Hidden Magic Trilogy Box Set

by Jayne Hawke

  I remembered the unique wards the dragon had wrapped around itself. I couldn’t have done that, it was far too perfect, which definitely supported his theory. That said, I didn’t kill it for shits and giggles.

  “Why were you in the forest?” Ethan asked.

  “Assassins came after me on the walls. I’d meant to hang onto the wall and get behind them, but it didn’t work out that way,” I said.

  Ethan hugged me gently while I rode out the intense low that was coming. A great wave of darkness crashed over me, leaving me swimming in a deep pool of sadness. If only I could have a drop of that blood, just one little drop would make everything right again. Squeezing my eyes closed harder, I pushed the thoughts away. I was stronger and better than that. I would not lose myself to some addiction.

  “I’ll see what I can salvage from the head,” Matt said softly.

  Matt removed the scales and blood, leaving behind the rest. The remnants were a gruesome mess. He said it would go to good use, though, which was something. I’d lost myself to the moment, but I’d also killed something beautiful and incredible. I still kind of wanted to bleach the skull and make a trophy of it, though. I got where they were coming from, but I’d survived the impossible, killed the impossible, and all I was getting for it was moralizing.

  Dean had refused to talk to me for the evening and stalked out earlier than usual. I never understood why not talking to me was supposed to be a punishment, but it was one I was happy to bear if the alternative was hypocritical lectures.

  “Ignore him. He has a weird soft spot for those dragons. It doesn’t help that they’re really rare. The death screams were pretty painful, too,” Kerry said.

  “Not really helping...” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “Shit happens. Things die when you get stuck in complicated situations.”

  With that, she walked out of the kitchen, leaving me with a weirdly quiet Sin. The enfields were patrolling outside. At least they were quiet.

  Sin perched on the back of the chair next to me with his legs dangling free.

  “There will always be times when beings lose their life at a time that feels too soon. Many will feel that your actions were too extreme, your pleasure too much. The path of an assassin is not an easy one, and you will need to come to terms with the position it puts you in,” Sin said softly.

  I hadn’t expected the elf to speak so seriously.

  “I’m not an assassin,” I said reflexively.

  “You are in some eyes. You kill those you’re hired to kill, do you not?”

  He had me there. There was a reasonable chance we’d end up killing the witch behind the weird deaths, people who started down that route were too dangerous. The feeling of that sat uneasily in my stomach. I’d always thought of myself as a protector, someone who helped keep innocent people alive and safe. Now I was beginning to wonder if I was something darker.

  ELEVEN

  I told Dean to piss off when he knocked on my door at the crack of dawn. My muscles ached from the fight down in the forest. I’d felt amazing while the magic was coursing through my system, but I was left stiff and grumpy in the morning. Groaning, I tried to find the perfect spot in the bed where it was toasty and I was blissfully comfortable. After half an hour of trying, I gave up and went searching for breakfast.

  The gnawing desire for more blood magic was still in the back of my mind, but I ignored it. I was a protector. I wasn’t going to fall prey to whatever darkness lay within me. Sin was juggling four muffins for the enfields when I got into the kitchen. The fox creatures looked to be absolutely delighted with the show. I wasn’t sure if that’s because they knew they’d eat the muffins in a minute.

  Sin tossed a muffin at my head. I ducked and felt it whizz past my head.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Did you not want breakfast?” he asked innocently.

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “I’d rather not have breakfast thrown at me.”

  “It’s good training,” he said as he grinned at me.

  He fingers flexed around another muffin, and I glared at him in warning. The slightly larger enfield with the white bit on its tail was happily eating the first muffin the elf had thrown at me.

  “I’d rather bacon and eggs,” I said.

  “I don’t think you’d like to clean up the eggs,” Sin said sombrely.

  “I’m going to eat them off a plate. Like a normal person,” I said as I pulled the bacon and eggs out of the fridge.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” Sin asked in mock horror.

  I ignored him. I wasn’t awake enough for his bizarre sense of humour.

  “If you so much as think about throwing an egg in my kitchen, you’ll be sleeping on the roof for a week,” Ethan said.

  Sin looked carefully at the eggs in my hands. His mouth twitched, and I could almost see the cogs whirring in his head where he weighed up the pros and cons. He had already slept on the roof for a while, after all.

  The elf pursed his lips and threw the remaining three muffins at Ethan and Dean in quick succession. They caught them with apparent ease. I said nothing. I didn’t want muffins for breakfast anyway.

  I attempted to make omelettes for breakfast, but Cade soon nudged me aside and took over the cooking. Cooking had never been my strong suit, but I wanted to make an effort for the pack. My mind turned to the upcoming winter Solstice. Gifts were supposed to be handmade, but I wasn’t crafty, which meant I bought from small stores instead.

  “Kit, anyone home?” Cade said as he waved a hand in front of my eyes.

  “Hm?”

  “I said there have been some more weird deaths. You’re eating breakfast in the car,” Cade said as he handed me an omelette sandwiched between two halves of a croissant.

  “Weird how?” I asked Ethan as we headed to the front door.

  “They form a bizarre pattern and look as though they just dropped dead. No injuries. No bloodshed or blood loss.”

  This was sounding more and more like we had a necromancer on our hands. They were unusual. It took a lot of determination and love of death to take a witch over that line.

  Ethan caressed my cheek once we were both in the car. His warm smile helped shake off the grumpiness I’d woken up with.

  “How’re you feeling this morning?”

  “I’ve been worse. I’m a bit stiff, the blood magic is gnawing at me, but I’m dealing.”

  I bit into the croissant before Ethan could ask for more details. I didn’t want to feel like a monster.

  “You’re strong. You’ll bring it back into line,” Ethan said with absolute confidence.

  His faith in me filled me with a fire. I hadn’t really had people believe in me. Matt had, of course, but it had been just us for so long. Having the pack around me brought a strength and belief in myself that I hadn’t realised I missed.

  Ethan hadn’t been wrong about the bizarreness of the deaths. There were six people in total. Each of them appeared to have been out for an early-morning walk or similar. The bodies were arranged between the slender black trunks of the trees edging around the park that marked the border between the upper fae neighbourhoods and the banking district. We slowly walked around the very edge of the scene, looking for any clues or details.

  Something tickled at my witch magic. I couldn’t quite see or feel it at first. It was a niggling feeling right at the edge of my mind. The first body was that of a middle-aged woman with dark blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail. Her running clothes were flecked with dirt, but the odd thing was the fact she appeared to have fallen on her side mid-stride. Her legs were forever frozen slightly bent like something out of a cartoon.

  The others were also in their early forties or later at a guess. Again, they all appeared to be humans. It took me a minute to spot the pattern Ethan had mentioned. At first, they looked to be scattered between the trees. Then I saw it, their limbs aligned to form a protection sigil. The runner’s legs made the double point at the
western corner, the walker’s arms formed the soft curve in the southern end. I’d never seen anything like it.

  As we got a bit closer to the bodies, the niggling feeling increased. I could feel the magic right there at the edges of the bodies, and something about it was familiar. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but I recognised something about it. Sighing, I knew this meant I needed to look through Mom’s library and try to learn more about my witch magic. Being untrained was becoming a pain in my ass.

  “Do you have something?” Ethan asked as he looked over at me.

  “There’s a really faint magic signature here. I recognise it from somewhere, but I’m not sure where.”

  He frowned and returned to inspecting the body of an older man in grey tracksuit pants and a brilliant blue t-shirt.

  There was absolutely no damage on any of the bodies. Not so much as a bruise. Everything was pointing to it being the work of a necromancer.

  TWELVE

  The signature was still bugging me, but I couldn’t figure it out. We’d returned to the pack house for Ethan to change into what Kerry called his ass-kicking outfit. The pale blue jeans and heavy boots were a very good look on him. I was enjoying the way the denim hugged his powerful thighs when he sighed and nodded to Sin.

  “Come on, elf. Let’s make you one of the pack,” Ethan said gruffly.

  “You’re challenging his bond? Let me get my extra dagger,” I said.

  “I’m doing it alone.”

  I turned to glare at Ethan. His mouth was fixed into a stubborn flat line.

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “Because there are already too many people out to kill you. Walking into the courts would be beyond foolish. The pack needs you. I need you. Sit this one out, for my sake.”

  I rolled my jaw. He sounded genuine, but I still hated it. I was co-alpha of the pack. I should have been right there kicking the fae’s ass. His logic wasn’t bad, though. It would be a great chance for assassins and kidnappers to gather up and try to take me out. Assuming I won, the political fallout would be bad enough to bring Ryn down on our heads. I couldn’t afford to let my ego endanger the pack like that.

  “Fine,” I ground out.

  Ethan’s shoulders relaxed some, and he gave me a smile.

  “I’ll go to mom’s library and dig into witch stuff, see if I can find something on necromancers or how to figure out where I recognise that magical signature from,” I said.

  “I’ll join you,” Cade said.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. It wasn’t as if it was an exciting job.

  “Is it so wrong that I think it’s a cool space? There might be a hidden passageway or something,” he said.

  His easy smile looked almost puppyish. For a brief second, I could see why the other cu sith packs thought he was too soft. If I was being honest, the company would be nice, and more hands made lighter work or something.

  Cade had brought his laptop along and was playing some dance music, which I really appreciated. I wasn’t at all in the mood for quiet. Sin’s words about the dragon were still settling in.

  As I stood in front of the wall of the books, I swore that there were more shelves and books than there had been the last time I was there. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a quick and easy guide for the books. As much as they were organised, it didn’t come with big signs saying ‘necromancy shit here’.

  True to his word, Cade had spent the first half an hour checking any little hidden spaces for signs of passageways or other cool things. He hadn’t come up with anything, but there was a spark in his eye that said he hadn’t given up yet. I tried to keep my head in the game. More innocent people were dead thanks to this witch on a power trip. We needed to figure out their end game and stop them.

  I hadn’t come across anything on necromancers specifically, but I did find a couple of books on the basics of witchcraft and witch magic. It stung my ego a bit to be looking at books designed for kids, but I needed to in order to get better at this witch thing. Working with my instincts was great, it had saved our asses a few times, but I needed to do more. I needed to be more.

  Settling myself down into a comfortable chair, I began looking through a section on magical signatures. It began by explaining that every being with so much as a drop of magic has a unique signature, which was much like a unique scent or fingerprint. It depended on the individual witch as to how they perceived said signature. Some witches saw the blend of magical threads, others felt them or even smelled them. I fell into the feeling category mostly, but my blood magic had clouded my normal witch magic.

  The book went on to explain that spells and workings had their own signatures, too, but those lingered for a very short time. A good witch could figure out what had happened somewhere by the fragments of magical threads left behind. Unfortunately, it didn’t really go into how I was supposed to do that.

  I moved on to another book, and then another. They weren’t giving me what I needed.

  “You’re doing great,” Cade said from the chair opposite mine.

  “People are dying. That signature might be the breakthrough we need.”

  “You’ve known you were a witch for, what, six weeks? A couple of months? Give yourself a break. Normal witches have eighteen or more years to practise and refine everything.”

  Sighing, I carefully put the books back and began looking for more that might be able to help us out.

  “I don’t want to be just an assassin, a bounty hunter. I want to protect and help people,” I said.

  “You do,” Cade said simply.

  He stood up and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

  “I don’t know what Sin said, but shrug it off. Killing people is just part of our line of work. You’ve helped and saved far more people than you’ve killed. The dragon was a shock, but now you know for the future. Move on.”

  I smiled, of course he was right. The elf was probably screwing with me, and I was being melodramatic.

  “Let’s go get lunch. I’m dying for some fish ’n’ chips,” I said.

  Cade grinned.

  “Now you’re talking sense.”

  THIRTEEN

  I was sitting reading a paragraph about the importance of keeping death magic clean and crisp when I felt something shift within me. Frowning, I paused my attempts at understanding the words before me and tried to see what was going on. My god magic usually sat deep within me like a ball of mercury, still and metallic. In that moment, it was bubbling.

  A horrible image of explosions formed in my mind.

  “What’s wrong?” Cade asked in alarm.

  “I probably just ate too many chips.”

  He slowly placed his book down next to him and looked at me patiently.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s nothing. My god magic is just sort of... bubbling.”

  “Does it normally bubble?”

  “No. It’s a weird feeling, I can feel it within me but not physically inside of me.”

  “Our death magic is the same. It’s this big black mass within us, but if you cut us open you wouldn’t see it in our spleen or something.”

  My mind quickly flipped to wondering where exactly the magic was stored.

  “I’m sure it’s just boredom or something.”

  I returned to trying to read the book. The words were all merging together. Ethan was off fighting for Sin’s bond. I needed to return with something good. We knew the deaths were caused by a witch, and there was a signature there that I sort of recognised. I refused to return home empty handed.

  My god magic shivered, which sent a weird coldness through me. It was an emotional coldness that washed away any emotion I might have been feeling. The sensation came and went in the space of a couple of seconds, but it brought a wave of anger with it. Somehow I knew that someone was screwing with my god magic. And I hated that.

  The anger came from the god magic. It wasn’t entirely my own. The emotion was a deep roaring fire that wanted to consume me and driv
e me into the heart of battle with an unknown foe. Closing my eyes, I dug my fingers into the arms of the chair and grounded myself. I was in control of my magic, not vice versa. The anger settled down, leaving irritation in its wake.

  “Kit?”

  “Someone’s poking at my god magic,” I ground out.

  Reaching out with my witch magic, I tried to feel for people nearby. It took every ounce of focus I had to press my magic and my mind out through the walls of Mom’s sanctuary. I really needed more practise at that stuff. At first, I thought there was nothing there, but then I felt the odd void. The world outside was full of flickering sensations, magic from the sunlight, the plants, the water. Then there was a void, a person-sized emptiness.

  “I think they’re just outside,” I said as I stood.

  Cade stood with me and prowled at my side as we went to the front door to confront whoever thought they could screw with me.

  I threw open the door expecting to see some arrogant young witch. My breath caught in my throat as my heart threw itself against my rib cage. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” a familiar baritone voice said.

  He sounded exactly as I remembered. He hadn’t aged a day, but then the fallen didn’t, did they? I had his eyes, but his held a deep coldness that I didn’t remember being there when I was a little girl.

  “Congratulations on the assassin’s bond. I’d hoped to claim him myself.”

  I hadn’t seen him in almost a decade, and that was all he had to say!?

  “Kit?” Cade asked.

  “This is my father,” I said bitterly.

  “I see you’ve come into your magic. You have a lot left to learn, though,” my father said.

  Hundreds of questions raced around my mind. I couldn’t grasp onto any of them. It was too surreal. There was just a cold anger streaming over a profound sadness. He’d been around, and he had made no attempt to return to our lives.