AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The flame of the candle on her table tilted as she moved, following her. It tilted…tilted…went sideways, then gave up and snapped upright.
Which could have been anything, but the candlelight on the next table also bent when she passed. And the next one, and the next, like so many wobbly toys tipping, tipping, tipping. WhenErin disappeared down the hallway, the candles went back to flickering normally.
I squinted into the mirror. Just an optical effect?
When she returned, I swiveled to watch. And,bing! Bing! Bing!Like a row of lights in Las Vegas, each candle flared as she passed. The fire in the stone fireplace sparked too.
And it wasn’t just her. When Pippa wandered over to chat to someone else, every flame in the place wandered with her.
All barely noticeable, except for someone trained to spot such clues.
My mouth went dry as I thought through the possibilities.
Pyromancerjumped to mind, but no. They tended to exude hot, pulsing energy that could be felt a mile away.
Dragon shifter,my beast side suggested hopefully.
Another no. Erin had neither the fidgety temperament nor the scent.
Witchwas my second guess, but she didn’t seem aware of her effect on the candles.
Relic,my dragon finally rumbled.
I went still, trying to get my head around that. A relic?
All three, maybe, if they’re sisters,my dragon said.
“I know, I know.” The guy beside me chuckled. “The game’s that bad.”
I snapped my mouth shut. It wasn’t the game that astounded me. It was coming across a relic in a place like this.
Then again, Sedona had a reputation for attracting supernaturals — shifters, vampires, witches, and the like. That meant it would attract relics too — descendants of supernaturals who’d interbred with enough humans over the years to dilute or erase their powers.
Some relics were aware of their faint power and could manipulate it at will. Others had no clue. Most were harmless, party-trick types. People who could hold their breath forcrazy-long periods of time, for example, often descended from mermaids. People whose fingers could fly over musical instruments to produce heavenly tunes usually had magic in a distant branch of the family tree. Most top athletes were relics too, possessing extraordinary speed, strength, or agility. Olympic gymnasts were a prime example of watered-down shifter blood — usually feline. Who else could string together four backflips on a beam just a few inches wide?
Only a tiny portion of relics caused trouble — and that’s when guys like me came in. The minute I’d left the military, I’d been recruited by the government agency responsible for such things.
All the usual protocols ran through my head…until I remembered I wasn’t in that line of work any more.
I stared into my drink for a while, then peeked back at Erin. Was she really a relic?
I decided to focus on Pippa instead. As the most outgoing sister, she was more likely to reveal hints of her hidden nature than the other two. Erin was more guarded, while the third sister waswaybeyond guarded. More like locked in a turret with the key thrown away.
So, Pippa it was. I focused on her reflection in the mirror, just visible between a bottle of Jim Beam and Jack Daniel’s…
Pippa,I hissed to my dragon side when my eyes strayed back to Erin.
The beast grumbled, then stopped, suddenly on alert.
A motorcycle pulled into the no-parking zone in front of the bar. Then another…and another, all revving so loudly, they were impossible to ignore.
“What the…?” A guy at the bar stood for a look.
The bottom two-thirds of the front window was covered in black foil, but the top was clear. My stool was high enough for me to peer out if I sat tall. I counted as a fifth and sixth motorcycle rolled into the no-parking zone in front of the bar.Then a seventh and eighth, all revving away like they were about to zoom off instead of coming to a halt.
I lost count after a dozen.
They kept up the racket until the top dog pulled into the lot and gave his own ride a commanding rev. When they finally cut the engines, they cracked jokes and hollered to one another.
