Ethereal Entanglements (28 page)
Read Ethereal Entanglements Online
Authors: Lee French
Dropping the dagger, Iulia gasped for breath and shivered uncontrollably. She drooled blood from biting her tongue. Her wits took their time gathering. She hoped she hadn’t screamed, and if she had, she hoped no one heard it. Her hand still shook when she raised it, but it subsided while she watched.
She huffed, annoyed by the unexpected and unknown phenomenon. Touching the locket hadn’t released that jolt. It should have. “I don’t want to take the whole thing,” she grumbled at Claire’s body. “I don’t need the whole thing.” Though she wanted to try again, to see if she’d released a built-up charge somehow, she chose to err on the side of not suffering through that a second time. Finding a place to keep a dead body added another layer of difficulty to her task.
Another half hour of struggle later, she pushed the last of the dirt back into the empty hole and patted it down. Provided those two men waited at least a day or two before coming back, she expected the weather to hide evidence of her handiwork. Even now, the dark gray clouds overhead promised rain.
Sitting on a rock to recover her strength, she wished she could call upon her own power to make all this easier. The blown ritual had sapped everything, and this blasted forest had no ley line. Worse, dirt clung under her short fingernails and she wanted desperately to bathe. Handling a corpse made her squirm. While she might be finally free of Caius, she had little else to cheer about.
Plans whirled in her mind. She needed to find a suitable mate and produce a child. Claire would have been perfect to continue the line, but no force on Earth could make that happen now. If Claire had been a boy, perhaps something could have been accomplished, but female ghosts could not bear children. Some kind of proxy wouldn’t work either. Not when the bloodline mattered more than anything else.
The new seal needed to be created. For that, she needed allies and a new crystal. Someone knew where the local witches gathered and they would tell her whether they wanted to or not.
Fat raindrops hit her shoulder, her leg, and the rock she perched on. She got no further warning before a downpour drenched everything. Wanting to use the weather to cover her passage, she jumped off the rock and dragged the corpse away from the tree, hoping to find a suitable hiding spot before encountering anyone.
Heaving the body over fallen branches, through mud, around rocks, and up a small stream, she muttered a string of obscenities in her native Latin. The rain slackened after a while, and she stopped to catch her breath and push wet hair out of her face. She scanned the area and noticed a shallow ley line in the distance.
Too exhausted to drag the body farther, she staggered toward the power. She caught herself on a tree over the line and sank to the ground. The moment she reached for the power, it coursed through her, pushing away muscle aches, exhaustion, and annoyance. Several minutes later, when she’d drunk all she could, she laughed.
As difficult as her path ahead seemed, she could manage it with power. She sat up and smirked at Claire’s body. With a twist of her wrist, she flung out bands of power, lifting her off the ground. Iulia waved her fingers and the body spun, magic wrapping it until she’d cocooned it in so much power no one would see Claire until she wished it.
Iulia drew more from the depleted line, then stood and tugged Claire’s body behind her. She’d need a workshop and some tools. If these things could be found, she’d have them, currency concerns be damned. Her purpose and goal held far too much import for the petty concerns of normal people to interfere.
This new world lay before her, and she intended to use it. With one step and another, she set her sights on destiny. She’d learned from her mistakes. This time, no one would screw things up.
Legal
Ethereal Entanglements
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
No horses, dogs, teenagers, or dragons were harmed in the making of this book. The author regrets accidentally smashing a spider with her laptop, but the wretched slugs that ate her daffodils deserved their horrible deaths.
Copyright © 2016 by Lee French
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-1-944334-07-9
About the Author
Lee French lives in Olympia, WA with two kids, two bicycles, and too much stuff. She is an avid gamer and member of the Myth-Weavers online RPG community, where she is known for her fondness for Angry Ninja Squirrels of Doom. In addition to spending much time there, she also trains year-round for the one-week of glorious madness that is RAGBRAI, has a nice flower garden with one dragon and absolutely no lawn gnomes, and tries in vain every year to grow vegetables that don’t get devoured by neighborhood wildlife.
She is an active member of the
Northwest Independent Writer’s Association
and one of two Municipal Liaisons for the Olympia region of
NaNoWriMo.
Lee can be found on
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Thanks for reading! If you liked this book, please take a few minutes to review it
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or wherever you buy your ebooks. The fourth book will be out in 2017.
Books by Lee French
Spirit Knights
YA urban paranormal adventure
Girls Can’t Be Knights
Backyard Dragons
Ethereal Entanglements
Ghost Is the New Normal
(coming 2017)
The Maze Beset Trilogy
Superheroes in denim
Dragons In Pieces
Dragons In Chains
Dragons In Flight
In the Ilauris setting
Standalone fantasy tales
Damsel In Distress
Shadow & Spice
(short story)
Al-Kabar
Non-fiction
with Jeffrey Cook
Working the Table: An Indie Author’s Guide to Conventions
The Greatest Sin series
Epic fantasy co-authored with Erik Kort
The Fallen
Harbinger
Moon Shades
Illusive Echoes
(coming soon)
Table of Contents