Finding Destiny: A Paranormal Witch Urban Fantasy (Unexpected Magic Book 4)(Paranormal Women's Midlife Fiction)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental. FINDING DESTINY Copyright © 2023 by Christine Pope Published by Dark Valentine Press Cover design by Lou Harper Ebook formatting by Indie Author Services All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without permission in writing from its publisher, Dark Valentine Press. * * * Don’t miss out on any of Christine’s new releases — sign up for her newsletter today! Contents 1. Mirror Image 2. Twist of Fate 3. Making Magic 4. Making Magic 5. The Ugly Truth 6. Council of War 7. A Consummation Devoutly to Be Wished 8. Circle of Iron 9. Real Life 10. A Thief in the Night 11. Fire and Brimstone 12. Dead on Arrival 13. Planning Stages 14. Outer Darkness 15. The Rule of Three 16. Damned to Hell 17. Circle of Friends Epilogue Also by Christine Pope About the Author Ride the roan to find the patriarch’s tears. Pour out a blessing to bury one’s fears. As above, so below, Circle of iron to cast down your foe. Chapter 1 Mirror Image I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling above the unfamiliar four-poster bed where I lay. That ceiling was fussily ornate, obviously Victorian, with decorative plaster molding shaped by skilled hands into intricate patterns of leaves and flowers. I didn’t recognize the design, but I still knew exactly where I must be. The house in Boulder that belonged to my evil bio-grandmother. Because I’d blacked out almost as soon as our eyes met while I stood on the back porch of my rented house in Santa Fe — no doubt thanks to some kind of unconsciousness spell she must have cast on me — I had no idea how I’d gotten from there to here. Had she snapped her fingers and sent me to her home by means of her incredibly strong magic, or had she simply thrown me in the back of a car and driven me to Colorado? A relative newcomer to New Mexico, I’d never made the trip, but I seemed to vaguely recall that it took about six hours to drive from Santa Fe to Denver. Incongruously, the thought that floated into my mind next was, I’m going to die, and I never even got to have sex with Isaac Zamora. Isaac. He must have been frantic by now; I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious, but a hand-painted lamp that gave the ceiling a run for its money in sheer overdone ugliness glowed on the bedside table, and the world beyond the room’s tall windows was dark. Night had fallen while I lay here, which meant at least five or six hours must have passed. It had only been a little after one o’clock on a mild November afternoon when Michael Covenant and Audrey Barrett escorted me to my house so I could pick up the art supplies I needed for a storyboard project I was working on. Isaac and I had thought the presence of those experienced demon hunters would be enough to protect me from any inhuman attacks, but obviously, we’d underestimated our opponent. Were Audrey and Michael all right? Just before the world faded around me, I’d seen them lying in the driveway, unconscious…or worse. Panic flared through me, even as I tried to tell myself they must be okay, that although my grandmother’s demon minions had gotten the drop on them, Michael and Audrey were still wrapped in spells of protection and wore amulets to shield them from attack by evil forces. It wasn’t possible that the demons had killed them. Or…was it? After all, those charms and talismans didn’t seem to have done a very good job of shielding their wearers from their demonic attackers. Also, because Isaac knew as well as I did that my bio-grandmother hadn’t scrupled at sending demons after her long-lost granddaughter, he would have every reason to believe the worst must have happened to me. Maybe Michael and Audrey were dead, and Isaac now thought I’d suffered the same cruel fate, even though there wouldn’t have been a body left for him to find. Why I hadn’t been killed, I really didn’t know. Or was Isaac’s and my previous theory that my biological grandmother was looking for me because she wanted me to become a part of her coven the real one? That would explain why I was still breathing, why I hadn’t been added to what I had to assume was a long list of former victims. Whatever was going on, I wasn’t going to solve it by lying here and doing my best Sleeping Beauty impression. I sat up, noting that I still wore the same sweater and jeans I’d had on when I’d gone to my rented house. The ankle boots I’d been wearing, however, had been removed — probably because my grandmother hadn’t wanted me to mess up the obviously antique silk crazy quilt that covered the bed. A quick glance told me the boots hadn’t been spirited away to prevent me from making my escape, but instead sat on the floor next to a wing chair in the small turret off to one side of the room. That small turret room had a series of tall, stained glass windows that were probably spectacular in daylight with the sun streaming through them. While I didn’t know Boulder very well — actually, not really at all, since I’d never been here before — I still knew there were a lot of Victorian and Craftsman-style houses in the mountain town that had been built during Colorado’s gold