Excerpts: Stronger Than Magic
Option 1
“Tarian, wait. Not like this. It shouldn’t be like this.”
Her shoulders slumped. Obviously she needed lessons in the seduction department. Usually all a girl had to do was flash a little skin and a willing smile. Damn the man for being more honorable.
“Don’t you get it? I need this. I need you. I only have right now, this moment. Tomorrow might never come for me. You answered the call. Now you’re telling me you don’t want this? That you won’t…help me?” Anger flooded her. “What was all that earlier, a tease?” She stepped back out from the comfort of his thighs.
Daric reached out and grabbed her hand, preventing her from getting very far. He pulled her back until she was close again, and his hand cupped her face. She saw compassion, lust, and uncertainty in his eyes and the worried way his eyebrows joined together. Her anger evaporated.
“That’s what this is? Part of the ritual?” His thumb gently caressed her cheek. “I’m going to help you get rid of this demon, Tarian. You don’t have to do this now. Let’s wait until after we’ve solved your problem, and then if you still want this…”
“If you’re trying to save my virtue, don’t worry about it. I never had any. It was up for grabs the minute I was born.” She’d always known this moment would come, but she’d never pictured it like this. She wasn’t sure what the ritual was normally supposed to be like, but she had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to know or care about the person she completed it with.
And she did care.
Option 2
“Tari? Are you okay?” The soft voice echoed down the hallway and reverberated in her head.
Tarian turned to see her sister, Calliope, standing just outside the door to the main healer room. She held a bundle of cloth, and her forehead creased as she got a good look at Tarian.
The odd force inside Tarian’s stomach leapt and pushed toward Calliope. Tarian backed away, even as her sister moved forward.
“Get back.” Tarian put her hands up to block her sister. “I mean it, Calli. Get away from me.”
She turned and ran, before her sister could protest.
She didn’t even look where she was going, as long as it was away from Calliope. The force inside her felt like a string pulled tight from somewhere outside herself. Her injured arm nearly lifted on its own. If the demon did this, he did it from thousands of miles away through some of the toughest magical walls ever built.
Her mind spiraled, then she slammed down on that thought process. It was too fast. Too soon. She had a week. That’s what Daric Voltain had said. A week, dammit.
What if he was wrong?
Option 3
Tarian took off her jacket and focused her magic on the wound in an attempt to heal it, but after a couple of minutes had to admit it: She sucked at healing. Even if she hadn’t just spent a lot of energy fighting the demon, she couldn’t have managed to heal this. When she tried to handle something as delicate as skin, she felt clumsy and awkward. The headache wasn’t helping, either. The best she was able to manage was a loose scab that she wasn’t entirely sure wouldn’t have formed on its own in a few more minutes. She surveyed the damage. It was angry and in-your-face, and it hurt like hell, but at least she’d managed to make it stop bleeding.
She put the jacket back on and winced as the stiff leather brushed against the wound. The torn section stuck out at odd angles. She tried to tuck it in so it was less obvious, then searched the alley for any scrap the lizard man might have touched. If she couldn’t track her own blood, for whatever reason, maybe she could use something he’d touched as a focus. She found nothing, not even a button or a scale.
“Lose something?”
A man stood on the sidewalk, surveying the alley. A strong magical signature emanated from him, plus a whiff of some sort of spice. She tested the air, ready to throw every ounce of magic at him that she could muster, which wasn’t much at the moment. She relaxed as she realized he wasn’t attempting to focus power of any sort. Satisfied that he wasn’t an immediate threat, she took a good look at him.
He had the kind of strong jaw she loved, and his messy black hair soaked up the afternoon sun. He wore jeans, a black wool coat and relaxed confidence. A shiver crawled down her back and settled in her groin. If they’d met in a bar, she’d have bought him a drink. Or three.
The stranger raised his eyebrows as his eyes passed over the slice in her jacket, then had the nerve to wink at her as his eyes traveled down her leather pants.
“You’re in some kinda trouble. Need help?” His smile stretched up and lit a sparkler in his eyes. “I felt that blast all the way in the coffee shop.”
“I’m doing just fine, thanks. I have a job to do, if you don’t mind.” Great, just what she needed, some magic citizen thinking he was a detective. She needed to finish her original mission and get the hell out of here.
“You’re anything but fine. Whatever job you think you’re doing, you need to have that arm looked at first.” His eyes didn’t lose the sparkle, but his voice took on a serious tone. “It smells wrong. If it’s what I think, you need to have it sealed. Fast. And then you need to catch the guy, quick, before he uses what he got.”
She couldn’t stop herself from putting a hand over the injury. He was right. The wound felt wrong, somehow. The cold inside her wove in and around her internal organs. She didn’t want to think about what it searched for. It pulsed in time to the throbbing in her arm. But surely the healers could handle this when she got home. No big deal.
“Look, I appreciate the concern, but I’ll be fine. I don’t have time to get it looked at right now.” She resolutely put her hand down and pushed past him. Her target couldn’t be far. She’d only been here for what, a few minutes? He was probably in the nearest bar.
The man put a hand on her good arm to stop her. The warmth soaked into her bicep and loosened muscles all over the place.
“Make time.” The sparks were gone from his eyes. “I’d hate to see someone so fine used by something that foul.”
“Just who are you, anyway?” She pulled her arm away from him.
He put a hand in his back pocket, fished out a card and handed it to her.
Daric Voltain, Private Society Investigations
The address was the building next to the alley they stood in, the home of her favorite coffee shop. No wonder he’d felt the backlash of spell power. He must live above the alley.
“I told you, I’ve had some experience with this. And it’s obvious you haven’t. That arm is bad news. He’s left a mark on you. And if you have some of him, it means he has some of you.”
Her skin turned cold as she remembered the lizard man tasting her blood.
“It’s no big deal.” She put the card in her back pocket and matched his know-it-all stare with a glare of her own.
“I’ll take that as confirmation. The clock is ticking, hun. If he’s a demon, the stronger he is, the faster it will tick. If he knows what he’s doing, I’d say you have a week, maybe less.”
A week before what? Before her arm fell off? She put her hand over the wound again. It didn’t feel life-threatening. Her head pounded. Dizziness threatened to drop her on her ass.
It was as if Daric read her mind.
"A week before he has control over you. Your powers. Everything. You'll be his to command. That would be a very bad thing, for you and the rest of us.”
