Magic Claimed (The Shifter of Sheridan Avenue #3)

Chapter 1

ONE

I was falling again.

Tumbling wildly through the air, buffeted by winds and flying debris.

A scream ripped from my throat, but it made no sound.

Even the storm was silent as it tossed me like a leaf—boneless, weightless, discarded and forgotten.

The ground beneath me yawned wide, like a mouth preparing to swallow me whole, and I flailed in desperation, clawing the air, searching for hope.

But it was useless. The tornado spun me in violent cartwheels, and the already dim light began to flicker as consciousness faded. I was blacking out, but that was a mercy, because the ground loomed nearer… nearer…

I couldn’t die. Someone was supposed to save me. But no wings swooped out of the darkness. No powerful claws yanked me out of the storm’s clutches. I fell and fell and then hit the ground with a spine-rattling jolt…

And then I was staring at the ceiling of my bedroom, tangled in sweat-damp sheets, my heart pounding uncomfortably as flickering lights continued to dance at the corners of my vision.

Drat these stupid dreams.

It had been just over a week since I’d briefly experienced unassisted flight at the hands of an out-of-control elemental.

Just over a week since the tornado that had come so close to killing me, along with Logan, Kes, and our misguided kidnappers.

I’d survived—thanks to a literal last-second rescue by the most powerful dragon on the planet—but apparently my brain was still trying to process the trauma.

Probably didn’t help that the elemental in question was currently sleeping on the couch in my living room.

Or not sleeping, judging by the odd flashes of light coming from under the door. He must be up watching… the TV we didn’t have?

I sat bolt upright and tried to jump out of bed, but I was tripped up by the bedding and let out a muffled yelp as I fell, narrowly avoiding hitting my head on the way down.

“Raine!” Kes sounded panicky, and I could hear her patting the bed beside her. Searching for Ari—a justifiable reflex when you slept next to a six-year-old who could teleport.

Thankfully, Ari was at a sleepover with our friend, Kira.

“She’s fine,” I murmured, while struggling to extricate my legs from a sheet that was trying its hardest to impersonate a boa constrictor. “I think it’s Ethan.”

Much like me, our current houseguest had once been human. Also like me, Ethan had been kidnapped and stuffed to the brim with magic as a part of the former fae queen’s highly illegal experiments.

But as bad as my own experiences were, his had been so much worse. Nearly torn apart by the forces of uncontrollable magic, he’d spent who knew how long being sedated, exploited, and abused. Used as a magical battery and treated as a pariah by those who were terrified of his power.

Which was pretty much everyone, including me.

But he still deserved a chance at a normal life, so after we’d fought off a crew of murderous mercenaries and survived a kidnapping attempt, Ethan had come to live with us.

It had been a week now, and we’d been hoping that between Kes’s ability to drain his elemental powers and Kira’s magic-suppressing bracelet, he might be able to keep his abilities safely under control.

However, from the looks of things, we might have been overly optimistic…

After finally freeing myself from the bedding, I stumbled sleepily towards the door and eased it open, only to stumble back again with a quiet but heartfelt curse at the sight of our couch—or rather its ratty gray cushions—engulfed in flames.

And Ethan? He was lying on the floor, a throw pillow under his head, eyes closed, mouth slightly open… still sound asleep.

He’d set the couch on fire in his sleep. Somehow his unconscious mind had found a way around the bracelet’s block and unleashed his elemental magic.

Which meant we were all in so, so much trouble…

But that was a problem for future me. Right now, I needed to put out the fire before it set off the alarms, but extinguishing it would do no good if I couldn’t wake Ethan and stop him from starting more.

Given that his sleeping mind could control his magic, that meant I had to do so very carefully, or his subconscious might identify me as a threat.

“Ethan.” I kept my voice steady and calm. Hoping the sound of his name would be enough to wake him without scaring him. “Ethan, it’s Raine. You need to wake up.”

He didn’t budge, and I glanced to the side as Kes appeared at my elbow, her eyes wide and terrified.

“Can you stop him?” I hated to ask, but she nodded without hesitation, her eyes still glued to the flames.

“If you can put that out.”

Easy peasy. All I needed was a little bit of water and my own elemental magic…

I took a single cautious step forward, and that’s when the klaxon cry of the fire alarm began to blare from every room in the apartment.

A few things happened at once.

Kes let out a high-pitched yelp of surprise. Ethan’s eyes flew open, and the flames doubled in size as he struggled to orient himself. A golden glow rolled across his irises, his magic reacting to a perceived threat as he turned his head towards us…

I heard a tiny pop, and then it was officially too late for damage control. The sprinkler system activated, and our living room was abruptly flooded with a high-pressure deluge of cold water.

Kes shrieked, Ethan scrambled to his feet, and the flames died, either from his own effort or the effect of sixty gallons of water per minute dousing every surface in the room.

“We need to leave,” I called out over the sounds of the fire alarm and the rushing water.

Ethan blinked at me—still half-asleep and disoriented—but Kes seemed to recognize the urgency. She took his arm and tugged him towards the door, while I paused just long enough to rescue our phones and the kids’ tablets.

Thankfully, Logan was also gone for the weekend—spending a few days with Faris and Morghaine—so all that was left was to grab our jackets from the hooks in the utility room and then head out into the hallway to join the small crowd of terrified residents streaming towards the stairs.

I could tell when they noticed our wet clothing. Saw the sidelong glances. Heard the mutters, and sensed the distance opening up between us as we made our way down six flights of stairs and through the emergency exit door.

The January wind hit us even harder than the ground in my dream, stealing my breath away as it cut right through my soaking wet clothing.

That part, at least, I could fix, and as the three of us drew together a short distance from the rest of the residents, I reached out with my elemental power and tugged at the water that soaked us from head to toe.

I no longer had to close my eyes to sense or manipulate water.

Sometimes I still did to help my focus, but after spending the past week practicing with every spare minute I could find, the pastel landscape of my water magic seemed to overlay the mundane world whenever I chose to see it.

It was a simple matter to sweep those colors together and urge them into a nearby drain, while hoping that the darkness would conceal my actions from my already disgruntled neighbors.

Once we were dry, I handed Kes her jacket and offered one to Ethan, but he shrugged away from me, his head down and his shoulders hunched.

“We aren’t mad.” I was careful to keep both my words and my tone as gentle as possible, but he still flinched. “It’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Though it was my own turn to flinch when I thought about the damages.

The fire hadn’t lasted long enough to cause much harm, but the sprinklers…

By the time the fire department arrived to shut them off, the water would likely have already destroyed the drywall and most of the floor.

Even worse, it would probably seep down into the apartment below ours, ruining walls, cabinets, ceilings, and who knew what else for our unfortunate downstairs neighbors.

On the one hand, it was comforting to know that the owner of our building was a friend and probably wouldn’t evict us.

Faris always kept a few of the apartments open for any of his employees who found themselves in need of short-term housing, and he’d told us we were welcome to stay until we were able to afford our own place.

On the other hand, Faris was not going to be happy, and I wouldn’t blame him.

We’d promised him that Ethan would be safe around others.

That we could keep his magic from flaring out of control.

And we’d been successful so far—we just hadn’t accounted for the possibility that he could use magic in his sleep.

Now Faris was about to be faced with angry residents—many of them human—a lengthy restoration project, and probably higher insurance rates. All of this on top of everything else he was dealing with, including fines for “health code violations,” a newly suspicious city government, and worst of all?

A postponed wedding.

My friend Kira was supposed to have gotten married tonight. She and her mate, Draven, were already committed to each other in the way of shapeshifters, but she’d wanted a human ceremony, and we’d been planning it for months.

Faris had closed down The Portal for two days to prepare for the event, and the entire staff had been scheduled to help decorate the popular Idrian nightclub from the floors to the rafters with flowers and lights.

We’d planned out the food, the music, and even how to keep the wildly diverse guest list from accidentally destroying half of downtown after a little too much fae liquor.

Even now, The Portal should have been crowded with family and friends, food and drinks, laughter and dancing.

Instead, it was shuttered and dark—the ceremony postponed and the party cancelled.

And instead of joyful celebration, everyone who knew Kira was left wondering whether Draven was safe, or the Fae Court had swallowed him up forever.