Magick Rising (41 page)

“Well, I took one and was able to do this.” She touched her cheek in

indication.

Before she could react, David snatched the bottle from her hand,

flipped off the top and dumped the pills into his hand, squinting at them

through the darkness. He had the audacity to taste one. “Here’s your answer.

It’s not Glue. These are the sugar pills.”

“You’re lying,” Jon growled. He grabbed David’s wrist hard enough for

her ex to yelp in pain.

“Cool your jets.” David dumped the pills back into the bottle, capped

it, and tossed it back to Serenity. “No lies. They’re sugar pills.”

Serenity stuffed the bottle back into her pocket. “Why would those be

stored in the safe?

“Simple. We had some placebos made up so we could convince the

girls that one pill wasn’t enough and they needed to take a double dose of

Glue and be even more dependent on us.”

“But . . . that means . . .” Her head whirled with impossible

possibilities.

David supplied the answer she couldn’t bring herself to say aloud. “You

have the trait. It manifested sometime after my accident. Maybe it was the

emotional trauma.” He shrugged. “Whatever. You’d shift in your sleep, and

I’d wake up next to a strange woman, then I’d realize it was you. Quite the

turn-on, if you think about it.”

She bit back a stronger retort. “You’re lying.”

He actually laughed. “Think about it. Subconsciously, you were so

desperate to get out of the marriage, you turned into someone else. I’m not

the only one who changed, baby. And now that you met a shapeshifter and

know about Glue, it makes sense that you’d credit it instead of your own

abilities.”

“You’re crazy.” As disbelief crept into her thoughts, her face began to

tingle, and she felt the bones and muscles moving on their own accord.

David pointed to her face. “And here comes good ol’ Serenity, back

again. Doubt can be a real downer, can’t it?”

His flippant comment angered her so much that she closed her eyes

and repeated to herself
If I can change, then change!
After a few repetitions, her

face tightened in response, and she embraced the tingle that soon magnified

into a flare of pain.

As she concentrated, she heard Jon from the driver’s seat. “You knew

all this time? And you never told her?”

David dismissed the questions with an explosive sigh. “Sheesh! Like

she would have believed me. We weren’t exactly on good terms.”

Serenity straightened, now assured that the return to her borrowed

features was now a deliberate action. It made a perverse sort of sense now.

As their marriage went south and David grew abusive, she made a slow but

measured change, becoming more aware, less tolerant of his aggression, and

getting enough courage and conviction to throw him out. Instead of

changing outside, she’d changed inside.

Now she could do both.

It also explained the instantaneous connection she made to Jon.

They were two of a kind.

She opened her eyes and smiled. “You’re right. I would have
never

believed you. But I had no problem believing Jon.”

“Oh. So it’s
Jon
now. How cozy. Well, about that . . .” David reached

into his jacket, and before the gun barrel cleared the edge of his coat, Jon’s

fist rocketed out, catching David on the chin, snapping his head backwards

into the glass. Then with a speed that was almost inhumanly fast, Jon caught

the gun falling from David’s loosened grasp and slammed on the brakes,

skidding into an empty parking lot.

Once her ex recovered from the speed and ferocity of the attack, he

gaped at both Jon and the gun now aimed at him. “How in holy hell did you

do that?” he asked, rubbing the spot where his head had slammed into the

window.

When Jon grinned, his entire face lit up, eradicating the air of noir

grimness he wore most of the time. “King of the shapeshifters. Remember?

I can be anyone I want, including someone really, really fast.” He nodded

toward the door. “Out.”

David made no effort to leave. “But the formula . . .”

“. . . is staying with us.”

“But Iceman.” True panic began to reflect in his eyes. “And what about

Tanaka?”

“I bet both are really pissed at you right now and into the foreseeable

future. Tanaka because you don’t have the formula and Iceman because he

knows someone wearing your face stole it. If I were you, I’d get out of town.

I hear Rio is nice this time of year.”

David turned to glare at her. “I’ll never sign those papers, now, Sere.

Never.”

The sound of Jon’s laughter ricocheted around the car. “You won’t

have to. I’ll sign them for you. As you.” He pointed the gun at David. “This

is the last time I’m saying this. Out.”

David bristled. “You wouldn’t.”

The gun roared as Jon calmly shot out the passenger window, just

inches from David’s head. As Serenity held her aching ears, she watched her

ex-husband throw himself out of the car and sprawl across the glass-littered

pavement.

When Jon glanced back at Serenity, his look of solidarity filled her with

a buoyance she hadn’t felt in years. She knew who she was now. Who she

really was. Who Jon was. That somehow, they belonged together. Any

lingering fears she had about David complicating her life evaporated.

She reached out and touched Jon’s cheek, savoring the sensation and

strength that flowed between their contact. Then she turned, looked out at

David, and smiled.

“You’re finished, David. Finished with me,” she said. She started at the

top and worked her way down. Hair, eye color, facial structure, even skin

tone. “Because you’ll never find me again.” This time, she knew she wasn’t

just pretending not to be scared of him. She
wasn’t
scared.

And she’d never be scared again.

Jon followed her lead, shifting into a completely different person. “You

cause either of us any problems, and you’ll never see us coming. I might be

the person standing next to you in the line at Starbucks. Or she might be

sitting behind you at a restaurant.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Jon aimed the gun at David again. “Seems to me I’ve already proven

myself once tonight. Care to try me again? Or shall I give her the gun? Of

course, her aim might not be as good as mine, and she might accidentally hit

you.”

David scrambled to his feet and disappeared into the shadows.

Putting the car in gear, Jon pulled away from the curb. They said

nothing until they parked in front of her apartment. When he climbed out of

the car, she saw he’d changed back to his normal face as had she.

At least she thought she had.

He opened the door for her then held her arm to steady her. “Are you

going to be okay?” he asked in a low voice.

Her answer surprised even her. “If you stay with me. Teach me.”

His smile was a little bit rueful and a whole bunch attractive. “I’ve never

taught anyone before. Up to a couple of days ago, I thought I was the only

person in the world who could do what I do.”

She squeezed his arm, more to reassure herself than him. “You’re not

alone anymore.”

He cocked his head, and his smile grew. “I guess I’m not. That’s a

change that it’ll take getting used to. What about you? How many impossible

things have you faced in the last twenty-four hours?”

How many indeed. “A couple . . . dozen. Sometimes life changes when

you least expect it.”

“People, too.”

He held out his hand, and without hesitation, she slipped her fingers

into his, letting the powerful sensation flow up her arm and into her heart.

“Where do we start, O, King of the Shapeshifters?” she asked.

He shrugged then ducked his head, hiding his grin. “At the beginning, I

guess. Lesson one . . .”

The End

DESTINY RISING

Jodi Anderson

Jodi Anderson is enjoying a life-long love affair with books and loves

creating happily-ever-afters for readers.

CELESTE SORAYA knew killing her lover had been inevitable, but that

made it no less devastating. Knowing Erik forced it, wanted it, threatened to

obliterate her every day. For nearly three hundred years she’d lived with that

knowledge.

Lightning exploded, and thunder crashed again, shaking the crumbling

walls of the estate. The storm centered overhead. Focus and discipline

honed by desperation kept her from flinching as mortar fell from between

the stones of the keep’s walls.

Tonight. It had to be tonight. The last chance to set all right. To grasp

what she’d lost . . . destroyed.

Reliving the sounds, horrific visions, and smell of his spilled blood for

three lifetimes had only sharpened the pain of the oozing wound that had

replaced her soul for so long.
Peace, rest, and forgiveness
. Did these things truly

exist?

Speak, damn you, speak
.

But the skull mocked her with its screaming silence. Death’s muteness

had cloaked it for two centuries gone. Darkened eye sockets mocked

Celeste. The gaping mouth on the skull filled with echoes from the past.

Blaming.

Condemning.

The hell of it was Celeste knew her three lifetimes of torture was

deserved. Still, a hardened shell of guilt kept her from surrendering if there

was any chance of salvation to be had. If she could not complete the triad

this time, if she did not get it right, not only would she have killed Erik

forever, but he would be condemned to the abyss from which there was no

escape, no hope, and no light. Condemned to the death of his soul’s essence.

No
.

If Celeste met failure again she would destroy herself completely. There

would be no fourth lifetime. She would use a method steeped in magic to

ensure she did not return again. Death’s embrace would be preferable to an

eternity in the arms of this anguish.

Eternal darkness bound the dead unless she found the right key,

released the tumblers that imprisoned their light. The key required a

combination of purity of purpose, symbols that portended the time was

right, and evil’s darkness. A combination as elusive as it was deadly.

Designed to resurrect Erik or annihilate him for all time.

“Now, m’lady?” Rose’s whispered words broke the silence punctuated

only by the hiss of candles burning too long and too short.

There could be no modern lights, no trappings of the present time. All

had to be as it had been on
that
night.

“Nearly. Hold steady, Rose. The time is upon us.” A hidden piece of

Celeste softened. Why this woman returned each lifetime to help in this

quest, she didn’t know. Rose would not say other than she was bound to

Celeste, to her quest.

Celeste welcomed the company, the genuine friendship offered without

reserve. Rose was family in all ways but blood. All the ways that mattered

most.

Rose shuffled closer, laying a hand gently on Celeste’s shoulder. “No

matter the outcome, I will be there in the next. No matter the outcome, you

will go on. You must, or all will be lost.”

The energy flowing into her arm enabled Celeste to stand taller, to raise

her chin, and to believe. She never understood why this bond existed but

hoped she offered something to Rose. “I know. And I’m always grateful,

but—”

“It is not for us to question, child, only to accept.” Rose moved away to

light more candles as some died with a last frantic leap upward. “You will

know when you will know.”

It seemed the old woman sensed Celeste was at the end of her hope,

suspected she planned to end the agony if this failed. Celeste said nothing.

What could she say?

In the midst of the torrent raging outside, silence suddenly cloaked the

anteroom, oppressive in its unexpectedness. They were in the center of the

storm, the eye of calm around which all energy centered . . . good and evil.

Celeste raised her gaze to meet Rose’s calm one, feeling again the flow

of energy given to her from the other woman. With a small nod, Rose set a

goblet on the podium and pulled the dark hood forward to cover her silver

hair, leaving only the shadow of her profile exposed. Celeste covered her

own hair in the same manner before stepping to the open book on the

podium.

Rose raised the goblet, prepared with lamb’s blood and a white feather,

and walked counter-clockwise around Celeste and the book. She sang the

ancient chant low then allowed it to swell. The eerie notes lifted to fill the

space.

Celeste steadied her heart and focused, threw out all doubt, and spoke

the first word of the invocation. Hating the name but knowing they needed

it. “Victor!”

Lightning flashed. But thunder did not follow. He was present.

Keep your thoughts pure, Celeste. No judgment. No fear. Don’t let him know
.

Dislodged mortar sprinkled about them though no thunder shook it