The Elustria Chronicles, Tome 2 : Magic Unknown

CHAPTER 1

Context and age changes everything. As a kid, staying at a hotel amounted to a treat of epic proportions. Inoffensive artwork, bland breakfasts, a TV with all the channels I didn’t get at home, and the ubiquitous germ-covered bedspread all equaled adventure for a kid. As an adult fleeing for my life after killing an assassin? I could have done with less adventure. I’d take a bed I could sleep on two nights in a row—without the germ-covered bedspread—please.

Luckily for me, my conversation with Alex was heated enough to distract me from the cold, tasteless scrambled eggs I ate in the hotel’s dining room.

“I’m telling you, the Council sent Marcus. Why are you insistent we should still seek them out?” I pushed my chair back from the table and stood. Alex followed me to the lobby.

“But you don’t know that. That’s just what Casper told you. He doesn’t have the best track record for being honest.” Frustration tinged Alex’s smooth voice. Everything about him screamed that he was a panther shifter, from his graceful stride to his silky black hair to his startling yellow eyes. I didn’t understand how the other guests in the hotel lobby didn’t see it.

Oh yeah, no one on Earth knew shifters were real and traveled here through portals from Elustria.

“You don’t understand what it was like to fight off Marcus. If there’s even a chance the Council sent him…” I shook my head as I pictured the assassin who had killed my mother and then set his sights on me to steal my amber talisman. Killing him had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. “I don’t think I’d make it out alive again. The only reason I survived this time was because he thought I was already dead or at least unconscious.”

“The Magesterial Council doesn’t kill people,” Alex said. The elevator dinged as the doors opened, and we boarded. “Casper didn’t want you to go to the Council. That should be your first clue that it’s an organization that stands in opposition to him. There are only two sides of this: Casper and the Council. You have to put your trust in one of them, and it isn’t going to be Casper.”

“I don’t trust anyone except you right now.” The last time I saw Casper, a murderous rage had lit his eyes. It was only a matter of time before he showed up to kill me and take my talisman. I fiddled with the amber stone that hung on the gold chain around my neck. The power inside it hummed, ready to shape itself to my will.