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After I was settled, he jumped on behind me and put an arm around my waist. My stomach fluttered at the contact, and I put both my hands on top of his big one. It was warm and confident as it splayed over my belly.
“Thank you for not asking too much,” I said.
He nuzzled the side of my head with his cheek. “I know better than to ask.”
Best boyfriend ever.
And to think we’d started this relationship as polar opposites!
As Greenie took us back through a more scenic route, I was reminded of all our adventures—our first meeting over a maybe-dead body, our escape through the basements of the Hub, that time I had to spring him from Fae jail, and that other time a tree had tried to eat him, and I’d had to fight a mud-puddle monster to free him. Not to mention all the other excitement I’d had with Greenie and all my other allies in pursuit of invaluable Fae artifacts. So many good memories!
I couldn’t wait to see what came next.
Want to read More about Maddie’s Adventures?
Start at the very beginning with Finding Fae Artifacts (Magical Artifacts Institute #1)
About Isa medina
Isa Medina loves writing and reading Fantasy and Urban Fantasy books, playing MMORPGs, and scouring the Internet for pet pictures and beautiful art. If it has Fae, ghosts, vampires, demons, mythical creatures, or magic in it, she’s all in.
Sorcery in the Shadows
BY Rosie Wylor-Owen
Sorcery in the Shadows by Rosie Wylor-Owen
After being abused for far too many years, nineteen-year-old Beatrix Bishop finally finds friendship in a magical cat. But can she also find her freedom?
Chapter One
A tile slipped under my foot, and I threw myself onto my front on the steeple of the roof, grabbing it with both hands to steady myself. I huffed a breath as it dug into my solar plexus. You’d have thought after the number of times I had climbed this roof that I wouldn’t make such silly mistakes.
I shimmied myself into a more balanced position and then got up on my hands and knees, crawling along the top of the roof to a flat part that was surrounded by turrets. The old building that had been converted into flats had its nooks and crannies, and this one was mine alone.
I hopped over the turrets and unzipped the tent I had put up there to house my things while I was away. Inside, I had a small collection of snacks and drinks, blankets, and most importantly, my diary. I smoothed my hand over the bare leather cover and breathed in a hopeful breath. Maybe today would be the day I could finally record the words I had longed to write: I used my powers for the first time today.
As a nineteen years old druid, I was far too old to have not used my powers yet. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if I didn’t have so much riding on it. I was Beatrix Bishop, and in our family, you didn’t leave home until you got your powers.
I brushed away a curtain of chin-length blonde hair from my face - my grandmother would never let me grow it out - and stood the diary on top of one of the turrets, like I always did. It was a part of my nightly ritual after everyone went to bed: to try and use my powers and to use my diary as motivation. The moment I could write the words “I used my powers for the first time today”, adventure and freedom would follow. The pages would see adventures like I had never written in it before, and I couldn’t wait to do it.
I pulled the drawstrings on my tattered hoodie tighter - I would have to ask for a new one for my birthday - then I stood and focused on the diary. I was going to do this. Tonight. Tomorrow, I would be able to pack my bags and get out of here.
I closed my eyes and focused on the power inside me. I could feel it there, sealed away like it was behind prison bars. But I would break it out today, one way or another. I was gentle with it, called to it with a whisper and beckoned to it. It reached for my call but it bumped against the barrier between us. Why was that damn thing still there? Why wasn’t it ready yet? How much longer would I have to wait?
But I wasn’t going to give up that easily. This would be the time; I could feel it. I pulled at the barrier within me, trying to break through it, but it bounced back like unbreakable latex.
I gritted my teeth as I grabbed for it more desperately, but it continued to elude me. What was it about my power that made it want to hide inside me? I was unlucky and had been my whole life. It wasn’t just what I thought, but my grandmother had told me plenty of times. I had been unlucky to not have my power, for both my parents to have died not long after I was born, and though I wouldn’t say it out loud, to be trapped here.
Guilt wracked me so violently that I shivered. How cruel of me. My grandmother had had to take care of me since I was born, and I was sure she wanted me out of her house as much as I did. But here I was, taking up space, all because I was too stupid to make my powers work.
No. I threw back my shoulders, though my head remained low. Tonight would be the night. It had to be.
I raised my arms and pulled them back to my body as I launched another attack on my powers. But my elbow nudged something, and I whipped around just in time to watch my diary topple over the edge of the turrets. It happened in slow motion before my eyes, and I threw myself over the gap between the turrets, my stomach landing on the stone as I shot my hand out to grab the diary. I snatched it out of thin air.
“Hah,” I said, beaming at my rare luck.
But I lurched downward as the stone beneath me gave, and I scrambled back, landing on my butt as a giant chunk of stone broke away from the turret and toppled out of sight.
