Marked by Magic: a New Adult Fantasy Novel (The Baine Chronicles Book 4)

by Jasmine Walt

  “Well?” the wolf shifter demanded, crossing his arms. “Show yourself!”

  Reluctantly, I dropped my disguise. Gasps echoed through the crowd, followed by exclamations of surprise and anger. The words ‘bitch,’ ‘whore,’ and ‘traitor’ echoed through the halls, and I fisted my hands at my sides, claws digging into my palms as I fought to remain calm.

  “Nice to see you guys too,” I sneered. “You’re welcome for bringing the Chief Mage back in one piece, and for rescuing all the shifters who were being kidnapped and enslaved by the Resistance.”

  Quite a few of them – the shifter who’d called me out included – shifted uncomfortably and averted their eyes.

  “We shouldn’t be so harsh to judge her,” one of them murmured.

  “She has done good work lately,” another one said.

  “Very good work,” Captain Galling confirmed in a louder voice, and I flashed him a look of gratitude and relief across the room.

  “Who gives a fuck?” Widler shouted, and it was then I noticed that he’d backed away, a look of disgust on his face. “She still works for the mages, doesn’t she? I bet they sent her in here as a spy, to make sure we’re good little peons and to report any of us if we don’t do what we’re told!”

  There was a roar of agreement at that, and the crowd surged forward, murderous looks on their faces. The captain shouted at them to stop, but nobody listened.

  I held up my hands, and the crowd halted as blue flame sprang to my fingertips. “Hang on, guys,” I said, holding them at bay with my magical fire. “I’m not here as a spy, dammit! I came here to help. My main objective is to find the Benefactor, the person who is financing the Resistance, and I have a lot of good information that could help you guys out.”

  The crowd seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then somebody spoke up. “Aren’t you on the Resistance kill list? They’re going to think we’re helping you if we let you back in here, and then what? I’ve got my family to think of!”

  More voices chimed in with agreement, and the crowd surged forward again, heedless of my magic as they cursed and yelled that they didn’t need the help of a filthy traitor like me. As one, they pushed me out of the main hall and slammed the doors shut on me as I landed on my ass in the entrance hall.

  I stared up at the scarred, closed doors, hands braced on the equally scarred linoleum tile. I’d worked so hard to get into the Enforcers Guild. I’d wanted to be one of them since I was sixteen, had dreamed of fighting against injustice and making the city a better place. And now, they were throwing me out, calling me a traitor and telling me that my help wasn’t good enough for them.

  Stop moping, Sunaya. There isn’t time.

  I sighed. There never seemed to be time for wallowing in self-pity, was there? These days there were always lives at stake, and a big, bad guy that needed to be stopped. I wished that my enemy, for once, actually had a face. I hadn’t known Yantz was the guy behind the silver murders until the very end, and the same went for Danrian and the Shifter Royale. But even they were just puppets, their strings yanked behind the scenes by a greater force – the Benefactor. And we still seemed to be no closer to finding out who the hell he was.

  I got to my feet, checked to make sure my weapons and harness were still in place, then left the building. As I passed through the entrance, I caught the scents of the male enforcers who were still guarding the entrance, and stiffened as my body throbbed in response. If even these guys looked good, I was in a bad way.

  Fuck. I’d been thrown so off balance by my ejection from the Guild that I’d forgotten to put my illusion back on again. The two guards started at the sight of me, and I took off running. I wasn’t sure if I was running because I needed to get out of sight before someone from the Resistance took a shot at me, because I didn’t want to humiliate myself in front of those guys by letting my hormones get the better of me, or because I couldn’t stand to be near a group of people who, despite everything I’d done, still thought I was scum.

  All I knew was that I needed a fucking break.

  7

  I found a quiet place to change back into my teenage-boy disguise, but even that didn’t seem to help with the heat much. I was on edge, hungry, aching, my fangs and claws elongating beneath my illusion despite my efforts to stay in human form. I needed to take the edge off. I needed release.

  I needed Iannis.

  Leaning my head against the alley wall, I laughed softly to myself. Iannis? Even if he weren’t too busy fighting and governing to see to my needs, I couldn’t let him if he wasn’t prepared to commit. If I did, then he was no better than the string of other guys I’d used in the past when the need had taken me. Was this what I’d been reduced to? Skulking in alleys and pining for a guy I couldn’t have?

  Angry now, I straightened up. I was better than this. Maybe I was in hiding, but I was still Sunaya Baine, and I’d never had a problem getting a guy into my bed when I needed one. If Iannis couldn’t help me, I’d find someone else who could. Even just once a day would be enough to take the edge off so I could focus and get some real work done.

  It’s for the greater good, a voice whispered in my head, and I nearly laughed out loud. How absurd, the idea of having sex ‘for the greater good’. But there was no denying that something needed to be done, and it needed to be done with someone else. Masturbation didn’t work – it was that living, human connection that the heat sought, and the heat responded to. After all, self-pleasure didn’t result in procreation, now did it?

  I hopped on my bike and headed to The Cat’s Meow, a diner run by the Tiger Clan. After parking my ride in the back alley, I changed my illusion to that of the blonde tiger shifter female I’d used the last time I came here. But instead of a sweater and jeans, I put on a skin-tight leather corset beneath a black blazer, leather pants, and boots. No, it wasn’t the kind of attire one usually wore to a diner, but I wanted to make my intentions clear to the males inside.

  It was mid-afternoon, so I didn’t expect the place to be packed, but it was still a lot emptier than it should have been. Over two thirds of the tables and booths were empty. But as soon as I stepped in, every single male’s gaze swung my way. Yellow, orange, and blue shifter eyes glowed with hunger as their nostrils flared, catching the scent of my heat. Other eyes, female ones, flared with jealousy, and several females bared their fangs in my direction as I walked past, swinging my hips a little as I headed for the bar in the back. The mated males all hastily averted their eyes as I sauntered past, but several gazes remained glued on my back. The single male seated at the bar, a handsome tiger shifter with orange eyes and shaggy dark hair that I remembered meeting here the last time, licked his lips, showing a hint of fang as he looked me up and down.

  “Hey,” he greeted me as I sat down on the barstool next to him, his deep voice rougher than I remembered. He leaned in, nostrils flaring as he inhaled my scent. It would be nearly irresistible to him. “Visiting from Parabas again?”

  I pretended to look sheepish at the reproach in his eyes – I’d lied to him the last time about where I was from, and had given him a false phone number to call. Because I’d used my magic to disguise my scent, he hadn’t been able to tell, a fact that no doubt confused him.

  “Sorry about that, but I was involved with someone else at the time.” I didn’t even really have to lie about that – I was involved with someone else. Just not the level of involvement that I wanted it to be. “I’m alone now, though,” I added with a feline smile. “You could buy me a drink if you like.”

  “How do I know that’s actually true?” he asked, arching a brow as he picked up his glass of teca – one of the few substances that could intoxicate a shifter, and that would kill a human if served to them. “You seem to be extraordinarily good at lying.”

  I shrugged a little. “You don’t.” Pretending to ignore him, I turned away and ordered five cheeseburgers and a boatload of fries from the man behind the counter. I was famished from the constant use of illusion magi
c, and besides, I had no intention of working for tiger-boy’s affections. There was plenty of interest around here – in fact, two other males were approaching the bar already. One of them tried to sit down next to me, but tiger-boy bared his teeth and let out a ferocious snarl, and the other male backed off. I pretended not to notice, but inwardly, I sighed in relief. If the other male had been more dominant, a fight would have broken out, and I had come here for sex, not bloodshed.

  “So, is this your spot?” I asked as the first two burgers arrived.

  “Huh?” he asked as I bit into the food.

  “Mmm,” I moaned, closing my eyes as I savored the juicy burger. The reaction was genuine, but I played it up a little for him. And then I made him wait until I’d finished the burger.

  “That barstool you’re sitting in.” I pointed a greasy finger at it. “You were sitting in the same one the last time I was here. Does it have your name on it or something?”

  He grinned. “If you can actually remember which stool I was sitting in, then I must have made a big impression.”

  “You’re cute,” I said with a shrug as I picked up burger number two.

  “The stool doesn’t have my name on it, but it’s a little more comfortable than the others, so I always use it.” He smiled a little. “My father owns this diner, so I’m in here a lot.”

  I nearly choked on my burger at that. So much for picking a random guy, I scolded myself. If he were telling the truth – and my nose told me he was – then he would be well known in the community.

  Suddenly, I had a flash of an earlier memory, from six years ago. It was one of the times I’d been in here with Roanas, and a gangly teen with shaggy brown hair had been serving us. He was probably no more than nineteen at the time, his face still thin, his shoulders too wide for his still-growing body, but there was no mistaking him. He’d always been our server, and he had been one of the few shifters to go out of his way to make me feel welcome.

  “You’re Nimos Barakan?” I asked, putting my burger down.

  His eyes widened in surprise. “You know my name?”

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah, I do.” No longer hungry, I slapped some coin on the counter, then slid off the barstool. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Just one second,” Nimos growled, grabbing me by the upper arm. “You’ve already walked out on me once. I’ll be damned if I let you do it again.”

  “You’re making a scene,” I hissed, mostly because of the pain. His claws were digging into my flesh, something I couldn’t fault him for – I’d exposed him to my heat and brought out his territorial instincts. “Let me go. You don’t even know my name.”

  “No, but you know mine.” His eyes bored into mine. “I want to know why.”

  I sighed a little, then forced myself into a submissive pose – shoulders relaxed, eyes downcast. “Fine. But can we go somewhere else? Please?”

  “Sure,” he said easily, sounding satisfied. He thought he’d won. “Let’s head to the back.”

  The entire room watched us as I followed him down a hall and up a staircase that led to a hall lined with three doorways. Upper-floor apartments, I guessed. My breath quickened as I tried to resist the heat – my body knew I was being led in the direction of sex, and it was clouding my judgment, making me forget the reason I’d decided to leave the diner.

  Nimos opened the second door, and I followed him into a small apartment with dark, masculine furnishings. Nothing expensive, but well built. His scent was everywhere in this place, and it only made the ache between my legs worse.

  He shut the door behind me, chest heaving, eyes glowing, and I braced myself to fend him off. But instead of pouncing on me, he leaned back against the door and crossed his arms.

  “So. How do you know me, and what are you really doing in my family’s diner?”

  I had to applaud him for remembering the important questions in the face of raging hormones. If he, a full-blooded shifter, could do it, then so could I.

  “Because I used to come here with my foster father every Sunday,” I said quietly allowing my illusion to fade.

  Nimos went slack-jawed, his eyes widening as he took in the real me. “Su…Sunaya Baine?”

  “Yep.” I mirrored his pose, crossing my arms against my chest to fend off the scathing insults and criticism I knew were coming.

  “By Magorah, you really did make it back!” The next thing I knew, he’d swept me up into a big hug. I squeaked as he lifted me off the ground, more because he was crushing my ribs with his powerful arms than because I was surprised. “I wanted to thank you for what you did, but you’d left before I had the chance to contact you.”

  “Thank me?” I pushed against his shoulders so that I could look at his face, bewildered now. “Thank me for what?”

  “For rescuing all those shifters.” He set me down, but his hands remained on my hips. “My cousin’s son Sapian was among them.”

  “Oh.” There had been so many victims of the Shifter Royale that I couldn’t remember them all, but I vaguely recalled there had been at least two tiger shifters in that dark basement. “Well, you’re welcome. I was just doing my job.”

  He shook his head, “You did a hell of a lot more for the shifter community that day than the Enforcers Guild has done in the last century,” he insisted. Tilting his head, he sniffed, and the hunger in his gaze deepened. “You’re in heat. Let me help you.” He brushed his lips against mine. “That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”

  I clenched my jaw against a whimper of need, resisting the urge to lean into him. “It was a mistake,” I said hoarsely.

  “Why, because you thought I would reject you?” His lips moved to my jawline, trailing fire across my too-sensitive skin. “I won’t deny that a lot of the shifters here dislike you, Sunaya, but there are others who are grateful for what you’ve done. Most have fled Solantha or are still imprisoned, but they exist. And I’m one of them. Let me help you.”

  Oh, how I wanted him to. His words were exactly what I needed to hear, his touch a balm on my overheated skin. It would be so easy to give in.

  But I would never forgive myself.

  “No,” I growled. Placing my palms against his chest, I shoved him, hard. He stumbled back, hitting the door, shock stamped across his handsome face. “I can’t, Nimos. I…there’s someone else.”

  His expression darkened. “I thought you said there wasn’t.”

  I smiled sadly at him. “I lied. And the way my life is going right now, I’m just going to keep lying to you. Stay away from me, Nimos. You’re better off without me.”

  Whirling away from him, I grabbed the latch of the back window and tore it open. And before he could say anything more, I was gone.

  8

  Three hours later, I reached the top of Hawk Hill, breathing hard as I pushed the bike up the path that wound up the hill on the other side of Solantha Bay. My legs burned and my lungs ached, but I was grateful – the long ride and the exercise had taken my mind off the heat, which was a good thing because my teenage-boy illusion still wasn’t doing much to help.

  I threw my bike down on the grass, then pulled out the flask Elania had given me and drank the last mouthful of bitter anti-aphrodisiac. Taking deep breaths of the fresh, lightly salted air, I gazed out at the bay, my eyes traveling over the magnificent Firegate Bridge, and the city beyond. The sun was kissing the horizon now, setting the bridge aflame and giving credence to its namesake. Just a few weeks ago, the Resistance had tried to destroy said bridge, affixing a bomb beneath it near one of the main supports. I’d managed to help evacuate the citizens and defuse the bomb, and for my trouble had been sent a warning from the Resistance via my own cousin, Rylan, to stay out of their affairs if I knew what was good for me.

  Apparently, I didn’t know what was good for me, because now I had a kill target on my back. And looking back on how things went down, I still wouldn’t have changed a thing.

  From this distance, the city still looked much the same. I couldn’t see t
he broken windows, the trash in the streets, or some of the smaller structures that had burned down. The taller, more visible buildings stood strong, just like the bridge. But how long would that last? How long, before the Benefactor got his way and took over the city, or the mages reached their breaking point and annihilated everyone who stood in their way? Either outcome meant the destruction of the city I loved, and I couldn’t let it get to that point. Iannis’s self-control was ironclad, and I trusted that he wouldn’t let things get to that point either. But he wasn’t infallible, and the council had already proven they were willing to go behind his back.

  Another pulsing ache rippled through my body, and I gritted my teeth as I turned away from the view. Much as I loved it, I hadn’t come up here to gaze down at the city. I’d come here to seek solace. Guidance. From a non-corporeal presence I still wasn’t entirely certain existed.

  Mages, shifters, and humans all technically worshipped the same god, though we all had different names and interpretations of Him. The mages called Him the Creator, but rather than praying to him directly, they often sought guidance from the spirit of the very first mage, Resinah. As I understood it, she was something like the Creator’s mouthpiece. I wasn’t totally certain I believed she was real, but I had imagined her voice once or twice, so I couldn’t discount the possibility. And something had drawn me here to Hawk Hill, to her, so what was the harm in trying to seek guidance?

  I am real, a voice whispered, and the air shimmered in front of me, indicating the location of the hidden temple I’d only visited once before. Come inside and see.

  I spoke the Word Iannis had taught me, and the shimmering increased, like intense heat waves rising from the grass. Even though I was prepared for it this time, it was still shocking to watch Resinah’s temple suddenly appear out of nowhere. The domed building soared above me, the strange blue stone it was made of tinted purple by the sunset. The sunset also made the round, stained glass windows look like rippling fire, and I stared for a moment, my heat forgotten as I was transfixed by the beauty of this place.