Forgotten Magic Read online

  Forgotten Magic

  Eden Butler

  FORGOTTEN MAGIC

  By

  Eden Butler

  Copyright © 2020 Eden Butler

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  Edited by Yelena Casale.

  Cover Design by Mibl Art.

  All stock photos licensed appropriately.

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  Published in the United States by City Owl Press.

  www.cityowlpress.com

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  For information on subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher at [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior consent and permission of the publisher.

  Praise for Eden Butler

  “Butler’s tantalizing fantasy romance, originally self-published as Crimson Cove, burns slow and hot…The magical elements are electric and the chemistry between Bane and Janiver is delicious. Butler builds the tension slowly, carefully pulling story threads to a satisfying but open ended climax. Readers will be eager to return to Crimson Cove.” - Publishers Weekly

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  “Butler’s LUSH descriptions evoke the love and terror the past couples feel as they face violence that threatens their relationships and lives. The complex structure crystallizes into an impressive resolution that ties up loose threads hidden in the very first pages. This SPLENDID story is destined for many a keeper shelf.” - Publishers Weekly Starred Review

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  “I am so overwhelmed by the quality of [Eden Butler’s] writing. I am getting emotional just thinking about it.” - Natasha Is A Book Junkie

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  “Beautifully written, skillfully interwoven, a wonder of a tale. It's not often that I am truly impressed, but Eden Butler has blown me away.” - New York Times & USA Today Bestselling author Amy Harmon

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  “Infinite Us is a gripping story of the roots that define us, the hardships that test us, and the healing power of love and acceptance. It's a testament to how far we've come and how very far we have to go.” - J.A. DeRouen, Bestselling Author of Low Over High

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  “Eden is a masterful storyteller who takes mere words and turns them into magic. She takes you on an intoxicating journey that refuses to let go. Infinite Us is an unforgettable story that'll leave you breathless.” - Cassie Graham, Bestselling Author of Who Needs Air

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  “Simultaneously commercial and literary—a thinking person's romance.” - Christopher Ledbetter, Author of The Sky Throne Series

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  “Butler shines again in this emotionally moving tale of love, despite life and its trials and tribulations. The writing is crisp, lyrical and the flat out FEELS between the characters leak from the pages straight into your heart. You WILL be moved.” - Trish F. Leger, Author of the Amber Druid Series

  To the old guy who rolled his eyes

  when he read about the kissing bits in this book:

  I’m smiling at you in southern.

  Bless your heart.

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

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  Acknowledgments

  Also By Eden Butler

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Additional Titles

  The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.

  – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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  Want more from Eden Butler? Try her timeless love story, INFINITE US, and more at www.edenbutler.com

  Love is timeless…

  Nash Nation loves zeroes and ones, over-sized monitors, and late office hours. He’s too busy taking over the world to make time for relationships—that is, until his new neighbor Willow O’Bryant barges into his life, and now Nash can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t the first time she’s interrupted his world.

  Then, the dreams start. And in the dreams—memories.

  Memories of a girl named Sookie who couldn’t count on love or friendship, never mind forever. Memories of a library and a boy called Isaac and secrets made in private that destroyed his world.

  The memories seem real, but who do they belong to?

  When Nash and Willow discover the truth, life as they know it unravels.

  The bridge between this life and the next is shored up by blood and bone and memory. Sometimes, that bridge leads to the place we’ve always wanted to be.

  BUY NOW!

  One

  Magic is elemental. It’s a full-bodied thread in all that we are. To me, to all my folk—witches and wizards of every make and the other supernatural creatures that co-exist in our ley line-loving world—magic simply is.

  It was magic that lived deep inside me, hidden beneath the wretch of who I’d been, of what I’d done ten years ago at age eighteen. My father would call me a hypocrite— if we were still talking. He’d tell me that keeping myself from the covens in New York and from my family back in Crimson Cove, keeping myself from the life he taught me to be proud of, was a coward’s way.

  I was a witch only when it served my purposes.

  Like now, slipping inside the dreams of such a talented writer. My client, Ivanna Ride (pseudonym, of course), was the hottest thing in erotic romance. She outsold and out published even the most popular authors and she did it on her own. There was no major house working behind her. Just Ivanna, her clever English-nerd husband, and me, Janiver Benoit, graphic artist extraordinaire. Well, that might be pushing it. It was magic that made me extraordinary and it was my gifts that helped me slip inside Ivanna’s mind and discover the theme, the vibe, the truly disturbing imagery she saw when she dreamt of her characters.

  This time around it was Kjel, the 1050 A.D. Viking warrior in love with an enemy clan leader’s daughter. Blood and war and lots of sex. That’s what I had to make come to life on the cover of her book.

  Walking inside Ivanna’s mind was like taking a stroll through a Renaissance Fair—on acid. The mist around me as I stepped into her dream was thick, a clotting smell that stuck in the back of my throat and choked me with the heavy scent of lavender. It hung in my sinuses, made my dry mouth collect with saliva. But on the back of that scent was something I recognized only vagu
ely as sweat. In Ivanna’s dreams, there was sex. It became apparent that’s what she had in mind, literally, when her REM cycle kicked into high gear.

  Kjel—or who I took for Kjel—stood barefoot atop a bear skin rug in a rugged stone hut, glaring down at some whimpering, silly girl who looked more turned on than frightened. She was the enemy’s daughter knocking on the door of womanhood, looking at Kjel like she wanted him to guide her way through it.

  With a shudder of sound and the shift of light, the scene changed and the small room with its dirt floor became a boudoir with fine, cerise linens and a massive four-poster bed. The girl’s face transformed to mimic something like Ivanna’s. At least, how she’d looked this afternoon when I listened to her babble on and on about the pending Kjel series and her vision for the rest of her books, her promo graphics, and the blog tours she wanted to organize.

  I’d listened to her politely, nodding where appropriate as this mid-forties woman tucked strands of curly brown hair behind her ear. Damn. Was it petty of me to notice that there was gray flirting in those strands near her temples? She guzzled on an iced coffee as she talked, never once asking for my opinion or curious about what ideas might have come to me when I’d read the manuscript. That didn’t bother me, though, not really. My clients typically didn’t want to know what I thought. They just wanted to make sure I made magic happen on their covers and their promo materials.

  Funny how close that was to the truth.

  I’d listened to Ivanna for nearly an hour, sipping my own Venti English Breakfast Tea, more interested in the chipping black paint on my fingernails and the wadded napkin Ivanna had used to wipe her mouth. That would be the souvenir I’d take to give me access to her dreams.

  Magic, no matter what fantasy authors or Renaissance vendors tell you, is just an old school name for the things mortals want proof of to believe. Everything we do has to be logical, must have an explanation.

  It is true that there has to be basis for every spell or hex. There has to be something elemental that connects our target or, in my case, client, to the magic we twist. It isn’t simply supernatural. It’s dependent on the natural. Magic elevates it. That’s why I needed Ivanna’s napkin. It was something she’d held, something that she’d left a bit of herself behind on, and it was the element I needed to slip into her dreams.

  But I didn’t like doing it—dreamwalking. Not like this. It was an invasion that made me feel cheap and simple. Intruding into someone else’s private dreams? Seeing the things they’d never freely admit to desiring? I was like some kind of perv trying to make my clients happy by copying their own imaginations.

  Still, it paid the bills. So I stalked in the shadows in my client’s dreamworld. Kjel and dream Ivanna were starting to go at it. Bleaching my eyeballs was the first order of business when I woke up, which needed to happen right now. I had work to do.

  I started that slow awakening, the controlled transition that would bring me out of Ivanna’s mind and back to the “real” world. It was a simple enough process—a little focus on my breathing, on the things around me. I drew upon a picture in my mind’s eye of my tiny apartment, of myself lying in only a black tank and red boy shorts, my dark hair covering my face, tattoos and runes dotting around my ankles, thighs, up the side of one bicep. The black ink was shaped in ancient languages, looping around my arm, connected to a black and gray rose on my left shoulder.

  Things were calm, my mind working effortlessly to bring me back safely, away from Ivanna’s Viking wet dream and her saccharine world. I was nearly there, watching myself sleep, turn beneath my white sheets, knocking over an empty tumbler on my bedside table—not the bourbon, thank God—and then, the alert of a video chat on my laptop blasted across the room.

  Jani! Jani! The alarming scream of my brother’s voice shot through the slow retreat my mind made. Sam’s voice became a grating, loud yelp that made my chest constrict as my heart sped.

  Jani! Jani, for the gods’ sake, wake up!

  And I did, jerking from my sheets, sending my pillows shooting onto the floor and the thick gasp of air in my lungs coming out like a yelp.

  “Shit!”

  The bell alert from my laptop lying on the floor next to my bed kept ringing, that low, constant loop that announced an incoming video call. Sam hadn’t actually spoken to me, but still had a way of scaring the hell out me, nineteen hundred miles away. My brother could call to me, unannounced, whenever he wanted, but especially when I was unconscious. The annoying sibling connection was a nuisance I’d never be rid of.

  “Stupid, intrusive…” My laptop flopped against the mattress when I picked it up and jammed my finger on the surface to accept the call. I didn’t bother letting my big brother explain a damn thing. “You asshole, I was in someone’s dream.”

  “Well hey to you too, little sister.”

  A quick glance at my cell phone to cut off the insistent text I knew Sam had sent me and I caught the time. Shit, someone was probably dead.

  “Who died?” My brother’s small chuckle was the only thing that made me relax enough to leave the bed and tug on my jeans.

  “No one yet, though I’m pretty close to killing your brother-in-law.” My brother always blamed me when shit hit the fan, and from his tone, I’d guessed that this time the shit had slammed into the proverbial fan in buckets.

  Still, that wasn’t my fault. “Ronan is your brother-in-law too, Samedi.”

  “Yeah.” The frustration was heavy in his voice at my using his full name. “Well Mai is your twin, Janiver, and since it’s her husband that started all this shit, it should be you that gets us out of it.”

  Mai was younger than me by only four minutes, but somehow we were years apart. I always picked up the pieces when she let her world fall apart—like it was now, with her in the middle of a bad breakup with her lazy, perpetually cheating husband. Still, it wasn’t my fight.

  “You’ve got the wrong twin.”

  I cut Sam off from whatever excuse I knew he was going to use when he cleared his throat by shaking my head and reaching out to grab the bottle of bourbon that had been sitting on the table beside my bed. I took a deep pull on the bottle, despite the glare my brother gave me. “Ask Mai to work out this mess.”

  “She can’t. She’s gone off the rails.”

  That meant trouble. It was habit, something my twin did when she couldn’t handle the messes she’d made for herself.

  “What…” A small exhale and I readied for the bad news I suspected was coming. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s back at Papa’s and won’t come out of her room.”

  “Circe help us.”

  The bourbon didn’t burn when it went down, despite the long swig I took. My throat had grown numb to the sting of liquor a long damn time ago, and the small little noise of judgment Sam made got completely ignored. When you numb yourself in order to forget, something that had become one of my more practiced habits, you tend to get used to both the bite and the judgment, no matter where they come from.

  Mai’s hiding away—my twin’s way of forgetting—wasn’t the worst of the situation. Not by a long damn shot.

  “She caught him with that same stripper from last year.”

  “The one with the pixie cut?”

  “Yeah, whatever, but this time he didn’t bother begging Mai not to kick him out.” Sam leaned on his arm, rubbing the back of his neck. His complexion was darker than mine or Mai’s, taking on more of our mother’s Haitian creole features than our blue-eyed father’s French, but like both me and Mai, Sam had full lips and hazel eyes. We were all a good mix of both our parents. “Papa thought giving Ronan a job would maybe keep that asshole from running off for weeks at a time.” Sam looked tired, like he hadn’t bothered with sleep in days. My stomach tightened at the thought, and I couldn’t quite ignore the weight in my chest that settled there. My brother had enough to deal with. He didn’t need Mai’s jackass of a husband doubling up his anxiety.

  “Bet that was pointl
ess.”

  “You got no idea.” Sam released one long exhale and scrubbed a hand against his fade at the back of his head. He’d abandoned the short afro he’d grown out the last time I saw him and looked more like himself. “He totally fucked us over.”

  “What do you mean? What happened?”

  “If Papa hadn’t let Ronan take care of so many clients when they came calling, none of this would have happened. He just botched up too many jobs, was too sloppy, and I was too busy to notice that his haplessness had become a serious problem.”

  The whole time he had been talking to me, Sam had kept looking at his cell phone. It wasn’t like him to let a text distract him. The string of beeps coming from his phone was odd, but the expression on his face was almost funny. Almost.

  “The whole damn town is talking about it. Papa says if we can’t pull in a big client, our name will be ruined.” Another heavy sigh and Sam threw down his cell. “Not to mention all the damn attention we’ve been getting from the mortals.”