Magic Betrayed Read online

  Magic Betrayed

  Rise of the Arcanist

  Book One

  A More than Magic Serial

  Elizabeth Kirke

  Copyright 2020 Elizabeth Kirke

  Cover by T.M. Franklin

  Editing by Rachael Riches

  Formatting by EK Formatting

  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 written permission from the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Special Thanks to my Patreon Supporters

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  Tasha Mahoney

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  Thank you, thank you, thank you to:

  Rachael, for the amazing editing and comma smackdowns. And (see what I did there?) thank you for knowing these books like the back of your hand!

  Erin, for the amazing alpha reading and for not stopping even when I went after your favorite character!

  Candace, for the marvelous feedback from a reader new to the series!

  Lynn, for the wonderful last-minute comments, hosting me (even after two disasters) on your fantastic 2 Girls & A Book Fangirl Thursday feature, AND for still putting up with me after countless covers, titles, revisions, and questions that I answered myself.

  Stacey, The Blurb Doctor, for crafting marvelous blurbs a thousand times better than anything I could have done myself! And for tolerating the numerous covers and revisions I hound you with. And, as always, for taking a chance on my little book all those years ago.

  Author’s Note

  Hello, dear Reader! The book you are about to read is the first in a six-book serial series. Each installment will release one month apart, with the sequel to this available on July 20, 2020 and ready to pre-order now. They will also be available on Kindle Unlimited.

  While it does feature characters from the award-winning More than Magic trilogy, you do not have to read that series before this one.

  I hope you enjoy the adventure. If you do, please consider leaving a review when you finish, it’s the best way to help spread the word about the book. The number of reviews a book has determine its eligibility for some promotions and advertisements. I read and appreciate every review. Thank you.

  ~ Elizabeth

  Chapter One

  Jen

  Dear Rachel,

  Can you believe the first 90 days of my internship are almost over?! I’ll move from a stipend to a salary (which means you can stop sending me money, although I appreciate it) and start accruing vacation time.

  I want to thank you again for being so supportive of my move. You’re the best stepmom ever! Especially because I know you think I came to New York for all the wrong reasons. Why else would I get a Master’s in History, then turn around and get an internship at a security company you’ve never heard of, in another state… where my boyfriend just happens to work… It’s hard to explain. Okay, maybe not that hard.

  I’m a witch.

  I know, not the explanation you were expecting. But it’s the truth. There’s so much I want to tell you. So much I wish I could tell you.

  “Mar.”

  I watched a flame flare to life at the corner of the letter. The paper curled and blackened as the fire moved along, destroying the words I had written. As I watched it burn, I told myself the tears in my eyes were just from the smoke. When nothing was left but ash, I aimed my wand at it again.

  “Ahn.”

  The ashes sailed lazily though the air as I directed them to the fireplace and dropped them in. On the hearth, a black cat stood and stretched as he watched the ashes float by. He took a step toward me and jumped off the small brick ledge. He vanished the moment his feet left the ground, leaving only a few wisps of smoke in his wake. A moment later he appeared above the couch and landed next to me, as gracefully as if he jumped a couple of feet instead of across an entire room. As more smoke drifted down around him, he curled his tail over his feet and watched me with unblinking, yellow eyes.

  “What were you writing?” he asked, tilting his head a bit.

  “A letter to my stepmom.”

  A sense of sympathy and understanding passed through our bond. He stretched out and bumped his head gently against my arm. I scratched him behind the ears, feeling the pleasant sensation behind my own as I did.

  “I thought it would be easier like this,” I confessed. “I had to lie to Rachel so much when I was living at home, but now everything she knows about my life is a freaking lie.”

  “She knows you live with Thomas.”

  “Honestly, Rak, that’s one thing I wish I had lied about. Half of the reason Rachel’s upset I’m here is because she thinks I’m doing it just to be with Thomas.”

  Sure, it was nice to finally move in together after five years of dating long-distance, but he was a perk of moving, not the reason. For one thing, I had several close friends here; all of them magical beings, like me. I had met a few magics over the years, but never got as close to them as I was to this group. It was probably something about facing an evil vampire together, not long after I first met them. My friendships usually weren’t forged out of a shared fear-of-death experience.

  Not that I could explain that to Rachel. Especially not when I made the mistake of telling her Thomas worked for the same company I was applying for an internship with. After getting a Master’s in History – another lie – Rachel couldn’t understand why I’d want to work for a little company like M. E. Security. She said it bothered her that I could talk about what I learned in history class for hours but couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm about MES for even a few minutes. That was because I had no idea what the company did. Or rather, what they were supposed to do. It was all a cover presented to non-magics, like Rachel, who took an interest in them. Their website looked like, and probably was, something out of the 90s, and was maddeningly unhelpful. It looked, as Rachel pointed out, like some sort of scam company. It not only worried her even more, but it made her paranoid about Thomas’ morals as well.

  I certainly couldn’t tell her that MES actually stood for Magical Enforcement and Secrecy. It was, in a way, somewhat security related at least. The classes I claimed were for an advanced history degree were actually magic classes I was taking at our local MES office. Thanks to my magic coming from my biological mother’s side, nobody knew I was a witch until I met Thomas and the others. It put me behind other witches my age, so I took the classes to build my skills and learn things about my new world that I would have known, had my mother been around to teach me.

  Working for MES would give me a leg up, no matter what I chose to do. If a magic didn’t work directly for MES, sooner or later they worked with them in some way. In fact, all o
f my friends worked for MES. We were in different departments, but it was fun to get to spend time with them. The biggest downside was that Thomas and our other roommate worked the night shift together. Once my internship was finished, I’d probably switch to that shift as well, but for now I was stuck with whatever I got. It meant that Thomas and TS were often getting home as I was leaving. I couldn’t be too upset though, I still got to see them far more than I did while living in Maryland.

  In addition to his regular duties working for MES, Thomas also doubled as a special agent. Special agents were called in for the really dangerous stuff; feral werewolves, murderous vampires, out of control elementals, and things like that. I sometimes wished I told Rachel that Thomas did something other than boring office work. It would have given me someone else to talk to on nights he was late and I worried he was out on a dangerous job, especially when some of my other friends were out too. TS was a field agent, which meant he was always sent out first and Charlie was just an agent but was still on call for problems that required a fire elemental or needed as many agents as possible.

  “Maybe I should have waited to…” I trailed off with a sigh.

  No, I didn’t regret coming to New York at all. Staying wouldn’t have changed the fact I’d still have to lie to Rachel. And the longer I stayed, the more I’d have to make up. She’d start wondering why I was staying long-distance with a guy I hardly saw; one she had yet to meet. She’d never understand that we weren’t in a rush. Five years was a blink of an eye for a magic. Two of our friends had been engaged for that long now, with no wedding date in sight, after dating for nearly twenty-five. Thomas and I weren’t in a hurry. If nothing else, my stepmother understood that I wanted to be closer to him.

  Then, if I got a magic job in Maryland she’d ask all sorts of questions; questions I couldn’t dodge in person. And I’d have to get a job. Sooner or later a twenty-seven-year-old bumming around at home would concern her as much as me leaving had.

  I couldn’t linger there anyway. I could still pull off my real age, but the truth was I stopped aging not long after I started using magic. In another five years I might be able to pull off thirty-two and looking good, but not for much longer than that. And once that started to happen, I’d have to slowly withdraw from my non-magic family. Immortality had its drawbacks.

  With another sigh, I stood. There was no need to dwell on it. I wasn’t happy knowing I’d be forced to limit contact with Rachel and my sister someday, but I had it better than some. My friends were like one big family. I had a steady job, well, internship, with plenty of opportunity to grow. I had my familiar. And, of course, I was a witch. That was pretty damn great. Even my non-magic cousin had been turned into a dhampir. She’d be in my life no matter what, now.

  Thomas lost his parents and familiar to vampires during a massacre at his high school, decades ago. TS was too young to remember it well, but he had been in first grade there and nearly died. In fact, most of my friends had experienced some level of trauma in their lives. Even I lost my father young and grew up thinking my biological mother abandoned me. Never mind a few recent brushes with death since becoming a magic…

  Still… I kissed Rak’s inky fur and he purred. No regrets.

  I grabbed my half-forgotten dinner plate and carried it into the kitchen. It was the most updated, and finest, room in the old farmhouse. Thomas, TS, and our friend Dani had owned it for nearly forty years. Dani moved out long ago, but practically still lived here. The big house always served as a gathering place for our group of friends, and old habits die hard, especially when you’re immortal. Well, older immortals maybe. I was already thinking of it as “my” house, although part of that was Thomas, and TS, making sure I felt at home.

  Just as I started getting lost in a book, my cell phone rang. It was Lynn, my biological mother. She was attacked and changed into a vampire not long after I was born, which left her hospitalized for a month while the turning process completed. Her relationship with my father was strained, mainly because she was a witch and hadn’t been able to get a permit to tell him about magic. When he came home to find his baby daughter alone and his wife gone, he assumed she left on purpose. After that, he raised me alone until he met Rachel, who just happened to be the aunt of my best friend. Then he passed away, just couple of years later.

  Rachel was really the only parent I had ever known and I thought she was the best mom ever. Which made it tough to suddenly have Lynn drop back into my life. Over the last few years the two of us had built more of a friend or sister relationship than a mother-daughter one, which I was fine with. The hard part was that since Lynn was a magic, I was able to be honest with her about everything, while I was forced to keep lying to my stepmom. Since I couldn’t even tell Rachel that Lynn was around, it made the lies even harder sometimes.

  Nevertheless, when I got off the phone I was feeling better. It was nice to not worry about keeping my story straight and just talk for a bit, especially when Thomas was at work and someone could share my concern that he’d be sent on a dangerous job.

  I was feeling hungry, so I started browsing the fridge for a late-night snack. I sensed surprise through my bond with Rak, just before I heard the sound of the front door closing. Someone was talking with Rak, and I quickly identified Thomas’ voice.

  “You’re home early,” I said, successfully finding some salsa that would go bad soon. I opened it and took a whiff. Seemed fresh. I closed the fridge and turned to see Thomas behind me, offering a bag of chips, with half a smirk. He brushed a lock of brown hair off his forehead, away from his eyes.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the bag from him.

  “Don’t eat that,” he advised, nodding to the salsa.

  “It smells okay…” I took another sniff. He shook his head in disagreement, so I shrugged. I trusted his sense of smell over mine. “If you say so.”

  He grinned and held up a new container of salsa. “Grabbed this too.”

  I laughed and hugged him, careful not to smash the chips. He was taller than me, but not by too much. It was just enough that he could give me a hello kiss on the cheek without having to stoop. He hugged me back. I fit comfortably under his arm, with my ear snug against his shoulder and my head tucked under his chin.

  “Are you home for the night?” I asked, as I pulled away.

  “Yeah, I finished up everything I needed to do and didn’t have much else going on. Stopped for a pint and then figured I’d head home.”

  “TS?”

  “He’s still at work.” His green eyes narrowed in concern. “That missing wizard case.”

  “Oh.” My stomach gave a nervous flop at the reminder. A wizard had gone missing a couple of weeks ago. He was just the latest in a string of disappearances that stretched back to before my internship started; years before, if you believed the rumors. Several cases had been linked to the same place and now people were starting to get worried. “How was work?”

  “Slow.” Thomas chuckled, then a small frown creased his brows. “I had to have a chat with Charlotte today.”

  Charlotte. The name was familiar, but it took me a second to connect it to the other intern at MES. She was in the IT department, so I rarely crossed paths with her. Most of what I knew about her was secondhand from Ember, my friend who worked in IT. Even then, Charlotte tended to keep to herself. What I did know was that she was had been changed into a dhampir only a few months ago. When a vampire turned a non-magic they became a dhampir, which were essentially vampires, albeit not as strong or fast, but still quite a bit stronger and faster than humans. The biggest difference was dhampirs lacked the ability to turn people.

  I knew firsthand how overwhelming it was to suddenly discover magic was real and try to navigate a shocking new world. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have the added complication, not to mention stress, of also having to drink blood and finding out I wasn’t human anymore.

  Understandably, Charlotte was still having some trouble adapting to being a magic. As
a non-magic, she was a skilled computer programmer, which was a sorely needed job skill among magics, so MES jumped at the chance to create an internship just for her when she expressed interest.

  “Is she okay?” I asked. He wouldn’t be telling me they had a talk if it were just a casual conversation.

  He sighed and shrugged as he eased himself into a stool by the counter. I joined him in concern, setting the chips and salsa down as I sat.

  “She is now, I guess,” he said. “I got an alert she wasn’t signed up for enough feedings this month and it’s not the first time, so I figured I should probably talk with her.”

  Thomas's job with MES was another one of those things that I couldn’t get very detailed about with Rachel. I wasn't sure what a community liaison like him would be doing at what was supposed to be a security company. Thomas dealt with all the magics in the area, residents and visitors alike, to make sure that their magical needs were being met. Among those duties was handling the blood donor schedule for vampires and dhampirs.

  Feeding without permission was illegal, as was feeding from non-magics. While vampires could, and did, drink bagged blood, roughly a third of what they drank had to be straight from the source, so to speak; otherwise they'd get sick or worse. They also needed a wide variety. Only human blood worked, which cut out a large percentage of magics who may have been willing to donate. And while I was sure some lucky vampires may have enough of a human network to provide ample blood, I doubted that someone relatively new to our world, like Charlotte, had that luxury.

  As an added perk, if you could call it that, the schedule allowed MES to know exactly when and where vampires would be feeding. It made it easy to track them. If a vampire were to turn someone else into a vampire or a dhampir – which was a crime punishable by death – it would make it incredibly difficult to try and secretly integrate them into our world because using the blood drives would immediately raise red flags.