Oracle’s Haunt: Desert Cursed Series Book 4 Read online

  Oracle’s Haunt

  Desert Cursed Series Book 4

  shannon mayer

  Oracle’s Haunt

  Desert Cursed Series, #4

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 by Shannon Mayer

  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, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Photography by With Magic Photography

  Models: Bayley Russel and Parker

  * * *

  Cover art by Ravven

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  1. Merlin

  2. Zamira

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  9. Merlin

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  16. Merlin

  17. Zamira

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  22. Merlin

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  27. Merlin

  28. Zamira

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Each book I write, I learn new things about myself, about my writing style and about the people who are integral to the process. I wish to thank caffeine, sugar and my Bose headphones for making this book possible.

  Of course, my editors, ARC readers, cover artist and others are very needed and I am eternally grateful to all of them. Without them, well, I just would have been hopped up on false adrenaline. Also, I look forward to sleeping for about a week once this book goes live. ;)

  1

  Merlin

  Merlin rode to the edge of the choppy water, his horse snorting and blowing, prancing as the waves washed over its hooves. Whether it was the water or Merlin’s own nervous energy spilling into the leggy animal that was causing the dancing, he couldn’t be sure.

  Ahead of them, the ocean spilled up through the strait between the mainland and the island, waves crashing against the rocks of the rough-hewn chunk of ground that drew his eyes. Devoid of life, plants, or fresh water, it was the perfect prison for an emperor who wielded his power like no other, a perfect prison for one who drew life forces to him for his own uses.

  A place no one went, a place far away from the powers of the world for the Emperor to draw on, and yet . . . even this prison was failing. The bars were crumbling. The stones and jewels that held the bonds that kept the Emperor caged, drawing from each species of supernatural, all to bind him, were no longer doing their job.

  “Fucking Ishtar and her stupid games. Her stupid greed for those jewels.” Merlin tightened his hands on the reins, fighting the urge to turn around, to put his heels to his horse and gallop as far away as he could. He was not a coward, even if he was rather good at preserving his own life. Ishtar had corkscrewed everything by taking back the jewels. Jewels that were never meant to be hers in the first place.

  And now, he would have to face the Emperor. His bastard of a father who’d somehow been gaining in strength even though the Jinn were no longer tied to him. Even though the blood vines and standing stones that were supposed to bring him power had been usurped by Marsum.

  That was the second part of why he was here, to find out who was helping his father.

  “Damn my soul to hell if it isn’t already.” He urged his horse into the water, pushing it deeper until it was swimming. With a brief touch to the horse’s neck, a pulse of power slid from Merlin and into the animal, shifting its body just enough. The horse’s back legs fused into a powerful fin that propelled them through the salty water. The spray splashed his face and arms as the hybrid horse swam hard for the island as though it had been using a fin for years.

  Once deeper in the strait, the water smoothed, the choppy waves easing off. Merlin took the quiet moment to peer into the water.

  Below them, shapes darted and danced, and he found himself slowing his mount, leading the reins to the side to circle in the current. With a frown, he waved his hand over the water, clearing it further, magnifying it with a simple spell that made his eyes go wide as he realized what he saw.

  “That explains one part of the puzzle,” he growled. His horse snorted and continued to swim in a lazy circle.

  At the bottom of the ocean stood the impossible as far as Merlin was concerned.

  Stones erupted upward out of the ocean bed, standing stones that gathered power for the Emperor. Within the circle of the stones lay the bones of creatures of all shapes. Fish mostly, caught unwary by an invisible net, sharks, a small whale and worse, water nymphs and mermaids. The life energy and power of supernatural creatures was a boost to the Emperor’s power like no other. And suddenly it made sense why they’d not seen more standing stones on land, why more lives hadn’t been lost out in clear view.

  The Emperor hadn’t needed them. He’d hidden himself all too well, which meant . . . he was likely far more powerful than Merlin had thought, and the cage that held him might be too weak to hold him much longer, even without all the jewels removed from play.

  “This is going to prove more difficult than I’d hoped,” Merlin said to himself and immediately wished Flora was with him with an off-color response. Wished for her sharp tongue and soft mouth. She had a good head on her shoulders and he could’ve used her insights right then.

  He sighed, turned his mount, and headed once more for the rocky, sand-colored island, the horse flicking its fin behind them rhythmically. There was nothing else to do but go forward. Yet even with the spray of the water against his skin, his legs submerged in the cool of the sea, there was no relief from the heat that built inside him.

  Watching the water closely below, Merlin counted four more sets of standing stones, all the same as the first, littered with bones, filled with death.

  “Really?” he muttered. This was not going as planned, not for one second.

  The shallows came up a few minutes later, uneven and rough, and he quickly smoothed his horse’s hindquarters back to two legs. The animal dragged them both up onto solid ground, legs trembling, sides heaving as the water dripped from its hide and all the tack. Merlin slid off and led the animal forward. The rocky ground was smooth and wet from the waves, deadly slick with a single wrong step. He guided the horse until they were off the worst of the rocks and in a shallow sandy spit. A flick of his hand put the horse into a doze, resting, waiting for him, sleeping peacefully.

  On his own, he climbed the first hill, then the next, and the next. The center of the island was where he was headed. Each hill led to another, and all met at the central peak that held the entrance to the prison. As he took the last steps of his journey, he thought about the world, and if the people in it would ever know what he’d done to protect them. Or if they would just continue to move on, oblivious as always to those behind the scenes making the world safer.

  Would they understand the costs he’d paid already?

  He snorted. “Think highly of yourself, don’t you? That’s what Flora would say.” He knew he was no savior, no hero. He’d done what he’d done to protect those he’d loved and nothing more. And the choice at the time had seemed a good one. The right one. But the fallout was happening now, and he would not be the only one to fa
ce the consequences.

  Looking back, though, he wasn’t sure there would have been any other choice for him to make.

  Imprison his father and keep the world free from a tyrant, or leave said tyrant free and have a millennia of captivity for the entire world. At least the past two hundred years had been relatively safe.

  Merlin’s short coat caught the edge of a breeze as he crested the last bit of the miniature mountain range and looked down into the valley below. Blasted black rock and soil were still a testament to the explosion of magical power a couple hundred years before. Nothing had grown in all that time, nothing had taken root and flowered. Not a single seed or sprout of green marred the charred ground.

  His own spells tingled as he walked through the booby traps he’d set all those years ago. No one had dared come to this place. He would have felt if they’d attempted to cross the magical wards. Not even Marsum.

  That made Merlin smile. “Marsum, you have got to be one of the biggest assholes I know, and I know a lot of assholes, but you are not stupid. You always saw the long game better than I gave you credit for.” As if thinking of the leader of the Jinn somehow connected him to the supernatural, there was a moment where he stood not on the rock of an island in the middle of a sea, but in the desert. Facing Zamira. Seeing Maks with a blade in his hand. Saying goodbye to his soul mate. Merlin’s eyes found Flora’s. She saw him and mouthed change of plans and then Marsum was no more, his head gone, taken by Maks.

  Merlin snapped back inside his own body, back on the rocky island. He wobbled where he stood and put a hand to his head. Those flashes of insight were a gift from his mother’s line and they still took him by surprise for how seldom they rose.

  “That’s going to kill Zam to lose him.” He put his hands over his face. Zam losing Maks was bad, that was putting it simply. Of all the people they could have lost, Maks was not one he’d wanted to go. The boy had grown on him, and his loyalty to Zam had cut through even the bindings Marsum had put on him. There was a ripple in the air around him, the back blast of power shifting from Marsum and into Maks’s body. Merlin shook his head slowly.

  “What a bloody mess of pigeon poo this is.” Yet even as he said the words, his mind already worked toward a way to change it, a way to fix things. A tight grin crossed his lips as he slid down the last few feet to the center of the blast zone. That’s what he was, a fix-it magician. Flora would laugh her pert little ass off when he told her that. Like the handyman of all the mages. Maybe he’d never be the powerhouse his father was, but he’d always find a way to help those around him fix the messes they made.

  He shook his head and knelt in the ash at his feet, digging his fingers deeply into the soft material, looking for the latch hidden within. From here on in, any use of his power would alert his father to just how close he was to the Emperor’s physical body. And the element of surprise was what Merlin needed now more than ever. Deeper and deeper he went in the ash until he was up to his elbow in it, breathing it in with each inhale. Mouth pursed and head turned to the side, he pushed down farther until his hand touched something cold and metallic.

  The ring to the door.

  He wrapped his fingers around the handle and pulled, the ash spilling off in a wave of dust, bits of bone, and particles of death. A black square opened next to him, the edges a mixture of steel and silver. Strength against might, strength against some magics. The dust and ash filtered down into the darkness ahead of him.

  Merlin held the door open with one hand, took a step into open space, and dropped into the prison that held the Emperor before he could change his mind. In the darkness, the urge to snap a finger and make light bloom around him was strong, but he held off.

  “I came prepared. As always,” he said to the darkness as he pulled from the pouch at his waist a steel lighter. He flicked it open and ran his finger over the striker. The smell of lighter fluid was there and gone in an instant as the flame popped to life. He held the flicker up, turning in a slow circle until he found what he was looking for. A torch set on a ledge above head height. Anyone who didn’t know what to look for would never have found it.

  “Seeing as I put it there, I should recall where it is,” he muttered as he pulled down the centuries-old torch. The handle was made of metal and the interior was still prepped with fat and incense. The sweet smell of myrrh filled the air, and he breathed it in. Meant to keep evil spirits at bay, the myrrh was a nice touch if he did say so himself. If completely useless against the evil spirit within these walls.

  He set the lighter to the torch and the light bloomed, the fat crackling and the smell of incense even stronger than before. The room was black at the edges of the light. Merlin took a shallow breath, and then a step . . . and there was a click beneath his foot.

  “Well, shit,” he whispered. “That’s not one of my booby traps.”

  2

  Zamira

  I held my hands as steady as I could with the palms facing down toward the sand, fingers spread as wide as they could go. The tops of my hands were covered in grains of sand, and I tried to knock the sand off using whatever fucking magic boiled around inside me. Only apparently, I was broken when it came to magic.

  “Flora,” I growled her name as I stared at the sand on my skin, “this is ridiculous! If I want the sand off, I’ll just turn my hand over like a normal crazy person.”

  Lila lay a few feet from me, sunning in the heat of the desert sun. Lizard that she was, the sand and heat agreed with her. She grinned up at me and I stuck my tongue out at her. This was not my first training episode with Flora. Nor was it the first where I’d lost what little patience I had.

  The other woman sighed and stepped in front of me. Her black hair was pinned up to show off her slender neck and softly angled jawline. She was a beauty, of that there was no doubt. But despite her youthful appearance, she didn’t come across as young at all. Old soul that she was, I wondered just how many years she really carried with her.

  Her hands slid under mine, palms up, and a tingle of electricity jumped from her skin to mine like miniature lightning bolts. “The power is within you, Zamira, but because it is a mix of Jinn magic and whatever else hums through the Emperor’s bloodlines, there is no sure way for me to train you. I am as frustrated as you in this.”

  Her smooth skin and un-sweaty face did not convince me in the least of her frustration. My jaw flexed and tightened as I focused on the power in my belly the way I had when I’d healed Batman’s leg. A broken leg on a horse is a death sentence, and I’d saved him with whatever magic shit I had in me. So why the fuck couldn’t I make a little bit of sand scatter from my skin?

  Lila rolled onto her back and swept her wings up and down, making a dragon imprint in the sand. “Maybe you can only do big magic. Maybe the little stuff is just not worth it.”

  Flora shook her head. “That is not how magic works, Lila. The little things are how you learn to do the big things. Brick by brick, you build your repertoire, and that is what brings you safety, that is what allows you to help others. And it allows you to understand your limitations.”

  I closed my eyes tightly, scrunching them as I focused only on the power, the magic, the whatever-the-fuck I had going on inside me.

  Cursed by my mother to never be anything but a house cat shifter.

  Blood of my sworn enemies running through some of my veins.

  Blood of royalty running through the other.

  Misfit. Outcast. Alpha of a lion pride. With my eyes closed, I could feel the other members of my pride not more than a mile away at our camp. Those from my original pride stood out the strongest. Darcy, Kiara, and my ex-husband asshole extraordinaire, Steve. Then there were the newer members, all part Jinn, part shifters like me. Benji and little Frankie were lion shifters. Asuga was a cheetah shifter and Nell was a caracal. Like Maks.

  “Maks.” I whispered his name without meaning to and the little bolts of lightning dug into me as I felt like I was swept away, high above the sand. But Lila d
idn’t call my name, nor did Flora.

  Which meant this was not real, or at least, not physical. I’d learned enough that sometimes real didn’t have to be anything but what was happening in your mind, or in your dreams. The sand whirled around me and I dared to open my eyes. I’d not taken a single step away from Flora, but the wind had indeed picked up. Through the whipping grains of sand, her mouth moved but there was no sound over the noise of the wind. I was doing this? Was I?

  How come I didn’t think so?

  “Because you are not doing this,” Maks said softly behind me. “I am.”

  I spun, hands up. But in defense or to grab him and hold him, I couldn’t tell you even now. But they were up, and he caught them, tangling his fingers with mine until they were laced tight. “Come with me, Zam. I know you want to. I know you love me still.”

  His blue eyes were the same, and yet not; his face and body the same, and yet not. He’d killed Marsum so I wouldn’t have to. He killed Marsum to save me—body and soul—but my heart had been shattered like a crystal goblet on a stone floor, the shards still there and cutting into my bare skin when I least expected it. I pulled back on my hands. “Maks, I’m going to find a way to bring you back. To free you from the Jinn.”

  His smile was crooked as he laughed at me. “You think if there even was a way, I’d want to be free of this power? For the first time in my life, I’m not afraid. You of all people should understand that.”