Solar Shadows (Celestial Magic #3)

Chapter 1

ISAAC

The dopamine was wild tonight.

I sipped on champagne, reveling in a glorious bubble bath while listening to my playlist of solo Spice Girls music, totally in my element.

“Sing it, Vicky,” I said, enjoying ‘Like That’ by Victoria Beckham. An underrated bop in my opinion.

The Spice Girls were a massive comfort for me. Their music soundtracked my life, getting me through dark times, happy times, and all the stuff in-between.

I couldn’t do life without them.

The tunes and the steamy water worked together to ease the stresses of the day. Now all I needed was a steamy man to join me. Maybe Taylor Zakhar Perez. I’d been having plenty of sex dreams about him lately, the two of us getting up to some seriously naughty fun.

Was there a spell out there to summon a man into your bath and have him feed you strawberries after he plowed you into next week?

There should be!

Ah, Taylor would be the cherry on top of this sweet cake of an evening.

I’d like to lick his frosting…

I snorted to myself, surrounded by a range of soapy bubbles shimmering under the soft lights of this white-and-gold bathroom.

After a day of what I called ‘celestial grief,’ I finally got to enjoy some selfcare time. The scrumptious heat unknit my muscles and soothed my mind from an abundance of overthinking.

“I’m never getting out,” I declared as the playlist went from Posh Spice to Sporty Spice, playing her song ‘Blame It On Me.’ Yes! What a banger!

Less than a minute later, there was a knock on the bathroom door.

Fuck it. Why did I tempt fate with my bathtub declaration?

“Yes?” I snapped.

“It’s me,” Riley’s voice answered. “Sorry to bother you.”

My irritation softened because he was my little brother and I couldn’t get mad at him. “What’s up?”

“Is that Mel C I hear?” he asked.

“You know it.”

“Fabulous. I love this song.” He cleared his throat, shifting from jovial to serious. “Erin thinks we should check out some weirdness at the fairground.”

Cue heavy sighing from me.

As much as I’d love to say no, it wasn’t possible. My overwhelming sense of duty as The Sun kicked in.

“I’ll be right out,” I said.

Oh, well. The special bath time bliss had been fun while it lasted.

“Sorry, Mel,” I said, and forced myself out of the bubbles.

But when sacred duty calls, one must answer.

Darn it.

The car rolled up to the tall, chained gates of the abandoned Happy Harry’s Fairground on the western limits of Coldharbour. It was a dark and dreary place with a lonely energy I wanted to leave immediately. Goosebumps prickled my skin, an icy tongue working my spine.

“Creepy,” I muttered, pulling on the door handle.

“Massively,” Riley agreed from beside me.

I stepped out into the cold February air, a bitter breeze hitting me in the face.

Two lampposts either side of the gates lit up a murky puddle beside my feet.

Hecate Crystals grew around the bottom of the fences in clusters of three and four.

The shimmering shards were the source of all magic on Earth, growing everywhere across the globe.

Without them, none of the four types of witches would survive.

Rolling my shoulders, breathing out wisps of condensation, I considered the fairground.

The moon cast a smattering of lunar light on it, faintly highlighting the shadowy husks of the rides beyond the tall perimeter fences.

They sat there like sad relics from long-dead glory days of fun and frivolity.

The tallest was a Ferris wheel, its silhouette the most prominent of all, and the creepiest. I wasn’t sure why, but it gave me intense heebie-jeebies.

Did we really have to go in there?

I shivered, licking my lips and longing for my bathtub and Taylor fantasies.

Riley joined me on the other side of the car, letting out a sigh. “Call me negative, but something tells me Preston’s not in there.”

I smiled, ruffling his hair. “Honey, you’re anything but negative.”

“Thanks,” he answered brightly, giggling at my move of affection.

His laugh was an antidote to the eerie energy of this place. And he was right, The Star wasn’t in there. Still, we couldn’t assume anything in these crazy days.

Always be ready for the unexpected, and never shy away from investigating dodgy activity. Explore every angle, never give up, and smite any fucker who tried it.

Oh, and don’t get killed.

As if to counter Riley’s warmth, the wind blew harder, rattling the gates, setting off a chorus of creaks in the darkness of the fairground beyond.

The writhing fear in my belly came with being a sacred witch of House Aurora.

It was my destiny to fight the good fight, to rock up to places like this, whether I liked it or not.

And while a small part of me wanted to run for the hills, I’d come too far and seen too much to turn my back on everything.

Riley and the world were counting on me. An apocalyptic threat was rising, and I needed to be on the frontline when the true big bad finally showed its face.

Right now, there were two contenders jostling for prime position.

Firstly, the strange fae woman trapped in Blue Orchard, her motives mysterious. Secondly, Marcus Kingwood, the head of House Kingwood, and son of Kane Kingwood—the creator of shadow magic and the endlessly irritating shades.

Marcus. The fuckhead who’d performed a spell to summon Preston at the expense of his daughter Rhianna’s unborn child in a fucked-up shadow magic ritual.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Marcus had been in a relationship with my littlest brother. Apparently. Called him ‘my darling,’ which made my guts throb just thinking about it.

Gross.

But something wasn’t right with Preston. The way he’d looked so vacant, not saying a word. Empty. We were missing something, the puzzle pieces too scattered for us to shove them together yet.

We’ll figure it out, I told myself. Because we would. Because we would be three brothers together under one roof to kick the arse of the bad shit. Drag the monsters into the light and burn them to ashes.

Soon…

Preston definitely wasn’t here tonight. Why would he be? Marcus wouldn’t offer him up so easily. And shadow witches were notoriously hard to find, even for the High Coven. Anyway, the prick had given us an ultimatum.

If we wanted to meet our brother properly, a guy we desperately needed to fulfill our full potential as Aurora triplet witches, then we had to join House Kingwood—become shadow witches, betray Hecate’s blessing.

I’d rather mount a spear.

Time was running out. There was only a week left until Marcus’s deadline of eleven o’clock next Thursday. If we didn’t comply, the city would suffer. And we still didn’t have much of a plan to thwart him.

Darn it!

We’ll make this right, littlest brother, I thought to The Star.

I folded my arms, eyeing up the thick chain and padlock on the fairground gate, wondering who lurked in the darkness. Shadow witches? Shimmer witches? A goblin cult with lofty ambitions of world domination calling this shithole a lair?

Drake, my brother’s boyfriend and a scrying witch, had already used his special searching power to confirm The Star wasn’t here. He wasn’t anywhere, his magic finding zero trace of him. And he scryed every day, constantly coming up empty. Bless him hard for trying, though.

One day…

A report from one of the supporters of House Aurora about strange activity inside the fairground brought us here. Weird noises, odd lights. One of them even mentioned starlight, and that was enough to get us moving.

These supporters were mysterious ‘friends’ of our cause, working on the downlow. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever encounter these people, but it was amazing to have strangers out there having our back.

Dropping my arms, I rolled my shoulders and said, “Let’s do this.”

Jake and Ollie exited the car, joining us.

“I hate his place,” Jake complained, scratching under his eyepatch.

Agent Jake Winter was a witchcop, our High Coven liaison, and totally part of our circle. He’d always worked as a secret contact for Erin Lovell until he got promoted to his new official position.

Agent Ollie Lovell had been appointed as an official witchcop last week.

He was Erin’s son and used to be the mansion’s handyman.

Now he wore the white uniform with blue piping and a blue beret, looking fine as fuck.

He’d been ordered to work with Jake as Assistant Liaison, and the pair of them were also good friends.

Tall and handsome with muscles for days, his rich dark-brown skin was destined to meet my tongue one day. Well, only in my dreams. In reality, Ollie looked at me with icy indifference.

There’d been a moment when I thought we’d sparked by the way he’d stared at me in a not-so-frosty way.

Riley suggested maybe Ollie was seeing me outside of my supermodel persona for the first time.

Only, it never happened again. He went right back to his default, and I just stuck to fancying the pants off him from the sidelines.

Darn it. Why did I have to be so disarmed by his hazel eyes? And why did his rejection only throw fuel on my sexy fires?

I blamed my loneliness and the serious love drought I’d been languishing in.

Jake stepped forward, getting to work on picking the padlock with a special witchcop tool.

Ollie glanced at me for the briefest of moments, then joined his fellow agent without a word.

Does he really hate me?

It’d suck hippo balls if he did. There were enough trolls out there who already sent me plenty of hate.

Riley took my arm. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good. You?” I gave his hand a gentle pat.

“Fine, apart from chilly.”

Drake, also on this mission with us, kissed him on the cheek. “Poor sexypie. I’ll warm you up later.”

My brother’s blue eyes twinkled, a flush of pink glowing in his pale, alabaster face.

I rolled my eyes. “PDA here? Really?”

Riley giggled, tracing a finger along the radiant copper skin of his boyfriend’s neck.