Wings of Light Read online

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  Synopsis

  Get a FREE, EXCLSUVE Short Story

  Also by Katerina Martinez

  Follow the Author!

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Author's note

  Follow the Author!

  About the Author

  Also by Katerina Martinez

  Copyright

  WINGS OF LIGHT

  The Obsidian Order

  Book One

  By Katerina Martinez

  Learn to fight. Pass my trials. Stay alive.

  As long as I can keep my supernatural origins hidden, my life is simple. It’s just my best friend and me against the world, eating dried Ramen and peas, watching reality TV, and laying low in the city that never sleeps.

  That is until Draven, a dangerously attractive hunter, tracks me down and kidnaps me. He’s with the Obsidian Order, and he gives me a choice: join their ranks or die. All I have to do is pass a series of deadly trials, competing against a bunch of supernaturals who want me dead. Sounds easy, right?

  There’s one problem with that; I have no memories of my past, which means I don’t have the skills to compete. Now, I have to learn magic—fast—because I’ve been promised my best friend will die if I fail, and if we both die, the secret we’re carrying could fall into the wrong hands.

  Then it’s all over.

  For a limited time only, you can grab a FREE novella to one of Katerina’s other series by signing up to the authors’ reader group email lists. To opt in, click on the link below and go through the quick sign up process. There’s no spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

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  Also by Lee Dignam & Katerina Martinez

  Magic Blood Series

  The Warlock

  Book 1: Demons and Deception

  Book 2: Mages and Masquerades

  Book 3: Scions and Sorcery

  Book 4: Hellfire and Homicide

  Book 5: Warlocks and Wickedness

  Magic Blood Series

  The Primal

  Book 1: Hunter’s Calling

  The Blood and Magick Series

  Book 1: Magick Reborn

  Book 2: Demon’s Kiss

  Book 3: Witch’s Wrath

  The Half-Lich Series

  THE HALF-LICH BOXED SET

  Book 1: Dark Siren

  Book 2: The Void Weaver

  Book 3: Night and Chaos

  The Amber Lee Series

  THE AMBER LEE BOXED SET

  Book 1: True Witch

  Book 2: Dark Witch

  Book 3: Shadow Witch

  Book 4: Red Witch

  Book 5: Devil’s Witch

  The Cursed and Damned Series

  Book 1: The Dead Wolves

  The Order of Prometheus Series

  Book 1: Smoke and Shadows

  Book 2: Cloak and Daggers

  You can also join Katerina’s Inner Circle of Mages on Facebook, where you’ll be able to interact with her directly, whenever you want! That’s also where she’ll be sharing early snippets, early cover reveals, and more contests!

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  ***

  Dedicated to 2019… don’t be an asshole.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The last thing I wanted to do tonight was fight a balding Naga in some dingy apartment in the middle of Brooklyn, but it looked like that was on the agenda. It was bad enough that I’d had to spend most of the last 10 years dodging Fiends, recruiters from different Orders, and hostile native supernaturals, but having to also fight creatures from my own world was a real pain in the balls.

  I spun around in time to watch a ball of black magic curl toward me and strike me in the chest. The impact sucked the air out of my lungs, and the force of the explosion tossed me through a door and across someone’s living room like I was weightless, but I hit the floor like a rock. I was sure I’d heard something crack—I’d feel that in the morning, assuming I lived through this—but I was alive for now, at least.

  Debris and shattered glass crunched underneath me as I rolled onto my back and stared up at the cracked ceiling and moldy walls, wondering why in the hell it had to be tonight.

  “Sssssseline,” came a voice from the shifting dark, the S in my name drawn out like a hiss. “Why do you always run from me?”

  I turned to my side and blinked hard, trying to stand. “New phone,” I called out, groaning the words as I hoisted myself upright, “Who ‘dis?” He’d gotten stronger since the last time we’d crossed paths, but I liked pissing him off by pretending I didn’t know who he was.

  Dust and glittering motes of magic residue billowed, whirling around the figure advancing slowly toward me. “You think you’re really funny,” he said, his serpentine voice lingering in the air, “We’ll see how funny you are when I’ve ripped that tongue out of your pretty little mouth.”

  “Sheesh, take a girl to dinner, first.”

  “Enough talk,” he said, swiping his hand through the air, “We had a deal, and now it’s time for you to live up to your end.”

  I took a step back as a man emerged from the dust and shimmering magic. On earth we all looked like humans, the glamor made sure of that. But some of us outsiders couldn’t totally hide our otherness; like this poor bastard, for example. Short, bristly black hair desperately clung to his scalp. He was wearing cowboy boots, acid-wash jeans, and a white wife-beater underneath a New York Yankees letter jacket that looked like it was wearing him. To the casual observer, and assuming no one paid him much attention, he’d fit right in with the rest of humanity.

  Get a little closer to him, though, and you’d notice that not only were his eyes spaced a little too far apart, they had an almost reflective, amber sheen to them which made them look entirely wrong. He also couldn’t help but flick the air with his ridiculously long, forked tongue from time to time, which made me feel things I probably shouldn’t be feeling at a time like this and in his presence, especially considering he looked every bit like the wiry, gaunt reptile that he was.

  His name was Abvat, he was one of the Naga—serpent-kin—and judging by the look on his face, he’d very much like to kill me and wear my skin. Nothing new there. Abvat and I went back a bit.

  “Are those my only options?” I asked. “Give you what you want or die?”

  Abvat’s scowl twisted into a confused frown. He angled his head to the side. “Yes,” he said, slowly shaking his head like I’d just asked the world’s stupidest question. “They are. I thought I made it pretty clear when I said—just shut up and give it to me.”

  I patted my leather jacket down and shook the dust out of my white-blond hair, then I sighed. “C’mon, man, can’t we do this another time? I’m in a hurry and in a really good mood tonight.”

  His expression hardened again, and he reached into his jacket. “No!” he snapped, “The time for… waiting… is over. You will give me what I want, or I will end your life.”

  It was at this point that the person who lived in the apartment we’d mostly destroyed started to scream. She was wrapped in a pink towel, her hair was soaking wet, and she was holding a lead pipe in her hand—the kind you keep in every ro
om in the house when you live in a shithole apartment like this one. I hadn’t realized there was someone in here until now, and neither had Abvat.

  With the same rapid motion, he drew a revolver from his pocket and aimed it at the woman. I, meanwhile, grabbed a skull-shaped ash tray filled with cigarette butts and hurled it at him. The skull sailed through the air, collided with his arm, and the gun went off, but the bullet sailed wide of the screaming woman, taking a bite out of the plasterboard wall instead.

  I took the opening and hurled myself at him, wrestling him for control of the gun which went off again, and again, and again, making my ears ring. A swift elbow to the stomach made him keel over and allowed me to rip the gun from his hand, which I aimed at him, victoriously.

  “Aha!” I yelled, backing up a few paces, but Abvat didn’t seem fazed by the fact that I was holding the gun.

  He lunged at me, his eyes gleaming, his hands bristling with magic—the very same magic he’d used to propel me through the front door of this apartment which wasn’t there anymore. I pulled the trigger, but the gun only clicked. Empty. “Oh, come on!” I said, despairing.

  Abvat charged into me with all the power of a line-backer, picking me up and carrying me across the room, then shoving me through the window on the other side. The glass smashed behind me, but I was able to hold my hands out against the frame to keep from falling to the cold, Brooklyn streets below me.

  In my mind I begged myself not to turn my head, but I couldn’t keep my own advice and as soon as I turned my eyes down, vertigo set in and made the entire world start spinning. On the street below there were the tops of yellow cabs, black umbrellas, and the lights from many storefronts. On the gantry next to me I noticed a cat, a silver tabby, curiously staring at me, not really fazed by what was going on.

  Abvat wrapped one of his hands around the collar of my leather jacket and pulled me closer to him. The other hand he wound back behind his head like he was about to toss one hell of a curve-ball, only the ball cupped in his hand was made of shifting blackness filled with crackling, crimson lightning—that was some dark, Naga magic right there, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

  “Where is it, Seline!” Abvat hissed, “No more games!”

  “I don’t know where it is!” I yelled, “Don’t you think I’d give it to you if I had it?”

  “No, I don’t, obviously.”

  “Fair point… I probably wouldn’t. But I really don’t have it, I swear.”

  “What is your word worth?” he snarled, “What is your life worth? You have no kin in this world, no memories of your own world, and no power. You are trash. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you anyway and be done with you.”

  For an instant the entire world came to a standstill. I watched him, saw the weathered—almost scaly—lines on his gaunt, olive-skinned face, then I saw myself reflected in his eyes. This pale, skinny woman with hair so white it almost glittered on sunny days like it was made of ice, eyes the color of the sky on a clear, bright, winter’s day, and a look on her face that couldn’t hide the truth in everything she’d just heard. I wasn’t from this world, and while I knew about the world I came from, I didn’t know anything about who I was, who my family was, or even what I was. I’d reach for my memories, only to find them gone.

  I was a nobody in a Ramone’s t-shirt. Trash.

  “I…” I didn’t have a comeback for that. No witty retort, no repartee. I just stared at him, doe-eyed.

  Then something hit him across the back of the head so hard his eyes widened and crossed each other before tilting into his skull. His grip on my collar loosened, then slackened entirely. The ball of magic in his hand faded to flecks of black ash that dissipated into the wind, and Abvat collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

  Behind him stood the woman, the owner of the apartment, tightly clasping the towel around her chest with one hand, and the lead pipe with which she’d felled Abvat with the other. She was shaking, probably form the cold, probably from adrenaline—likely from both. I pulled my upper half through the window, then gave myself a moment to relax once my feet were firmly on solid ground.

  “Asshole almost tossed me out,” I muttered to myself, shaking the vertigo off.

  She brought the lead pipe up again, ready to swing it at me. “Stay back!” she warned, “I’m calling the cops!”

  I glanced around her at the destruction mine and Abvat’s visit had caused in her apartment. I regretted having ducked into an apartment building to begin with, but I’d thought it was the best way to be rid of the little snake. He was skinny and not very smart, but I had a tendency to underestimate him, and he’d gotten the better of me. Now this woman’s apartment was… unlivable.

  I sighed and put my hands up. “I’m sorry about your place,” I said.

  The woman stared at me, her pipe-arm shaking from the weight of it. “Who are you?” she asked, stammering her words.

  “My name is Seline,” I said, “And this… thing… isn’t my friend. He’s been chasing me.”

  “Why—why’d you come here?”

  I shook my head. “Just the luck of the draw, lady. Could’ve been anyone’s apartment.” I went to reach into my jacket, but she looked like she was about to hit me with the pipe, so I stopped. “I’m just gonna get something from my pocket,” I said, “It was meant to be for me… I was gonna surprise my roommate with it. Mind if I…?”

  Her eyes moved from mine, to my hand, to the unconscious Naga on the floor of her place, then back to my eyes. By the time her stare had locked onto me again, I’d retrieved what I’d wanted to get.

  “Wh—what is that?” she asked.

  I looked at the little strip held between my fingers. “It’s a lottery ticket,” I said, “My roommate and I play it every week, same two numbers. Tonight, ours came up, I was hurrying home to tell her.”

  Her expression hardened into something uncertain, distrustful.

  I shut my eyes and extended my hand with the ticket in it. “Take it,” I said, “It’s good for three grand… go someplace else tonight, tell your landlord your place got broken into.”

  Fate and I could’ve used the money we’d just won. It wasn’t much, but when you were being paid under the table like I was, and you had to pay rent, bills, and eat on that income, three thousand dollars could make a world of difference. Fate and I, at least, had a working front door and windows we could close to keep the cold out. This woman didn’t.

  A few moments passed, and the ticket hadn’t been plucked from my hand. “Please take it,” I insisted, “This guy’s gonna wake up soon, and we want to be out of here before he does.”

  The woman tentatively took the slip, and while my chest filled with warmth at having done the right thing, I couldn’t help but feel the acid reflux of disappointment burn my throat. Lucky for me, I had Abvat I could take that disappointment out on. I opened my eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

  “You should get changed,” I said, “Take all your valuables with you.”

  The woman scoffed. “I’m a thirty-six-year-old single woman renting a shitty apartment in Brooklyn. What valuables?”

  I nodded and started edging across the room. “Yep, true… well, I’m gonna take off…”

  “Hey, wait a second—what about him?”

  “Don’t worry about him. Just grab your stuff and go, by the time he wakes up we’ll be gone.”

  She looked at me, puzzled, then winced like she’d just been hit with a migraine. That’s Abvat’s magic at work—even unconscious he can still hurt people. “But he’ll… he’s gonna… won’t he…?” she asked, confusion already clouding her speech.

  “Just go!” I yelled.

  The woman stared at me as clarity regained control of her mind, then she did as I asked, disappearing into the bedroom and reappearing less than five minutes later, fully clothed and with a bag of stuff, ready to go. I’d decided to wait at the other end of the hall and watch her leave, making sure she got away without any trouble, and she did.
Nobody had called the cops yet, no landlord had shown up, not even the neighbors were getting involved, despite the ruckus.

  That’s Brooklyn for you.

  I walked across the apartment’s front door and looked inside. There was Abvat, still unconscious. The thought of killing him had crossed my mind, but I wasn’t a murderer, and killing him while he couldn’t defend himself would’ve been murder. There was nothing in my code of ethics, though, that kept me from taking the contents of his wallet.

  I’d buy Chinese takeout for Fate and I with the money I found inside, for my trouble. That’d just be another thing for him to be pissed about the next time we meet, but whatever, he could tack it onto the mountain of other things he already didn’t like me for. I straightened up, breathed deep, and took a curious glance through the broken window next to me.

  That’s when I saw it. It was little more than a shadow, though in the city that never sleeps, shadows that didn’t belong were dark and deep, and this one had caught my eye even when I hadn’t been looking directly at it. I moved to the window and stared across the street, at the roof of the building directly opposite. There was nothing there, now; only clothes lines with sheets fluttering in the wind. But a moment ago, I was as sure as I could possibly be, there had been a man there, and he’d been watching me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I hadn’t been living in this city, or even in this world, for very long, but I knew well the kind of bad reputation these streets had at night and how dangerous they could be. Especially if you happened to be a skinny woman with hair so white it almost had a glow of its own. Lucky for me, no one ever seemed to pay me any attention provided I wasn’t doing anything to attract it. Human eyes just… skimmed past me like I wasn’t even there.