CHAPTER ONE
Breslin Conner arrived at her brother’s garage just in time to hear the sharp crack of four consecutive silenced gun shots. She ran inside, magically gearing up for a fight by absorbing the rain soaking her skin and channeling its power, realizing too late that the jacket she wore was a bad idea. Her energy surged as she began to tap the Divine Realm and threw open the heavy steel door with pure power. The garage was a wreck. Bikes, tools and wires were strewn across the floor and walls, oil bleeding everywhere, sparks flying at random.
Ash lay on the cement floor of the garage, blood soaking his white t-shirt and shining on the floor around his torso. The air was thick with oil, sweat, and magic. Breslin felt her chest tighten as she knelt beside her supine and unconscious sibling. She could feel her brother’s blood soaking through the knees of her jeans, ruining them, but she didn’t care. She wished she could think, but her mind was fogged. His attackers were nowhere in sight. Breslin shielded them anyway while she tried to revive her younger sibling with her connection, tenuous as it was, to Oberon.
Sirens wailed, echoing off of the old Boston alley walls. It felt like forever before EMS stormed into the garage. Breslin released the magical shield guarding her and her brother, letting the EMS crew shove her aside as Ash continued to bleed out, slipping further from her. Ash wasn’t strong enough to resist The Devine Realm, but Breslin couldn’t think of any way to keep it from taking her only brother from her.
Breslin watched the EMS crew load Ash into their truck and hopped in after him, finding a seat against the vehicle’s cold wall. She felt her power burn, fury building inside her, so she leaned back letting the AC cool her neck a little as one EMT hooked Ash up to an IV and the other tried to stop the bleeding. She closed her eyes, knowing they were changing from their usual pale green to black as she tapped Oberon once again, trying and failing to pull the bullets from her brother’s flesh. Tears streaked reluctantly down Breslin’s freckled cheeks, fear threatening to break her steel-clad will. The bullets were coated, binding iron to Ash’s bloodstream, slowly poisoning him. The EMT nearest Breslin, raised his eyebrow in confused suspicion when she brushed Ash’s shaggy blonde bangs from his face, her eyes still closed. Thankfully, he looked away as a jolt caused Breslin’s eyes to snap open and pushed the truck doors to the rain-soaked emergency entrance of the General Hospital.
Breslin tried to figure out what was happening over the cacophony of doctors and nurses that rushed Ash into the ICU, but they ignored her, stopping her progress through the steel-bolted ICU doors. Still reeling, but able to temper her magic, Breslin turned to the receptionist at the front of the lobby.
“What’s going to happen to my brother?” The woman ignored her placing a pen and clipboard on the counter, “Fill these out please,” she droned, not even bothering to take her eyes off of her computer screen.
Breslin pounded her fist down next to the keyboard the receptionist was tapping causing the few people in the immediate vicinity to jump and blink from the brief release of power Breslin had not been able to stifle. When she had the woman’s attention, Breslin repeated her question. The nurse clenched her jaw, keeping her face stout, but her brown eyes were wide with fear, “They’re taking him into surgery to remove the bullets,” she muttered, her words clipped in attempt to get Breslin away from her counter.
Breslin’s eyes narrowed and she picked the clipboard up from the counter in the beat that followed feeling a wave of relief wash over the startled nurse as she turned her back to find a seat near the ICU doors. As she sat, Breslin noticed her clothes were streaked with Ash’s blood. A new wave of fury began building, but was easily quelled by her phone vibrating in her pocket. It was Rory, Breslin and Ash’s younger sister. What was she going to say? Breslin bit her lip and ignored the call, turning the situation over in her mind as she filled out paperwork. A few moments after the call, Rory sent her sister a text message saying simply: I know.
