Forgotten Visions (The Divinities Book 1) Page 2

  Blinking back the tears, Kalissa pulled a single sheet of paper out of the container. It was a letter from their mother.

  Hello, my angels,

  If you are reading this, then I am not with you. That thought deeply saddens me. I had hoped to explain things to you before my passing. I wish I could be there to help you on your journey. I regret not sharing what I’m about to reveal to you before now. For that, I am so sorry. I had only meant to protect you. The demons are looking for the Sinew, the Divinity power source. It is now up to you to recover the Sinew and find others like you. You will know each other through your birthmarks. Remember what I taught you about your special gifts. Follow the clues I left at the address inside the pentacle, rebuild the Divinities, and protect the Sinew from evil.

  Love always, Mom.

  Other Divinities? The only others Kalissa knew of were their mother, Noah Daniels—the Maxville Coven elder—and Ayden Daniels—Noah’s grandson and the new sheriff. As far as she knew, there weren’t many Divinities left. They were born to rare and ancient witch bloodlines. Each bore a unique birthmark, a vivid red rose with a lush green stem and leaves etched on the inside of their left forearm. Magickin lore claimed that they were gifts from the gods to help protect them from evil with their Divine gifts and god-like powers.

  So what was she to do? Go around searching witches’ arms for the Divine Rose?

  Kalissa peered back into the pentacle case for the rest of the contents. Sure enough, a second slip of paper that held only a street address rested inside.

  Khloe shifted to the laptop they’d brought with them and did a Google search. The address came back as a small law office in Charlotte, North Carolina.

  They looked at each other knowingly. A spark of hope rose in Kalissa’s aching chest. This had to be the lead they were waiting on. Of course, the address could prove to be nothing, but it was more than they’d had moments before.

  “I guess you’re going to Charlotte?”

  Kalissa frowned at her sister’s soft-spoken tone. The longing to investigate together lingered between them. She wanted Khloe to come too but knew a certain deputy would put a halt to all travel plans. “You have to stay here and cover for me. You know what Zach said at the accident site.” And several times during the last year and a half.

  Khloe smirked. “I know. He’s going to be so mad at us.”

  Kalissa rolled her eyes. He had told her not to follow leads on her own, but she had to search this out. No way was she telling Zach Manus, deputy and acting sheriff until Ayden arrived, about the letter and that she was doing her own investigating. He would wrap up this morsel in so much red tape it wouldn’t see the light of day. He would say it was a matter of police business. But he would be wrong. It was Divinity business, and as a Divinity herself, Kalissa had every right to explore the one clue left by her mother.

  After discovering the address, they sat down to collaborate on a story to tell Zach. It would be the first time either of them had ever lied to him. Since he was empathic, could they even pull it off?

  The following morning, Kalissa hopped into her Mercedes and headed to Charlotte.

  Guilt crept up inside her for leaving Khloe home. Feelings of shutting her out played heavily on Kalissa’s mind. But they did have two businesses to run. Even though the Coffee Café did well enough and had a very dependable staff, she still worried about leaving town.

  Bradenton Design, on the other hand, was Khloe’s domain, and she had a deadline to meet.

  One of them had to stay behind. Since Khloe had threatened bodily harm if Kalissa ever got near her computer graphics business, Kalissa had made the trip to check on the address.

  Five hours into the trip, her phone rang, like it did every hour. She pressed a button on her steering wheel that allowed her to talk hands-free—thanks to Bluetooth technology and Khloe’s know-how to install it.

  “Hi, Lo.”

  “Are we there yet?” Khloe giggled.

  Kalissa laughed. “Almost. Tom Tom says it’s another thirty minutes away.”

  “Oh, good. Because I am exhausted.”

  Kalissa rolled her eyes, only realizing her sister wasn’t there to see it. “You’re not the one driving.”

  “Yeah, but all this anxiety has done a number on my nerves.” The smile had left Khloe’s voice.

  Kalissa sighed. They hated to be apart from each other. The only other time they’d spent more than twenty-four hours away from one another was when Khloe had stayed the night in the hospital after taking cold medicine. They’d found out the hard way that night that she was highly sensitive to medications and alcohol.

  “So, what time are you going to the…conference in the morning?”

  She smiled. Zach was there, and Khloe didn’t want to give anything away. They’d told him Kalissa was going to a restaurant seminar just outside Charlotte. Kalissa had every intention of attending the seminar. Zach thought it was a weekend-long conference and trade show. It was actually a lunch-and-learn event. The attendees were to meet at the conference room in the hotel Kalissa was staying at around noon, have a catered lunch, and then listen to a couple of CEOs from some of the largest restaurant chains in the United States talk about management and leadership skills. It was going to be a very boring afternoon. If all went well, Zach would never know her real reason for going to North Carolina.

  Zach, Khloe, and Kalissa had grown up together and treated each other like family. He was the protective older brother they’d never had, and he would blow a gasket if he knew what Kalissa was up to. He’d told her that he would handle it and that she was to trust him to get to the bottom of her parents’ deaths. Eighteen months later, Zach was no closer than he was the first day.

  She doubted the new sheriff would be any better. Even if he was Zach’s cousin.

  “I’ll be there as soon as the doors open,” she answered. Khloe fell silent. “I’ll let you go and call you in the morning.”

  Khloe released a heavy sigh. “Okay. Call when you get up before you do anything else.”

  A soft laugh escaped Kalissa’s lips. She could almost see the pout on her sister’s face. “I promise. Love you.”

  “Love you.”

  She pushed the button on the steering wheel to end the call. A yawn took hold of her, and she wished she’d stopped off at the last rest area. Her eyes burned, and she repeatedly blinked to try and relieve some of the sting from driving fatigue, while the urge to rub them strongly tugged at her. Relief washed over her at the sight of the Charlotte exit sign indicating her turn was next.

  A few minutes later, a car sped by and jumped over into her lane. She gasped, heart dropping to her abdomen as she jerked the steering wheel to the right to avoid hitting the car. It was too late. Metal scraped metal as the vehicles collided. The impact pushed her car off the road. Everything happened so fast, she couldn’t concentrate or grasp on to reality. Her heart pounded furiously behind her ribcage as a rushed panic assailed her. Kalissa hit the gas instead of the brake. The Benz barreled off into the woods and slammed into something hard. The airbag deployed into her face, slamming her head into the driver’s-side window. A sharp pain shot through her skull. A blaring horn was the last thing she heard before falling into the dark void of unconsciousness.

  Ayden Daniels had only been in Charlotte an hour before his cousin, Zach, called with a favor. No. Not quite a favor. A request that sounded more like a plea.

  “You’re shittin’ me.”

  “I’m afraid not. Charlotte PD said it was a hit and run.”

  Right. “Please tell me she’s…”

  “She’s alive. A bump on the head, but she’ll be okay.” Zach hesitated before continuing. “I know how you feel about her, but you’ll have to go get her.”

  A muttered curse slipped from his lips at the same time his heart lodged in his throat. “Fine.” The word came out in an irritated huff. Ayden hung up and wished he had never answered the damn phone. No, that wasn’t completely true. He would nev
er forgive himself if something had happened to Kalissa that he could’ve prevented.

  She was the one person he’d hoped to avoid as much as possible once he’d taken his place as sheriff of Maxville. It wasn’t that he disliked her. That was the problem. Despite his better judgment, he still cared too damn much for the woman. He was a glutton for punishment.

  The mere mention of her name made his pulse race with excitement. His body responded to just the thought of seeing her again after fifteen years. But his mind screamed to walk away. To let her be. She was trouble, and a hazard to his heart. She’d broken it once; tore it right out of his chest at the age of seventeen.

  A human friend had laughed at the mention of their young age and Ayden’s claim that she was the only one for him. A mistake on his part to confide in a human and expect him to understand magickin way of life. Magickin children developed at a faster rate. At the age of seventeen, he was as mature as most twenty-five-year-old humans, and fully aware that he had met his eternal companion.

  They were life partners, magical mates destined to spend their immortal lives together. And to find one at such a young age was a gift.

  A gift she’d stolen from him.

  It was unclear whether a Divinity could have more than one life partner. As far as he knew, she was the only one for him. At least, that’s what his heart said. He’d tried to search for another. To put the past behind him and mend his broken heart, but no other could fill the void.

  Taking a deep, long breath and then exhaling slowly, he picked up his keys from the nightstand and moved toward the door. Putting it off was not going to make it less painful.

  Ten minutes later, he parked in the half-empty hospital emergency room parking lot, climbed out of his Jeep Wrangler, and walked toward the entrance. Dread, excitement, and anger filled him, making his head pound, and his heart ache. What would he say to her? How would she react to him?

  He entered the double glass doors and walked up to the security desk. Pulling out his badge, he introduced himself. “Sheriff Ayden Daniels, here for Kalissa Bradenton.”

  The woman behind the desk wore a blue security uniform, her salt and pepper hair pulled back in a tight bun on the top of her head. She appeared to be in her early fifties. Humans looked their age. Witches and other magical beings, once they’d reached maturity, aged slower and often lived to be about two hundred years of age. They never showed the signs of aging until the last seventy-five years of life. Divinities, however, were immortal; they didn’t die of natural causes, or ever age past thirty-five.

  The security woman looked at his badge and then back up to his face. “You’re a little out of your jurisdiction, Sheriff.” She spoke with a thick southern drawl.

  He smiled at her. “Yes. I’m a family friend and in the area on personal business. Her sister asked me to come.”

  The woman frowned, looking down at her computer screen. She clicked on the keyboard with her two-inch-long fingernails. “Go through those doors.” She pointed to the double doors to Ayden’s left. “She’s down the hall in room 127.”

  He thanked the woman and walked towards Kalissa’s room. A policeman stood outside her door, talking to a nurse. The young officer smiled widely and seemed to enjoy the conversation a little too much for it to be business-related. However, waves of discomfort came from the nurse. She shifted nervously and glanced at her watch several times in the short while it took Ayden to reach them. When he approached, relief flooded the woman, and she took his appearance as her chance to escape the officer’s attentions, excusing herself with a shy smile before darting off to the nurses’ station.

  Ayden read the nametag on other man’s uniform shirt. “Evening, Officer Meyers. I’m Ayden Daniels.”

  Officer Meyers nodded. “Yes, Chief Wells said you were on your way.” He turned to look at Kalissa’s closed door and frowned. Meyers looked back at Ayden. “She’ll need a ride, too. The car’s totaled. It was sandwiched between two trees. If it weren’t for the airbags…” Meyers paused, shook his head, and after a second, continued. “Anyway, when she came to, she said she was clipped in the front by another car. Typical hit and run.”

  Ayden clenched his jaw, forming a tic in his temple. There was nothing typical about a hit and run, especially when it involved a Divinity. He was following leads that comprised similar ‘hit and runs.’ Too much evidence pointed to a serial killer. The victims were all Divinities.

  “Meyers.” The officer turned his gaze back to Ayden. “Go see if Miss Bradenton is ready for discharge while I speak with her.”

  Meyers drew his dark eyebrows together until they looked like a unibrow. He hesitated for another second before he dropped his shoulders and walked to the nurses’ station a few feet away.

  Rookie. Ayden released a soft chuckle. Officer Meyers was probably still in his first year on the force. The smile dissipated as Ayden squared his shoulders and turned toward Kalissa’s door.

  Chapter 3

  Kalissa sat on the edge of the hospital bed and swung her legs back and forth in frustration. Anger swarmed inside her like pissed off bees trapped inside a hive. Her beloved car was impounded and possibly totaled. If she hadn’t been knocked unconscious, the driver of the other car would have faced her… her what? Would she have beaten him with visions? The All-Seeing Eye?

  Whatever. Who was she fooling? Yes, she took self-defense classes and sparred with her sister on a regular basis, but she was as tame as a lamb. She could never intentionally hurt anyone.

  The clock on the wall said she’d been awake for forty-five minutes. She was still unsure how long she’d been out of it.

  She hated medical facilities. The heavy stench of antiseptic turned her stomach.

  Where was that freaking nurse with her discharge papers?

  Why did it always take ten times longer than it should to get in and out of the ER?

  It was unusually and eerily quiet for an emergency room. The only sounds were the beeping of the monitors at the nurses’ station, footsteps outside her room, and muffled voices. Her closed door did nothing to calm her rattled nerves, or soothe her irritation.

  Her legs stilled as a new set of footsteps halted outside her door. A familiar magical signature floated through the air. She listened, but couldn’t make out the hushed voices through the wood.

  After a few minutes of muffled conversation, the door slowly opened. A man walked in and closed the door behind him.

  At first, confusion clouded her mind. A dull headache crept into her temples, and a hint of panic rose in her chest. The man that stood inside her hospital room looked familiar and put off a magical energy that called to her. He had golden brown hair and the most vivid baby blue eyes she’d ever seen. And a body that belonged on the front cover of Men’s Health magazine. Her gaze roamed over his broad shoulders and down his chest.

  Shifting her eyes back to his face before she really embarrassed herself, realization hit her. This was Zach’s cousin from California. The new sheriff of Maxville.

  “Ayden?” she asked with a smile. “I hardly recognized you.” Now she remembered. He’d visited the coven during the summers and had hung out with them when they were kids. But this was a big change from the Ayden she knew fifteen years ago.

  Her gaze drifted over him again. The t-shirt he wore left nothing to the imagination. It clung to him, showing off those hard muscles and tight abs perfectly. Kalissa had a sudden urge to run her hands down his chest.

  Did he feel as good as he looked?

  She forced her gaze away to look down at the floor in front of her as heat rose in her cheeks.

  Get a grip, Kalissa, she scolded herself. “Did Zach send you?” she asked, trying not to ogle him like a tiger would a piece of raw meat. But she couldn’t look away for long. As soon as he moved, her eyes flicked up and found his.

  He narrowed his eyes as he stalked toward her, looking less than thrilled to be there. But there was a hint of something else in his gaze. Something that looked vaguely like pa
in, or sadness.

  Several seconds passed before he spoke, and when he did, Kalissa’s heart skipped a beat. Her body warmed, reacting in a way it never had before. “Your sister’s worried.”

  The statement confused her. It caught her off guard. She opened her mouth to reply, but he spoke first. “She’s the emergency contact on your driver’s license.”

  She looked down to her linked fingers in her lap and asked, “Why are you here?” The silence made her look back up to see a pained expression passing across his face. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I meant…”

  “I know what you meant,” he harshly cut off her statement.

  She blanched at his tone and looked back down and picked nervously at her fingernails. Ayden’s words felt too close to rejection. Her chest tightened, and she didn’t understand why.

  His hand came out and captured her by the chin. She froze, finding it hard to breathe as he gently raised her face to meet his gaze. His expression softened, but he still looked at her in irritation.

  She hadn’t recalled doing anything to warrant such a reaction from him. Squaring her shoulders, she pushed the anxiety aside. “If it’s such a bother to come here, then leave. I’ll catch a cab to my hotel.”

  He knitted his brows, and after a moment, he relaxed. Not saying a word or explaining, he reached up to move her hair away from her temple to look at her injury. She wanted to smack his hand away, but an electrifying current swept through her when the tips of his fingers touched her skin. Desire and heat swirled inside her, threatening to erupt into an inferno. And it scared the hell out of her.

  The sensation left as soon as he lowered his hand, allowing the hair to fall back in place. But returned when he touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I was in the neighborhood.” His tone was gentler. She gave him a conflicted look. Was he bipolar? One minute, he acted like he didn’t want to be there, and the next, he was okay with it. What was his problem?

  He smiled at her and said, “I was in town on personal business. Zach called and asked me to check on you.”