Breath of Magic

  First in the Five Kingdoms of Fae series

  Trisha Lynn

  Copyright © April 2016

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, events, and places are a figment in the authors imagination or used fictitiously. Any references of historical events, real people, real places, real locales are entirely coincidence.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Nothing in this book may be redistributed in any way. The utilization or reproduction of any part of whole of this book is forbidden by the author.

  Cover design by Olivia on Fiver

  Please note there is some mature content. Sexual innuendos and explicit language.

  This book should be viewed by those ages 17+

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my mother. She was my rock and always believed in me. It was her dream I become a writer.

  Even if I'm a little late, Mom, this is for you.

  You are in my most solitary thoughts. I think of you with every gentle breeze, every crisp autumn leaf, every unique snowflake, every colorful flower bloom in my garden.

  So much of who I am is because of you. Your love, even as long as you've been gone, gives me light.

  I miss you so much. Every. Day.

  Chapter One

  Dawn painted the California sky with a brilliant array of pink and gold, thin strips of lavender clouds stretched across the landscape, to be lost in the mountain backdrop. From her family's large back deck, the view was spectacular, enough to take her breath away every single time she witnessed the sunrise. Which was often these days, begrudgingly. For over a month now she’d been waking at dawn, feeling completely awake and restless. She had thought everything in her life was perfect, or at least as much as it could be, but the restlessness brewing inside her was enough to drive her crazy, and to ultimately prove that nothing was ever perfect.

  She held the front bend yoga pose for thirty more seconds before moving on to stretch towards the sky, elongating her spine. She evened her breathing, letting her mind blank.

  She'd recently taken up yoga again in hopes that it would help ease her restlessness, put some balance and meditation back into her life. The spirituality in the movements and breathing regulated her mind and body. So far, the morning sessions did help her focus throughout the day. She tried again at night, but her mind still reeled so much while she lay in bed, that it still took her a long time to fall asleep. So far, she successfully slept only about four hours a night, but woke up feeling recharged as if she'd slept much longer. For a teenage girl, that was plain weird.

  Adeila Burton couldn't complain too much about her life. She had an amazing best friend, a great job. Maybe not the best home life, but she was used to it now to the point where her own accomplishments were hers to revel in. School was going incredibly well—so well in fact, that she had gained a half scholarship to study biology at Pierce college, which was no small feat. She had a new car, and oh, yes, the boy of her dreams. The boy she'd had a crush on for half her life.

  She should be swimming in a sea of her own blissfulness, but she wasn't. Not entirely. The restlessness that engulfed her was enough to suffocate, and not to mention the weird things she made happen sometimes. But right now, was not the time to think of that, so she tried to push those thoughts from her mind. Her focus right now needed to be getting through her final months of school and moving on to college. Something that should make her excited beyond measure, but instead left her feeling like she was leaving something behind. Like there was something more she had yet to accomplish. It left her annoyed and irritable. It certainly wasn't her family that she felt bad for leaving, as she was almost certain they wouldn't care one bit about her absence. That sad truth should have hit her harder, but instead she only felt the bitter ache of it, and like everything else she pushed it to the wayside to focus on this day. The now.

  She finished the last sip of her tea and went inside to shower and prepare for yet another day in the life of a high school senior.

  .~.

  “Oh my God!”

  Adeila jumped at her friend’s excited exclamation and looked over to where she had stopped on the stairs descending from the main gates of their small high school. Students bustled around her frozen friend, eager to get to the freedom of their cars or buses, so she sent them an apologetic smile. She loved her best friend to pieces, but her dramatics were just too much sometimes.

  “What?” She said it between the very fake smile on her lips.

  “Look!” Marissa shoved the phone to her nose. Adeila squinted and peered at the phones overly close screen. She finally made out the backside of a guy.

  He was very well muscled; the deep green t-shirt displayed his biceps and wide broad shoulders and muscled back. You could barely see the faint side view of his strong jawline.

  She shrugged. “So, who is he?”

  “New guy, I guess.”

  Adeila rolled her eyes. “Who sent that to you?”

  Although she already knew the answer. Marissa and Becky had taken gossip and boys to a whole new level.

  “Becky McAlister.”

  Adeila shook her head and made her way down the rest of the stairs, hoping her friend would follow. She unlocked her car and looked back. Luckily, her nosy friend was slowly trailing behind her, fingers furiously cascaded over the screen of her phone.

  Adeila rolled her eyes and let out a sigh as she got into her car and let her mind take in another day she could cross off her school calendar. This day was uneventful. She'd only seen Erik at lunch and at her locker, since they didn't have any classes together. Their relationship was still very fresh and was pretty much on the first level of a teenage relationship. They barely even showed any public displays of affection, some didn't even realize they were dating. Which was fine with Adeila, she was in absolutely no rush and was still getting used to the idea that Erik Thompson was even hers. Although Sadie Simms and her posse still gave her evil glares every chance they got, today she hadn’t noticed any of it. She'd also only run into her sister a few times, and the weirdness of that was slowly dissipating. As days went this had to be one of the better ones.

  She had work in a half hour, so she pulled out of the school, and headed to drop off Marissa, who continued to chatter away about the “hot” new guy, even though she hoped that the girl would reassess her evaluation of his hotness once she at least saw his face, officially met him, and had a real conversation with him. Who knew, he may be a total dick.

  .~.

  The next day Marissa picked her up, meaninglessly chatting away, again. Adeila wasn't listening, the feel of the day was charged. She'd gone out onto her deck like she had every morning, but even yoga and meditation didn't help. Everything just felt different. Like there was electricity in the atmosphere, but there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. It was utterly gorgeous, clear weather, if not unusually warm, for a late October morning in northern California. Nothing should be amiss.

  A peculiar prickling ran along her skin as she got out of Marissa's car in the school parking lot. She looked around but saw nothing suspicious other than a black pickup truck she didn't recognize a row behind hers.

  Maybe it was the leftover feelings of how she'd moved her pillow, again, that morning.

  In her waking moments when she'd felt the pillow slide off her bed, she'd put out her hand wishing it would come back, and...it had. Again. As it did every time. Things like that always seemed to charge her skin, leaving her feeling edgy.

  “Adeila!”

  She looked over and shook herself out of her thoughts. Marissa was staring at her.

  “You coming?”

  Adeila took a calming breath, grabbed the strap of her bag, and headed to her friend’s side. She tried not to think about the strangeness of what she had made happen in the night. She was terrified she’d make something crazy happen in front of someone, so she tried her best to not think of anything at all. Blanked her mind to everything but her friends chatter, and the Calculus test she had to take second period.

  Adeila had been accidentally “moving” things, apparently, with her mind, for over a year. First time it had been the TV remote. It had happened one night when she'd been home alone. A rarity that she ate up every chance she got. Her parents were having a date night and her younger brother and sister were over friends’ houses. She'd sat on the couch, bowl of buttery popcorn in her lap, with plans of binge watching her favorite teenage werewolf drama when she'd been unable to locate the remote. Finally, she'd spied it, on the mantle of the fireplace where the television was mounted. She remembered thinking at the time, what a completely useless spot for the remote to get placed. She'd blamed her father, who left things scattered about the house, all the time, in strange inexplicable places.

  Cursing him, she'd harmlessly reached out her hand in innocent, lazy desperation and asked the remote to come to her; just as she was getting ready to lower her hand and get up from her comfy cocoon to get the remote, it had shakily lifted from its spot on the mantle and drifted slowly, haphazardly towards her. In utter horror, she had leapt off the couch and sprinted into the kitchen. The remote had dropped onto the floor as soon as her concentration had been broken.

  She'd refused to touch the remote for days, insisting to herself that the hallucination had been brought on by lack of sleep and too much studying.

  Two weeks later she'd done it with her pillow for
the first time. It had fallen off the bed, and she'd woken up with her head on the mattress. She'd blearily looked around and then held out her hand and wished for her pillow, and it had shakily floated to her outstretched palm. She'd dropped it instantly to the ground when she was awake enough to understand what had happened.

  She'd tried to remember anything she had eaten that night that could have given her hallucinations, or where she'd gone that someone may have laced her drink or something.

  After that she tried to do it on purpose just to make sure she really wasn't hallucinating. Every time she'd stretched out her hand and really focused and asked for something, it had come to her. An electrical current like buzzing, humming along her skin, was the only indication that made her truly comprehend that it was her moving these objects. It was entirely her doing, and it wasn't exactly easy either. It was a process, and never a smooth one, but it always worked for her if she focused her energy on the task.

  Completely freaked out by the entire thing, she'd learned to just not ask for anything. It may have been a useful power, but it was a power nonetheless, and that was just too weird. She hadn't dared to tell anyone. She made sure every day when she was around people, she was extremely careful about what she said. The saying “be careful what you wish for” had taken on a whole new light. She was too scared to tell anyone, afraid she'd be labeled a freak and her parents would send her to a mental institute or worse. The whole situation, as interesting as it was, scared her witless.

  She had no idea how to explain the phenomenon. She'd tried to ask her mom about their ancestry, maybe she had some Wiccan practicing women in her bloodlines or something to explain the power, but her mother had completely shut her down. Somewhat rudely, so she hadn’t dared to breach the subject again. Those ancestry websites hadn't gotten her anywhere either, so she'd given up and just began watching her words each day to make sure no one saw her little use her “powers” or whatever the heck they were.

  .~.

  “Earth to Adi!”

  Her mind lifted from the fog it had been suspended under and she focused on the pretty face of her best friend.

  “Yeah, ah, sorry. Didn't sleep well last night.”

  “What's gotten into you lately? You’re acting so strange!” Her friend’s eyes brightened, and then narrowed. “Is it Erik?”

  Adeila almost winced with guilt. She'd been thinking of Erik less and less since the restlessness and worry about her weird little power issues. She was supposed to be over the moon with him, since she had wanted him most of her life, but stress of school, and fear of someone discovering she was a freak sucked up most of her thoughts these days. Leaving little room for the athletic, smart, and not to mention gorgeous “boyfriend” of hers.

  She could only shake her head to Marissa. She'd been really neglecting Marissa and Erik lately. She barely left the house anymore, afraid she'd say something wrong, and the words would get her in trouble.

  She was always worried in school. Just imagine wishing she hadn't left a book in her locker, just to have it come zooming down the halls after her, hitting students in its wake.

  Just the thought made her shiver with the embarrassment and the complete upheaval it would cause. She would be labeled a freak and tossed into an institution. She had to focus on school, studying, not saying the wrong thing, and her future. Hopefully, whatever she had going on would pass. It made her appear like a total nerd but in all honesty, it was more for the safety of her secret than being the teacher’s pet.

  She always felt bad lying to Marissa, but she just couldn't confide in her what was going on. At least ninety percent of her life now she had to be on guard and ensure she didn't say or wish for the wrong thing. Even her job, her wonderful, quiet job she had to be careful.

  Dusty Cover Books and Cafe was a great place to work. The owner was an eccentric middle-aged woman that loved everything fantasy and witchcraft and had interesting items scattered all about the store.

  Adeila hated that the bookstore was now a constant reminder of the weird power—or whatever it was—that she somehow possessed.

  She did pick a glance at a witchcraft book now and again to see what it said about her “powers”. Other than bits and pieces written with spells, all she had discovered was that it was a loose form of telekinesis. She wasn't even sure if that was really it or not, and she most certainly wasn't saying a spell to achieve the affect. So, the witchcraft idea was up in the air.

  Despite that, however, something about the atmosphere in the store always seemed to calm her. Last night it had been no different, the book store had given her a bit of serenity. Working itself had given her something for her mind to focus on, and she didn't have to worry about students milling about and judging her. Her shift ended at seven-thirty and on her way home she had called Erik and they'd talk about school and sports.

  It had been a perfectly normal night. She'd slept like a rock, and telling Marissa differently felt wrong but what else could she say? As much as her best friend meant to her, and as much as she trusted her, she just couldn’t bring herself to talk to Marissa about what was going on with her.

  Marissa was like ice cream on a hot day, or the perfect snow angel. Their friendship was something that ran deep and strong, and it made Adeila feel guilty hiding things and lying to her, but she felt as though as much as she loved Marissa, their friendship would change if she told her anything of the powers. Marissa was, well, a gossip. Not that she’d ever divulged information about Adeila, herself, but she knew her friend had a hard time hiding things. She was loud and boisterous, and Adeila wasn’t as much afraid of Marissa thinking her a freak, as she was about Marissa wanting to record her doing something to show the world. Marissa would love having such a power, and the attention it would bring. Adeila, was the total opposite, which is likely why they were such good friends. Marissa reminded Adeila to lighten up, and Adeila kept Marissa grounded. In all things in life, they were the perfect friends, but when it came to powers, they would have very vast difference on how to handle it, and since it was Adeila’s life at stake…she simply chose not to share that tiny tidbit about herself.

  Sighing, Adeila forced herself out of the funk she was in and focused on her best friend, who looked exceptionally beautiful today. The skinny jeans and thin white sweater accented her short five-three stature; her hair was in perfect curl mode, with the blonde tresses falling in tight waves to her shoulders. Her brows were waxed into a perfect arch; her big brown eyes were perfectly accented with shadow and mascara, which highlighted the honey brown flecks in them. Her skin was tanned and smooth, and perfect. Marissa really was the perfect girl next door. She wasn't insanely beautiful but close to it, and she had a warm, bubbly, caring personality that suited her looks. Originally from Louisiana, Marissa had moved to California when she was ten. She and Adeila had been best friends since Marissa's first day of school.

  Adeila couldn't help but smile at her.

  Marissa put her hands on her hips. “I don't know what's gotten into you, Burton, but I'm sick and tired of it! One minute you’re ignoring me as if I'm a skunk under your porch, and the next you’re looking at me with that super creepy grin of yours!”

  Marissa threw up her hands, but a faint smile played on her glossed lips. Adeila loved when her friends Louisiana accent or “twang” came out, her southern roots shining through.

  “You know you can't stay mad at me. I've got a lot on my mind. I'm sorry for being so distant.” Adeila batted her lashes dramatically at her best friend.

  Marissa sighed, rolled her eyes, and put her arm through Adeila's. “That's okay! Today I'm making it my mission to see if the newbies front-side, matches his back-side!”

  Adeila groaned but sauntered along with her friend to their shared first period class. She passed her freshmen sister and did nothing but nod to her. The girl had made it clear that she didn't want Adeila to acknowledge her in school. She had wanted very separate lives while on school grounds and Adeila had tried to accommodate.