Emergence: Return of Magic book 1 Read Free Page A

a
clingy shirt that had been torn in a few very interesting places.  Her
body was on the voluptuous side and the clothes left very little to the
imagination.
    She sobbed and jumped forward into his arms.
    He didn’t entirely know what to do, so he put his arms
around her and made a soothing noise.  He was also getting hard, she felt
really good in his arms.  Not that he would ever act on that, but he
couldn’t help his body’s natural reaction to such a beautiful female form.
    His voice wasn’t confident, but neither did he stammer,
“You’re safe, what’s your name?”
    She said in a cold hard voice, completely devoid of fear or
upset, “Cynthia,” and then he felt a sharp sting in his side.
    He fell back on the floor, and looked up.  He saw a
knife in her hand, and a feral grin on her beautiful face.  What the
fuck?  He should have known better, but between his protective instincts
and thinking with his dick he never questioned the hug.  Damn he was an
idiot.
    She stalked past him and started trashing his kitchen.
    “Where’s the food!”
    The bitch had stabbed him for his food?  Led right to
his apartment because of the candles, he should have put the throw rug across
to block the light.  He knew most of the apartments around him were
abandoned now.  He could feel his life force draining out with the blood,
and he felt a surge of anger.  She stabbed him, and was letting him bleed
out, fuck that.  He wished he could hit her.
    Then he heard a rat’s squeak and the woman screamed. 
He could taste her blood on his tongue, no… that was the rat, his life force
connected them somehow.  Apparently it had automatically acted on his
wishes.  Good rat zombie he thought at it, and he laughed a little
hysterically.  He was feeling a little queasy, running out of life
force.  He needed more, and while he wasn’t a murderer, surely this would
be self-defense.
    “You bitch, you’re the fucking food,” he growled in pain.
    He reached out for that bright beacon of life in her chest,
and pulled…
     

Chapter
3 – Kurien
    Kurien Oakleaf stood at the window and stared out at the
storm.  The return was over a thousand years in the coming.  He’d
been born in the other realm, his mother, Sianne, had been but a child when the
elves and dragons left the prime plane to escape humanity, to preserve their
race and the world.  The decision to leave had been his grandmother’s,
Brielle.
    But something was wrong, it had been several hours, and
Merlin still had not returned to the council chambers to update them on the
affairs of the world.  He’d never met the man of course, but he’d heard
all the stories.
    “Anything mother?” he asked deferentially.
    Sianne shook her head, “I cannot sense him at all.”
    Trielle, Brielle’s successor as the high priestess on the
council sighed, “I can feel his power only, I believe the mantel has been
passed.”
    There was dead silence for a few long moments, the others in
the room shocked by the statement.
    Lianthenielima, or Lian for short, was the only remaining
living council member from that time, his voice rumbled with discontent.
    “Something must have gone very wrong.  We must send out
a mission to determine what happened, and the current status of the
world.  We should find the old sorcerer’s successor as well, though why
hasn’t he come in his stead?”
    Trielle answered, “I don’t know, except she is very
far to the south east.  Merlin was not with her when he cast the spell to
rejoin the realms.  I can only assume this wasn’t planned, and cost him
his life.  It is possible his successor doesn’t even understand her fate.”
    He shuddered, and wondered what would cause the great
sorcerer to give his life, whatever it was must have taken him unawares.
    Sianne asked, “Is that all?”
    Trielle sighed, “Perhaps I will glean more soon. 
Without magic in the prime realm, the gods themselves would have been cut off
as well.  I fear for now