Obsidian Magic (Legacy Series Book 2) Read online

  “There’s a big leap from you detecting the presence of a shield and Legacy. What about all the things in between?”

  “Of course. Do you remember when you were in my bed?” he asked with a sly look, a hint of a smile playing at his lips.

  “Your guest room,” I offered. “I was in your guest room.”

  “Everything in there is mine. My house, my bed,” he said, and he couldn’t have made his grin more sinful if he’d tried.

  I guess by that logic, I don’t need to go back to his house.

  His finger lightly stroked against my hand, which tingled with a warmth that was probably my imagination. I reminded myself that everything with Gareth could be reduced to nothing more than primal carnal instincts. He just seemed to elicit those in me. And that was the story I planned on sticking with. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was handsome and radiated a raw sensuality that was impossible to ignore. Stop being a shifter fangirl! I scolded myself.

  Stepping away as his lips inched closer to mine should have been my first response, the ideal response—the logical response. But I didn’t. Just before his lips brushed against mine, someone knocked at the door. I took the distraction as an opportunity to put a couple of feet of distance between us.

  His nephew peeked his head in. “Beth is back, I’m leaving.”

  Gareth’s brows rose. “Really. You worked all of”—he looked at the clock—“an hour and a half and you’re ready to call it a day?”

  “I have to go back to school in two weeks; you plan to have me here the whole time?” His contemptuous scowl mirrored his uncle’s.

  “Yes, that’s my plan.”

  He walked in, and when he stood across from his uncle there was just a slight resemblance. The shifter eyes and the sharply hewn features. He had on khakis and a button-down and looked uncomfortable and very unhappy about it.

  “I just borrowed your stupid car. Seriously, don’t make it a thing,” he retorted, dismissing his uncle’s stern look with a roll of his eyes.

  “It is a ‘thing.’ You stole—”

  “Borrowed, you knew I was going to take it. It’s a Tesla, you know I love those cars, so you knew I was going to borrow it the moment you left me alone with it at your house.” With a heavy sigh, he continued. “And I didn’t enjoy it anyway—you had me pulled over five times. I had your stupid car for three hours and you had me pulled over five times!”

  Gareth chuckled.

  His nephew brushed off the taunting laugh. “It didn’t bother me, just added to my street cred.” Gareth’s laugh faded into a scowl. The kid really knew how to rub Gareth the wrong way. I liked him.

  “Good, next time I’ll have them arrest you—that should really increase your cred.”

  His nephew mumbled something under his breath as he backed out of the room.

  “Avery, whatever you scraped against caused six hundred dollars’ worth of paint damage. You have to work it off. Go downstairs and ask Beth what you can do. At minimum wage, you should have it paid off in no time.”

  His glower didn’t have an effect on Gareth. In fact, the entire exchange seemed to have perked up his day.

  “Mom gave you a check.”

  “My sister didn’t damage my car, you did.”

  Avery glared at his uncle under his long lashes, which really diminished the effect, and mumbled something else under his breath before exiting the room. He looked over his shoulder to shoot another furtive glare in his uncle’s direction.

  Gareth’s teasing smile remained on his face as he directed his attention back to me. “Where were we? Oh yes, you were in my bed”—he moved closer to me—“and you told me.”

  There wasn’t any way I would have told him. I knew the consequences of disclosing something like that to someone whose job was protecting the supernatural community and helping maintain the optics that supernaturals weren’t dangerous to humans. He would be the last person I told. As far as the world was concerned, I was the biggest danger out there, and no amount of schmoozing or PR spin was going to help it.

  My kind was responsible for the Cleanse, a spell performed that latched on to anything magic like a virus and killed off a significant number of supernaturals and humans who had dormant supernatural ability, probably as a result of a family member’s liaison with a supernatural. My ilk stood behind a veil and a bastion of strong wards that protected them while the world died around them to ensure that they would be the most powerful people in the world.

  My parents and a small group of resisters attempted to stop them but it was too late. It ended when the supernatural community and the humans formed an alliance; magic and science mingled, creating an unholy war that was bad enough to be considered part of our history.

  With all historical wars, the villain is always in the eye of the beholder and rightfully so. There were always two sides to a story, except when it came to the Legacy. Everyone was united against us. We were one of the most hated groups ever to exist. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I’d discovered that the honor was shared with Vertu, who were Legacy supercharged. Legacy were often considered to have the purest and strongest magic to exist and all supernatural magic was linked to ours. Vertu were the progenitors of magic. Some speculated that we were their doing and were the only offspring that they considered worthy of being their equals and companions. Other magic wielders were just spurious descendants that they had little to no regard for. I’d had the unfortunate experience of meeting and trying to fight one. It was a magical ass kicking that I could’ve gone a lifetime without experiencing.

  “I call BS, there is no way in hell I told you.”

  Gareth was too close and his eyes azure diamonds that glinted from the cast of the ceiling light. “But you did. Remember, I had to wake you up. I kept asking you a series of questions, and the first time I asked your name you said ‘Anya Kismet.’ A lot was destroyed in the aftermath of the war but there were records salvaged of your existence and in them were Kismets.” He stepped closer, removing the small amount of distance that I’d claimed, and his finger stroked a strand of my hair. “And you use walnut powder to color your hair—I assume because it is less damaging than commercial dyes and you have to do it so much to hide the red.”

  Seriously, how did he acquire that useless information? But it wasn’t actually so useless. I licked my lips, my mouth was getting dry.

  His gaze dropped to my lips. “Would you like some water?”

  I needed more than water, I could have taken a shot of something—anything. Was Gareth this good, or had all the things I’d done to conceal who I was only worked on the pedestrian? As he grabbed a bottle from the fridge in the apartment-sized office, I tried to think of what to do next. He was the only person that knew—I hoped. I could take the memory away from him, and for a while I considered it. The chilled predacious look he gave me from the other side of the room made me wonder if he knew I could do that and if so, that I was considering doing it to him.

  “Now what?” I asked after taking a long drink from the bottle, appreciative of the space we had between us as he rested against the wall.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you arrest me?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems to be your go-to move. You just threatened to have your nephew arrested and you’ve threatened to arrest me for less.”

  He chuckled. “My nephew only seems to learn when the lessons are hard. You were being petulant, it was necessary. You’re calmer now, more subdued. Submissive.” His voice dropped to a low, deep rasp. “I like it.”

  Gareth knew the right buttons to push and he seemed to enjoy tapping at them at every chance. The deep shadows of his arrogance and conceit just compounded the situation. I took another long drink from the bottle, reining in my sarcasm and the threat that was edging to be released.

  “See, even a little ticked off, you have control of your magic. You aren’t the wild and uncontrolled degene
rate that the books and historians have painted you all as.” He pushed himself from the wall. “I always expected Legacy to be nefarious monsters who thirst for power and are driven by their draconian desires. You are none of those things.” He gave me an assessing look that lingered for a moment too long. I shifted my gaze from him, focusing on everything around the room: the large windows to my right, providing an unobstructed view of the mass of trees next to the building. When I returned my focus to him, his look had settled on an odd combination of curiosity, intrigue, and wariness. His feral interest was piqued and his smile faltered, giving way to a smirk.

  “All the books really didn’t prepare me for you.” He studied me again and walked over to his bookcase, pulling out a leather-bound book and thumbing through it until he found what he was looking for. He handed it to me and I glanced at it. That was all I needed—just a glimpse. I knew from experience it would be a textbook account of the Legacy and our sins. Our acts against humanity were adequately documented. We had a small section in the history books because the world had changed as result of what we’d done. For many, things were simplified to BC and AC. A new world was created by the selfish act. Defining moments in history had simply been reduced to the periods before and after the Cleanse. When no one knew that supernaturals existed and after when the whole world knew that they did.

  We were depicted as creatures with a ruthless lust for magic that had led us to nearly kill off the population. Verbose, florid, and intellectual language were used to eloquently describe us as sociopaths. The Legacy who resisted were depicted in such glowing terms that they were essentially canonized.

  I quickly handed the book back to him and he kept a careful eye on me as he guided it to the desk.

  “I will admit it is quite interesting being in the presence of a unicorn.”

  “You’re a cave lion. I think it’s safe to say I’m not the only unicorn in the room.”

  He shrugged. “The spoiled young man downstairs who stole my car is one. My sister”—he looked at his phone vibrating against the desk—“who will not stop calling me, is another.”

  Sighing, he picked up the phone. “Yes, dear,” he said in a low saccharine voice. Amused by whatever she’d said, he laughed. “Charlotte, I’m not accepting payment from you.” She said something else and the smile wilted into a stern line, jaw set in defiance, and if Charlotte could have seen his face she would have known the battle was over. She had lost.

  “He damaged it. I know he has the cute puppy dog eyes and he probably turned on the charm and the guilt and you caved, like you always do. It’s a good thing your husband and I have an immunity to it. You can thank me later.”

  He inched close enough to me for me to hear as she evoked her position as an older sibling to try to get him to do what she wanted. I’d known the man for three weeks and knew that wasn’t going to work, and it didn’t. A deep, melodious laugh filled the room. “Do you really think your position in getting to see the world ten years before I did gives you veto power over me as an adult? You pull that card often, when has it worked?” he asked.

  “Charlotte, this conversation is over. He’s working off the car this week. Love you.” And then he hung up. Before I could respond, he was guiding me out the door.

  “We’ll finish our conversation at lunch.”

  I pulled away from him. It had become my personal mission to wipe the arrogance off his face and let him know that the people downstairs in the SG office were the only people he had the right to control. It was obvious he assumed his rule extended beyond the confines of the building and the organization and no one had told him otherwise.

  “I can’t have lunch with you. I have to go to work.”

  “At what time?” he asked.

  I didn’t want to have lunch with him. I wanted to keep this as professional as possible and that boat was slowly leaving the dock, unmanned, floating aimlessly down turbulent waters that seemed deceptively placid.

  “In a bit.”

  “Well, that’s hardly a time. Is that how you work? It seems like there should be more structure. Why don’t you call Kalen and get a specific time?” He offered a playful grin.

  I looked at my watch. I had four hours before I needed to meet Kalen, and I really just wanted to talk to Gareth, see his position on my existence, tell him about Conner, the vile Vertu with the god complex, who actually was the type of person he’d described earlier, and then treat myself to a nice lunch. I needed to let Gareth know about Conner’s plans to do the Cleanse slowly this time as opposed to the way it had been done before. He planned to work with others who would betray the supernatural community with the promise of more power and to curry favor with the Legacy. He was slowly building an army. I didn’t want to have lunch with Gareth. I wanted him to help me with the coup I had to plan; perhaps he could help with the civil war I might incite as well.

  “Based on the look on your face, you need lunch and maybe even a drink. Then you can tell me about Conner and what he’s planning that has placed that look of fear on your face.”

  I stood my ground. “What about Clive and Humans First?” That small group of agitators, called HF for short, believed that humans were special little snowflakes that needed to be separated and protected from the ruthless supernaturals. They were hypocrisy at its undiluted core. The reason the Cleanse had ended with the defeat of the Legacy and millions of lives had been saved was because the witches and the mages had been able to break the wards the Legacy hid behind and get through their veils. The special little snowflakes would have lost without the help of the supernaturals. But that was a forgotten part of the revisionist history that often accompanied the HF’s rhetoric.

  “What about them?”

  “They saw me perform magic, and Jonathan told them what I am.” Bringing up that name quickly brought a frown to my face and Gareth’s offer of a drink was becoming more enticing. Jonathan, a mage who had sat on the Magical Council, had betrayed his kind to side with Conner just for the chance to have more power. The thirst for more power at the expense of other people’s lives made me cringe, and if I had a bit of sympathy for the way his life had ended, it was eased when I considered his cruelty and betrayal.

  “Jonathan is dead, he can’t corroborate their story. They are a fundamentalist group who use over-the-top rhetoric to make their case about segregation. I doubt anyone will believe them.”

  Trackers were fundamentalists, too. Pseudo-military trained people who hunted us down and killed us, all the while telling a world that wanted to believe we didn’t exist that we did. They were going to make that belief a reality. They’d killed my parents and countless others, and two had found me. I’d had to use magic to wipe their minds, and I’d given the last one a false memory of him killing me. I hoped I didn’t have to worry about them anymore.

  Humans First was different. They wouldn’t try to kill me, they’d probably invite me out for coffee and plead their case for another Cleanse to wipe out the other supernaturals. They would probably hold their noses the entire time and do the walk of shame as they left our meeting place, but they would sacrifice anything to achieve the Utopic world where magic didn’t exist. Since the Legacy and Vertu had lived separately before the Cleanse, away from the impure magic, it would be advantageous to them all. Or so Humans First would like to believe.

  Gareth pressed his hand into my back, again attempting to guide me out of his office. I sidestepped, moved out of his reach, and crossed my arms over my chest. Planted in the middle of the room, I refused to be acquiesce to his demands.

  He stood taller, also crossing his arms over his chest, defiance etched over his features.

  Come on. Just ask. All you have to do is frame it as a question. I’ve done my adulting for the day, now it’s your turn.

  I didn’t think it was very hard to ask, but Mr. I Always Get My Way behaved like it was an act of treason. A betrayal to the great state of Gareth. He chewed on the words and looked as though it was glass he was crunchin
g on rather than a please or will.

  His tongue slid across his lips before they parted slightly, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  Take your time Mr. Reynolds, I have four hours to kill. But you will ask.

  “Do you mind if we continue this discussion over lunch?”

  “Thank you for asking, I would love to.” I forced the light smile to remain on my lips instead of taking a play from his book and allowing it to be taken over by a smirk. It worked for nearly ten seconds and then I was nothing but smirks.

  “I usually don’t have to work this hard to get a woman to go out to lunch with me,” he said, his tone gentle and breezy. But it wouldn’t have been him if it wasn’t thinly laced with conceit.

  “Well, then that makes me special. I guess I am a unicorn after all.”

  Downstairs Avery was slouched in a chair in the waiting room, his eyes planted on his phone screen as his fingers danced across the keys. He glanced up at our approach but quickly returned to his phone.

  “Is that work?” Gareth asked in a coarse voice, as deep brackets formed around his mouth as he frowned.

  “Beth doesn’t have anything. She’s really efficient. You should give her a raise.” His eyes briefly met his uncle’s. The shifter ring seemed to glow for a moment before he looked back down at his phone.