Enchanted Immortals Series Box Set: Books 1-4 plus Novella

by C. J. Pinard

  Thomas’s eyes got big. “You’re not really going to break his arm, are you?”

  Tyler was panting. “Come on, man, I’m gonna need that arm when I’m treating the sick and wounded.”

  Jonathan grinned. “Then tap out, boy.”

  Tyler conceded and tapped three times on the ring floor with his free hand.

  Jonathan removed his knee from Tyler’s back and stood, offering a hand to Tyler.

  “You, kid, have a lot to learn.”

  Tyler rubbed his arm and looked at Thomas. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

  ∞∞∞

  Angel dabbed at her eyes and sat up, smiling weakly. “Hi, baby.”

  Pascal came over and sat on the side of the bed. “What’s the matter?”

  She looked away and didn’t answer.

  Pascal reached up and grabbed her cold face with his cold hand and gently forced her to look at him. “I said, what’s the matter?”

  “I’m sad about Joshua,” she sniffled, whipping her head out of his grasp and wiping her nose.

  Pascal narrowed his eyes at her. “Well he deserved what he got after what he did to you.”

  She snapped her head up, her tissue pausing mid-wipe. “What he did to me?”

  He stood up to show his dominance, arms folded over his chest. “Well, love, I know he raped you. Bryan told me,” he lied.

  She gasped, and before she opened her mouth, she realized she had two choices: Play along with the lie and dishonor Joshua’s memory, or tell the truth and face his wrath.

  She was in no mood for wrath.

  “How did he know about that?” she muttered innocently.

  “Well, when he told me he walked in on you two, I could only assume that Joshua had forced himself on you. Because surely, you wouldn’t do that with him willingly, right?”

  She shook her head and looked down.

  “I’m actually a little angry that sylph killed him, I was so going to enjoy doing it myself.”

  She shrugged. “I suppose the sylph was just protecting herself.”

  “Well, yes. I’m sure she was. He did shoot one of those Immortal cops before he died, though,” he said with an evil grin.

  Angel stood up and went to the dresser, pulling out a pair of yoga pants and a sports bra. “Yes, I heard. Thomas. He’s in love with that sylph, you know. The one who always wears purple.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Is he now? Well, isn’t that interesting.”

  Angel stripped completely naked and changed into her exercise clothing while he watched.

  “Well I’m gonna go do some Pilates downstairs,” she said.

  He folded his arms. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

  “For what?” she asked, confused.

  “For defending your honor. I know I didn’t kill Joshua myself, but I was going to. You should thank me for that,” he replied.

  She suppressed a gag as she paused at the bedroom door. Without turning around, she said, “Thank you, Pascal.”

  He sat back on the bed as the door closed and a twisted grin lit up his face.

  CHAPTER 3

  ∞∞∞

  South Shields, England – 1809

  Sebastian awoke and sat bolt upright, coughing and sputtering. He leaned to the right and spewed a mixture of seawater, vomit, and blood – a lot of blood. He looked down at his sickness and saw… hay?

  He took another deep breath and then a look around. He was on a hayloft, a single kerosene lamp set atop an upside down wood crate was next to where he lay. There was an old horse blanket under him. He crawled to the edge of the loft and looked down. Bales of hay were piled all over, and various tools and equine training equipment were hanging on the barn walls by metal hooks. There were also multiple farming tools lying around and propped against the faded wood walls. Four lamps were lit, strategically placed around the barn.

  He was shivering, but didn’t quite feel cold, nor did he feel fear. He was just shivering and couldn’t figure out why.

  He was also hungry, so very hungry. He sniffed the air and thought he caught the scent of something edible.

  Sebastian spied the crudely crafted wooden ladder at the end of the dark loft and crawled over to it, waves of nausea rolling in his stomach. He fought down the sickness as he maneuvered himself backward and began to descend the ladder, shaking.

  Reaching the bottom, he put both hands over his belly and hunched over to quell the nausea. He looked down and was confused as to why he was wearing red thermal long pajamas. He didn’t own any, and quite frankly would never be caught dead in them.

  His bare feet tromped slowly over the prickly hay on his way to the barn door. Why couldn’t he remember anything?

  “Think, Sebastian Bell, think,” he chided himself. He scratched his head and realized his long hair was out of its usual ponytail. What a sight he must have been.

  As he stumbled out of the barn door, he was greeted by the night. The inky sky was splattered clear with stars, not a cloud in sight. The full moon shone brightly over miles of endless farmland, and a warm night wind blew against his cold skin. Cows and horses grazed in the distance, and a small covered wagon was displayed to the left. He looked right and spotted a small farmhouse with lights glowing invitingly through the small, murky windows.

  Making his way to the house, he froze when he heard a sound come from inside the barn. He hadn’t seen any animals in there, but curiosity got the better of him, so he went back to check it out.

  Reentering the barn, he looked around and again saw nothing – just the shining kerosene lamps, but everything else was still. He again sniffed the air and smelled something organic. Seeing something out of the corner of his eye, he whipped his head in its direction. A small field mouse was scurrying between hay bales. The sound of its feet pattering over the hay was very loud, and Sebastian found this odd and disturbing. He satisfied himself that it was mice he heard, and headed back out into the night. Exiting the barn, he ran into Aiden.

  “Sebastian! You’re awake! Oh how wonderful!” He clapped his hands once.

  Confusion masked his face. “Aiden… what am I doing here? What happened? What is this place?”

  Aiden grabbed his arm and led him to the small farmhouse. “This is my farm. And you drowned, don’t you remember?”

  “I… what?”

  “C’mon, let’s get you inside,” Aiden said.

  Once inside the farmhouse, Sebastian noticed it was eerily quiet. A fire was burning in a small cast iron stove and there was a small but humble pine table with chairs encircling it. An adjoining kitchen with a washbasin and fire kiln was next to the room with the table. Aiden planted Sebastian into one of the chairs.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Well, you said I drowned, but I don’t feel dead,” Sebastian replied dryly, fingering a chunk of stray hair behind his ear. “What happened?”

  Aiden folded his hands together on top of the table. The flame from a single candle was dancing in his light brown eyes. “Well, the boat capsized. It was pure chaos. The entire crew was in the water. They all survived, except poor Daniel.” He let out a sigh and continued. “I found you at the bottom of the river atop a sandbar. You had hit your head. I grabbed you and dragged you to shore.”

  He then got up and went into the kitchen and plucked a tin cup from atop the fire. He dipped a finger in and put its liquid to his mouth to test the temperature.

  Sebastian watched him curiously. “So I didn’t really drown then.”

  “Oh no, you drowned all right. But I saved you. Brought you back to life, so to speak.”

  Aiden set the tin cup in front of him.

  Sebastian looked at the cup, then back at Aiden. “So to speak, what does that mean?”

  Ignoring his question, Aiden asked, “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, but I also feel ill,” Sebastian whispered.

  “That’s to be expected. Drink that.” He indicated the cup.

  Sebastian looke
d at him then the cup. “What it is? It doesn’t look like tea.”

  Aiden smiled. “No, lad. It’s not tea. It’s cow’s blood.”

  Sebastian gasped. “Why are you giving me cow’s blood? Are you crazy?”

  “No, son. I’m a vampyre. And as of three days ago, so are you.”

  ∞∞∞

  The Island of Nymph, Gulf of Mexico – Present Day

  The lab was outfitted with anything a pretty little sylph could want. A hut all to itself, the small lab inside contained a cold storage area, test tubes, microscopes, and plenty of comfortable chairs. There was even protective eye and ear equipment.

  While Thomas trained with Jonathan and Tyler, Malina portaled to the island to test a theory she had. She glided across the room and opened the small fridge and pulled out a small “test vial” of vampire blood. The sylphs kept small tubes on hand at all times for testing purposes. The bag she brought was sitting on a stool next to the fridge. She rifled through it until she found her mother’s book of enchantments.

  The book was originally crafted of pure rawhide leather. Once quality dyes were available on the market, Malina carefully dyed the leather purple and kept it with her at all times.

  Opening the book, she smiled as she looked at her mother’s original scrawlings of Enchantment recipes. There were multiple mixtures and spells that were tried and failed. One had equal parts of shapeshifter and vampire blood combined, with an incantation placed over it. Elizabeth had tested this on a willing human but it did nothing for him. He aged normally and died in 1839 from the Plague. Another concoction consisted of the root of a magic mushroom mixed with unicorn blood. She found yet another, trying a mixture of sylph blood and mermaid scales.

  Malina laughed to herself as she read over the recipes again. Mermaids and unicorns? She remembered a time when people believed these creatures existed – and maybe a deformed horse or a shapeshifter mid-shift between dolphin and human could have accounted for these myths, but one thing was for certain; her mother had been desperate and determined to find an immortality concoction for humans. She smiled again when she saw the large red mark circling the winning recipe:

  Three drops sylph blood, half vial of vampire blood. 1809

  She set the vial and the book on a desk, sat and stared at them for a while, just thinking. She bit her lip when she thought about her Thomas. If she were truthful, she was happy about having his baby. She was a bit disappointed that her wedding would now have to be moved up, but she was thrilled to share this with him. What she wasn’t thrilled about was becoming a mortal. She never really wanted children – and yes, that’s what all young women say until they fall in love, right? The heart of the matter was… she didn’t mean for this to happen; but there was no turning back now, only moving forward, and she was determined to be, like her mother, a forward-thinking sylph.

  She was going to make some Enchantment for herself.

  Had it ever been tried on a sylph? Only once that she knew of.

  A sylph friend of hers named Michelle in 1975 had tried drinking her own Enchantment before her baby was born. After the baby was born, every five years she drank it. She even tried drinking plain vampire blood, going as far as injecting it into her veins, but the spell – the curse – could not be undone. Nothing worked. Being that half the recipe called for sylph blood, Michelle figured there was no use in putting that in the mixture anymore and went straight for the vampire blood.

  It did absolutely nothing for her. She died two years ago of a heart attack at the age of 62.

  The baby she gave birth to in 1975 was a daughter she named Cassie. Malina looked at her watch. Cassie was five minutes late.

  Then she jumped when she heard a noise behind her.

  Placing her hand on her chest, she exhaled. “Cassie! You scared me!”

  “Hi, Malina!” Cassie said, hugging her. Cassie’s blonde curls were pulled up in a ponytail, and her hazel eyes were bright as she chewed gum. Almost thirty-seven years old, Cassie still looked eighteen. And she was six months pregnant.

  “So what did you want to talk to me about?” Cassie asked.

  Malina smiled thinly at her. “Have a seat.”

  As the sylphs sat, Malina took Cassie’s hand and said, “I have a proposition for you.”

  Cassie turned her head to the side. “Really? What is it?”

  Malina looked down at Cassie’s swollen belly, which hid under her white ruffled top, and placed her hand on it. “I’d like to try to undo the curse that is mortality just for giving birth.”

  Cassie’s eyes got big and she paused mid-chomp. “Can you do that?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Would you be willing to let me try some recipes on you?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know. It’s not gonna hurt my baby, is it?”

  “Of course not!” Malina exclaimed. “I would never do anything to harm –?”

  “Him,” Cassie smiled.

  “Ah, a son. How wonderful. And how is Christopher?”

  “He’s great. Still working for the computer company,” Cassie answered, speaking, of course, about her human husband.

  “Well, what do you say?” Malina asked, anxious.

  Cassie fixed her with a serious stare. “You know what? What the heck. Let’s do it. What do I have to lose?”

  “Wonderful!”

  Malina rose and grabbed her vials and began mixing. She was happy she could test this on Cassie first. There was just no way she would tell Cassie she was pregnant, too.

  ∞∞∞

  Portland, Oregon – Present Day

  Zach’s Gym downtown was brimming with sweaty bodies. The after-work crowd had it packed in, and every weight machine, treadmill, and elliptical machine was taken. Thomas, Jonathan, and Tyler filtered through the gym and through a back door marked Private where the remainder of the gym was a warehouse converted into a martial arts training area.

  The Immortals’ sneakers whispered over the cold, gray stone floors as they made their way to the back.

  “Jonathan, you made it!”

  Jonathan smiled when he saw Zach, the owner. Zach was in his early forties but was as fit as someone in their 20s. He wasn’t very tall, but had not an ounce of fat on his body and his light brown hair was cut into a crew cut. His eyes were a bright sea-foam green.

  “Hey, Zach. These are my associates, Thomas O’Malley and Dr. Tyler James,” Jonathan said.

  Zach peeled off his leather open-palm gloves and shook hands with each of them.

  “Thanks for the private lessons, man. I think the training would be better learned coming from you rather than me. Still healing and all that,” Jonathan smiled, pointing at the back of his neck.

  Zach smiled. “Of course. Come this way, we’ll use my private cage to start the lessons.”

  The three men excitedly followed Zach to a large ring that was surrounded by a black mesh cage. There wasn’t anything inside except a sterile-looking white floor with a lot of scratches on it. Zach fished a small key ring from his pocket and unlocked the cage door, sweeping his arm, indicating for them to enter.

  The men stood around the ring and looked at Zach, waiting.

  “OK, guys, the first thing you need to know about mixed martial arts is that there aren’t many rules. Playing fair really isn’t a part of it at all. Women hate this sport because of that. They find it brutal and unnecessary, whereas guys like us, we love the no-holds-barred thing, don’t we, gentlemen?” Zach smiled.

  “Hell yeah we do,” Jonathan replied.

  Zach had his hands low on his hips. “The second thing you need to know is this sport is not that different from boxing, we just don’t have a bell. We do have a ref, and we do have rounds. Which also makes it similar to wrestling… hence its name, ‘Mixed Martial Arts.’”

  As Zach walked to the black caging of the ring, he put his gloves back on and smacked the metal with his hand. “We fight in cages for a reason. This cage has seen a lot of blood and sweat,” he smiled.

/>   Thomas made a face.

  Zach smiled again. “Like I said, not many rules… no hits to the groin, no biting, no scratching. We aren’t chicks, you know.”

  Jonathan laughed. “Definitely not.”

  “Speaking of chicks – do women do this? We have a female colleague, and while she’s a good fighter, I don’t think she’d be cut out for this,” Tyler said, staring at Zach.

  “Yes, well women have their own league. They still fight but it’s not really a ‘fair fight’ if a man fights against a woman. They have their own… rules,” Zach finished.

  “So what’s first?” Jonathan asked, his arms crossed.

  “That all depends on who wants to go first?” Zach looked at Tyler. “How about you, good doctor? You up for a little one-on-one with yours truly?”

  “Hell yeah.” Tyler pulled his gloves from the pocket of his sweatpants and put them on, then rubbed his hands together. “Let’s do it!”

  Jonathan and Thomas exited the cage and closed the door behind them.

  Once Zach and Tyler were alone in the cage, they began to methodically circle each other, each wondering who was going to make the first move. They were roughly the same height, but Zach had a lot more bulk on him – and obviously more experience. Tyler decided to make the first move, balling his fists up to his shoulders for balance and striking out with a kick to the gut. He didn’t quite make contact with Zach’s midsection, and was rewarded with a foot grab. Zach twisted his ankle and Tyler went down face first to the floor with a groan.

  “Never kick when I can see you, unless you are very, very fast,” Zach said, putting a hand out to help Tyler up.

  “Duly noted,” Tyler grunted, shaking his head.

  The two began to circle each other once again. After about sixty seconds, Zach reached out and punched Tyler in the jaw. Tyler groaned, then shook it off, fists up at the ready. An angry red welt began to appear on Tyler’s jawline. He was staring at Zach now, anxious for a get-back. He jabbed at Zach, who snaked right and Tyler missed. Tyler tried again with his left and made the slightest contact with Zach’s face. Zach quickly punched Tyler in the stomach, which caused Tyler to fall to the ground. Zach immediately jumped on him and put his elbow in his back. Tyler gritted his teeth and resisted to the urge to use his immortal strength to buck Zach off. He did attempt to roll over but Zach dug his elbow in deeper.