Meghan Ciana Doidge
I wasn't even remotely interested in collecting the third instrument of assassination. It was far better for everyone involved — and for Warner, specifically — if I just let it be. And since I was the only one who could retrieve the artifacts, I figured it was my call to make.
I was wrong.
And though that wasn't unusual, I was just so ... so ... wrong ... about everything.
I was wrong about who I was protecting and
...They called me an amplifier. And they had bred me, raised me, and trained me to be a killer with preternatural precision. I was capable of taking, holding, and transferring power that wasn't my own with a simple touch. Skin-to-skin contact. Along with four others of my generation, I could infiltrate any magical organization, extracting whoever or whatever I'd been ordered to extricate. Then I could destroy all evidence of our passing presence.
...We had run.
We had adapted.
And when our magic came back, we changed course again. Hiding instead of running, knowing that we needed to remain hidden from the Collective. Knowing that our lives, our freedom, depended on it.
Then the sorcerer showed up, drained and disoriented. And when my past came quickly following him, I had to make another choice.
Fight or flight.
Continue to deny the power that resided in my blood,
If you'd asked me a week ago, I would have told you that the best cupcakes were dark chocolate with chocolate cream cheese icing, that dancing in a crowd of magic wielders — the Adept — was better than sex, and that my life was peaceful and uneventful. Just the way I liked it. That's what twenty-three years in the magical backwater of Vancouver will get you — a completely skewed sense of reality. Because when the dead werewolves
...Two more elves were at large in Vancouver, but thankfully they'd been keeping a low profile while I faced the most daunting task of my twenty-seven years — planning and executing my wedding. I was dealing with a disgruntled grandmother with an extensive guest wish list of the magically inclined, all of whom didn't particularly like each other. Plus a fiance whose concept of time was altered whenever he stepped into a dimensional pocket, and
...We had chosen our place, etching our lives into a new land. Then we had defended that land when called upon to do so. And we'd won. We'd maintained our freedom.
But magic attracts magic.
As they say.
So when the sorcerers showed up, holding my recent past hostage — along with a future I had dreamed I might build — it was just as expected. In fact, I might have been getting just a little bored playing at being Emma
...I had everything I'd ever wanted — a successful business with a second bakery in the works, a sexy fiance who I adored, and good friends who loved to laugh almost as much as I did.
So of course it couldn't possibly last.
Unfortunately, this time the trouble was homegrown in Vancouver, threatening my own backyard and those who were under my protection — whether they wanted to be or not.
I was, after all, the wielder
...Three days. That was all the reprieve we got before one of the Five showed up, injured and on the run. The snowstorm that had encased the property, as well as stifled the town, hadn't even melted away.
That wounded prey led our newest adversary directly to me, to Christopher. Inconvenient timing, but not unexpected.
It was the betrayal forcing me to stay my hand against that adversary that shocked me. Betrayal from the least likely
...The warriors have fallen. And those they previously protected must now band together to keep the invaders at bay. Mory, a young necromancer; Rochelle, a pregnant oracle; and Jasmine, a fledgling vampire, will do whatever it takes, whatever the cost, to prevent the fated future from unfolding. Even if that means they must become warriors themselves.
Graveyards, Visions, and Other Things that Byte consists of three novellas narrated by Mory,
...I preferred it when life came in tidy packages. When it didn't — when something went awry — I was exceedingly skilled at packaging it back up. It was my job to do so after all. I was a reconstructionist. I collected the puzzle pieces, then I gave those pieces to an investigative team to sort out. I didn't ask questions. I didn't offer answers. I saw. I recorded. I moved on. I didn't dwell or obsess. I didn't hunt down
...12) Spirit Binder
Three months ago, I lost my foster sister, Sienna, to the darkness. As in blood magic and chaos and general mayhem. No one saw it until it was too late, but I should have. Now, I have a wounded heart and soul that I can't even reveal to anyone around me, because I'm supposed to hate Sienna with the fiery passion of the justified. And I do. I just wish I didn't feel so lost without her, so unsure of the path I thought I had carved for myself, and
...For twelve years, I had managed to separate my personal life from my professional life, becoming one of the best reconstructionists in the world — and proving to myself that I could do so on my own merits. Then I'd been forced into contact with my family, reuniting with someone I thought I'd lost forever, and rescuing my best friend. Now I had to savor what little time I had left before the contract with the Conclave came due and my future
...I never got involved in the dirt and the details of an investigation. I never let my preconceptions muddy a reconstruction. And I steadfastly refrained from ever allowing my past to dictate my future.
At least until the one person I couldn't lose went missing.
Because then I'd relive every dark moment of my childhood, confront every heartbreak, and even sell my soul if that was what it took to get her back.
Because I couldn't accept
I'd been compromised, then turned against those I loved. But no one controlled me. No one took anything I didn't willingly offer. Not for long, anyway.
If the elves wanted a war, I'd bring it. The instruments of assassination would come out to play. The dragon slayer would wreak bloody, sticky vengeance. And then I was getting freaking married — no elves invited.
Even a baker of cupcakes and a maker of trinkets occasionally had
...A collection of stories featuring characters from the Adept Universe by Meghan Ciana Doidge in a pivotal moment of their life, or possibly a playful interlude.
The collection contains the following shorts/novelettes:
1.In But a Moment – Kandy
2.In Less Than a Moment – Kandy
3.At Just the Right Moment – Gabby
4.From One Moment to the Next – Kandy
5.Anchored in the Moment – Audrey
6.Momentary
I was a dragon. Dragons didn't run from any situation. Not even a dragon disguised as a witch. Well ... at least not from any situation that involved the archive or my duty, because apparently I fled before anything even remotely personal. Including surprise double dates.
A masked gala. A solstice celebration with the werewolves. Broken relics and doorways leading not only to other realms, other mythical and magical creatures, but to other
...I'd led a deadly squad of genetically enhanced, uber-powerful magic wielders through life-threatening missions multiple times in the first twenty-one years of my life.
When marked for death, I'd led the escape from those who'd bred us, controlled us. Utterly annihilating the Collective's compound, and destroying everything that had gone into creating us — the Five.
I found Christopher and Paisley a home, a safe haven. Then, despite
...Six years, three months, and two days ago, I was kidnapped by a black witch. Then forced to bear witness as she slaughtered witches and sorcerers across Europe, siphoning their magic and corrupting what she could of my own power in order to raise vanquished demons.
Five years, ten months, and twenty days ago, the dowser — Jade Godfrey — backed by a vampire, a werewolf, and a dragon, rescued me in London, England. A lethal quartet,