Funny thing, those green eyes. Considering mine were gray and Dom’s were sapphire blue. I never once questioned where they came from, or what beautiful soul had come back into this world in the form of my son. Six years old, now. Smart as a whip, beautiful dusky skin and a quick smile, with a favorite chicken named Cheddar.
The Square boomed with activity. The old market still existed, but only on the weekends. We had real stores again, real shops, real jobs, real money. The market had become a relic of the old world—a way we could connect with one another while remembering what we’d once survived.
Julian waved at Neo. “Can we stop by their booth after church?”
“Of course,” I replied, waving at my old friend.
“Mom said she would take me shopping!” Liliya pouted. “We have a dance at school next month, and I have nothing to wear.”
“You have an entire closet full of clothes,” I argued.
Dom touched my arm and shook her head. “Teenage girls,” she explained, as if that explained everything.
“That’s all you,” I told her.
“We can go to the mall while Dad and Julian go to the market. Deal?” Dom kissed Liliya’s forehead, then pressed a palm into her lower back. “Though you may be pushing me in a wheelchair through your favorite stores.”
Liliya made a face. “Fine, as long as we find a dress.”
“Am I going to have to pick up another shift?” I asked, amused. “I think we have some overtime coming up. Sarge is on vacation next month.”
“No. You know how I feel about you working more than necessary.” Dom slipped her arm through mine. “Life—”
“—is too short and too precious,” I parroted with a smile. “You’re right. Like always.”
St. Basil’s loomed over the Square, our sturdy savior and the most revered building in the city. Not many people hadn’t heard the story of how Vasily protected us in our bid to save the Circle. The saint himself had even seen a new rush of admirers.
As happened each time we went to church, I couldn’t help but think of Yulian. After we’d defeated Belias, we’d returned to his body in the ruined tower. Dom and I carried Yulian deep beneath St. Basil’s, where we laid him to rest beside Drakoi. Now, the two lovers who had saved the Circle rested together—and I hoped their spirits had rejoined one another, too.
The tower had long since been cleaned up and rebuilt, as had the rest of the cathedral. It had been returned to its original state—a house of God.
The priest greeted us just inside the front door with open arms. Dom hugged him first, then Liliya. Julian, very much his father’s kid, shook the priest’s hand stoically. I followed suit.
“So good to see you, Gadreel,” Father Volkoff said. “As always. Your family looks happy and healthy.”
I grinned. “If you ask them, they’d probably disagree. Something about a dress?”
The priest chuckled. “Ah, the troubles of a young family in the modern age. But we wouldn’t change it for the past, now would we?”
“Absolutely not, Father.”
Liliya cut away from us as soon as she saw her gaggle of long-legged, long-haired girlfriends from school. Julian waved goodbye as he ducked into the bible study room, which left myself and Dom, hand in hand as we walked into the resplendent sanctuary.
I helped her ease into our usual bench. “Won’t be too much longer. Julian was early.”
“I’m sure she will be no different.” Dom adjusted her skirt and slouched against the bench with a sigh. “She’s lying on my bladder.”
“Please don’t pee on the church pew.”
Dom punched me in the arm. Pregnant or not, she could still cause some pain.
The organ music began. I could see Liliya chatting and laughing with her friends. Julian was likely trying to take over the bible study class with his endless questions and knowledge.
And my beautiful Dom, fierce and fabulous, even if she was too big for her leather pants. I took her hand and kissed it, then interlaced our fingers as Father Volkoff walked on to the dais.
He lifted his arms, taking a long moment to share a beatific smile with each and every one of us. “Let us pray.”
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FORGOTTEN
Forgotten
He’s the heir regent.
She’s a witch who survived the purge.
Their love could save everything – or doom them all.
Dajia Bray grew up in the shadow of her parents’ brutal assassinations. If not for her childhood nanny, she would have died during the regent’s purge, along with her parents and the other powerful witches of Sector 14. Raised as a human, Dajia practices her magick in secret while nursing her hatred of the man who stole her future.
The regent's heir, Elliott Pierce, lives in a golden palace of privilege stained by the shadow of his father's dark rise to power. But his aging father’s time is growing short. Eli is ill-prepared to assume both the title, and his family legacy of secret horrors. On top of preparing for the inevitable, the sector's protective walls have begun to fail.
As the Sector slips further into cold and darkness, Dajia and Eli are thrown together. Their otherworldly connection may be the last chance for their world to survive, or else prove its utter undoing.
If you love Lauren Oliver’s Delirium and Jeaniene Frost’s sexy paranormal romances, you’ll fall for FORGOTTEN.
FORGOTTEN
Copyright © 2016 by Heather Marie Adkins
Published by CyberWitch Press, LLC
Paoli, IN
cyberwitchpress.com
[email protected]
Published December 2016
All rights reserved.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
In layman’s terms: Don’t be a jerk. Writing and publishing is the author’s career. Support their art by buying their books at their very affordable prices. Don’t steal the author’s blood, sweat, and tears for free from a pirate site. If you did, then go back and buy a book from this author. Legally.
Disclaimer: The persons, places, things, and otherwise animate or inanimate objects mentioned in this novel are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living (or dead) is unintentional. The author humbly begs your pardon. This is fiction, people.
Author Photograph © 2011 Meagan White | White Photography
Cover art by Bewitching Book Covers by Rebecca Frank
Interior Book Design by CyberWitch Press
Created with Vellum
This book is dedicated to Sandy H.:
for the cats, for the Cheetos, and for the friendship and family you have brought into my life.
About Othala
Many years ago, the Original Sixteen witches were able to contain an outbreak of demon-like creatures from overtaking the earth. But doing so came at a cost. For the human race to survive, the world had to be divided into sixteen sectors, trapping the ravagers to the outer lands beyond, and trapping the humans in.
The Original Sixteen served as regents over each of these sectors, and when they died, the strongest of witches took their place, using their own personal enchantment abilities to protect their sector. In the process, communication was lost. The only solace that remains is the knowledge that if another sector fails, their own may still survive.
But what happens when your sector is the one to fail? What happens when the world inside your walls is just as bad as the one outside them? Sector 14 is about to find out.
1
Dajia
On Dajia Bray’s ninth birthday, ten years after the Reckoning that split the world apart, magick blasted her front door from its hinges, and the course of her life changed.
For a split second, neither of her parents moved, shocked by the sheer burst of noise and energy from the foyer as wood splintered and fell like rain. The explosion would have been violent at any other time, but in the middle of an idyllic birthday celebration, it tore through the family with destructive force.
Daddy reacted first, leaping to his feet and pulling his quartz wand from his pocket. He whipped around and lifted the wand in the same motion, sending a flash of blood-red magick into the doorframe. As the entrance to the living room crumbled, effectively blocking the intruders, he grabbed Nana’s arm.
“Take Dajia and hide,” he snapped. Fury marred his usually good-natured brow. Dajia’s memories of her gentle father would always be overshadowed by this man, wielding his power with retribution in his eyes.
“Yes, sir,” Nana stammered, reaching for the child.
Dajia stared at her nanny as if she didn’t recognize her. She sat shocked, fork in hand and bits of plaster in her lap. Her favorite pre-Reckoning movie played on the television. They hadn’t even cut the cake yet. Tonight was supposed to be her special night.
As Nana’s clammy hand clasped hers, Dajia dropped her fork into what was left of her mashed potatoes and thought, But I’m still hungry.
Nana dragged her through the swinging door that led from the living room to the kitchen. Shouts echoed behind them, and another blast shook the floor beneath their feet.
Halfway across the yellow kitchen linoleum, Nana stopped short. Dajia ran into her hip, the impact expelling her breath on an oof, and followed her horrified gaze to the back door.
On the other side of the frosted glass, dark shadows moved against the night.
“Sweet Jesus,” Nana murmured. “They’ve surrounded us.”
Nana yanked Dajia back through the swinging door. Her father’s red magick, and her mother’s blue, filled the air in a fight against whoever waited on the other side of the destroyed living room wall. Particles of dust and debris scattered through the air, held aloft by the battle happening beneath.
Dajia found herself fascinated by the floating detritus. She itched to have her own wand and the ability to play with the mess.
Nana moaned, her grip tightening on Dajia’s wrist. The girl snapped out of her reverie and looked up at her nanny. Nana looked around, eyes wild and terrified. She locked onto the coat closet, a door set into the same wall as the entrance to the foyer. It had so far escaped the battle raging between Dajia’s parents and their unseen attackers.
Nana jerked her to the coat closet, and they tumbled inside. As the elder woman shut the door, Dajia cuddled against her warmth.
“Who are those people?” she asked.
“Shh, baby. I don’t know.” Nana wrapped her arms around Dajia. An explosion rattled the closet, and she began to pray. “Our Father, which art in heaven…”
Dajia’s cheek on her nanny’s bosom muffled the sound of her voice, but the rumble drowned out the violence. Nana’s Christian beliefs had always been comforting, like a pleasant bedtime story. She’d been Dajia’s nanny for her whole life, ever since Mama had to go back to work at the regent’s council after giving birth to her nine years before.
While Nana took comfort in her Lord’s prayer, Dajia took comfort in the very real, soothing cadence of her voice. At a time like this, her mother would have prayed to the great goddess, or sang “Isis, Astarte” in her sweet, melodic tones, the ancient names of goddesses of cultures long gone like a pleading prayer.
Another blast bucked the floor beneath them, and the ceiling caved in. Nana yelled, leaping on top of Dajia and crushing her against the wood floor. The door burst open from the force of the cave-in, exposing the scene in the living room.
Her father faced off against three regulators, his wand lit like a beacon in his right hand. His other arm hovered protectively over Mama, who stood behind him, her back against the wall. Mama’s shiny ebony hair had come loose from its ever-present braid, and the thick mass hung in her face, not doing much to hide her frightened gaze.
All three regulators wore the black armor of the regent’s guard: a thin, indestructible design wrought by magick. The shiny surface of their armor shone like an oil slick under the light of her father’s wand.
Dajia wanted to wiggle out from under Nana and go help, to offer her magick in aid to her parents. She wasn’t Wanded, but she could touch her dad, give him her power. But Nana was an immovable, crushing force, her silent tears hitting the floor near Dajia’s head next to splintered wood and crumbled ceiling.
The largest of the three regulators spoke, voice muffled by his full black hood. “Justin and Vanele Bray, you have been sentenced to death by the regent on grounds of witchcraft.”
Daddy faltered. His glowing wand slipped low. “What? But why—”
Dajia gaped, sure her face registered as much surprise as her parents. Mama and Daddy had been on the regent’s council for nearly ten years. They were loyal comrades to the man who had saved the sector during the ravagers’ attack by cloaking the city in his protective magick. The very idea of her parents being put to death for witchcraft was asinine—the sector depended on witchcraft to stay safe.
This is a drill, Dajia thought. The regent is testing them.
Her father didn’t have time to stop it. Dajia watched in horror from the closet as the regulator unsheathed the long sword strapped to his back. In one clean, powerful slice, Justin Bray’s head separated from his body.
Dajia let out a strangled cry that was immediately silenced by Nana’s hand. She shifted to shield the girl’s face so she couldn’t see the rest. Mama’s petrified scream cut off with a gurgle and the dull thwack of her death.
Then the regulators’ boots moved closer.
“Step out of the closet,” the man in charge said, his voice deadly calm.
Nana stood shakily but stepped in front of Dajia, shielding her from the witches with her body. “I am human, and the child is my daughter. The witch Vanele Bray was my sister. We were simply visiting. We are human!”
The lies rolled easily from Nana’s lips. Humans were precious in their world, because witches could not exist without them. The human life force worked as a power source for the witches. Even the regent, the most powerful witch in Sector 14, needed humans to fuel his magick. Nine-year-old Dajia hadn’t reached eleven yet, the year she would begin to study magickal theory in earnest, but she did know this.
Dajia stayed on her belly, her cheek to the cold floor. Mama looked at her with unseeing emerald eyes from only feet away. Bright red blood pooled on the cherry hardwood floors.
I thought witches were precious in our world, too.
“If you and the child are human, the spell will confirm, and you may be on your way.” The masked regulator lifted his black wand. “Step out of the closet. Failure to comply will be taken as resistance, and you will be executed.”
Nana moved forward, her steps halting, her shoulders slumped. The regulator intoned an enchantment Dajia didn’t understand, because young witches didn’t learn incantation language until thirteen. His wand flared, a burst of unnatural black light flooding over Nana.
Dajia scrambled to her feet, breath catching in her throat. All she had left now was Nana. What if the magick killed her? But the light faded, and Nana swayed, catching herself on the doorframe as Dajia hugged her.
“I’m okay,” she murmured, cradling Dajia against her hip.
“Release the girl,” the regulator said evenly.
“She is my daughter!” Nana cried, clinging to her even tighter. “She is not a witch! She is human!”
“Then she will pass th
e test, and you may go. Release the girl. Failure to comply means execution.”
Nana sobbed once, choking on the sound. They faced three men in black with masked faces and ebony wands held aloft. A human and an untrained witch child. Dajia knew they could not fight the officers.
Nana gently pushed Dajia forward, despair a veil over her flushed face.
Dajia’s heart stuttered as she stared down the tip of the regulator’s wand. The spell would know, would find her magick and out her as a witch. Then she wouldn’t have her head anymore, either.
At least I’ll be with Mama and Daddy.
The regulator’s incantation twisted through the air. The black light enveloped her and made her feel ill. Tentacles of raw energy clawed her, dragging her beneath a suffocating cloak. This wasn’t the pure, loving energy of her parents’ charms. She had no experience with curses, but she imagined this must be what one felt like.
As suddenly as the spell sank over her, it lifted. Dajia’s knees wobbled. She leaned against Nana for support and turned a questioning gaze upward.
“See? All done!” the regulator boomed jovially. He saluted them with a two-fingered kiss and salute. “Ever may He reign. Good day, ma’am.”
And then they left.
NANA AND DAJIA WAITED SEVERAL long moments after the regulators disappeared. An animated movie played on the TV, the ancient box-set untouched by battle. Blinking colors reflected in her daddy’s glassy eyes. Dark brown, lined with caramel, identical to her own.
Nana took her hand. “We need to go before they remember your parents have a daughter.”
“They don’t know,” Dajia replied hollowly.
“What do you mean?”
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