Origin of Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Protector #3)(11)

Chapter Four





I woke with a start the next morning. Though there was a crick in my neck, the rest of my body felt rejuvenated and fresh. The nightmare that had haunted my dreams was a distant memory, leaving only a lingering sadness and fear.

For my old home? Why would I be afraid of my own home? Or so damned sad? It’d been like a quicksand pulling me down, a grief so deep I couldn’t understand it. And I’d been so young when I’d been stolen away. How could a child feel so much?

Fates, I wished I had answers. Del and Cass had gotten theirs, learning about their pasts over the last year. But the mystery of my past still haunted me, an open wound that wouldn’t heal.

But I had nothing. What I wouldn’t give to learn what had happened to my family. I wanted it more than almost anything in the world.

Sun streamed through the glass roof, a shaft bright against my face. I blinked, thrusting away the sad memories and gazing out upon my trove. In the morning sun, the blooms blazed with light. It was one of my favorite times, when I could really see all the beauty that I’d worked so hard to create.

I climbed out of the car and collected the box containing the beaker. One last time, I ran my fingertips over the leaves and petals as I walked toward the staircase.

Though the sprinkler system would keep my plants alive, they needed some serious TLC soon. I loved pruning and trimming and fertilizing. Planting and sprouting and transferring. All of it fed my soul. But lately, I’d been so preoccupied with the task ahead of me that my garden had been faltering. My soul had been faltering. Even being away from the shop, my calm oasis in the madness of the world, was making me itchy.

If I wanted to get back to any of this, I needed to finish this and take down Drakon. Or I’d never get my life back.

I took the stairs two at a time, descending to my apartment.

I showered quickly, then dressed in my usual motorcycle boots and jeans, topping it with a vintage Wonder Woman T-shirt. Just as I was tugging on my jacket and dreaming of a coffee from P&P, a pebble clattered against my window.

Ares.

He still didn’t have access to the green door that allowed entrance to the building. I went to the window to check, grinning when I saw him standing on the sidewalk. He held a small package in his hand.

I gave him a thumbs-up, then grabbed the beaker box and slipped the strap over my head. I’d had to conjure a new strap and had been sure to make this one extra thick.

Rejuvenated from my R&R, I took the stairs two at a time. At the bottom, I pushed open the door and stepped out into the cool morning air. Ares stood about ten feet down the sidewalk, talking to a man I didn’t recognize. I turned toward them, the box clutched to my chest, memories of the attack last night still fresh in my mind.

Ares turned toward me, a smile in his eyes.

Out of the corner of my eye, the air shimmered with an opalescent sheen. It pulled at me, a magnet. Time slowed as I turned toward it, every second stretching to a minute. I felt every molecule in the air against my skin, heard the slowed-down chirping of the birds. But my gaze was fully riveted on the shimmering air in front of me.

Hunger yawned inside me. It had to be a portal.

My dragon sense tugged hard toward the gateway, the fiercest it’d ever been.

My mind zeroed in on one fact—answers lay within. So many answers to questions I’d held for so long. How I knew that, I had no idea. But I did.

Maybe it was my dragon sense, which was screaming for me to step into the portal. I’d never wanted anything so badly in all my life. It consumed me, forcing away thoughts of the beaker, Drakon, my life on earth.

This was what I wanted.

So I did it, stepping into the shimmering light.

Immediately, the world went wild around me. Wind and rain and snow and hot summer air buffeted me as trees and oceans and deserts shimmered in the distance. It was everything at once, and I was spinning through it like a top.

This was nothing like transporting, which was always dark. This was a sensory explosion that short-circuited my mind. I tried to scream, but the vacuum of space stole the breath straight from my lungs.

A second later, the portal ejected me, throwing me onto the ground. The air whooshed out of me as the box dug into my gut, my vision going temporarily blind while I adjusted to the dim light after the brightness of the portal.

I blinked, scrambling upright with the box clutched to my chest.

Where the heck was I? And had I really just stepped into that portal?

But it had promised me answers. Wordlessly, but it had promised all the same.

I spun in a circle, taking in my surroundings as my muscles tensed and my magic readied for defense. I was in a silent forest.

A terrifying forest.

The trees were dead—skeletal white and black oaks that had no leaves. They stretched as far as the eye could see, dotting the landscape around me. Beneath my feet, there was no grass, just dirt.

The sun was low in the sky—morning, I guessed. But the signs of life that I’d expect to see in a forest were all gone.

It was a graveyard.

A brief sense of déjà vu hit me. An old man in this forest. Then it was gone as if it’d never existed.

I swallowed hard, my eyes darting around for any sign of life or even a threat. There was an eerie chill on the air, something that explicitly said This is not right.

Beneath my feet, I could feel a slow thudding, so light that it almost wasn’t there. I took a few hesitant steps toward one of the dead trees, horrified by the state it was in.