Forbidden Magic: The Complete Collection Read online

  Forbidden Magic: The Complete Collection

  By

  Anya Merchant

  Copyright © 2016 by Anya Merchant

  All rights reserved

  Kindle Edition

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work is intended for adults only. It contains substantial sexually explicit language and scenes that may be considered offensive by some readers. None of the characters engaging in sexual conduct in this work of fiction are under the age of 18, legally unable to give consent, or related by blood.

  Contents

  BOOK ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  BOOK THREE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  BOOK FOUR

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  BOOK FIVE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  BOOK SIX

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  BOOK ONE

  THE GIFT

  CHAPTER 1

  The bus lurched over a large pothole as it took the last turn into the station. Victor jerked out of sleep, kicking the seat in front of him as his body snapped into wakefulness. The man sitting next to him gave him an odd look, but Victor’s eyes didn’t waver from the scene outside his window.

  Undercliff City. It’s been so long, I barely even remember it.

  It was a particularly dark night, with enough cloud cover to block out the nearly full moon. In downtown Undercliff, amidst the corridor of skyscrapers, bars, and clubs, the city always felt alive. The bus was dropping Victor off on the outskirts, near the eponymous cliffs, where most of the houses and buildings were either condemned or well on their way.

  Victor ran a hand through his dark, curly hair as the station came into view. He was tall and lanky, to the extent that the bus’s undersized seat was a bit uncomfortable for his legs. A sharp chin and dark eyes made his features look brooding and a bit mysterious, or at least, he liked to think so.

  The bus doors opened with a vacuum sealed whoosh. Victor's fellow passengers began standing up and politely queuing for their turn to get off. Most of them were shabby, people that looked like they were coming home, rather than just visiting.

  Am I just visiting? I don’t have a home anymore.

  He stood up when it was his turn to join the line running down the aisle and felt a hot flash hit him like a stiff slap in the face. Victor coughed into the crook of his arm and managed a few unsteady steps forward as his stomach twisted, and cold sweat pooled on his forehead.

  It was why he was there, and what it all came back to. Victor was sick in a way that no doctor could help with, in a way that no nineteen-year-old should be dealing with on their own. The one person who held the clue to his treatment lived here, in Undercliff City, the diamond that never fully escaped the rough.

  “You okay, kid?”

  The bus stop was a small roundabout with a single building in the center and a large parking lot next to it. Victor was leaning up against the rectangular sign that detailed all of the connecting routes. A man smoking a cigarette stood next to him.

  “…Fine,” he murmured. “Never been better.”

  The man laughed. Victor’s skin felt hot, as though all of the tiny hairs had burned to the root.

  Do I look as bad as I feel?

  The man standing next to him pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one. Victor accepted it, puffing it to life on the man’s lighter. He hated the taste of nicotine and smoking in general, but his nerves were desperate for a distraction. After a few long drags, he felt himself relax a little.

  “You’re not from around town, are you?” asked the man.

  Victor shook his head.

  “So why’d you come here?” The man coughed and tapped his cigarette, knocking a bit of ash from the tip. “Undercliff City sucks.”

  “Bird watching,” said Victor. �
��Figure I’d see if I could spot myself a blue tailed bobby.”

  The man broke out into raspy chuckles. Victor thanked him for the cigarette and watched as he wandered off into the dark, dreary parking lot.

  Why did I come here?

  He reached down to his tan messenger bag, the only physical baggage he’d brought with him. Technically, it was his father’s, though the distinction didn’t matter much to him anymore.

  He unzipped the front pocket and fumbled through it with one hand until his fingers closed on paper. It was a picture, a picture of a woman. And she was the real reason why he’d come to Undercliff City.

  Lucy Wilson. Dad’s old assistant.

  The picture was old, from the early days of digital cameras, and printed on plain white paper. The woman in it was young, maybe four or five years older than Victor was now. She was also strikingly attractive, with dark blonde hair, crystaline blue eyes, and a body that looked like it belonged on a pinup model.

  Towering over her at the side was Victor’s father, John. He had one arm around the petite woman’s shoulders and was almost smiling. Victor had rarely seen his father smile in all the time that he’d known him, and it seemed fitting.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. Tendrils of fog swept through the bus station from the southern cliffs, and rain began to fall in slowly accelerating droplets. Victor scowled and leaned over to put the photo away.

  A few raindrops managed to beat him to the punch, scoring wet strikes on the picture that marred the low-quality ink. Victor gritted his teeth together and slid it into his pocket. The effect of the nicotine was wearing off, and he could feel another heat flash coming on, brewing in the tips of his fingers and toes.

  He started walking. The last time he’d been in Undercliff City, he’d been nine years old. None of it looked familiar, and even if it had, he had no idea where to start looking.

  Victor shifted his bag on his shoulder and turned so that he was heading toward the skyscrapers in the distance, into the heart of the city. A homeless woman sat half on the sidewalk and half in an alleyway and jingled a cup as he walked by.

  “Please,” she said in a wispy voice. “I’m sleeping out here.”

  Victor stopped, pulled a few quarters that he hadn’t ended up needing for bus fare out of his pocket, and dropped them into her cup. He turned to continue and heard the woman speak again, louder this time.

  “It’s red. Burning red.”

  A flash of red flickered across Victor’s vision, accompanied by a sharp stab of searing pain in his temples. He looked back at the woman.

  “What did you say?”

  “You haven’t realized yet, have you?” The woman broke out into cackles as the rain intensified, splashing water into her change cup. “You’ll have to choose, you know. You could be a hero, or you could be a villain. But you must hurry. It will kill you if you don’t.”

  There was something about her words that made a shiver run down Victor’s spine. She sounded coherently crazy, the type of madness that was unsettling to parse out as a bystander.

  I’m just paranoid. Mentally ill homeless women are a dime a dozen.

  Victor took a step back from her and started making his way back toward the city center. Another burst of fire shot through his stomach, and he almost doubled over in shock.

  “Hurry! Please hurry!” The woman’s shouts were lost to the rain as Victor forced himself forward. There was no turning back.

  CHAPTER 2

  The rain didn’t let up, and neither did Victor’s pain. Every step forward was a struggle against his sensitive nerves. He felt his body more intimately than he ever had before, and every ounce of that awareness screamed with the gentle caress of fire pokers and cattle prods.

  This is too much.

  Victor remembered an article he’d read about people with chronic pain and the struggle that it turned every day into for them. It made him feel anxiety on top of the fire, to the point of rattling each of the already aching breaths he took.

  He slowed to a stop as he neared the edge of the city’s center. There was a tavern on the corner of the block with a sign out front that read “Sammy’s Place.” Victor stumbled as much as walked down the stairs and inside, his legs carrying him with wobbly steps as though he’d already had too much to drink.

  Victor was tall, and looked a good bit older than most men his age. A few dim lights lit the tavern, and it was still early enough in the night that there weren’t too many patrons milling about. A pool table took up space in the back, and a single flat screen hung from the wall behind the bar.

  He collapsed down into one of the stools. The bartender was a stoic looking woman with short cut dark brown hair and a bored expression on her face. She lifted her head slightly in acknowledgment of him but said nothing.

  “I’ll have a beer,” Victor muttered. The bartender moved to grab it for him without asking for ID, thankfully. Victor busied himself by pulling out the photo and taking another look at it. Long lines of smudging from the rain ran vertically across the woman’s face, making it nearly impossible to make out her features.

  Maybe if I just keep drinking, the pain will go away, and I won’t need to find her.

  He grimaced to himself as the bartender slid a beer in front of him. Victor took a small sip of it and noticed that a woman was watching him to his right, a few bar stools down.

  “I think this fella is going to need more than one, Sammy,” she said. The bartender responded with a monosyllabic grunt and returned to polishing a glass from the counter behind her.

  The woman slipped off her bar stool and moved to the one next to Victor. She stared at him intently for a second. Victor tried to stay focused on the beer, and the picture, and anything but his pain.

  “Is that your girlfriend?” asked the woman. Victor blinked, keeping his attention focused on the bar.

  “No.”

  “Oh, sorry. Ex-girlfriend?”

  Victor finally looked over at her, trying to keep his eyes from narrowing into a glare. She wore a striped sleeveless top and a short black skirt, and she wore the outfit well.

  “She’s actually the woman I’ve been sent back in time to protect,” he said. “Have you seen her around? The fate of the world depends on it.”

  The sarcasm in his voice came off a bit flatter than he’d intended. The woman rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed sigh. Victor was about to push the line a bit further when something strange happened.

  He caught the woman’s eye for a second and saw red. He wasn’t angry, and he wasn’t frustrated, but he saw the actual color red, shading his vision and everything else he could see like a photo filter. And even more strangely, his pain vanished, as though transfigured into something else in an instant.

  A sharp noise buzzed in his ears as his vision returned to normal. The woman was still staring at him, her mouth hanging open in surprise, along with a hint of something new in her eyes.

  Why is she looking at me like that?

  The woman slipped forward, letting one of her legs slide in between Victor’s thighs. She pushed in closer, close enough for Victor to be acutely aware of her breasts and cleavage, and then pushed her lips against his.

  Holy shit.

  The kiss was hungry and primal. Victor felt her sliding her tongue into his mouth and moving her lips eagerly. She put her hands around him and arched her back slightly, opening her legs and trying to get even more contact going between the two of them. It felt good, and with the pain absent, it was an almost celebratory moment for Victor.

  “What the fuck?”

  Victor pulled back as he heard an angry voice shouting over the soft ambient noise of the TV and tavern talk. A tall, muscular, and very angry looking man was heading his way, shifting his gaze back and forth between Victor and the woman, who was still holding his hand.

  “Uh…” Victor tried not to smile as he looked up at the man. “Any chance that this is just your sister, or cousin, maybe?”

  “That’s my
fucking girlfriend that you’re kissing, punk.”

  Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

  Victor stuffed the photo back into his pocket and slowly stood up from the stool, holding both hands up and open in a harmless gesture.

  “Take it outside.” The bartender, Sammy, spoke for the first time. “Not in my bar.”

  “I’m comfortable inside, though,” said Victor. “Really. I, uh, was just getting settled.”

  The man snarled and grabbed Victor by the shirt. Victor shot a sidelong glance at the bartender, who shook her head and smiled faintly.

  “Sorry kid,” she said. “You’re lucky I even let you have a drink.”

  Victor stood to his feet, and the man immediately started pushing him backward. He carried his bag with him and hurried up the stairs in a futile attempt to get far enough down the street to avoid getting his ass kicked.

  He didn’t move quickly enough. The man grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

  “Hold on, let’s—”

  A fist collided with Victor’s jaw and exploded stars into his field of view. The force of the blow knocked him back, and his arms flailed uselessly in an attempt to break his fall as he dropped to the ground.

  “You’re lucky I don’t go to the police on your pervert ass.”

  “Hey man, she kissed me.” Victor spoke into the concrete for the first few words, sputtering to spit blood and dirt out of his mouth.

  That’s right. She kissed me. How the hell did that happen?

  “Bullshit!” The man pulled back his leg.

  This time, Victor saw the blow coming. He moved his hands to block his face as his attacker’s foot flew toward his head. Another painful hot flash passed over him, and his vision became tinted red, just as it had before.

  The kick slammed through Victor’s hands and landed a glancing blow on his forehead. Victor let out a pained gasp and then almost did a double take as he refocused his eyes.

  The man’s pant leg was on fire, and so was Victor’s hand. He pushed it down against the ground and saw, rather than felt, the flames extinguish. The man was staring at him, and after a moment, he followed Victor’s gaze down to his leg.

  “What the fuck?”

  The man jumped backward, patting at the flames and howling. Victor blinked and took a closer look at his palm.

  I’m not burned. But my hand… It was definitely just on fire.