Sorcerer: Betrayal: Power of Air (Book 4)
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Authors: D. L. Harrison
Sorcerer:
Betrayal
Power of Air (Book 4)
Author: D. L.
Harrison
Copyright 2016. This is a work of fiction. Names,
Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or
persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
permission.
of Contents:
1
Wednesday, June 8
th
, 2016, 9:40 AM
I could hear the rumbling of the low growls coming from the
very large predators in front of me. Werewolves. Six of them with very large
teeth, claws, and unparalleled senses. It was a little unnerving and I
wondered what the hell I was thinking when I asked for their help. Sure, they
were family, but they were still werewolves in
hunt
mode. It had only
been four days since I reviewed the information on fire sorcery when I took it
from Jaben in that warehouse.
One of those abilities was to control light in such a way to
become invisible. I’d had the thought, that since I was now family in the
pack, that they could help me perfect it. So far this morning they’d shown me
that I hadn’t, very painfully, as they lunged and took me to the ground six
times so far as I tried to cross the perilous back yard without being detected.
It was difficult, not only did I need to bend the light
around me, but also around the grass I stepped on, and I had to keep shadows in
mind as well. If that wasn’t enough, I also had to block scent and sound with
air magic at the same time, though that was hardly an effort for me. I’m
ashamed to say I was cheating a bit this time, and floating just a few inches
above the ground.
Perhaps sometime in the future this will be second nature,
and I’ll be able to do it with hardly any conscious thought, but right now it
was hard, which meant I moved at a crawl as I made constant adjustments to the
light as I moved. It was that which had given me away the last few times, I’d
been a little too slow in my light alterations. I was almost all the way
across the yard and I started to feel confident I was going to make it.
Then they totally cheated.
Sierra, Selene, and Katie all shifted to human form, and of
course their ripe feminine wiles were in full view and caused my downfall as I
lost my concentration. I know, pathetic, but I was a young male after all.
But my mate and her two pack mates were very beautiful women, and I wasn’t
quite used to the casual nudity yet often found in werewolf packs.
I heard three triumphant growls from Derik, Clint, and
Todd. I panicked and went straight up into the air about fifteen feet when
three walls of teeth and fur lunged to take me down. Oh, they wouldn’t bite or
scratch, but being tackled by a werewolf and hitting the ground was a painful
experience in and of itself.
I scowled down at my family, “Cheaters!”
Sierra, my mate, just laughed and posed rather sexily,
delighted she could distract me so easily.
Selene raised an eyebrow as she started to dress, “It’s your
fault, we had to resort to desperate measures. It shouldn’t have worked if you
were concentrating.”
I frowned and floated back down, “How did you know how close
I was?”
Katie snickered, “The ally bond, we felt your confidence
surge and knew you must almost be across.”
Damn, I didn’t even consider that. Sneaky wolves.
Selene said encouragingly, “Keep practicing, I think you’ve
got it now, you just need to train it so it becomes automatic.”
Katie and Sierra started getting dressed, and the others
shifted and did the same.
Derik looked a little amused, “Let us know if you want to
try again, in the meantime I think we’re all late to work.”
“Thanks for the help. I need to get into the city soon as
well.”
Thankful except for my back of course, my back wasn’t grateful
at all. I sent some air with a touch of fire to take care of the ache, there
was no point in living with it all day. Sierra gave me a warm kiss goodbye
that lingered and gave me ideas, and then she left to head for the work site
along with Todd who was still learning the pack businesses. It was still a
little new living here instead of the city, although my apartment was still
mine for a couple of more months.
I still needed to make arrangements to either move, store,
or sell my furniture and other stuff.
Still, outside of a few quirks, like the aforementioned casual
nudity, the pack already felt like family, and like I belonged here. Part of
that must have been the ally bond, it was hard to feel separate or excluded
when I could feel their welcome and how they felt about me being around. The
other part of the reason it felt like home was Sierra.
“Ria, why did they have to hit so hard,”
I sent to
Aitheria.
Her laughter tinkled like the sounds of rainfall in my head,
if that made any sense. I probably deserved it for being whiny about it.
“Motivation of course,”
she sent in a reasonable tone
,
“If they just pointed at you, you wouldn’t have tried as hard.”
I tried to find fault with that idea, but really couldn’t.
It really made sense actually, but I wasn’t a masochist. My mind turned toward
my best friends, my only human friends that I had outside of my family.
I was a little nervous about tonight, I hadn’t really talked
to Mike since the reveal last week. I was also hesitant to use my powers to
find out what would happen. It might not work anyway, and although I didn’t
have qualms about gathering knowledge about strangers, doing it to my family or
friends felt a bit wrong, invasive. Like searching through their sock drawer.
From what Aiya told me though, I didn’t expect Jenna to object, quite the
opposite really. Hopefully, Mike would be able to resolve his inner conflict,
and come to terms that magic was real.
I put it out of my mind the best I could, there was a lot to
do today before then, and I needed to focus on that.
Wednesday, June 8
th
, 2016, 10:23 AM
Power. The power to protect myself and my loved ones from
my enemies. It was a race I was in, gain enough power before my family’s enemies
found me, or die. Self-preservation, I imagined it was a common enough reason
to want to grow more powerful. I worried though, I’d promised myself I
wouldn’t change, that I wouldn’t let the power go to my head.
Power also corrupted.
So far I hadn’t turned into a power hungry monster, so the
second part of my promise to myself seemed intact. I didn’t use my power
except to save others, or myself, from those that would kill us. So far so
good. But gaining power without changing was a foolish thought, I’d been naïve
to expect any such thing, of course I was changing. Everyone changed, even
those that didn’t pursue power. Still, I got the feeling I’d be tempted a lot
more than I have been so far in the future, and all power had a price, even if
I couldn’t see it yet.
Well, I could see one of the negative results, which was a
price of sorts. Power isolated me. I haven’t noticed it all that much because
I was always a solitary person, ever the odd man out. But really, outside of
the few strong relationships I had, there weren’t many people I could share the
real Ben with, most of the world just saw a psychic, or a con artist, that was
it.
Even those closest to me didn’t know the full extent of how
my powers worked, just the edges of it. It was what it had to be. Another
price was about to become apparent, although some might argue it wasn’t a price
at all, I’d have to disagree.
I was sitting in my office, going over some paperwork while
I sipped my coffee, when I had a vision. Nothing like I’d ever had before. In
the past, I’d always seen the recent past, the recent future, maybe a week out
at the most, or something in the present. Apparently when I’d grown my air
power out to two hundred feet four days ago, which about doubled my power, it
had an impact on my abilities to see.
The vision hit me like a runaway train.
I was Christina Sedgewick. Sixteen, junior in high
school, popular, and a bit of a queen bee. I could remember her whole life up
until now, the bumps and scrapes as a toddler, her first kiss, the first time
she got a crush, the way she’d destroyed that bitch Barbara last year when she
flirted with my… with her boyfriend. I was Christina Sedgewick.
Then I was walking along the road in the city, listening
to music on my iPod on the way to the store. I was horribly naïve and sure of
myself as I cut through a few alleys to get there faster. A white van pulled
up and stopped next to me, before I could react the door slid open and a large
man grabbed me. I screamed and then my head exploded in pain, there was
nothing but darkness.
I was in a cage, in a basement. Two years had gone by,
and I remembered every second of it. Every violation and abuse that the two
men that had taken me had put me through. Every tear, every attempted escape,
every thought drowned me. I was Christina Sedgewick. Then one of the men came
down and looked at me… at her with disgust. A shiver of fear went down my
spine as he pulled out a long knife. Clearly, the man was done with Christina
Sedgewick.
And I felt it, as he stabbed her two years, three days,
four hours, and ten minutes from now.
I gasped as I came out of the vision and looked at the
clock. I could remember those two years perfectly, but as far as I could tell,
no time had passed at all. I not only got the vision, I got her entire life,
even two years of it she hadn’t lived yet. Not a price of power?
I beg to differ.
I freely admit, I was shaken, sweaty, and felt violated. It
took me several minutes to calm down, using my air magic to bring out the cool
intellect of my mind. I wondered then if all Air sorcerers eventually ended up
like the really old vampires. I couldn’t imagine having full lifetimes of
random people in my mind instead of just raw facts, and having my feelings
ripped and shredded time after time without going insane. Not unless I could
hide in my power, in the cool intellect of the power of air.
It made a kind of sense, the older the vampire the more
power they had, the more air magic they radiated. Vampires couldn’t control that
air magic consciously, except for mesmerizing their prey. The rest was
automatic, the speed, slight strength increase, and of course the continuous
healing which arrested aging. I thought of how alien Alexios and Charis were,
could that be the reason? Would I end up like that? I shuddered at the
thought. Now that was a hell of a price for power, one I would find a way to
avoid if I could.
Perhaps, if I used fire to get a hold of my emotions
instead. I even briefly considered modifying my own memories, taking the edge
off, but that seemed like a bad idea. If I screwed up, I wouldn’t be able to
fix it.
I used my power to go to my apartment, and I jumped in the
shower. So… price, but also power increase. I’d just seen two years into the
future, and from the point of view of who I was seeing, instead of a third
party observer. I tried to relax, because what I’d really like to do is track
down those two men and kill them, slowly. Not to prevent them taking Christina
an hour from now, but in revenge for what they put me through for those two
long years.
But… that was crazy, wasn’t it? It hadn’t happened, but it
did
happen. Reluctantly, I reached out and pulled the information. When I
discovered Christina wasn’t the only one, of course she wasn’t, I had to
suppress the urge to kill them again. It would be justice, but it would also
change me for the worse. Righteous anger? That was a hell of a temptation.
I got out of the shower and dried off, threw on some clothes
I still had here, and then picked up the phone. Sending the information to
Aiya might have been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. As soon as I sent the
text I was swept into another powerful vision.
I was Christina Sedgewick. Sixteen, junior in high
school, popular, and a bit of a queen bee. I could remember her whole life up
until now, the bumps and scrapes as a toddler, her first kiss, the first time
she got a crush, the way she’d destroyed that bitch Barbara last year when she
flirted with my… with her boyfriend. I was Christina Sedgewick.
Then I was walking along the road in the city, listening
to music on my iPod on the way to the store. I was horribly naïve and sure of
myself, as I cut through a few alleys to get there faster. A white van pulled
up and stopped, before I could do anything the door slid open and a large man
grabbed me. I screamed and then my head exploded in pain, there was nothing
but darkness.
I woke up to a steady beeping sound. My heart beat. I
groaned and opened my eyes, I was in a hospital room. My mother was in tears
in the chair next to the bed and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. What a
drama queen. I was fine.
The relief when I came out of my vision was overwhelming. I
could still remember those two years, but they were dry facts now, didn’t seem
real anymore. Apparently, sending that text meant Aiya would stop that van and
rescue the girl. I knew she would, even if it didn’t happen yet. I still had
a vapid sixteen-year-old girl’s vivid memories in my mind, which was strange
and bizarre, but what didn’t happen, what would no longer happen, was muted.
Still a price, but maybe not as bad as I’d feared if I could
change things.
It hadn’t happened yet of course, and when it did I knew
those men would have their house searched, and the police would find enough
evidence to send them away for life. I considered the idea of being around
when the arrest happened, but discarded it. I was already sure it would happen
now, and I wasn’t nearly as sure that I wouldn’t kill those men if I laid eyes
on them.
I just hoped not all my visions would be like that for now
on, or that I would figure out a way to control it.