Dark Vortex: Mated by Magic Read online

  Dark Vortex

  Mated by Magic

  Stella Marie Alden

  Chantel Seabrook

  Copyright (C) 2016 Stella Marie Alden, Chantel Seabrook

  ISBN 978-1523785070

  Cover design by Virginie Wernert – www.designedbyqueenninie.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

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  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  About the Authors

  Chapter 1

  The door chimes clanged and two large men, carrying a third, burst into the tea shop.

  Zoe jumped up and her fresh coffee toppled onto her lap. Hot. Hot. Hot.

  “Where’s Olivia? We need her. Now.” The older of the two strangers ignored her dance of pain and struggled with the weight of the man he carried.

  “I aah…” She pushed her glasses up her nose, shaking out her wet shorts, and pointed to the curtain. “Put him on the daybed in the backroom.”

  She grabbed her cell phone, and tapped her cousin’s number.

  Five…six…unanswered rings. Come on Liv, pick up.

  “Help us,” the younger man yelled from the doorway.

  With an uneven breath, she left the ice cream parlor décor of the front room and entered the exam room. Even before she approached the men, the overpowering stench of rotting fish made her stomach turn. She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat.

  “You’re both going to have to leave.” The two glared, refusing to budge, and she gritted her teeth. “I can’t help him with you close by.”

  She pointed to the paisley curtain that divided the two spaces.

  The men snarled, but obeyed. When they were gone, she took a deep breath and tried her cousin again. Please pick up.

  “Hi, leave a message for Olivia’s Natural Herbal Remedies…” Damn, damn, damn.

  The man on the bed moaned and Zoe took a tentative step toward him. His white t-shirt was torn, the fabric charred at the edges, but his olive skin seemed unscathed. He needed a doctor, not an herbal concoction. The people in this town were even crazier than the ones she’d encountered during her short stay in New York.

  She should call his friends back and tell them, or better yet, dial 911. Zoe was about to do just that when she saw it. What the hell?

  Under the man’s skin, a leach-like creature strained and writhed, making black web marks. She swallowed a scream and backed into the large cabinet where Olivia kept her herbs and tonics. She’d seen a lot of weird shit over the past three months, since coming to stay with her cousin, but this had to be the craziest.

  Zoe glanced at her phone and cursed Olivia for leaving her alone. She didn’t know how to deal with this voodoo crap. Liv was the self-proclaimed healer. No matter how many times her cousin had tried to teach her to read auras and understand herbology, Zoe couldn’t wrap her brain around it.

  What would Liv do if she were here? Probably chant some ritual prayer and make tea.

  “Tea–” She could do that. Keeping a close watch on him, she put the kettle on to boil.

  The man had gone still, his skin stark white in comparison to the inky lines that sketched over face, down his neck, arms, and chest. Zoe shivered. She took a few tentative steps towards the bed and knelt beside him.

  She moved his matted bangs, and placed her palm to his forehead. He was burning up, but at least he was still alive.

  “Where’s Liv?” Large fingers clamped around her forearm.

  The black substance seemed to enter her from where he held her in his vise-like grip, and her stomach twisted and cramped. Little pinpricks of light floated before her eyes, and something else, something much more intimate, mixed with the dark energy.

  For a moment, time seemed to stand still. Ice and fire rushed through her, down her arms and legs, to the tips of her fingers and toes. A strange wind rushed through the room, causing her dark hair to whip around her face.

  The kettle screamed for her attention. She flinched, but he didn’t release her. His nostrils flared and his pupils dilated.

  The man was handsome, if you ignored the slight crook in his once broken nose. The dark stubble on his chin and upper lip outlined high cheekbones, square jaw, and full lips. But it was the eyes that caught her attention, the lightest brown, with flecks of gold that seemed to flicker in the dim light.

  “Who are you?” he growled between clenched teeth.

  The energy between them increased until Zoe was certain the entire room would combust into flames. Fear overpowered the desire that swelled within her.

  “Let me go.” The words caught in her throat and came out as a strangled cry.

  He uncurled his fingers and thumped his head back on the daybed, groaning.

  Zoe staggered back to Liv’s workstation and placed her hands on the counter. With steadying breaths, she prepared the tea the way she’d seen Liv do it a hundred times. She just prayed that she was using the right ingredients. There wasn’t anything in any of the tins that could make him worse than he already was–she hoped.

  The man let out a roar of pain, and gripped the edge of the bed as his body seized and stiffened. The poison seemed to be expanding, tearing through his body like a predator consuming its prey.

  She was close to panicking. No, she was already panicking. This was too much. She didn’t have the skill or the knowledge needed to help him. She could barely read a damn aura.

  Olivia would know what to do, but her cousin wasn’t answering her fricking phone.

  With trembling fingers, Zoe held his head and forced the hot liquid down his throat. After a gulp, he turned and puked out a black, rancid mass.

  Zoe dropped the cup and scooted backwards, the meager contents of her own stomach burning her esophagus. This was not what she signed up for when she accepted her cousin’s proposal to come stay with her. Hell, she hadn’t even known the woman existed until a few months ago. Liv was strange on the best of days, with her New Age ideas, and bizarre beliefs in the paranormal. But until today, her outlandish stories of healers and warriors had just been that–stories.

  The man seized again, then went still. His f
orehead was damp with perspiration, his skin still streaked with black webs. The putrid smell of impending death lingered around him. A chill went up and down Zoe’s spine. She didn’t know how she knew the scent, but the knowledge seeped through her like an old memory.

  “No. You are not going to die.” She threw open the cupboard doors. A vast collection of colorful tins lined the shelves. Ugh. Licorice, sassafras, and dried mold. She glowered, compelling their auras forth, like Liv had taught her, but only shades of brown danced in front of her eyes.

  He was going to die because she couldn’t find the right fucking tea.

  “Dammit!” She slammed the door and it banged.

  A rattling sound came from the man’s chest. She’d never felt so helpless in her life.

  You know what to do. The words pierced her mind, sending a zing through her body. She closed her eyes and a flash of memory infused her. It was hazy, but there was power and knowledge in the vision.

  The room started to spin and she had to grasp the counter to keep from falling.

  You know what to do. The words echoed like a soft hum within her.

  The man would die if she did nothing.

  With a sharp intake of breath, she focused on the words that raced through her mind and drew from the strange energy that vibrated around her. She didn’t have time to think about how crazy the entire situation was. She just knew she had to save him. At her beckon, a small wind formed in her palms, then blew across the room, and entered the man.

  The color drained from his face, his eyes went wide, and he inhaled sharply.

  Zoe refocused and tried again. This time the lights flickered and a deep purple cloud materialized for a moment before disappearing. If she wasn’t so focused on saving him, she would have been terrified.

  She closed her eyes, centered like she’d learned in yoga class, and added a short prayer to the Goddess of Life. Help me save him.

  Perhaps the prayer clinched the deal. The power within started with a buzzing in her ears. It bubbled up and surrounded her like an electric current. When she could no longer endure the pain, she screamed and fell back onto the wood floor.

  She’d fired a shotgun once, but this discharge had a hell-of-a worse kick. A black-violet cloud of energy sizzled and snapped above her head in a wild frenzy. When it didn’t move, Zoe willed it forward to kill the poison in the man.

  Suddenly, the conjured plasma zoomed around the exam room and lit seven colored candles. It went into the cupboards and rattled the tin cans until two fell off the top shelf with a clunk. The energy morphed and twisted into a sparkling tornado, hovered momentarily above the man’s bed, and disappeared into his body. Zoe was unable to breathe again until it reappeared with a dark shadow caught up in its spin.

  Chapter 2

  Jack reached for his chest, expecting to feel a sticky pool of blood, but his hand came back dry. That vortex had knifed right through him, yet he was still alive.

  “It’s not done.” The healer pointed above his head where the spinning energy still hovered.

  She tried to stand, but fell forward on her hands and knees, breathing heavily. She scrambled crab-like towards the tins on the floor, tried to wobble up the cabinets, but slipped back. Her head hit the floor with a thud and she stopped moving.

  Jack staggered off the daybed, checked her pulse. It was weak, but she was still breathing. Something stirred inside him at the touch, but he was too drained to analyze it.

  He hobbled to the kitchenette and grabbed the ancient tins. The steaming water from the kettle made a too-hot concoction, reeking of sweaty sneakers. After a quick gag and gulp, the menacing cloud dissolved through the walls with an anticlimactic sizzle and pop.

  “What the hell was that?” He’d been to healers more times than he’d like to recall, but this beat all. He squatted over the unconscious woman.

  The front door opened and a cool breeze blew at the curtain.

  “What did you do to Zoe?” Olivia stormed into the room, followed by Stan and Luke. Her red hair flew behind her in a mass of tangled curls.

  “She’s alive.” Weak-kneed, Jack stood, and leaned against a wall.

  Olivia ordered Luke to carry the woman to the daybed. The younger man obeyed, his face skewed in a snarl.

  “Thought we lost you out there.” Stan looked him over, smiled and slapped him on the back, his eyes moist with unshed tears.

  Jack nodded. He had to admit, that was way too close.

  Olivia pursed her lips and placed her hand on the woman’s forehead.

  “Is she okay?” Jack asked, rubbing his chest.

  “Aura’s fairly normal…for her…but she’s suffering deep exhaustion from an extreme energy burn.”

  He took a step forward and staggered. Stan caught him by the elbow, steadying him.

  “Sit down before you break something,” Olivia ordered, pointing at a chair. She crossed the room and placed a cool palm on Jack’s cheek. A familiar pulse of energy coursed through him. As she read his health, her eyes went wide, and then narrowed. “What went on here?”

  “Let’s just say she has a very unusual healing technique, and she cut it way too close.” He was still reeling from the effects of the energy blast, followed by the vortex, and the foul tasting tea. There was something else he needed to remember, but couldn’t put his finger on it. Shit, what was it?

  Olivia eyed him a bit more closely and glared like a first grade teacher. “I’m not sure what just happened in here but I can sure as hell tell it wasn’t good. When I agreed to take care of your clan, you assured me it was for easygoing solstice quarrels. I thought you guys were above this level of stupidity. Didn’t we both agree that dueling was archaic?”

  His eyes narrowed at her tone. “It is archaic! Tonight, I saved Luke from an underage witch-ling. She was out trolling for a mate and she hooked him. When I tried to separate the two, he gave me one minor, albeit painful, shot.”

  He glared at Luke who shrugged and glanced at the floor.

  “Then, while I was catching my breath, someone tried to assassinate me. I never even saw it coming.” Jack shook his head, then winced at the pain the action sent shooting through his skull. “It was a hell of a night. Worst ever. God, I hate solstice.”

  “Did you recognize who did it?” Olivia’s brows furrowed.

  “Didn’t see him.” Jack scrubbed his fingers over his face. “Never felt that kind of power before.”

  She frowned, put both hands to his chest, and closed her eyes. Her healing energy hit him like a good night’s sleep followed by jolt of strong coffee.

  He sucked in every bit she offered.

  Straitening, she put her hands on her hips.

  “Your assistant did an oddly adept job of healing me, then collapsed and banged her head.” He snuck a look at the woman on the bed. “Are you sure she’s okay?”

  Olivia glanced over briefly, then back at him. “She’ll be fine.”

  “Good.” There was something about her that piqued his interest.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” Olivia cocked her head and waited for the truth, which he had no intention of giving.

  He’d never seen a vortex before, let alone one with healing powers.

  “What?” He feigned his most innocent look.

  “Zoe hasn’t shown any knack for healing.” Liv shook her head. “No matter. I’ll get the truth out of you, later.” She turned to Stan and Luke and covered her nose. “Whatever hit Jack caused an evil aura mess and the stink has rubbed off on you. I’ll blend some tea and bring it down to the beach. The ocean breeze should clean up the rest.”

  “But we were just out there and it’s cold.” Luke whined more like the kid Jack remembered than the eighteen-year-old he’d just saved from a greedy teenage paranormal.

  Jack snorted. “Don’t argue with Olivia or she’ll conjure up something that will make you sorry you did. Besides, you probably still need a little cooling off.”

  Stan mumbled something about snotty healer
s as they headed out the door. Olivia shut it firmly behind them and the bells on the door clanged as if in agreement.

  “There’s something very off with Stan’s aura.” Her brows drew down in a deep frown. “Keep an eye on him for the next couple days.”

  Jack grunted at her vague warning.

  Olivia continued to mutter to herself as she prepared the tea, but he tuned her out, turning his attention to the strange woman. He was close enough to see the small goosebumps on her bare arms and legs–she was cold.

  Guilt crept over him. She had saved his life, and now she was suffering for it. He stood, his legs sturdier than before, and picked up the quilt at the end of the bed. Leaning down, he placed it over her legs and caught her scent. Strawberries and…It couldn’t be. He sniffed again and froze.

  Jack breathed her in and blood rushed to his groin. Memories of years of searching flashed through his mind. The trips overseas. The despair, the resignation, and the final blow. Settling for a love-match with that heart breaker, Diane.

  He brushed his fingers over her cheek and an erotic buzz coursed through his body. Holy shit. His balls tightened painfully and his cock hardened in demand. Every muscle in his body went tense, and his gut clenched with soul shattering desire.

  She was the one.

  His mate.

  He all but sank to his knees in prayerful thanksgiving.

  Olivia must have caught the flare in his aura because she coughed roughly behind him. She gave him an evil eye, which would’ve gotten her stoned to death a hundred years ago.