In modern day Charleston, two fated lovers meet at the beginning of a world-ending witch war …
Cyan Burroughs is a lonely light witch prophesied to battle the dreaded Dorcha—a dark sorcerer with the power to rule the world. There’s one problem: Cyan doesn’t have any powers of her own.
An unknown witch flips a trolley and causes mass carnage, and Cyan’s dormant magic awakens. When she drags handsome Irishman Liam Cody from the wreckage, she recognizes his face from her aunt’s psychic portraits. He is the man Cyan is destined to love.
As she and her magical family seek to unveil the murderous witch who caused the accident, Cyan and Liam grow closer, but Liam’s mysterious past is not the only thing keeping them apart.
Dark witches and light will soon fight to the death, and Cyan must face her calling. How can she protect Liam and win the war when her immense powers are barely under control?
Destiny’s Dark Light — which combines all three parts of the story originally spread out through the Enchanted book series — hits the shelves on October 15th.
Until then, enjoy this short excerpt:
The city was almost dark with the descending late autumn sun as she walked down Broad Street. It was packed with people trying to get home from work or downtown to bars. Cyan kicked at loose rocks on pavement and tried not to run into anyone.
She wouldn’t have noticed the dark figure lurking in the alley ahead if not for the minute glow of red oozing from beneath his long, black jacket. She couldn’t see his face but, when he raised his hand, she saw the glow came from his very skin.
She’d seen things like that before in her own household—all witches projected their own individualized colors. This was something else, though, something that made her shout, “Hey!” People turned to look at her, as did the man with the glowing red hand, but her call was too late. The force of his power erupted over the street like a volcanic tidal wave and then, chaos.
A peaceful green trolley, filled with businesspeople and tourists, flew straight off the pavement and high into the sky. It landed with a horrible screech, crashing down on several cars below. People screamed and ran, but Cyan remained calm and looked to the man in the black cloak. He had, of course, disappeared.
“Shit,” she hissed.
The trolley caught fire, its flames illuminating the street as people tumbled and bled on it. A woman five feet away cowered behind a palm tree, and Cyan shouted repeatedly at her to call an ambulance until the woman nodded and pulled out her cell phone.
Cyan took steps toward the trolley, the crushed cars. A dark blue Mercedes had taken the brunt of the trolley’s wrath, so she was understandably shocked when the driver’s side door opened, and a man in a tuxedo rolled out into the street. She hurried to pull him from the wreckage, wrapping her hands around his upper arm.
“Can you walk?” she shouted over the sound of moans and crackling fire.
Blood covered his face from what looked to be a head wound, and he said something.
“What?” Cyan leaned closer.
“Zoe.” He pulled away from her to go back to the crushed car, the back of which glowed with orange flames from the trolley.
“Hey!” She tried to drag him backwards, but he had about six inches and eighty pounds on her slight frame. “You can’t—”
He turned suddenly and took hold of Cyan’s shoulders. “Help me,” he said. “Help me get her out.”
She would have nodded and moved a lot faster. She would have said something. She would have remembered to breathe if she didn’t know his face so very well—the face she’d known since childhood, since the first time Sibyl’s visions of Cyan’s true love led to painting after painting after…
“Oh, my God,” she gasped.
“Please,” he begged.
She did nod, finally, and followed her destiny toward a burning mass of metal. He leaned in first, but somehow, they both fit through the door. Cyan winced when she saw the woman, dressed in a beautiful, black gown and covered in blood that resembled an oil slick. The man at Cyan’s side didn’t hesitate as he reached for her.
“The seat, it’s…” He looked around. “Something’s…”
The passenger side door was crushed in, as was the roof above. The woman was similarly crushed into her seat—all this as the flames moved closer. Sweat dripped from Cyan’s forehead and into her eyes like tears.
“Let me get in the back,” she said. Once there, she saw how the back of the passenger seat was bent forward. “I think I can pull backwards on the seat, and we can get her out.” She looked up at his familiar face. “Okay?”
He nodded, taking firmer hold on the woman in evening dress.
Cyan wished she had her father’s strength, her mother’s magic. Instead, she had her skinny legs, which she planted against the door as she pulled on the passenger seat. She pulled until she thought her arms might give out, until she heard a sound like a sob escape the man’s lips and he finally tugged the woman free, out of the car, into the street. The flames licked up the outside of the Mercedes; the windows glowed red.
Cyan tumbled out onto Broad Street beside the couple. Sirens grew louder, approaching, as the man in the tuxedo brushed blood-soaked hair from the woman’s face. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks. “Zoe, wake up. Zoe.”
Cyan watched him. It was him, wasn’t it, her Dof? It would have been easier to tell if he hadn’t been covered in his own blood, if his face hadn’t been wrinkled in anguish over the limp form in his arms—if the only light hadn’t been the dancing flames of a burning Charleston trolley.
