Defensive Magic: A Paranormal Urban Fantasy Tale (Lost Library Book 3)
Read Defensive Magic: A Paranormal Urban Fantasy Tale (Lost Library Book 3) Online
Authors: Kate Baray
Tags: #Werewolves, #shape shifters, #magic, #romance
Glossary of Some Things Magical
Preview: Witch’s Diary, Book 4
DEFENSIVE
MAGIC
A LOST LIBRARY NOVEL, BOOK 3
Kate Baray
All characters, names, places and events in
Defensive Magic
, a work of fiction, are the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a purely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
Defensive Magic
. Copyright © 2015 by Catherine G. Cobb. All rights reserved. Cover by Viola Estrella,
estrellacoverart.com
.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.
facebook.com/katebaray
Kate Baray (2015-01-15).
Defensive Magic
Catherine G Cobb
.
ISBN-13:
978-0-9960578-7-5
Prologue
W
orth shifted his cell to the left ear. While it was necessary to keep this particular player well within his sights, he wasn’t overly concerned. He had more power, more experience, greater resources—but someday she might become a problem. Worth was certain she had a scheme of some kind in the works. Hardly surprising. She was a creative, ambitious little thing—which was exactly why he’d recruited her.
“You want her gone,” she said in the passionless way he’d previously admired. “I’ll take care of it.”
Perhaps
too
dispassionate.
“I want IPPC out of my business more than I want Lizzie gone—for now.” He allowed the faintest hint of disapproval to enter his voice. “Killing Lizzie will only push them even further into my affairs. And Braxton—no. I have no interest in dealing with him or his Pack right now.”
“Then we act covertly,” she replied blandly. “It’s not as if they don’t have any number of enemies. Especially Braxton. The blame is easy enough to shift.”
“No. Lizzie Smith and the Texas Alpha are off-limits for now. I have more pressing concerns than dealing with the trouble that would cause.”
“Of course,” she immediately agreed.
“But—keep an eye on them.” He had no intention of losing sight of any of his enemies.
~*~
She was glad this conversation wasn’t in person. Her acting skills were exceptional, but it was so much easier by phone. With Worth hiding in the Philippines as he waited for several financial transactions to clear, she was guaranteed a few weeks free of his interference. And a life free of Worth suited her just fine. She owed this respite from Worth’s attention to the Inter-Pack Policing Cooperative. Thank you IPPC for being clever enough to find, let alone seize or freeze, such a sizeable chunk of Worth’s assets.
She was brilliant. But she had been a little careless recently. Worth was beginning to understand the full extent of not only her brilliance, but also her ambition. That was a problem. But apparently he didn’t know
that
much. Because she lived for the long game. And her goals were loftier than her current position as runner-up right-hand man, second not only to Worth but also his heir apparent. A shame Worth wouldn’t figure that out in time. Well, no. It wasn’t actually.
And Lizzie and John? They’d work quite nicely for what she had planned. With a bit of luck, their elimination would be a happy side effect to her plan.
Chapter 1
L
izzie Smith had just crawled into bed, deciding she might give in to jet lag and head to bed without John, when she felt the crinkle of paper under her pillow. She didn’t think anything of it, until the paper was in her hand and she’d read it three times.
The Pack doesn’t need a pretentious, self-important bitch like you. Watch your back, little girl.
What the…?
Lizzie couldn’t help but think of someone walking through her bedroom, touching her sheets, her pillow. The small scrap of paper was basically a threat on her life. She huffed out a pent-up breath of air. Or was it a threat?
Shit.
Did it matter?
Threat or warning, someone had been in her house. She felt sick, her stomach churning with uncertainty.
In her home.
A stranger had touched her things and walked unimpeded through her home. She grabbed a pair of shorts, feeling vulnerable and exposed in her tank and underwear.
John Braxton, her mate and Alpha of the Texas Pack, needed to know about this. Right now. The note screamed pack politics, and she knew trouble had been brewing in the Pack for the last few weeks.
“John,” Lizzie called as she walked through the house. It was a stupid note. It could mean anything or nothing. But something about the note Lizzie gripped in her fingers made her sick. A feeling pushed at her, like someone was out there hating her, wishing her ill. The vitriol of the author’s feelings seemed to have soaked into the paper. The words alone really weren’t that bad—right? She was jetlagged and exhausted from the last few days of magical mayhem and drama, which meant she was too tired for this shit.
“John,” she called a little more loudly. With his Lycan super-senses, he should have heard her. She could feel the edge of panic in her voice. He would certainly have responded if he had heard her. Where was he? He’d received a call from his uncle about an hour ago on the drive home from the airport. The conversation had been a little mysterious, and he hadn’t wanted to discuss it right then. “Later,” he’d said. Was he speaking with his uncle on the phone again?
Lizzie walked through the living room, her heart thudding. He should have responded. Something was wrong. And then movement from the backyard caught her eye. Two wolves, crouched low, standing at opposite corners of the yard. There was enough moonlight to see the first was the familiar mottled gray, black, and white of John. The other… She swallowed reflexively. The other was a massive black wolf. Bigger than John.
Scent void—her brain latched onto one reason that a strange wolf could appear without warning on her property. John’s fight a few days ago with two of Worth’s Lycan guards had involved some trick that masked or scrubbed away any trace of scent from the air. There’d been an absence of any scent in the corridor and room where the guards had ambushed John. Without the warning of their scent, he’d been surprised and the guards had gained a temporary advantage. Afterwards, he’d explained that he’d never before encountered a scent void—that’s what he’d called it—an area scrubbed of all scent.
John should have detected a stranger’s scent as soon as they’d arrived home, and he hadn’t. No way would he have left her undefended if he knew another wolf was here. He wouldn’t have missed the signs of another wolf on the property.
Something
had prevented him from scenting the other wolf.
Shit.
What if there
was another Lycan that John didn’t know about? Or a spell caster, one who was masking the attacker’s scent?
All of these thoughts raced through her head in a few brief seconds. She collected herself and tried to think what she could do, how she could help John. First, she needed to know if the black wolf had brought reinforcements, Lycan or spell caster. She took a slow, shaky breath, trying to bring herself away from the edge of panic. She yanked her magic from deep inside, envisioned as best she could how to create a sensing ward so large it could encompass the entire house, braced herself against the nearest wall, and then she slowly exhaled. She willed that breath to softly push out tiny pieces of her sensing ward, like drifting snowflakes on a calm winter day. She gently prodded the small bits and pieces of her ward until it softly blanketed the surface of the house, including the walls and floors. It was a massive cast. As she cast, she briefly considered whether it was diffuse enough or delivered with enough care to prevent a correspondingly large repercussion. But it didn’t matter—if it revealed anyone else on the property, the bumps and bruises were worth it. She grimaced, the memory of falling on her ass after she cast her first sensing ward sharp enough to bring a twinge of remembered pain. It had been a small ward, but in ignorance she’d clumsily shoved an excess of power into it as she’d cast and the recoil had bounced back on her.
As she waited for the recoil that never came—her care and finesse had paid off—the results of the cast shone brightly in her mind. One wolf, the one facing John in her backyard.
The black wolf was covered in spell caster magic. Where was the spell caster? Head whipping back and forth, she checked the far corners of the yard. But her ward revealed no spell caster hiding in the shadows, only the residual magic of a caster.
Her body sagged against the wall as relief coursed through her. The sensing ward had worked, and she wasn’t hurt.
Leaning against the wall, her mind failed to fully process what exactly she’d just done—the size of the ward, the method of delivery, both completely outside her experience until she’d attempted it. She blinked, her mind sluggish. John.
Dammit.
John was alone with that massive wolf. And immediately her feet began to move.
She lifted her hand and inspected the mild trembling of her fingers. Walking with calm deliberation, mentally pushing herself to slow her breathing and her pounding heart, she went to the hall closet. After a brief search, she pulled out the .357 Magnum she’d recently acquired. She’d never been much for guns, but she was discovering that in this new life she’d entered, things were changing.
Chapter 2
T
he weight of the revolver in Lizzie’s hand failed to steady her nerves as she moved to the backdoor. The two wolves had been at opposite ends of the yard when she’d last seen them. As she tried to slow her breathing and calm herself enough to keep her hands steady, she was hoping—unlikely though it might be—that they were still crouched and waiting. When she arrived at the door, she spared a moment to evaluate the situation, not wanting to stumble into the fight, or, worse yet, become a hostage. And it was good she’d paused on the threshold, because the two wolves had clearly finished sizing each other up.
She knew it had been too much to hope that they’d still be far enough apart for her to manage a shot. It was surprising they’d paused at all. From her experience, Lycan in wolf form didn’t posture or bluster—they attacked without hesitation, whether to subdue, injure, or kill. As she watched the two wolves, she was struck by the lack of sound. Fighting Lycan were always much quieter than she expected—eerily so. They looked like giant dogs, so her mind jumped to the screams of pain, the abrasive, growling barks, and the snarls that accompanied most dogfights. But she’d learned that vocalizing intent was not a winning tactic and was generally discarded in any serious confrontation between Lycan in wolf form. If they wanted to chat, they stayed on two feet.
Her heart sank when she saw the fight was well under way, the two wolves tangled together in a vicious wrestling match, silent and deadly. The black wolf’s jaws snapped. The clack of his teeth coming together as he missed his target was loud in the otherwise still night, and the sound made her jump. John’s throat—that had been his target. Her hand tightened on the gun.
Muscles bunched under fur, the intruder’s black coat blended with the silver and black of John’s pelt as their positions changed fluidly from standing to kneeling to rolling. Lizzie smelled fresh earth as their massive claws bit into the ground and tore holes in her lawn. The rich scent brought her fear to a new level, the smell somehow making the fight even more real.
The hot, humid air was making her hands sweat, adding to her worry that she wouldn’t be able to shoot with any accuracy. A heavy gun, only moderate upper arm strength, the lightning fast movement of the two wolves, the twining of their bodies—how would she be able to hit the intruder? She gave her head a tiny shake. She could only wait for the right opportunity.