”

  “Bled out…like bled to death?”

  “Yeah. Died.” She paused, probably to see if I’d ask another rush of questions, like why she hadn’t shared that chestnut before I accepted the gig. “The next group was supposedly Ireland’s best. Two guys and a girl. Tough as nails, I heard. As experienced as they come, and boasting a near-perfect capture record.”

  “They couldn’t find it, or…?”

  “Oh no, they didn’t find it. The Redcap found them. That’s what usually happens. People don’t see it, they go wandering by, and it springs out at them and goes to work. A couple seconds is all it needs. Or so I was told by the local MLE office.” I could imagine her waving a hand dismissively. “Stories always get bigger, and the enemy more extravagant, when someone fails.” She paused for a second, and branches creaked overhead, gently swaying in the breeze that had kicked up. Freezing air slid across my cheeks, and my nose started to run from the intense cold. “Of course, one of the bounty hunters from the last team did get torn up pretty badly…”