The Magic Read online

  The Magic

  The Wilds Book Four

  Donna Augustine

  Contents

  Copyright

  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

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Excerpt of Broken Compass by USA Today Bestselling Author Jaymin Eve

  Books by Donna Augustine

  Copyright © 2016 Donna Augustine

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1945946008

  ISBN-13: 978-1945946004

  Chapter 1

  I landed on my feet, but with a little more oomph and a lot less of the finesse and gentleness of the previous times. I’d been getting dumped a little harder with each attempt to get past Dax.

  My gaze shot past Dax to the barn that stood a couple hundred feet away from me. It might as well have been twenty thousand miles away. Why? Because in between me and the barn that held Bookie stood Dax. And I had to get to that barn, to Bookie, who’d shown up in my room alive and desperate only to be hauled away by Dax minutes later.

  Dax had lugged me away three times from where Bookie was being watched in the barn by the guards. Like, literally picked me off the ground and hauled me away from my destination like I was a sack of potatoes. It was a particularly undignified means of travel that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone, not even a root vegetable. And yet I wondered if the fourth try to reach my target would be the lucky attempt.

  But wasn’t the saying “three’s the charm”? Three had held no such magical appeal. Nope, nothing special about three at all. “They” had missed the mark again. After I got through this, I was going to have to get the word out about “them.” Too many people were still listening to “their” bad advice.

  “How many times are we going to do this?” Dax asked as he stood in front of me. Wished I had an answer for him, but I wasn’t sure myself how many times it would take to get past him. He was clearly trying to get a message across, and I was doing my best to ignore it. It was amazing how much our relationship stayed the same even as it changed.

  I eyed him, from the bottom of his black boots, up past his pants and a shirt that wasn’t supposed to look sexy, but did in spite of itself. His arms were folded in front of his chest. Were they resting from fatigue, maybe? Nah. His stance had more of a stubborn slant. His light eyes were hard to see in the dark, but I recognized the tilt of his head and the hardening of his jaw. It could’ve been pitch black outside and I still would’ve felt the determination that amped up his magic as he stood in between me and the barn.

  Actually, he was looking as formidable as the wall around the Cement Giant had once appeared, before it had gotten blown to bits. I wasn’t looking to blow Dax to bits, but I was contemplating a punch to the gut if it got me past him. Then I remembered the last time I’d punched him in the gut, and I rubbed my knuckles with the memory. That hadn’t been very fun. It might’ve been easier to blow apart the cement.

  Dax. It seemed like I was either running away from him, running to him, or trying to get around him somehow. I couldn’t figure out which was the right direction, and I wasn’t going to figure it out right now. Bookie was in that barn and I had to get to him.

  I didn’t know where I’d be next year or next week, what my life would become or who might be beside me when I took my final breath, but I did know I loved Bookie like he was of my own blood, and I needed to get to him.

  Dax was another problem. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me when it came to him. Half the time I felt like I was going to erupt like a volcano, and the other half, I was standing on a soggy field and couldn’t find solid footing. Volcanos and soggy fields basically summed up the range of emotions. There wasn’t anything elegant about it. I was a hodgepodge mess and couldn’t find true north when it came to him. When he did things like he was doing tonight, bossy stuff like blocking my path to Bookie, they got even murkier.

  I feinted right, and Dax was in front of me before I got there. I couldn’t completely hold it against him. The path he was blocking might have been the path to my destruction. And damn if he’d let me self-destruct, no matter how intent I might be. I wasn’t trying to implode, though, not on purpose. But that’s the crazy shit you do for people you love, like fighting against someone who you know is trying to protect you because you might possibly be heading toward your own demise.

  The risk was clear even if I didn’t want to see it. I’d buried Bookie. Logic would say it couldn’t be him in that barn. But when he’d shown up in my room tonight, he’d been as scared and as vulnerable as I’d ever seen him. I’d wrapped my arms around him and felt his heart nearly jumping out of his chest, and the tremors that shook his body. I hadn’t cared what he was now. He was my Bookie, my best friend, and he needed saving. Damn anyone who stood in my way from doing just that. Including a determined Dax, who thought it was okay to storm in and yank Bookie from me.

  “I’m going in there.” Bookie, or some version of him, was waiting for me to help him. Standing out here was not an acceptable position for me. I was going to protect him this time. I’d make up for letting him down before. No one, not even Dax, was going stop me.

  “Not until I clear him,” he said, and moved to the left just as I was considering it. “This could be a trick, and until I check him out, you aren’t going anywhere near him.”

  “And if it isn’t a trick, he needs me.”

  “He showed up in your room. If it’s a trick, you’re the target.”

  “It’s Bookie and it’s my choice.” Even a conjured magical Bookie incarnation wouldn’t hurt me.

  “For one moment, stop thinking with your heart and think with your head. By your own words, you buried Bookie, and the man in there doesn’t look dead.”

  Damn him. I hated sound logic. Just hated it!

  “I don’t want one of those goons injuring a single hair on his head.”

  “Then stop wasting my time blocking you and let me make sure it’s not a trap.”

  It was true. Dax was the only one that could stop me. I’d already taken out three of his men, who were right now nursing serious lumps on their noggins. I’d given them fair warning. Not my fault they thought they were tougher than I was. If damn Dax had just stayed out of it…

  “Go and be quick about it.”

  I paced in every direction I could, which seemed to be anywhere that didn’t take me one step closer to the barn. I wanted to be angry at Dax, but the truth was that I would’ve done the exact same thing, so it was hard to build up any steam behind the anger. He was right. I had a lot of enemies, and I wasn’t even sure what most of them were capable of. I took two more steps to the left until I switched direction and pivoted right. But none of these steps were making me feel any better, and after a handful more I said, “What are you waiting for?”

  “Do I have your word you’ll stay here until I give the sign?”

  “I said g
o. You want me to sign it in blood?”

  He dragged his heel across the dirt, creating a rough line in the ground. “Don’t go past here.”

  “I said I wouldn’t follow you. No need to beat the subject to death already. Go!”

  After giving me the eye, he turned and went back to the barn. I watched as he walked in, and I wasn’t sure I had the kind of control needed to not follow him in.

  The only thing that calmed me was watching Dax’s men walk out of the barn after he entered. Dax wouldn’t harm Bookie, not if it was the real Bookie but I didn’t trust anyone else.

  It was good that he’d sent them out. If it were Bookie, him coming back from the dead wasn’t something we’d want gossiped through the farm, any worse than it would be after the commotion we’d cause on our way out of the house.

  One foot after the other, I paced along the dirt line as I thought of what might happen if Bookie wasn’t what Dax considered the real Bookie. I would’ve worn out the grass in that spot if the guards weren’t walking toward me.

  “Can you believe that shit? Bookie is in serious trouble with the boss this time,” Al said to his two fellow guards, Derek and Bill, as they got close.

  Of course he’d be the one to start chattering away. He always was. The only time I heard him speak, it was about other people’s business and what they were doing wrong.

  The other two nodded as if they had a clue what he was talking about. They weren’t very good liars, even silent ones. I’d been pumped for information enough in my life to know a fishing expedition.

  Al looked at me. “What do you think of this mess?”

  He must be really desperate for his daily gossip if he was willing to stoop to talking to me. The other two weren’t joining the conversation, but if they’d been dogs, their ears would’ve been perked up in my direction, with their tongues hanging out.

  “Beats me.” I wasn’t about to let him in on what was going on. Al was going to have to do his fishing elsewhere.

  He shook his head, as if he’d expected no better. Made me want to ask why he’d bothered. If he wanted a story tonight, he was going to have to go read a book for the first time in his life.

  Al stepped closer but stopped a few feet short of me, looked me up and down, and then hocked up spit that landed an inch from my boots. “Still the same ole dirty Plaguer.”

  “I’ve been gone for more than a month. You’re telling me you haven’t managed to come up with anything else in that time? Nothing?” The word Plaguer used to have a certain sting to it, but since the recent outbreaks of the Bloody Death, knowing I was one of the few who couldn’t get sick took the pain out of it. They wished they were Plaguers.

  “Don’t need to come up with nothing new. Plaguer is bad enough.”

  Even if the label didn’t bother me anymore, there was still a certain protocol that should be followed to discourage this type of obnoxious behavior. Normally when someone started in on the Plaguer stuff, I’d raise my right hand with the scar and try and touch them. But tonight was different, and I sorely needed a distraction. I didn’t want to scare off my brightest possibility. It was either screw with Al or try to bust into that barn again.

  “Hey, can I borrow that gun?” I pointed to the one holstered at his hip, thinking of something much more interesting than swapping insults.

  “Fuck no,” Al said, clearly not understanding where the off-topic subject had come from and turning his hip slightly away from me.

  Even if he’d liked me, I’d expected him to say no. Guns were hard to come by, even here on the farm, where things were in more abundance than the rest of the Wilds. Bullets were considered precious. I didn’t know where Dax got his supply. To be honest, I didn’t know where most of the things on the farm came from, but there was a reason why people didn’t want to leave. They’d turn a blind eye to all sorts of weird occurrences to stay. In a world made up of sacrifices, this was as close to the land of plenty as you got.

  I’d always picked targets for the purpose of attack. What if I focused on picking a target for something I wanted to acquire? I churned up the heat in my chest as I focused my aim on his gun. I rubbed the tips of my fingers together for no other reason than it felt like the right thing to do, as if I were warming them up to pluck my prize. Once the heat of my magic was cranked up to near boiling, I spun into action.

  The gun was in my hands and I was a good five feet away while Al was still patting his hip.

  I was getting faster, stronger. It was good to know I could retrieve something I wasn’t trying to harm, because if Dax didn’t step out of that barn soon, I was setting my aim on Bookie next.

  “How’d you do that?” Al asked, a scowl on his brow and a threat in his tone.

  “I guess you’re just that slow?” I cringed as if I were actually sorry to break the news about his deficit, which, of course, I wasn’t. It didn’t help that his friends were snickering under their breath.

  “You’re lucky you’ve got your protector or we’d see who was really tough.”

  The snickering stopped quickly and Derek said Al’s name, warning him he was taking it too far. I wasn’t delusional enough to think they were worried about me. It was more for what would happen to them if they let something happen. Dax didn’t believe in the word bystander.

  It didn’t even tone down the fight in Al’s eyes.

  “I can handle myself, as just demonstrated.” I made a point of waving his gun around a bit. “You got something you want to prove? I’m right here. Won’t even need the gun I just took off you.”

  “You little—”

  Derek had never seemed too bad. His worst memory had been of having to shoot his lame dog, so I wasn’t surprised when he stepped forward and elbowed Al in the ribs, cutting him off. “Leave it alone. She’s just a girl.”

  Okay, so Derek might’ve been a bit chauvinistic, but he could be taught.

  Al was staring at me as if he were weighing how good it would feel to beat the hell out of me against the consequences of Dax’s reaction.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll say I fell,” I said, trying to goad him on. Al lucked out, as I caught a motion from the barn. Dax was outside and waving me over. Someone wouldn’t be getting their ass beat tonight.

  I nearly knocked Al over in my race to get to the barn, but turned back and tossed his gun to him, mostly because I didn’t want to explain how I’d gotten it. “I’ll let you know if I need it,” I yelled as I continued on my way, ignoring his yelp of outrage.

  Tossing a loaded gun: probably not my best idea. Throwing loaded guns might need to go onto my checklist of things not to do. That list was getting longer and longer. If I didn’t start lowering my standards, it was going to seriously cramp my style.

  Chapter 2

  I was winded by time I’d sprinted to where Dax stood outside the barn. Work on cardiovascular got mentally written down on my must-do list. Sucking wind totally ruined my image as a badass.

  The door to the barn was shut behind him, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Is it Bookie? Is he…”

  Dax’s arms were crossed and he didn’t look happy, but he didn’t look sad either. Actually, I couldn’t figure out how he looked, and that was very irritating under the circumstances.

  “He’s alive…I think. It smells like him and his heart has the same rhythm. If it’s not him, it’s some crazy magic that I’ve never encountered—or even heard of.”

  “So it’s Bookie?”

  He took another agonizing few seconds to slowly nod. “Against all logic, I’d say it is.”

  That was all I needed to hear. I pushed past Dax into the barn, not caring if he followed me in or not. Bookie turned toward the noise of the barn door opening, and I nearly toppled him in my rush to hug him.

  Bookie was here, on the farm and alive. I had my arms wrapped around his warm body and I could hear his heart beating inside his chest. I’d held Bookie in my arms as he’d grown cold with death, and now I was listening to his he
art? And if I wasn’t mistaken from the musty smell, and I didn’t think I was, he was wearing the same clothes I’d buried him in. This had all the markings of a bad situation. After nearly a minute of hugging him to me, I took a step back.

  Even if I didn’t particularly care what he was now, I needed to at least pretend to do due diligence, ask some basic questions, before I told Dax that Bookie wasn’t going anywhere. Even if it was just for show, because he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “What happened? How are you alive?” The first couple of questions were pretty obvious, which was good, because I wasn’t sure I had enough brain cells left over from shock to do any heavy lifting.

  “Like I told Dax, I don’t know,” Bookie said.

  I looked Bookie over in the torchlight of the barn. Dax had evicted him from my room so fast that I hadn’t gotten a chance to get a thorough look at him.

  Bookie looked like Bookie. He felt like Bookie, and Dax believed it was Bookie. Dax had a nose better than a bloodhound. I had my Bookie back. I ran a hand across my cheek before someone might notice suspicious moisture and then pulled myself together, or at least tried to make myself appear composed.

  “Just start with what you remember last.” I took his hand in mine and patted it, as if that would somehow magically open up a fountain of information.

  Stupid idea or not, he looked at my hand and nodded in time with the patting, and then started to speak. “I remember sitting by the lake with you. I remember getting sick. I remember you helping me to the house and then caring for me. I really remember the pain.”

  “Yeah, so do I. The pain of the Bloody Death stays with you.”

  Bookie stepped away from me and his hands went to his head, his fingers slowly moving backward over his scalp as he paced a line in the barn that looked like it had already been recently trodden. “The next memory I have is lying in that spot we liked—you know, the one with the great view of the sunsets?”

  He was looking at me to confirm that I knew where he was talking about. As if I could forget that spot. I’d been the one who buried him there. I’d never forget it. I’d relived that day in my mind more times than I’d ever admit. But I didn’t say that to him, and I never would. I swallowed back all of those memories and simply nodded when I couldn’t trust my tongue.